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| Association of City Mayors | |
|---|---|
| Name | Association of City Mayors |
| Formation | 1990s |
| Type | Non-governmental organization |
| Headquarters | London |
| Region served | Global |
| Leader title | President |
Association of City Mayors is a non-governmental network that brings together municipal executives from major urban jurisdictions to exchange best practices and advocate on urban issues. Founded in the late 20th century, the organization links elected municipal leaders with international institutions, multinational corporations, and philanthropic foundations. It operates as a forum for policy dialogue, comparative research, and collective action among mayors from diverse political and geographic contexts.
The organization emerged during the post-Cold War expansion of transnational municipal networks alongside entities such as United Cities and Local Governments, ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability, C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, Eurocities, and the Global Parliament of Mayors. Early meetings involved leaders who had been prominent in urban affairs like Ken Livingstone, Rudy Giuliani, Antanas Mockus, Ana Botella, and Michael Bloomberg, and it convened panels with representatives from World Bank, United Nations Development Programme, UN-Habitat, and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. The group’s development paralleled initiatives such as the Millennium Development Goals and the Sustainable Development Goals, and it contributed to municipal input to summits including World Urban Forum and Habitat III. Over time, the association broadened contacts to include mayors influential in regional networks like MAYORS' ADVISORY BOARD members, partly reflecting trends seen in the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate & Energy.
Membership historically comprises incumbent mayors, deputy mayors, and chief municipal executives from capital cities and major metropolitan areas; notable participating cities have included London, New York City, Paris, Tokyo, São Paulo, Mumbai, Johannesburg, Toronto, Berlin, and Mexico City. The association’s governance mirrors models used by ICLEI and Eurocities with an executive board, regional committees, and topic-specific working groups drawing on expertise from institutions such as Harvard Kennedy School, London School of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and think tanks like the Brookings Institution and Chatham House. Offices and secretariats have rotated among host cities and have engaged liaison staff with connections to diplomatic missions such as the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the United States Agency for International Development.
The association organizes annual summits, thematic conferences, and mayoral exchanges that intersect with events like the United Nations General Assembly high-level week, COP (Conference of the Parties), and regional gatherings including the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation and the African Union urban forums. Activities include peer review processes, capacity-building workshops with experts from World Resources Institute, Rockefeller Foundation, and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and collaborative projects involving private-sector partners such as Siemens, IBM, Microsoft, and Siemens Mobility. It also facilitates city-to-city cooperation on infrastructure projects influenced by actors like the Asian Development Bank, Inter-American Development Bank, and the European Investment Bank.
The association has issued policy statements and toolkits addressing urban resilience, climate adaptation, smart city technologies, affordable housing, and public health; these draw on frameworks such as the Paris Agreement, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, and the New Urban Agenda. Initiatives have included coalitions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in line with Covenant of Mayors goals, urban mobility programs linked to TransMilenio-style systems, and housing partnerships modeled after initiatives in Vienna and Singapore. It has promoted digital governance pilots referencing platforms by Barcelona and Seoul while engaging academic partners at University College London and Columbia University.
The association maintains formal and informal ties with intergovernmental and non-governmental actors: it collaborates with United Nations, UN-Habitat, World Bank Group, International Labour Organization, and regional networks like C40, Eurocities, ICLEI, Asian Network of Major Cities 21, and the Latin American and Caribbean Regional Network of Local Authorities. It participates in policy dialogues at G20 engagement groups and contributes to local government representation in processes overseen by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the Council of Europe.
Funding streams have combined membership dues, grants from foundations such as the Ford Foundation and Open Society Foundations, project funding from multilateral banks including the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and corporate sponsorships from technology and infrastructure firms. Governance structures feature an elected presidency, a secretary-general or executive director, and advisory boards comprising former mayors, urban planners, and representatives from academic institutions like Stanford University, Princeton University, and Yale University. Audit practices and reporting have at times been benchmarked against standards promoted by Transparency International.
Critics have raised concerns about influence from corporate sponsors including Amazon (company), Google, and Microsoft in shaping technology-driven agendas, and about the representation imbalance favoring mayors from wealthier cities such as London, New York City, and Paris over smaller or Global South municipalities like Lagos, Kampala, and La Paz. Debates have echoed controversies seen in other networks involving figures like Boris Johnson and Rudy Giuliani over political polarization and governance ethics. Allegations have included opaque contracting, perceived alignment with neoliberal urban policies promoted by institutions like the International Monetary Fund and certain World Bank projects, and disputes over prioritization of flagship infrastructure versus basic services in lower-income cities. Advocacy groups such as Habitat International Coalition and Jubilee South have sometimes criticized the association’s policy emphases and partnerships.
Category:Urban politics