Frizzell taking part in municipal outreach trip

A five-year partnership between Canadian and international local governments is wrapping up and a local city councillor will be on the ground to see its conclusion.

Garth Frizzell leaves Friday for a two-week volunteer trip to Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and Hanoi, Vietnam, as one of three elected officials involved in the Federation of Canadian Municipalities' Municipal Partners for Economic Development project.

The $20-million project, which also has branches in Latin America and Africa, is funded by the federal foreign affairs, trade and development department. FCM sends local government officials and staff into the partner countries to help set up demonstration projects to test new models of governance and service delivery methods to help advance local government.

For example, said Frizzell, a program was developed in a tea-producing region of Vietnam where instead of simply growing and marketing the tea, an agri-tourism experience was created, bringing tourists to stay in the village and have a hand in the tea's cultivation.

In Cambodia, they've worked on building models for training farmers to operate more as small businesses, he said.

Word is spreading of FCM's involvement, said Frizzell. On his previous visits (Frizzell travels down once a year), workshops were attended by community leaders and aid workers from other countries not involved in the FCM project, such as the Philippines and Nepal.

And even though natural disasters may have wiped out practical applications of the work, such as a Cambodian demonstration project flattened by 2013's typhoon Haiyan, the important thing is that the ideas take root, Frizzell said.

"It wasn't about infrastructure being developed, it wasn't about roads, water, bridges or markets being built. This was about ideas and those ideas have been replicated," he said. "So we take great ideas, best practices that work here in Canada, share them there and they take those ideas and run with them. And we've built an effective model for holding on to the ideas, sharing them and making them Cambodian, making them Vietnamese."

With the end of his involvement in the Cambodia and Vietnam efforts, Frizzell will next turn his attentions to Colombia and Peru, where he will serve as the federation's government representative in a new five-year project focused on helping local governments in those countries manage co-existing with resource extraction projects.

"Municipalities across Canada have tremendous experience working closely and effectively with resource industries," said FCM president Brad Woodside, in a press release.