The Local Government Association and Commonwealth Local Government Forum are working together to support greater recognition for Pakistani local government.

Pakistan is at a crossroads. Much has been made in recent months of the country's precarious security situation and the geo-politics of the wider region. A new government in Islamabad is seeking to imbed democratic reforms

after almost a decade of military rule. But the task is not without its challenges.

Against this backdrop of change, the future of Pakistani local government is also hanging in the balance. Without an organised voice at national level, local councils in the largest of the country's four provinces have formed the Local Councils Association of the Punjab (LCAP).

With the assistance of the Canadian government, the LCAP in its first few years has begun calling on provincial and federal leaders to take seriously the needs of democratically elected councils and their representatives. As part of its wider commitment to promoting democratic local government abroad, the Local Government Association (LGA) is working with the Commonwealth Local Government Forum (CLGF) in supporting this fledgling association to push for greater recognition for Pakistani local government. Cllr Muhammed Ghazanfar of the LCAP was also recently elected onto the board of CLGF as the first Pakistani respresentative. Delegates from the LCAP were in London last week as part of a capacity building project aimed at strengthening the LCAP's lobbying voice, improving its media operations and publicising more widely the benefits that membership of an association can bring to councils at the coal face of service delivery.