So the United Nations welcomes the move towards decentralization, and it would also welcome a greater role for local authorities at the international level. This can supplement the essential role in the international system already played by parliamentarians - who in most countries, of course, are also local representatives. Global and local issues are more and more intertwined. Often, indeed, they are one and the same. Cities find themselves managing problems and opportunities that used to be the sole domain of national governments.
Many cities now have populations and economies larger than many countries.
Directly elected mayors of capital cities are often among a country's most influential politicians. Markets, communications and movements of goods, funds and people are all increasingly global. But politics remain local. Local authorities can help bridge that gap. We must bring to life the vision set out in the Habitat Agenda, adopted four years ago at the City Summit in Istanbul - which was, perhaps not surprisingly, the first of the great United Nations conferences of the 1990s to admit local authorities, NGOs and other groups, not as observers but as full participants.