This publication highlights the content and exchanges of the first peer learning meet-ing in the “Mediterranean City-to-City Migration” project (MC2CM) on the role of municipal administrations in social cohesion and intercultural and inter-religious dialogue.

This meeting was hosted by the city of Lisbon on 12 and 13 July 2016 and was attend-ed by representatives from Amman, Lyon, Madrid, Tangier, Tunis, Turin and Vienna, plus the Catalan Development Cooperation Fund (coordinator of UCLG’s Working Group on migrations). Content and facilitation were provided and coordinated by the Social Inclusion, Participative Democracy and Human Rights Committee of UCLG (CISDPDH). In particular, this committee drew up the thematic reference document1 that served as a basis for the debate on concepts of social cohesion and intercultural and interreligious dialogue and the role of local authorities within this framework.

The session was organised around participative exercises to stimulate exchanges on commonly-used practices in each context, to contribute to the inclusion of migrants at the local level from an intercultural and cohesion perspective. The exchange methodologies proposed include the identification of myths and realities related to migration, the implementation of an Ishikawa (cause and effect) diagram to identify the obstacles administrations come across in implementing cohesion, a working visit (Lisbon), the presentation of specific cases (Vienna, Madrid) a working group on the resolution of a practical case based on a real situation in the city of Lyon to compare the activities set up by the municipality and the approaches proposed by the participants.