The COMURES/FLC/FCCMA Partnership was the first of its kind for ICMA, partnering two associations in Florida--the Florida League of Cities (FLC) and the Florida City/County Management Association (FCCMA)--with an association in El Salvador, the Corporación de Municipios de la República de El Salvador (COMURES). The overall objective of the partnership was to strengthen COMURES as an association and provide its members and staff with ideas that they could implement and tools with which to do so, in order to become a more financially and institutionally viable association. 

The Florida associations provided the following translated materials to COMURES: the Florida League of Cities Charter and By-Laws, the Florida League of Cities Strategic Plan, the City of Orlando Ethics Manual for Elected Officials and Members of Citizen Committees, and the ICMA Code of Ethics: Rules of Procedure for Enforcement. Subsequently, COMURES decided to adopt the City of Orlando Ethics Manual for use in El Salvador by both elected officials and municipal staff. 

During a visit to Orlando, the COMURES delegation gained insight into:

• The effort that the Florida League devotes to conveying in simple form to the state legislature the issues and positions of the FLC through easy-to-read publications
• Florida’s emphasis on transparency in government through Sunshine Laws, some of the strictest in the nation
• Ways COMURES could provide insurance for municipal vehicles as a service to its members, given that a new law was scheduled to be passed to mandate insurance for municipal vehicles
• The role of citizen boards in providing recommendations to the council and making decisions on issues affecting citizens.

 As a result of this partnership, COMURES obtained strategies on improving its capacity to advocate on behalf of municipalities and on encouraging the participation of its members in that advocacy effort.