Governance of Inclusive Green Growth in Cities (DEALS) VNG International programme DEALS will be implemented from September 2017 to August 2022. The inception phase is from September 2017 to February 2018. An increasing proportion of the world's population lives in cities. In 2030 this is expected to be sixty percent. Urban governments and governmental organisations face unprecedented challenges in terms of quality of life, employment, safety and the environment. Their vision and performance in the coming decades will be determinative for the future of cities. 

Governance of Inclusive Green Growth in Cities (DEALS) is a five-year programme to support seven fast-growing cities in the transition to inclusive and sustainable development. For this transition new forms of cooperation are needed between local government, companies, social organizations, knowledge institutions and funding partners. 

Our drive is to improve the performance of the local government in this cooperation. This is necessary because local and urban government is becoming increasingly important and complex. There is a growing need for a collaborative, responsive and flexible municipality. Our ultimate goal is to keep the cities of the future alive and sustainable. Our main focus is on the interests of people earning less than 1.25 US dollars a day. 

As part of VNG (Association of Netherlands Municipalities) we have over a hundred years of experience in the field of local governance. The cities in the DEALS programme are Kumasi (Ghana), Sèmè-Podji (Benin), Pathein (Myanmar), Pereira (Colombia), Beira (Mozambique) and Manila (Philippines). For each city, a program is tailor-made based on local priorities. We aim to guarantee sustainability of results through capacity development. Capacity development is the term we use to denote a process of improving the overall ability of a local government organisation to create value for its inhabitants by adequately executing its core mandates and tasks. Capacity covers awareness and attitude, knowledge and experience, including technical, administrative, managerial, political, and communication skills.
The empowerment of local politicians and officials is context-specific, but can mean o.a. increased understanding of their roles and mandates, enhanced political will to collaborate and perform on responsibilities, developed attitudes and skills that make their approaches more inclusive, including systematic consideration of gender equality. Global impact: to contribute to the realisation of SDG 11; to make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable. 
Programme impact: Improving the quality of life of poor urban residents
Programme outcome: Performance of the DEALS urban governments in the field of inclusiveness, safety, resilience and sustainability has improved
Programme outputs:
0. inception phase completed
1. The urban government capacity to govern sustainable urban development trajectories characterised by an integrated, multi-level, multi-stakeholder and inclusive governance approach has improved 
2. The programme has contributed to learning and innovation to support the transition to sustainability at city level The main target group for DEALS is urban governments.