The Role of Local and Regional Authorities and Decentralised Cooperation in Fragile Settings: Building on the Nicosia initiative in Libya
The fragile contexts and weak resilience of many of the European Union’s partner countries are emerging as the hidden face of the fragmentation of global governance and the crisis of multilateralism. 75% of people living in extreme poverty are now concentrated in more than sixty fragile countries, where their states and institutions face heavy challenges to perform basic functions and protect them from growing political, security or environmental risks.
The prevalence of fragility poses a real challenge for the EU and its ability to maintain international partnerships, meet development needs, facilitate mutually beneficial investments, and manage the risks associated with instability. The EU recognises the need for a new integrated approach to address this new reality, which is now compounded by the gap left by the US withdrawal from development aid and the erosion of the multilateral system, and to compensate for the delay in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. Given the weakness of central governments in these contexts, local authorities are often the only functional institutional level ensuring a minimum of stability, dialogue and assistance. Local authorities are therefore the key to maintaining a coherent approach to resilience in its different dimensions – political, institutional, social, environmental and security. It is therefore essential to ensure that the EU’s approach to fragility is fully based on the local level and decentralised cooperation.
This study takes stock of the evidence available to support a strong role for local authorities in the EU’s new approach to fragile settings. Building on an in-depth analysis of the different dimensions of fragility, it reviews the evidence and best practices from decentralised cooperation practices in fragile contexts, including the CoR’s Nicosia Initiative with Libya, as well as six other case studies. Taken together, the study’s findings indicate that decentralised cooperation and subnational diplomacy provide the EU with flexible, context-sensitive instruments to support stability, resilience and dialogue at the local level. Accordingly, decentralised cooperation should be seen as a complementary tool that can be strategically deployed as part of the EU’s integrated approach to fragility. The study concludes that strengthening the role of LRAs in the EU’s engagement in fragile settings is both necessary and timely.
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