Town Twinning. Municipal Development Partnerships

Seminar paper from the year 2020 in the subject Politics - International Politics - Topic: Development Politics, grade: 2,0, University of Potsdam, language: English, abstract: 'The current international system still focuses largely on the nation-state level and often does not recognize cities' independent role, but only considers them as 'stakeholders.' Increasingly, however, cities act alone or in associations as independent actors international relations.' This German government's guideline on international cooperation for sustainable urbanization 'Partners in a World of Cities' illustrates that cities (municipalities) are becoming increasingly important. This applies, particularly to development policy. The unchecked population growth in the global South poses significant challenges. The German government also sees these challenges: 'By 2050, global population growth will be entirely absorbed by cities. Until then, however, this growth will take place almost exclusively in emerging and developing countries. The number of people living in cities will nearly double from nearly 3 billion to over 5 billion in 2050. (www.bundestag.de) Despite this development, development aid is only slowly adapting to these new challenges. Municipal development partnerships have not yet moved into the focus of researchers either. The following paper, therefore, aims to examine town twinning in the context of development policy.