CLGF Pacific hosted the 2^nd Pacific Local Government Forum (PLGF) together with the Solomon Island Ministry of Provincial Government and Institutional Strengthening and the Honiara City Council on 5-7 November in Honiara. The conference brought together over 80 local government policy makers, practitioners and development partners across nine countries including Cook Islands, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu; along with Australia and New Zealand.

The Forum aimed to demonstrate and encourage local innovation and leadership within the local government sector through peer learning and exchange of ideas and good practice on putting local government at the heart of development, and in particular explore the theme ‘the role of local government in Local Economic Development or LED’. The Forum also provided an opportunity to address current and emerging local government issues and challenges, set an agenda for local government reform, and strengthen intergovernmental relations and collaborative governance.

The key outcomes derived from the conference included establishing an effective policy framework for LED, capacity building, developing partnerships in addition to ICT and knowledge management. The conference also discussed the importance of improving the quality of life and community resilience by calling on regional, national and local government leaders, the private sector, civil society and development partners to support and strengthen local government’s role in LED to help reduce poverty and promote sustainable economic growth and prosperity across the Pacific.

Some of the demonstration project workshops conducted during the conference included - women’s economic development, urban youth employment and entrepreneurship, outer islands LED and climate change adaptation, sustainable building practices guideline, seasonal worker program and ICT capacity building and LED.  The learning from these projects will be incorporated into a toolkit to support local government and their stakeholders in developing and implementing strategies for LED.

Based on the outcomes of this Forum, CLGF will develop a multi-annual regional local government support program for LED working closely with existing and new development partners. It is expected that this will build on some initial pilot projects in early 2013 with a view to having a more substantive regional program developed and agreed before the end of 2013. In this work, CLGF will draw on similar programs in which it is involved in other parts of the Commonwealth, especially in the Caribbean, and to promote inter-regional learning and exchange of good practices.

CLGF will take the outcomes of this Forum for further discussion within the management structures of CLGF Pacific as well for showcasing the Pacific local government experience at the CLGF Conference ‘Developmental Local Government: Putting Local Government at the Heart of Development’, Kampala, Uganda, 14-17 May 2013. It is noted that the outcomes of the 2013 Conference will be presented to the UN review on the post 2015 development agenda and to Commonwealth Heads of Government.