International Relationship for Local Authorities

The Panel for Quality Award from the Ministry of Housing and Local Government visited MBPJ last week. The Panel was here to evaluate the quality performance of MBPJ. While many criteria touching on administration and management of the local authorities were brought up to scrutinise the performance of MBPJ, one of the interesting criteria is on international relationship. This criteria looks at the position of the Council in international arena such as membership affiliation with international groupings, participation and contribution in the international affair for good urban planning and management and even sharing of Council's experiences with others from outside the country on good governance and practices are counted. This is extremely different from what others are promoting local authorities should focus on, that is back to basic on urban services delivery.

This prompted me to think about the future for a city in this globalised World. Marketing and positioning a city in the radar of capital investment, skillful human resources and in flow of stakeholders is a must for a city to fence off competition. That explain why many cities are planning for excellence towards sustainable, liveable, healthy and the happiest by associating themselves with international groupings and complying with global requirements. Such cities are having targets and strategies for reducing carbon emission as their commitment towards climate change. It is still rare for city managers in Malaysia for incorporating these into the urban planning and management policies and programmes.

In order to closing the gap, I presume more international relationship should be in place and of course the competency, knowledge and skill of those entrusted should also be at par with their counterpart elsewhere.