Regional Governments, how can we become more effective?

The State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, will host ORU Fogar's Executive Bureau and General Assembly on the 13th and 14th April of the year ahead. On the occasions of such events, the United Regions Organisation is organising in the Guanabara Palace the VII Summit on Regional Governments, an international meeting that will bring together regional stakeholders from all over the world. Untitled “Regional governments, how can we become more effective?”, the Summit is set as an advocacy platform for intermediate governments to counter the recentralising threats arising from the recession. Hosted by the Governor of Rio de Janeiro, Luiz Fernando Pezão, the Summit will bring to the global scene the discussion, until now only had at a national level, of how to become more effective in the cooperation among the nation-states, the regional governments and the local sectors.

The program of the meeting will be structured around three different events. ORU's Executive Bureau will take place on the 13th of April after the meetings of ORU's workgroups, and the General Assembly will take place the following day, 14th of April in the morning. Both meetings will be closed to the public (for ORU's members only). The Summit on Regional Governments, open to the public upon registration, will open in the afternoon. It will develop over two days around 6 round tables that will address the following themes: What powers are intermediate governments better suited for? How can regional governments receive funding? How to link up with the nation-state? How to reach a win-win situation with local governments? The last two tables will deal with “Autonomy to protect cultural diversity” and “Managing the territory, guaranteeing sustainable policies”, since two of the essential powers of regionalgovernments are, on the one hand, the protection of linguistic, cultural and ethnic singularities and, on the other hand, environmental sustainability of their territories.

The full program of the VII Summit on Regional Governments and the logistic information on the meeting are available on ORU's website. Registration is already open through the platform oru2016assembly.eventbrite.es. Looking forward to seeing you in Rio!