“2017 Coordination Meeting of Local Government Organizations” was held in UCLG-MEWA Secretariat General on 20 December 2016. UCLG-MEWA team, Gülfem Kıraç Keleş, Head of Foreign Relations Department at Union of Municipalities of Turkey (UMT), Fahri Murat Tuncay, Head of Foreign Relations Department at Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality Hülya Alper, WALD Academy Director, and Sabiha Tuğba Ekşi, Foreign Relations Expert at Union of Turkish World Municipalities (TDBB) participated in the meeting.
Apart from a review of activities conducted in 2016; planning and exchange of ideas for developing joint projects in terms of the activities to be conducted in 2017 were discussed during the meeting. Reiterating that particular sensitivity is needed when planning the activity calendar, Mehmet Duman, UCLG-MEWA Secretary General, expressed his remarks on the road map to be followed for making the local government representatives the main actors in the international events.
Stating that the coordination meeting, firstly held in 2016, has been efficient for local government networks, the participants expressed that holding this meeting in the forthcoming periods would play an important role within local government organizations in terms of planning the activities and developing joint programs.