SNV together with UNDP, Action Aid, UN-Habitat, UNCDF, and the Millennium Campaign convened a side event on Local Poverty Reduction and MDG Localization. This event attracted around 140 participants, including government officials, private sector players, academics and development partners. The event aimed to share practical policy innovations amongst participants by highlighting challenges and key elements of success in scaling-up MDG localized interventions.

At the event, several cases were presented in order to discuss local level poverty reduction and MDG localization in the context of bridging the gap between local and national levels: Brazil and the Philippines, for instance, are viewed as success cases in terms of achieving MDGs from bottom-up while Uganda, through the UNDP/SNV partnership had interesting lessons to present from a local government perspective. On the whole, it was agreed that MDG’s cannot be achieved in isolation: MDG localization projects can only bring results if they are relevant at the local level, while aligning MDG’s with public policy.  

On the subject of “Empowerment of communities, sustainability and ownership”, discussion involved issues from Liberia, India, Rwanda and Kenya. The main conclusions here were the need to capture the voice of people at grass root level, as well as promoting capacity development to foster community action, mobilization and understanding of MDGs. Gender equality was recognized as a key element to achieve all MDGs.

SNV and UNDP took lead in the design and organization of the event.  Participants left the event with a desire to see action that empowers the local people to participate as development agents/partners instead of beneficiaries. SNV and UNDP are now looking at how to launch a Global Forum to take the outcomes of the event further and forge South to South Cooperation as a way of countries influencing each others learning.  Furthermore, an e-discussion that uses a combination of blogs and work spaces will be used to attract participants of the event and other relevant networks to deepen discussions on issues. 

The full bulletin and messages from the event can be found at:   http://www.iisd.ca/ymb/africa-mdgs/