Africa-Press – Seychelles. Lydia Charlie, Acting Mayor of Victoria, elected Co-Chair of AVCOMadam Lydia Charlie, Acting Mayor of Victoria, has just been elected co-president of the new office of the Association of Cities and Communities of the Indian Ocean (AVCOI) during the general assembly which took place in Berjaya Beau Vallon Bay Resort hotel.
The second co-president is Ambdilwahedou Soumaila, mayor of Mamoudzou, the capital of Mayotte.
The election took place yesterday, during the second and last day of the AVCOI general assembly which started this Tuesday in Seychelles.
This general assembly brought together 28 foreign delegates from the Comoros, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mayotte, and Reunion as well as 30 local delegates from the department of local authorities, the ‘Landscape and Waste Management Agency’, the department of blue economy, finance, foreign affairs and the ‘Citizens Engagement Platform Seychelles’.
During the meeting which saw the participation of twelve mayors, three deputy mayors, general directors, experts from the International Association of Francophone Mayors (AIMF) and the AVCOI secretariat, the participants addressed two thematic workshops on the circular economy and waste management, then local taxation as a central and political issue of local development. They also attended a round table on the role of local authorities in the development of the blue economy.The workshop under the theme “Local finances: State of play of practices within AVCOI communities – prefiguration of the working group” made it possible to introduce and consider actions and possibilities for the network in terms of taxation local starting with a self-diagnosis of the issues for each territory.
The objectives were to share experiences, identify the issues, define the advocacy points to be carried out to develop local taxation of communities and propose actions for capacity building.
Ms Charlie said she was pleased with the two-day meeting organized by the City of Victoria, in collaboration with AVCOI and AIMF.
“The AVCOI has made a lot of progress since its creation and this latest meeting allowed us to take stock and identify where we can improve,” Ms Charlie said.
Following her election, she thanked the delegates for the trust they had placed in her. “It is a privilege and I look forward to working with my colleagues in the region to strengthen our association,” she said.
Ms. Charlie was elected for a two-year term.Created in 1990 in Antananarivo, Madagascar, AVCOI is the spokesperson for territorial stakeholders and an actor serving concrete projects for local development and regional integration.
It is made up of the cities and communities of the Comoros, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mayotte, Reunion and Seychelles and aims to strengthen regional integration, improve the living conditions of the populations, and strengthen the contribution of the authorities local issues to the major current issues and their consideration by regional and international actors.
In December 2016, during its extraordinary general meeting, the AVCOI adopted new statutes and programming, and set its headquarters in Saint-Denis (Reunion) and a new office was elected.
In 2020, AVCOI was recognized not only as a network for exchanges between mayors, but also as an actor in urban cooperation in the Indian Ocean. New financial partners, in addition to member cities, the AIMF and the European Union have placed their trust in AVCOI such as ADEME and the Réunion Regional Council.
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