HAPPY NEW YEAR! 1st. Newsletter of IULA'99 Virtual Congress Introduction From the 21st to the 24th March 1999 the International Union of Local Authorities (IULA) will hold its biannual meeting in Barcelona. Two months ago we started the experience of offering a Virtual Congress through the World Wide Web, which deals with the same themes as the real congress of IULA. The aim of this congress is to open a debate, as wide as possible, between people, social sectors and institutions involved in each one of the themes. This aim will be achieved through sending opinions, experiences, references of publications, eamples of good practices, etc. Each theme will have one or more fora to debate. Moreover, the visitor can consult a wide-ranging virtual library on local government. You will find us at www.iulabcn.org. This electronic bulletin, which will be renewed every three weeks, will allow you to know the news of our web and the issues which are currently under discussion in the Virtual Congress. The Virtual Congress' facilitators are, TOPIC: Social Cohesion and Participation: Moisès Amorós [log in to unmask] TOPIC: Sustainability and Local Agenda 21: Helena Barracó [log in to unmask] TOPIC: Local Democracy : Ramon Canal [log in to unmask] News of Social Cohesion The fora of this thematic area are already opened with different contributions, some of them ask for more information to other participants, and others answer to particular questions settled. A selected pack of documentation is linked to the different fora. These documents can be consulted and they can be guidelines for future contributions. The opened fora and questions addressed in each one are: ·Tackling crime for successful cities. How can crime prevention be coupled with crime repression? Are police and justice administration the only available instruments, or are they the main ones? Do world-wide urban crime situations share common features? Which strategies can be shared? Are local government sufficiently empowered to achieve safer towns? Is greater co-ordination needed with the media, judicial, national police and international security institutions? ·Local government: working for older persons and young people. How can we get an integrated approach to the needs of older persons and young people? How can age discrimination be confronted? Is age a burden or a resource? How can young and aged populations participate in the general welfare? And in the production of wealth? Are these groups unavoidably passive recipients of public aid and care? Are local agents better placed than national or global agents to deal with the potential of these groups? ·Promoting local employment. Are macro-regional and state policies against unemployment the main tools? Can unemployment be really tackled locally? Are these potential conflicts between local and national strategies? Are all competing against other? ·A city for all. Participation. How can local public policy stimulate independent civic behaviour? Aside from formal and electoral participation, which other channels can be successful strategies and good practice in achieving this goal? ·A city for all. Intercultural dialogue. How can difference be sponsored as a positive value? Can such policies generate inequality? Can multicultural and multiethnic tolerance be transformed into active intercourse? Which challenges are posed by immigrants groups, and what potential of cultural wealth can they contribute? On which practices can experience be drawn upon? ·Introductory questions/conclusions. How can social cohesion, sustainability and local democracy be interrelated? Are they conceivable as independent issues? Where progress has been assessed in recent years? Where has it not? Can major developments be anticipated or predicted? How can local governments promote awareness and action -regarding citizens, administrations and other sectors? News of Sustainability and Local Agenda 21 Since the Virtual Congress had started, three new discussion themes have been opened: · Local Agenda 21. There are two fora working at that moment: one about cities' impact in global warming and another referred to citizen participation in Local Agenda 21 processes. These fora also contain interesting papers to discuss about urban sustainable development in Latino-America and the United Nation's program about Cities for Climate Protection. · Urban Vehicles. In this forum you'll find papers about policies regarding alcohol as fuel in Brazil and hybrid vehicles experiences in Sweden. · Telematics and clean technologies. A Discussion forum about the impact of Internet on urban mobility has started. Forthcoming in the web: sustainability indicators and urban-rural dynamics (compacted city versus scattered city) forum. News Local Democracy Currently there are four themes which are open to debate: · Towards the World Charter of local self-government. We have begun with a forum about the origins, the causes and the possible outcomes of what seems to be a global movement for the promotion of local self-government. The main discussion paper you will find in the web page is the project of a World Charter that has been elaborated by a group of experts appointed by the WACLAC. · Local democracy, sustainability and social cohesion. In this theme, which is common to the three Congress' areas, we are asked to think about the pros and cons of decentralisation. Among other documents, you will find the IULA policy paper on decentralisation. · Ethics: moral values in local government. We suggest a debate on the following question: are codes of ethics or codes of conduct the best instruments to foster a proper behaviour and to fight against corruption in local governments? As valuable examples we've incorporated in the web page the Code of Ethics and the Declaration of Ideals of the ICMA (International City/County Manager Association). · Municipal international cooperation and capacity building. The first forum derived from this theme puts in question the current models of decentralised international cooperation. We want to know which are the strong points and what degree of efficacy can be expected from a direct cooperation between municipalities. Some papers from IULA and from the United Nations Development Program give the debate the necessary background information. In the next bulletin we will inform you about the opening of four new themes: Women in local government; Adapting and modernising local government; Financing local government's investments and Local government working for peace. URL: http://www.iulabcn.org