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Final Declaration of Rome - 4th Forum of the World Alliance of Cities
Against Poverty Rome, 31 March - 2 April 2004
We, the Mayors and representatives of the municipalities of all the continents,
meeting in Rome from 31 March to 2 April 2004 with representatives of
governments, United Nations agencies, associations, foundations, financial
institutions, businesses and the academic world in the framework of the
World Alliance of Cities Against Poverty and under the auspices of the
United Nations Development Programme
Make our own the Millennium Development
Goals adopted by the governments of the whole world at the
UN in September 2000, and shall translate them into local goals in each
of our municipalities, whether they concern the elimination of poverty,
malnutrition or infant or maternal mortality, the assurance of schooling
for all children, reversal of the progress of HIV/AIDS and malaria, or protection
of the environment. To do this, we undertake
to subscribe specific commitments that may be identified
and evaluated, to act in all transparency, and to report on our action
to the people we administer and to our national authorities.
We shall mobilise all public and private resources
at the local level. On the basis of the wealth of existing
experience, we shall also establish partnerships
for development, by promoting city-to-city cooperation
involving the municipalities, regional governments, private businesses,
associations and university circles, and at the same time reinforce links
with both our national governments and intergovernmental organisations.
We appeal to all cities on all the continents
to join us in this movement of solidarity and progress by including implementation
of the MDGs on their list of priorities, and we appeal in particular to
the local authorities of the wealthiest countries to adopt a budget for
decentralised cooperation and allocate to it 0.7% of their budget, and
make a substantial contribution to activities involving training
for local players in order to facilitate access to relevant
information for implementing the MDGs.
We shall give the necessary importance to providing the public with systematic
and regular information about
the MDGs and to their actual participation,
individually or collectively, in attaining the goals.
Concerned by the rapid spread of HIV/AIDS and by its dramatic consequences
in economic and social terms, we are determined to take action in the
context of the 2015 Campaign, which has been embarked on in Africa and
is to be extended to the other continents, in collaboration with all the
national and international players in order to:
- mobilise the populations of our cities to protect themselves from
the disease;
- make information on both the disease and means of prevention readily
available;
- use all forms of local communication: municipal newsletters, schools,
urban security forces, places of worship, the media, etc to make sure
that the message gets across;
- help those families affected by the disease by providing assistance
and sympathy.
We call on all the States to adopt every necessary measure to promote
implementation of the MDGs at the local level:
- by carrying out effective decentralisation,
transferring resources and skills with a view to optimising results
through better complementarity between national strategies and action
undertaken at the local level;
- by allowing the municipalities administrative
and financial autonomy, making it possible to speed
up the decision-making process and attain the goals rapidly;
- by promoting international municipal cooperation,
more particularly through joint financing and facilities for access
to the transfer of equipment and services, including by means of tax
exemption;
- by adopting legislation and regulations,
through appropriate schemes and projects, and by making the corresponding
budget allocations, enabling the municipalities to appropriate each
one of the Millennium Development Goals.
Whereas, firstly, the cities face a crucial lack of resources for attaining
the MDGs at the local level,
Whereas, moreover, the handling of the debts of developing countries,
the conditions of access to international markets, the matter of farming
subsidies and public development aid all have an impact on national budgets
and in the final analysis on municipal budgets,
We appeal to the international community,
and more particularly to the most industrialised countries, to:
- cancel the debt of the most heavily indebted countries, since servicing
such debts compromises all social progress in our cities;
- increase public development aid, part of which is earmarked for sustainable
urban development;
- facilitate opening up markets and end farming subsidies, in order
to improve national – and therefore local – income;
- contribute to preventing and settling regional conflicts that cause
urban migration and suffering for local populations;
- reinforce multilateral cooperation by implementing the Millennium
Declaration, the recommendations made at the Johannesburg Summit on
sustainable development, and the Monterrey Consensus on financing for
development, all of which should be of lasting benefit to our populations.
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