THP and UNDEF Launch New Project on Capacity Building for Local Governance

The Hunger Project has launched a new project on “Capacity Building for Local Governance: Cultivating a Global Community of Practice,” funded by the UN Democracy Fund (UNDEF).

Effective, participatory, grassroots-level governance has been shown to be key in overcoming poverty. Representative local government empowers people to participate in setting priorities and holding their representatives accountable for results – actions that can help lift communities out of poverty. Yet most impoverished countries suffer from systemically weak local government systems.

Through the project, we seek to make strengthening inclusive, participatory grassroots democracy – particularly for women and marginalized populations – a higher priority on the international development agenda and in country-led strategies to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. The project is designed to address this challenge by cultivating a vibrant, global community of practice that supports advocates for capacity building for local governance – both inside and outside of government – and ensures that their priorities are coherently expressed to policy makers in all countries where such change is needed.

Establishing a vibrant global Community of Practice, especially in the Global South and among those practitioners focused on empowering the participation of women and marginalized groups, will directly address the problems listed above and enable thought leaders:

  1. To share experiences and develop best practices;
  2. To articulate policy and action priorities;
  3. To establish relationships with government networks and scholars;
  4. To coordinate advocacy for stronger local democracy in country-led strategy processes and regional and global forums; and
  5. To increase the profile of participatory grassroots democracy through online tools and Annual State of Participatory Democracy Reports.

Stay tuned for more information and updates!

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