“Working with communities, in a long term participative and local approach, decentralised cooperation has a great power for change and for reaching and impacting on citizens and institutions. The fact that – sometimes – it cannot reach the results expected is not due to the fact that the methods is wrong per se but it is due to the fact that it remains often underfunded and with not enough support, including the political one, in the medium and long term.” 

This quote by Antonella Valmorbida briefly describes the core concept of her newly published book, “The European Decentralised Cooperation: Acting for development engaging local authorities and civil society”. Ms. Valmorbida, based upon her proven expertise in field, states that the European continent can be a real leader in this perspective, since it based its own development on local and regional autonomy. 

The book presentation will take place on February 5th, 2019 at the Committee of the Regions documentation centre (JDE 1st floor), in Brussels, from 2:30pm to 3:30pm, as side event of the Forum of Cities & Regions for Development Cooperation. 
The presentation won’t be a simple introduction of the book, but it will be designed as a round table, in order to establish a constructive exchange on the place of decentralised cooperation in Europe nowadays and its conceivable future. 

Ken Godfrey, European Partnership for Democracy’s Executive Director, will moderate the session, animated by Ms. Afef Zaddem, Delegate of the Local Democracy Agency (LDA) of Kairouan, Tunisia, Mr. Radouène Bouden, Mayor of Kairouan and Ms. Serena Foracchia, Councillor for International City of Reggio Emilia, Italy (tbc). 

To register, please contact Francesco Pala to francesco.pala@aldaintranet.org by February 1st, 2019.

Below you can find a short presentation of the book " The European Decentralised Cooperation: Acting for development engaging local authorities and civil society " in English.