Sister Cities International is a nonprofit citizen diplomacy network that creates and strengthens partnerships between communities in the United States and those in other countries, particularly through the establishment of "sister cities". More than 2,000 cities, states and counties are partnered in 136 countries around the world. The organization "strives to build global cooperation at the municipal level, promote cultural understanding and stimulate economic development".
As the official organization which links jurisdictions in the U.S. with communities worldwide, Sister Cities International recognizes, registers, and coordinates sister city, county, municipalities, oblasts, prefectures, provinces, regions, state, town, and village linkages.
The U.S. sister city program began in 1956 when President Dwight D. Eisenhower proposed a people-to-people, citizen diplomacy initiative. Originally a program of the National League of Cities, Sister Cities International became a separate, nonprofit corporation in 1967, due to the growth and popularity of the U.S. program.
Read more about Sister Cities International: Sister Cities, Mission and Goals, Programs, Expanding Partnerships
Famous quotes containing the words sister and/or cities:
“Sisters define their rivalry in terms of competition for the gold cup of parental love. It is never perceived as a cup which runneth over, rather a finite vessel from which the more one sister drinks, the less is left for the others.”
—Elizabeth Fishel (20th century)
“No doubt I shall go on writing, stumbling across tundras of unmeaning, planting words like bloody flags in my wake. Loose ends, things unrelated, shifts, nightmare journeys, cities arrived at and left, meetings, desertions, betrayals, all manner of unions, adulteries, triumphs, defeats ... these are the facts.”
—Alexander Trocchi (1925–1983)