AGSL forms part of the International ART Initiative, which is operationalised at country level through a number of specific framework programmes, AGSL being the ART Initiative framework programme in Sri Lanka. The Art Initiative was designed by a group of UN Agencies under UNDP leadership (namely UNESCO, UNIFEM, WHO and UNOPS) to promote the strategic and operational articulation among the development cooperation institutions and programmes in support of national policies and local dynamics of governance and local development.

The ART initiative promotes a new type of multilateralism through which the United Nations system works with governments to promote the active participation of local communities and social actors from the South and the North. The acronym ART stands for Support to territorial and thematic networks of co-operation for human development.

The ART initiative promotes the active role of local communities living in the areas corresponding to a country’s political-administrative subdivisions, be they regions, provinces, departments or municipalities. With their own natural, historic, cultural and knowledge-based resources, and with their own institutions and governmental systems, local communities are a crucial political subject in development that assumes commitments and responsibilities and engages in active dialogue with central Government structures and with international organizations.

The ART initiative creates and supports innovative partnerships within a global system of cooperation that links local, national and international actors. It enables them to work together more effectively towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals at local level through a territorial approach to governance and development with and through regional and local governments.

At present, ART GOLD Programmes are underway in Albania, Bolivia, Colombia, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Lebanon, Morocco, Serbia, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Uruguay. The initiatives in Kosovo, Macedonia and Mozambique are currently in the planning stage. Thematic ART networks initiatives are also carried out in Brazil, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua.

The ART initiative is supported by the governments of Belgium, France, Italy and Spain. The governments of other donor countries such as Canada, Japan, Monaco, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, as well as the European Commission, contribute to various ART country programmes. More than 400 regional and local governments, and their associations, such as CPMR, FOGAR, NRG4SD, REVES, ANCI and the Spanish Confederation of local and regional Cooperation Funds collaborate with the ART Initiative at the international and the national levels.

Notwithstanding the peculiar characteristics of countries that make each initiative unique, there are distinctive elements that are common to each The ART initiative Programme:

• It fosters a new multilateralism as the way to pursue the common interests among and within countries; it is new because it makes traditional and non traditional partners like local authorities or social actors, that are increasingly gaining importance in national and international development agenda, work systematically together for local development.
• It promotes the rational use of available resources for local development on a territorial basis in order to reduce fragmentation and competition among institutions.
• It adopts the Millennium Development Goals and Targets as guiding indicators and supports the process of localising the MDGs.
• It adopts a territorial approach to development and conceives a territory as a multi-dimensional living environment: a physical space with its present and future population, cultural and socio-economic conditions and governance institutions. Art Programmes address development in a multi-level, integrated and cross-sectoral way, based on middle to long-term perspectives.
• In agreement with Governments ART helps local communities in the South as well as in the North to establish development partnerships (North-South, South-South or combinations thereof). These decentralized cooperation partnerships are key as they provide opportunities for genuine cultural, economic and social exchanges. In addition to that, decentralized cooperation is the main provider of highly qualified technical assistance and other resources from a much-diversified range of actors.