World action
Barcelona is the world capital of municipalism
Nowadays, cities are fundamental pieces on the major world stage. According to the United Nations, 50% of the whole of the world's population now lives in urban nucleuses, and this trend is unlikely to stop increasing in the years to come. That's why the voice of the cities needs to be strongly heard in the multilateral and supranational organisms.
Barcelona has played a relevant role in strengthening municipalism on an international scale. As a consequence of this commitment, it should be mentioned that the headquarters of the United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG), the main organisations of cities on a world level, and of Metropolis, which gathers together major urban conurbations of more than a million inhabitants, are in our city.
Currently, UCLG is the main interlocutor of the cities and in front of multilateral organisms, especially the United Nations.
Participation in world associations of cities
During the last century the cities felt the need to join together, to defend their interests and increase their autonomy with respect to government and superior administrations. To achieve these aims, national, regional and world associations of cities have been created.
Barcelona, as capital of world municipalism, is the headquarters for various city organisations.
From the global and representative point of view, it is necessary to mention the main association of cities in the world: United Cities and Local Governments, which works on fostering the political recognition of the strength of the cities as drivers of development and progress. Moreover, it carries out a technical work through commissions and working groups.
Furthermore, Metropolis should also be highlighted, the world association of large metropolis, which at the same time is the metropolitan section of the UCLG. The coordination, the transfer of experiences and the defence of the interests of the large cities are the main aims of this association.
Finally, we should mention the International Association of Educating Cities (IAEC), which defends the city as a laboratory of education, in the transversal sense, and citizenship.
The United Nations in Barcelona
With the aim of strengthening its international profile, Barcelona is positioned as the headquarters of multi-lateral organisations and, in a priority way, with the United Nations system.
The modernist site of the old Hospital de Sant Pau of Barcelona hosts the following headquarters:
Global Water Operators’ Partnership Alliance (GWOPA). United Nations Programme - UN-Habitat that gathers together the public operators of water with the aim of working for public access and quality of water and sanitation.
UN-Habitat City Resilience Profiling Programme (CRPP). The programme develops an integral and integrated approach of urban planning and management to control the resistance of any city to plausible risks. It receives the support from Barcelona City Council.
United Nations University Institute on Globalisation, Culture and Mobility (UNU-GMC). It focuses its research on the framework of the parameter that in an increasingly globalised world, cultural contacts and mobility are frequent and complicated factors in terms of national, regional and local identities. At the same time, this mobility is also a means for boosting globalisation. It receives the support of Barcelona City Council.
World Health Organisation - Office for Strengthening Health Systems. The office is responsible for the technical support of the WHO in the financing systems of health for the Member States of the European Region of the WHO and contributes to the programme about the response of the health systems to non-communicable diseases. As well as carrying out analytical work at a regional and national level, the Office provides skills acquisition courses.
