Press Room

Sister City Relations Top Atlanta Priority Internationally

January 2006 – The Atlanta Mayor's Office's top international affairs priority for 2006 is its increased outreach to Atlanta's 18 Sister Cities, especially to provide more technical assistance, said Claire McLeveighn, director of external affairs and international relations for the City of Atlanta.

PHOTO: Claire McLeveighn, director of external affairs and international relations for the City of Atlanta, expects to work more closely with Atlanta's 18 sister cities in 2006.
Claire McLeveighn, director of external affairs and international relations for the City of Atlanta, expects to work more closely with Atlanta's 18 sister cities in 2006.
She also called the city’s partnership with CIFAL Atlanta, a United Nations program that trains municipal governments in the Western Hemisphere, “one of the best things we’re doing.”

Atlanta has been proactive in reaching out to some of its Sister Cities around the world to share best practices about city government procurement, billing and other technical or administrative issues, and Ms. McLeveighn hopes to ramp up this type of activity this year.

Her office welcomed a delegation from Atlanta Sister City Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia, in December to answer questions about various city administration issues.

“Atlanta is a good city to learn from because we’re not too big or too small. Our people are accessible,” Ms. McLeveighn told GlobalAtlanta in an interview at City Hall.

The city will be teaming up with CIFAL in February to host a second conference on airport management for Western Hemisphere officials. The event is to draw airport and aviation officials from 13 countries to learn about ways to leverage airports for economic development.

Economic development is to be a major theme for the city’s international activities, Ms. McLeveighn said, noting that her office, in conjunction with CIFAL, is planning a hemispheric economic development conference with some of Atlanta’s Sister Cities in the fall.

Also with CIFAL, the city is organizing a “MegaCities Water Forum” scheduled for May under the direction of Rob Hunter, the city’s commissioner of watershed management. The event is to include city officials from the hemisphere to share best practices on water management and conservation.

In cooperation with AmericasMart and Vin Martin, honorary consul of Jamaica in Atlanta and chair of the Montego Bay, Jamaica-Atlanta Sister City Committee, the City of Atlanta is also planning to make a trade mission to Jamaica in the next four to six months. The trip would be a follow-up to a 2003 business exchange that brought Jamaican companies to Atlanta, and it would give AmericasMart an opportunity to publicize its home, gift and merchandise shows to major Jamaican retailers, Ms. McLeveighn said.

The City of Atlanta is also in constant dialogue with cities in China to identify a Sister City there, she added. “The challenge is that most developed cities in China already have U.S. partners, so we’re looking at developing cities that have potential synergies with Atlanta,” she said.

She mentioned the Chinese cities of Wuhan and Ningbo as potential candidates, noting that Wuhan has “quite a bit we liked,” with its 50 universities, science and technology focus and reputation as a logistics center and transportation hub.

Ms. McLeveighn added that her office is supportive of any efforts to open a Chinese consulate general in Atlanta, as such a move would be an asset to the city’s growing Chinese population as well as a boon for spurring Chinese investment.

Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin aims to send city officials to visit “as many Sister Cities as possible” during her second term, especially to cities where Atlanta has had the least personal contact, said Ms. McLeveighn. Her trip with other Atlanta officials to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in October was the city’s first in some 30 years, she added.

Better communication with United States consulates in the countries where Atlanta’s Sister Cities are located is also on the 2006 agenda, she added. Ms. McLeveighn joined Victor Ramirez, chairman of the Salcedo, Dominican Republic, Sister City Committee, in December on Delta Air Lines Inc.’s inaugural non-stop flight to Santo Domingo, the Caribbean nation’s capital, and met with the U.S. consul general there.

Contact Ms. McLeveighn at (404) 330-6000 or visit AtlantaGA.gov for more information.

Source: Leigh Miller of GlobalAtlanta. © 2006 GlobalAltanta and Agio Press, Inc. All Rights Reserved Republished with permission. For content licensing information, e-mail Phil Bolton.