Strengthening the international strategy
| Subject: International Relations
The AMB seeking synergies and avenues for collaboration in several international meetings
The Barcelona Metropolitan Area (AMB) participated from 8 to 11 March in several international meetings in Mexico and held working meetings with metropolitan areas from around the world, seeking synergies and avenues for collaboration.
Metropolis Board of Directors. Metropolitan councillor Gerardo Pisarello represented the AMB on the Metropolis Board of Directors, and presented the project to create a world observatory for metropolitan governance, with headquarters in Barcelona. During the Board meeting, a new president was selected for the association, Denis Coderre, mayor and president of the Montreal Metropolitan Area. The AMB is co-president of Metropolis.
Seminar ‘Latin America and the EU: Dialogue and Cooperation in the Local Arena'. The AMB International and Cooperation Area participated at this seminar, organised by Mexico's Secretariat of Foreign Affairs and the AL-LAs project (Euro-Latin American Alliance for Cooperation between Cities), ‘Local Governments: International Actors', explaining the AMB's new international strategy. Different local governments shared their experiences with the AMB (including Rio de Janeiro, Paris, Mexico City, Madrid, Belo Horizonte, Montevideo, Lima, Quito and Medellin), as well as the European Union delegation and associations such as Metropolis, UCLG, UCCI and Mercociudades.
Monographic seminar Habitat III ‘Financing Urban Development: the Challenge of the Millennium'. The AMB also attended this meeting, in preparation for Habitat III, the United Nations conference on housing and sustainable urban development, which will be held in Quito, and during which AMB representatives made good use of the occasion to hold bilateral meetings. A political statement was approved at this meeting, which has had the support of some of the networks of which AMB is a member, including Metropolis, UCLG and FMDV.