Advancing Governance through Peer Learning and Networking -
Lessons learned from Grassroots Women

Grassroots women's groups deal with everyday survival issues and the social cohesion of their families and communities. In doing so, they develop the most ingenious solutions to issues like safe drinking water and sanitation, environmental sustainability, housing, health, responsiveness to natural as well as man-made disasters and the eradication of poverty. They hold a valuable knowledge base of first hand knowledge of what works and what does not work on the ground.

In order to learn from this rich reservoir of expertise and to increase the influence of grassroots women's perspectives on public policy, the Huairou Commission with the Support of the LIFE Global Programme of IDG/BDP/UNDP launched the "Our Best Practices Campaign for Local Governance". LIFE/UNDP promotes "local - local" dialogue and action to improve the lives of the poor and influence policies related to participatory local governance. This report is a reflection on the process, results and key lessons of the Huairou Commission campaign. Click here to access the report. Adobe Acrobat reader required to access this document

City-to-City Co-operation: Issues Arising from Experience

The following report is a joint effort of UN-Habitat and the United Towns Organisation (UTO) to provide a guide to the full wide range of city-to-city (C2C) co-operation activities. These activities differ in many important ways, reflecting the tremendous diversity of interests, purposes, institutions, resources, and situations among cities. The report addresses this complexity of patterns by providing an analytical framework for documenting the full range of city-to-city practices and their support systems. This framework also attempts to provide a rationale for organising and sharing information, in a way which facilitates the constructive exchange of experience as well as mutual learning among cities, their associations, and their partners in national governments, international institutions and in civil society.

To view the following document you will require Adobe Acrobat Reader

City-to-City Co-operation: Issues arising from experience

Guide to Transferring Effective Practices

The Best Practices & Local Leadership Programme supports peer-to-peer learning from and the transfer of good and best practices in support of national and local efforts to improve the living environment.

A Guide to Transfers is now available and can be downloaded from this site. This Guide is designed as a technical co-operation tool to complement the Best Practices Database. It represents work in progress. It is the product of a joint effort by CityNet, the Special Unit for Technical Co-operation Among Developing Countries (TCDC) of UNDP and the Best Practices & Local Leadership Programme of UN-Habitat in facilitating the transfer of best practice between cities and communities in the Asia and Pacific region.

It provides an easy to use, step-by-step approach to making the most of study tours, site visits and staff exchanges between those cities and communities that can offer valuable knowledge, expertise and experience in solving social, economic and environmental problems and those that are interested in learning to improve their own living environments.

Users are invited to submit their comments and suggestions, as well as their own examples of successful transfers, to improve the guide.

The Guide to Transfers is available in two different formats:

1. Open as a Portable Document Format (PDF) document (all platforms):

First time users of PDF files need to download and to install the free Adobe Acrobat Reader before opening this file.

Open "transfer.pdf" (252 KB)

2. Download as Zipped Word for Windows document (PC only):

Once the file is downloaded, please unzip the file "transfer.zip" with WinZip or PkUnzip and open the compressed file "transfer.doc" (622KB) on a PC in Word for Windows. First time users of zipped files need to download and to install the free WinZip or PkUnzip before unzipping this file.

Download "transfer.zip" (96 KB)

If you get the message "Unknown File Type" from your browser, please select the button "Save File..." and choose the drive and the directory where you want to download the file.

If you have any further problems to download or to open this file, please do not hesitate to contact the administrator of this site.

Hardcopies of this guide can be obtained from the CityNet Secretariat at:

CityNet, Regional Network for Local Authorities
International Organizations Center, 5F, Pacifico
1-1-1 Minato Mirai, Nishi-ku
Yokohama 220, Japan
Tel: (81 45) 2232161
Fax: (81 45) 2232162
E-Mail: citynet@po.iijnet.or.jp