The development of management tools that integrate resource management is a crucial step in helping local government achieve sustainable public administration. The official Local Government Dialogue Paper for The World Summit on Sustainable Development Accelerating Sustainable Development: "Local Action Moves the World", published by the UN Economic and Social Council, 14. December 2001, (E/CN.17/2002/PC.2/6/Add.5) identifies Integrated Resource Management as a key "strategy for the future" to strengthen local government by public mechanisms for local sustainable development.

The partnership will support a global pilot program of Integrated Resource Management, starting from concept and program development through to pilot implementation in various municipalities throughout the world. The programme shall be driven by local government in partnership with supranational and intergovernmental organisations and support from national governments. The partnership will bring together skills, experience and capacity from the full spectrum of environmental management and from the other resource management fields, namely financial and human resource management. Being international in scope, the IRM concept will be implemented under different regional and national conditions. The main objectives of the Implementation Partnership "Piloting Integrated Resource Management" are to:
* demonstrate the applicability of IRM at the international level, as identified in the official UN Local Government Dialogue Paper.
* support the integration of resource management approaches which facilitate sustainable development
* demonstrate the value of IRM as an implementation tool to support "Local Action 21"
* develop a management tool which enables sustainability to drive priority setting
* establish capacity world wide in IRM by launching a network of regional hubs/centres of excellence
* exchange experiences in resource management approaches at an international level.

Governments:
Government of Hungary - 3Patak KHT

Major Groups:
International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI) (Germany)
Local Government Managers Association (LGMA) (Australia)
The Australian Centre for Regional/Local Gov't Stu (Australia)
International Institute for Administrative Science (Belgium)
City of Bourgas (Bulgaria)
Int¿l Council for Local Envt¿l Initiatives (ICLEI) (Canada)
City of Johannesburg (South Africa)
Potchefstroom Universiteit (South Africa)
City of Växjö (Sweden)
Swedish Institute for Ecological Sustainability (Sweden)
International City Managers Associations (United States of America)

UN System:
UNEP-DTIE/IETC (Kenya)

Other intergovernmental organizations:
European Commission DG Environment (Belgium)