of the City for 2030 and the GOLD I I Report on Local Finances. services and delivery of them to residents. The situation is Also in 2010, the UN’s World Urban Forum took place in Rio worse in developing countries than it is in developed ones de Janeiro, and its core theme was “Right to the City: Bridging because the former, owing primarily to their weak institutional the urban divide.”32 environments and increasing urban populations, find it more difficult to cope with the growing and multidimensional nature In June 2012, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon hosted local of urban challenges. and regional authorities at the organization’s headquarters in New York. Participants presented their key messages Cities have invested in becoming self-sufficient and in for the Rio+20 Summit. The summit’s outcome documentcooperating with one another. However, for a variety of acknowledged, for the first time, the role that local and regional financial, political, legislative, and other reasons, cities have governments have to play in achieving what would later become been much less involved in international cooperation with their the UN’s SDGs, which were formally adopted by all United counterparts than states have been, particularly in the case of Nations Member States in January 2015.33By this time, cities cities in developing countries. were calling for sufficient financing to allow local governments to participate in climate-related cooperation and development Why do cities seek to network with one another? City-to- initiatives. city collaboration is crucial for exchanging experiences, transferring technical knowledge, and building up expertise. The year 2015 can be seen as a tipping point in the fight against It also helps them to explore the possibilities for cooperation climate change. This was the year when the Paris Agreement among the various public and private partners in the field of was formulated. This high-profile agreement, part of the United urban management. It is not clear how many global networks Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), of cities currently exist, but there are at least fifty.35 Cooperation focuses on mitigating and adapting to climate change, as well among cities takes different forms. For example, the National as on funding the fight against it. The representatives of 196 League of Cities is a US-based advocacy organization that state parties at the twenty-first Conference of the Parties represents almost two thousand member cities of various of the UNFCCC negotiated the agreement and adopted it by sizes. By contrast, international urban cooperation centers on consensus on December 12, 2015, and most of those state club-like associations (for example, C40, the Cities Network parties signed up to it in 2016.34The agreement recognized the of the Inter-American Development Bank, and the World role of stakeholders other than the agreement’s signatories— Design Network of Cities) or on international programs (for including cities and other subnational authorities as well as example, Horizon 2020, the biggest EU research and innovation actors from civil society and the private sector—in addressing program; the EU-backed Sharing Cities program; or the OECD’s climate change. initiatives).There are also cases of cross border partnerships between cities (for example, that between Malmö in Sweden B- Cities’ self-organization and their commitments: and Copenhagen in Denmark).36 International networking Networking between cities is important because it encourages Most cities’ governments experience tremendous pressure. them to learn from each other’s experiences via an exchange Managing a city requires qualified people and professional of ideas. It helps them to circumvent certain limitations and operations management. When it comes to developing policy restrictions imposed by nationally based programs and instruments for city management, two key considerations need activities, to disseminate policy best practices, and to take to be kept in mind. First, urban systems call for efficiency and into account local contexts, specific urban cultures, and urban conservation of resources. Second, citizens act as stakeholders, systems directly. Cities collaborate with one another for four users, and voters when it comes to the scope of municipal main reasons. First, a number of individual cities’ initiatives (32) https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/index.php?page=view&type=400&nr=1114&menu=1515 (accessed on 12 March 2021). (33) John Wilmoth, Director of UN DESA’s Population Division said, “Managing urban areas has become one of the most important development challenges of the 21stcentury. Our success or failure in building sustainable cities will be a major factor in the success of the post-2015 UN development agenda.” https://www.un.org/ en/desa/preparing-world-important-population-changes-un-desa (accessed on 29 March 2021). (34) As of February 2021, 191 members of the UNFCCC are parties to the agreement. Out of the seven UNFCCC member states that have not ratified the agreement, the only major CO emitters are Iran, Turkey and Iraq. Then, the United States withdrew from the agreement in 2020 under President Trump’s mandate, but officially2 rejoined on 19 February 2021 under President Biden. (35) https://www.gdrc.org/uem/networks/networks.html (accessed on 12 March 2021). (36) Srinivas, H. (2015). The GDRC Guide to City Networks. GDRC Research Output E-016. Kobe, Japan: Global Development Research Center. Retrieved from https:// www.gdrc.org/uem/networks/introduction.html (accessed on 12 March 2021). 38 Quélin and Smadja | HEC PARIS | SMART CITIES | The sustainable program of six leading cities | 2021