Las ciudades en el sistema de cooperación internacional. La cooperación descentralizada y el Programa URB-AL de la Comisión Europea

By the middle of the eighties, the traditional mechanisms of international cooperation started to show sorne symptoms of exhaus­ tion, generalizing a perception about the weaknesses of such mechanisms to improve the living conditions of the population. At the same time, the greater involvement of sub-national governments in international relationships and the revaluation uf local communities in the development strategies fueled the need of thinking in new tradi­ tional perspectives ofinternational coopera­ tion. It is in this context that decentralized cooperation emerges as  an approach that redaims the active role of cities and their communities in the international coopera­ tion system, not as simple beneficiaries but as leading actors of initiatives. The Euro­ pean Commission has been pioneer in the design and implementation of specific re­ source allocation and of decentralized cooperation programs.  Among these pro­ grams, U RB-AL offers the possibility of developing joint initiatives between cities ami regions uf Latín America and Europe on key issues relative to urban policies. The purpose of this paper is to present URB­ AL from  a methodology that combines a descriptive analysis of the Program with an approach that takes contextual elements which took part in the  program's  design and  formulation.