On Tuesday, September 30th, our board member Louis Delcart attended the international conference “Global Goals, Local Action” organised by the Association of Cities and Municipalities of Flanders (VVSG) in the Lamot Conference Hall in Mechelen, Belgium.
A large public of representatives of local authorities from the EU, Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe increased with representatives of NGOs attended this interesting day-long meeting. The opening speech was made by prof. Klomp of the Windesheim Hogeschool (college) in Zwolle (NL) was worthwhile to be mentioned. The professor pleaded for a shift in economies toward a purpose-driven economy. In this case economic prosperity has to be linked to welfare and well-being. And in which shareholder value of a company is necessarily embedded into shared value for a society, that on its tern is embedded in system value for the entire environment. This would also lead to a further development from sustainability to “thriveability”, in which also nature would obtain the same rights as humans. Remarkable in this context is the place of circularity and circular economy, which is not considered as the end target but only an intermediate stage leading to an ultimate goal, putting societal and environmental well-being before profit. One of the subgroups created afterwards treated the efforts and goals of decentralised international co-operation. What stroke us was the absence of collaboration in the framework of the triple or quadruple helix in this context, because the bodies representing local authorities are not always eager to collaborate with Knowledge Centres and Chambers of Commerce and Industry that work regionally and not locally.
The EAR-AER representative introduced these principles in the debate in order to have more effective results.
