Our Approach

   

As a recognized strength of our organization, the hallmarks of our approach include:

Forging Partnerships for Local Ownership - Our experience shows that strong local ownership of development work is key to its success and sustainability.  Our partnership philosophy seeks to maximize local ownership by putting our partners in the “driver’s seat” of our international projects – they articulate, champion, lead and ultimately own the projects that reflect their aspirations and needs. We take time to become familiar with the local context in our partner countries to ensure locally appropriate, culturally sensitive and politically astute approach to every aspect of our work.

Convening Stakeholders - Our partners are working hard to meet local, regional, national, and global development priorities, and we support them in this undertaking. We achieve this by bringing together multiple stakeholders –national agencies and ministries, local government units, community groups, business associations, and non-governmental associations – and supporting them in building relationships, starting dialogue, and bridging bureaucratic structures, to reach their shared goals.

Building Local Teams - Based on our philosophy of partnership and local ownership, we maintain locally staffed project offices in our countries of operation.  Our local teams consist of highly trained nationals of the countries where we work – planners and urban professionals who find innovative ways of linking CUI’s and Canada’s experience to the realities of the local political and planning context.

Sharing Canadian Experiences - Our international programming supports knowledge sharing between Canada and our partner countries.  We mobilize Canadian local government and urban professionals through volunteer assignments in our international projects and engage Canadian youth through internship placements. We organize study tours that provide an opportunity for representatives of our overseas partner organizations to meet their peers in Canada and other countries and to see first-hand how they are tackling similar issues and challenges. We also share the development experiences of our partner countries with our Canadian networks, providing lessons for Canada from other places.

Revenue Raising and Finance - We assist our partners to tie their local development planning processes to budgeting and revenue enhancement, and equip them with project management and resource-leveraging skills, to build financial self-sufficiency so that activities continue after CUI’s disengagement.

Donor Synergy - We work closely with other international development institutions and organizations involved in the urban sector mutually sharing development knowledge, experiences and lessons. This helps to improve the effectiveness of each of our interventions and contributes to aid effectiveness through alignment, cooperation and harmonization.