The 100 Days of Local Multilateralism come to an end on 30 July 2026. This collective journey has connected a series of milestones that, taken individually, might have appeared as separate events. Taken as a whole, however, they reveal one of the defining contradictions of contemporary governance: at a time when many of humanity’s greatest challenges are experienced and addressed locally, the institutions closest to citizens continue to occupy a secondary place in the architecture of global decision-making.
Long before housing, climate resilience, care, public services or democratic trust became central themes of international debates, cities, towns and regions were already responding to them alongside their communities, translating global aspirations into local realities.
For well over a century, the international municipal movement has organised itself to deepen cooperation among cities and territories, defend local self-government and demonstrate that global commitments are realised through local action.
From the earliest associations of municipalities to today’s United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) and the Global Taskforce of Local and Regional Governments, the international municipal movement has helped move concepts such as localisation, multilevel governance and territorial approaches from the margins of policy discussions to the centre of global agendas.
Today, few international processes can be discussed without recognising the role of local and regional governments. Recognition, however, has yet to translate into equivalent political visibility. Media narratives, institutional practices and many decision-making processes continue to portray multilateralism as a conversation among states, overlooking the level of government where policies gain legitimacy, adapt to diverse realities and become part of everyday life.
Conceived as an institutional cycle rather than a calendar of meetings, the 100 Days of Local Multilateralism brought this paradox into focus. From the International Day of Creativity and Innovation through the World Urban Forum in Baku to its political centre at the UCLG World Congress and World Summit of Local and Regional Leaders in Tangier, the initiative highlighted connections between processes that are too often understood in isolation.
Tangier renewed the movement’s leadership, adopted the Local Social Covenant and set the political direction for the years ahead. July concluded this cycle through the High-Level Political Forum, the review of Sustainable Development Goal 11, the Local and Regional Government Forum and Day, and the High-Level Meeting on the Review of the New Urban Agenda.
The Municipal Times has accompanied this process with the same conviction that inspired its creation. Local politics deserve sustained journalistic attention. Despite their growing relevance, the work of local and regional governments still receives fragmented coverage, often confined to specialised institutional reporting. Housing policies are ultimately judged by whether families can afford a home. Climate commitments acquire meaning through resilient neighbourhoods, safer infrastructure and better local planning. Care becomes public policy when it reaches households, schools and communities. This is where international agendas cease to be global aspirations and become lived realities. If the Municipal Times Outlook looked ahead to Tangier, this edition looks beyond it. The pages that follow are not a report on the past hundred days, but an exploration of what these months tell us about the future of multilateralism. They draw on the debates and commitments of Tangier, the discussions in New York, and the reflections of the local and regional leaders who continue arguing that multilevel governance should evolve from an aspiration expressed in declarations into an organising principle of global governance.
The end of the 100 Days of Local Multilateralism is therefore another milestone in a much longer journey. The international community is already looking beyond 2030, while the review of the New Urban Agenda opens the path towards Habitat IV. The conversations held in Baku, Tangier and New York belong to that broader political trajectory.
As the international community begins to shape the agendas beyond 2030, localisation can no longer be understood simply as a technical exercise in implementing global commitments. It is a democratic principle—one that recognises that the legitimacy, sustainability and effectiveness of international agreements ultimately depend on the institutions that citizens know best and trust most.