From 23 to 27 February, United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) held its Annual Retreat in Barcelona under the theme “Local Multilateralism as Hope and Objective: A Local and Territorial Vision for the World.”
The Retreat is a week-long gathering that brings together key nodes of the organization and its partners to strengthen synergies and advance joint actions in line with the priorities set by the UCLG Governing Bodies. Members of the UCLG Committee on Social Inclusion, Participatory Democracy and Human Rights actively contributed to these discussions.
Representatives of the Committee’s co-presidency, Seine-Saint-Denis and Mexico City, together with members such as Vienna or the Global Platform for the Right to the City (GPR2C), participated in the Retreat to reaffirm the importance of rights-based action as a key pillar of a renewed multilateralism, and the growing role of cities and regions in shaping a renewed and more inclusive multilateralism grounded in human rights, democracy, and social justice.
Human Rights, Public Services and Trust at the Core of Local Governance
Across sessions, participants stressed that the current global context — marked by democratic erosion, rising inequalities, and growing geopolitical tensions — requires renewed leadership from local and regional governments to defend democratic values and human rights.
Rocío Lombera, Head of International Affairs of Mexico City, reflected on the deeper meaning of trust in public institutions:
“Trust goes beyond proximity. It is closeness, identity, and roots. At its essence, it is memory — it is about being government, about hope and utopia. A utopia that can be transformed into reality.”
The Retreat also highlighted the importance of connecting public services and social infrastructures with human rights frameworks. Lorena Zárate, Co-Coordinator of the Global Platform for the Right to the City, stressed that the current political moment requires rethinking governance models:
“We are no longer in a neoliberal era. We are entering a post-neoliberal context that is openly anti-democratic and authoritarian.”
She emphasized that the provision of basic services should not be understood only as a question of physical infrastructure, but as a matter of social cohesion, democratic institutions, and rights. Many rights, she noted, remain insufficiently recognized, yet local and regional governments are playing a key role in advancing them — including the rights of workers and the protection of public and social infrastructures as commons rather than commodities.
A key session of the Retreat was precisely on the role rights of workers: Within the framework of the collaboration between UCLG and Public Services International (PSI), a structured social dialogue has been initiated to strengthen the recognition of local and regional government workers as essential actors in delivering the transformation of local public service systems.
The importance of adopting human rights-based approaches to local governance was also highlighted by Shams Asadi from Vienna, who stressed the growing role of Human Rights Cities as spaces where local governments translate international human rights principles into concrete policies and practices.
Feminist Action: The Seine-Saint-Denis International Observatory on Violence against Women
The Retreat also highlighted the growing role of feminist municipalism in advancing democratic renewal and human rights at the local level. During the Retreat’s Marketplace, Alice Casagrande, Head of the International Observatory on Violence against Women of the Department of Seine-Saint-Denis, presented the work of the Observatory and the Towards Caring Territories program.
She highlighted three key objectives of the initiative:
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Supporting the creation of local observatories to combat violence against women worldwide
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Contributing to the development of a global coalition of local governments committed to ending violence against women
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Raising public awareness and strengthening collective action on gender equality
Casagrande stressed the importance of building local observatories, launching a global network of local governments committed to ending violence against women, and expanding international peer-learning spaces to share experiences and strengthen collective responses.
Towards Tangier: Cities Leading a Rights-Based Multilateralism
As preparations advance for the UCLG World Congress 2026 in Tangier, the Retreat reinforced a key message: human rights, democracy, and a new generation of universal local public service must remain at the heart of the municipalist movement and the renewed multilateralism it seeks to build.