Netherlands, China knowledge network local governments

Objective

The wider objective of the project is to assist the national government of the Netherlands in better facilitating information exchange and streamline intermunicipal coordination and cooperation amongst Dutch local governments in their paradiplomatic relations with China.

The specific objectives of this project are to map and assess the network of stakeholders, their needs, and the decision making processes of Dutch local governments related to their paradiplomatic activities with China. The project thereby aims to respond to the objectives in the Dutch Cabinet’s China Policy Paper of 2019. Accordingly, a fact finding and needs assessment study which focuses on issues which affect municipalities that maintain contacts with China is conducted. In brief, the needs assessment study concerns scrutinising the needs of local and regional authorities and conveying such needs to the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Besides mapping out the almost forty Sino-Dutch partnerships at local level by assessing the opportunities and bottlenecks in decentralised partnerships with China, VNG International aims to further streamline coordination and inclusive information exchange (1) between the national government and local governments, and (2) amongst local governments themselves. Moreover, by means of nationwide knowledge exchange, VNG International will collect good practices and lessons learnt; and will make them accessible to all Dutch municipalities.

The expected results of the project are:

1. Increased and more inclusive information exchange between the national and local level governments, and increased inter-municipal cooperation on paradiplomatic activities with China;
2. Recognised opportunities for more joint action between all levels of government. To this end, from the summer of 2020 until the summer of 2021, various stakeholder meetings will be organised, in consultation with the local governments and national level government;
3. An inclusive strategy on how international cooperation with China on the local level will be shaped, coordinated, and managed after the summer of 2021.

Activities:

• Mapping and needs assessment of all intergovernmental relations and inter-municipal cooperation regarding Dutch paradiplomatic relations with China (spring and summer 2020)
• One stakeholder meeting organised to validate the outcomes of the needs assessment amongst municipalities in the Netherlands (summer 2020);
• Four stakeholder meetings organised on various China-related topics, that were deemed of importance to local governments. These are meant as an opportunity for knowledge exchange and creating a tighter, more institutionalised network of municipal China actors in the Netherlands.
• Strategy developed for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on how to better coordinate inter-municipal cooperation and national-local government cooperation and knowledge-exchange after the summer of 2021.