The World Assembly of Local and Regional Governments, convened by the Global Taskforce of Local and Regional Governments and facilitated by UCLG, was held in Seville on June 30 and July 1, with the support of the City of Seville and UNDP. Taking place at Fundación Cajasol, the Assembly brought together political leaders from all regions of the world in a unified act of political positioning ahead of the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development. Mayors, governors, ministers, youth leaders, institutional partners, and development actors gathered to assert a shared vision: finance must serve people, territories, and the planet. The Assembly reaffirmed that public investment, care systems, and the commons must be at the heart of a renewed global financial architecture grounded in democracy, proximity, and sustainability.
The opening of the Assembly featured a range of perspectives that set the tone for the two days: from Antonio Pulido, President of Fundación Cajasol, to José Luis Sanz Ruiz, Mayor of Seville, María José García-Pelayo Jurado, Mayor of Jerez de la Frontera and President of the Spanish Federation of Municipalities, and Eva Granados, Secretary of State for International Cooperation of Spain, who all called for strengthening the role of cities in global governance. Marcos Neto, UN Assistant Secretary-General and Director of UNDP’s Policy Bureau, and Tatiana Molcean, Under-Secretary-General of the UN and Executive Secretary of UNECE, called for systemic reform in how global finance reaches the local level. Loles López Gabarro, Regional Minister from the Government of Andalusia, and Mauricio Zunino, Mayor of Montevideo, highlighted the role of public services in building equality from the ground up, and Emilia Saiz, Secretary General of UCLG, facilitated the exchange.
Throughout the sessions, powerful interventions from across the constituency illustrated that local and regional governments are not asking for recognition—they are asserting their rightful place in the financial architecture of the future. Paola Pabón, Governor of Pichincha, and María Francisca Carazo Villalonga, Mayor of Granada, spoke to the role of care systems in driving social cohesion. Peter Anyang’ Nyong’o, Governor of Kisumu, and Jacquis Gabriel Kemleu, Mayor of Dschang, addressed the daily realities of service provision in contexts of fiscal scarcity. María Fernanda Espinosa, President of the 73rd UN General Assembly, and Ishaan Shah, youth leader from the Beijing+30 process, linked the demands of feminist and intergenerational movements with the structural need to localize finance. Greg Munro of Cities Alliance called for coherence across development actors, and the session was facilitated by Bernadia Irawati, Secretary General of UCLG ASPAC.
The conversation on climate and ecological transition brought together leaders such as Panyaza Lesufi, Premier of Gauteng, and Ababacar Khalifa Ndao, President of the Department of Dagana, who called for fiscal justice in climate action. Anamaria de Aragão Costa Martins from Brazil’s Ministry of Cities emphasized integrated approaches to local sustainability, while Gulnara Roll from UNEP, Llorenç Perelló Rosselló, Mayor of Alaró and President of the Fons Mallorquí, Nadim Ahmad of the OECD, and Thierry Deau, CEO of Meridiam, spoke to the necessary partnerships between governments, multilaterals, and responsible private actors. The session was facilitated by Sebastien Vauzelle, Head of the Local2030 Secretariat.
On the second day, the Assembly explored the needed transformation of the financial system to make it accessible, inclusive, and responsive to territories. María del Mar Vázquez, Mayor of Almería, Ghana Shyam Giri, Mayor of Chandragiri, Max Andonirina Fontaine, Minister from Madagascar, and Paloma Palacios González, President of the Mexican Association of State Offices for International Affairs, addressed the institutional conditions required to localize finance effectively. Philippe Akoa, General Manager of FEICOM, Rado Razafindrakoto, CEO of Madagascar’s Local Development Fund, Emilio Uquillas of CAF, and Fábio Maeda from the Bank of Amazonia shared tools and approaches for decentralized financing. Carmen Vélez Méndez from the Andalusian Agency for International Cooperation facilitated the session, which emphasized that a truly reformed financial architecture must enable local actors to lead.
The importance of transparent and participatory monitoring systems was addressed by Maria Eugenia Gay Rosell, Vice President of the Barcelona Provincial Council, José María García Urbano, Mayor of Estepona, Javier Cortés Fernández of the Basque Agency for Development Cooperation, Deborah Salafranca from CIFAL, and academic expert Paul Smoke from NYU. They emphasized the need for sound data and inclusive governance to underpin decision-making. The session was guided by Eugenie Birch from the SDSN Urban Finance Commission.
The Assembly concluded with a strong call for a renewed multilateralism. Dada Morero, Mayor of Johannesburg, Fatimetou Abdel Malick, President of Nouakchott, Roger Mbassa Ndine, Mayor of Douala, Carlos Martínez, Mayor of Soria and UCLG’s Special Envoy on the New Urban Agenda, and Sandra Moreno from RIPESS all highlighted that inclusive governance must be the foundation of financial reform. Closing messages from Anthony Berthelot, Mayor of Indre and Councillor of Nantes Métropole, Anaclaudia Rossbach, Executive Director of UN-Habitat, and Minerva Salas López, Deputy Mayor of Seville, reaffirmed the political momentum of the Assembly.
At the heart of the Assembly’s outcome was the political document adopted by the organized constituency: the GTF Statement to FfD4. Structured around three key axes—ensuring access to finance through decentralized mechanisms, prioritizing investments in public services, care and the commons, and establishing a permanent mechanism to monitor subnational finance—the statement reflects the consolidated priorities of the local and regional governments constituency. It builds on long-standing demands for expanding fiscal space, increasing access to concessional and blended finance, scaling up support to care systems, integrating feminist economic principles, and institutionalizing multilevel co-governance in global financial negotiations.
The World Assembly also offered a platform to showcase concrete instruments of action, notably the World Observatory on Subnational Government Finance and Investment (WOFI), which emerged as a cornerstone to inform and track the localization of finance. It reaffirmed the constituency’s full engagement in key global processes such as the OECD-led initiative on decentralized cooperation, the Investing in Care for Equality and Prosperity agenda co-led by Mexico, UN Women, and the Global Alliance for Care, the Financing for Gender Equality program led by Spain and UN Women, the Local2030 Coalition and its working group on local finance, the Brampton Transit Electrification Program, and the World Local Economic Development (LED) Forum.
The Assembly acknowledged the inclusion of a paragraph on subnational finance in the Outcome Document of the FfD4 process—supported by 192 out of 193 UN Member States—as a minimum starting point. But rather than celebrating this as progress, participants reiterated that it is essential not to move backward from the commitments made a decade ago in paragraph 34 of the Addis Ababa Action Agenda, which recognized the role of local and regional governments in sustainable infrastructure, tax collection, and participatory governance. What the constituency calls for now is a shift from recognition to structural change: the creation of participatory country platforms, direct access to finance, and a truly multilevel governance system in which local and regional governments contribute alongside national governments, financial institutions, and development banks.
As the global debate on development finance continues, the message from Seville is clear: finance must be democratized, decentralized, and rooted in care. Localizing finance is not a technical option—it is a political imperative to guarantee rights, ensure sustainability, and strengthen local democracy.
Read the statement of our constituency towards FFD4 here