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A major outcome of the 2007 United Cities and Local Governments World Congress in Jeju, Korea was the adoption of the "UCLG Policy Paper on Local Finance." The paper contains 25 recommendations for increasing local government access to infrastructure financing, particularly in developing country cities where infrastructure planning and construction have not kept pace with rapid urbanisation.

The UCLG Committee on Local Finance, a network of mayors and representatives of national associations of local governments active in local finance, drafted the policy paper.
The recommendations call on local governments, central governments, donors, and international financial institutions to address urban expansion and the accompanying infrastructure requirements by redirecting development aid, and establishing national strategies to boost local public investment. At the global level, UCLG advocates that at least 20 percent of development aid and debt relief be allocated directly to local governments to enable them to address poverty reduction through public infrastructure provision. At the country level, UCLG proposes boosting local public investment through several courses of action: increased local government autonomy, fiscal decentralisation, regular financial transfers from central to local governments, revenue generation at the local level, and improving the ability of local governments to borrow.

United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) represents and defends the interests of local governments on the world stage, regardless of the size of the communities they serve. Present in 136 of the 192 UN members states in seven world regions, UCLG’s members include individual cities and national associations of local governments, which represent all the cities and local governments in a single country. Over 1000 cities across 95 countries are direct members of UCLG. 112 Local Government Associations (LGAs) are members of UCLG, representing almost every existing LGA in the world. UCLG’s members represent over half of the world’s total population.