Tools for Urban Governance  Within the context of the Global Campaign on Urban Governance, UN-HABITAT, where possible jointly with its partners is developing a series of tools to support the capacity-building efforts of cities and their partners.  Tools are reusable solutions to urban development problems which can be adapted to different local contexts or specific conditions.  Such tools include approaches, processes, methods and "best practices" which operationalize the Campaign's principles of good urban governance.  The tools should be consistently applied, systematically documented, available to the public and kept up to date. The strategy is to develop a series of toolkits on areas of specific interest to local authorities and their partners. Activities to Date Toolkit to Support Participatory Urban Decision-Making.  In September 2001, the Campaign launched the first in a series of tools to help local authorities and their partners improve the quality of urban governance.  The Toolkit responds to the demand by practitioners for support in applying participatory approaches to urban planning and management.  The Toolkit features a harmonised approach to participatory urban decision making through a city consultation process, profiles 18 specific tools which have been applied and demonstrated through various technical cooperation programmes of UN-HABITAT and describes the linkages between each of these specific tools and the relevant principles of good urban governance. The Toolkit also provides references to additional 37 tools, including those developed and/or used by other organizations and partners. The Toolkit can be directly accessed through the web and will soon be available in Cd-Rom and in hard-copy. Go to the Toolkit. Toolkit to promote Transparency in Local Governance: A collaborative venture of Transparency International and UN-HABITAT, this Toolkit focuses on transparency and its importance for increasing accountability, for promoting more effective citizen participation and for combating corruption in cities. More fundamentally, however, the Toolkit argues that promoting transparency can not only improve accountability, but can essentially reinvent local governance. With the growing economic and social importance of cities, both nationally and globally, transparent local governance becomes vital. The Toolkit has been developed as a source of ideas and inspiration for all stakeholders active in improving the quality of local governance. This includes national, state, provincial and local government officials, non-governmental and community-based organisations, the media, the private sector, academics and international support agencies. Tools to Support Transparency in Local Governance is available both in print form and as a CD-ROM. Go to the Toolkit. English | Spanish Local to Local Dialogues Tool – Involving Grassroots Women in Local Governance and Development: The Local to Local Dialogue is a method designed to achieve good governance. “Dialogues” become the means to open up channels of policy discussion for grassroots communities. At the same time, they amplify an understanding of why gender matters, why participation is key to local decision-making and how democracy can be achieved in a very practical way. All this is done through a common forum where anyone can have an idea about what needs to be done to solve common problems in a conflict-free way. Local to Local Dialogues were initiated first in Asia through the Asian Women and Shelter Network in India , the Philippines and Malaysia . These dialogues were very successful in many ways and this prompted their replication in Kenya , Russia , Argentina , Tanzania , Uganda and the Czech Republic through various women's groups, led by the Huairou Commission. The experiences and lessons from these Local to Local Dialogues has now been compiled into a Local to Local Dialogue Tool, which essentially provides direction, ideas and experiences to help the reader understand local efforts by women's groups to bring about good governance. The tool also contains summaries of each of the dialogues themselves. To download the publication, click here. Participatory Budgeting Toolkit: Participatory Budgeting (PB) has become a real field of innovation in municipal finance, local democracy and social development. It has been adapted and adopted by a wide range of cities in Latin America , mostly in Brazil , where it started by the late 1980s. It is estimated that around 250 cities are currently applying the participatory budgeting methodology. The mechanism of participatory budgeting provides an excellent entry point to promoting the application of principles of good urban governance, within the context of local government finance. The ultimate end users of participatory budgeting are urban residents, particularly the urban poor, who have a direct input in the allocation of municipal financial expenditure on urban infrastructure and basic services. In response to growing demand for information on this innovative urban governance practice, UMP-LAC and the Global Campaign on Urban Governance have joined forces to develop a toolkit on participatory budgeting. The aim is to consolidate knowledge generated from the past experience, and to facilitate and support inter-regional exchanges between cities. This toolkit, which has been developed based on 25 city case studies from 12 countries, comprises a range of interrelated products, including a position paper, a FAQ document, a virtual library, and several other supporting tools. Even before the publication of the toolkit, which is planned for early 2004 in print and web-based versions, requests for interregional transfer support have already been registered from Sri Lanka , Cameroon and Nigeria , amongst other countries. Support facilities are being developed to respond to these requests. "Go to the Toolkit" For more information, please contact: Global Campaign on Urban Governance UN-HABITAT P.O. Box 30030, Nairobi, Kenya Tel: (254-2) 623216, Fax: (254-2) 624264 E-mail: governance@unhabitat.org Website: http://www.unhabitat.org/governance