The specific objective was to demonstrate which global and regional Associations of Local
Authorities hold a de facto or de jure monopoly on the basis of which DG DEVCO will be able to
sign the second generation of Framework Partnerships Agreements for the period of 2021-2027.
In the realm of this assignment, regional and global Associations of Local Authorities have to be
understood as membership-based umbrella organisations centered around representativeness
operating at sub-national, national, sub-continental, continental and international level. In
particular, for the purpose of this study, ALAs were:

•  actor-based: “Actor-based” umbrella organisations are understood as structures that

gather the family of actors, in this case Local Authorities and their Associations,
excluding other types of actors; and

•  non-thematic: Non-thematic organisations focus on general development issues such as ,

inter alia, development effectiveness, capacity building of development actors, creation
of an enabling environment for LAs. Non-thematic organisations can be understood as
opposed to organisations that focus on particular policy domains and thematic fields
such as, inter alia, climate change, education, health, migration.