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SUMMARYThis article addresses twinning between local governments in North and South, contributing to the past decade's discourse on institutional twinning in this journal. Local governments have increasingly become recognised as relevant actors in international development cooperation through city‐to‐city cooperation structures, which have been praised as an effective mechanism for local government capacity building. This article discusses the learning practices and the extent to which new knowledge is valued and adopted by twinning participants in both North and South and moreover whether learning benefits are mutual. In a study of three partnerships between Dutch municipalities and partner cities in Peru, South Africa and Nicaragua, 36 participants were interviewed. The findings reveal that learning in city‐to‐city partnerships is not mutual between North and South and that the benefits of 'shared learning'—a rhetoric commonly used in the twinning discourse—are limited. Instead, other opportunities for mutuality arise for Northern municipalities from political and strategic benefits, such as staff loyalty and motivation. Mutuality in twinning hence deserves a broader interpretation than learning alone so that twinning benefits can be identified and maximised for both North and South, keeping cities interested and motivated. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The Sultanate of Oman has relatively high unemployment, especially among women and youth, while its economy continues to rely on imported labor. To reduce dependence on foreign labor and to tackle unemployment, the government introduced a policy of Omanization or nationalization of its labor force. As part of a wider agenda for the diversification and privatization of the Omani economy, a key aim of the policy is to increase the participation of women in the labor force, to maximize the use of national human resources and to enhance the return of investments from the rapidly expanding educational attainment of Omani females in the last two decades. This paper focuses on female labor force participation in Oman and examines the implications of Omanization for women in the teaching and nursing professions. Empirical research was carried out in Muscat to determine how labor nationalization manifests in the workplace and to what extent and in what way Omani and migrant women workers perceive and respond to the effects of the policy. The results aim to shed light on the feasibility of labor nationalization policy implementation, and how Omanization policies may lead to a more efficient and effective use of the country's human resources.

The importance of strengthening local governments is widely recognised as local governments face new challenges against the backdrop of global decentralisation processes. Municipal International Cooperation (MIC) contributes strategically to such processes by peer-to-peer learning within existing local institutions, a development process that is both efficient and provides continuity. Empirically, the paper draws upon the findings of an evaluation of the Dutch support programme for MIC called LOGO South. The main conclusion is that partnerships between local authorities do strengthen local governments in the South; the unique approach of the LOGO South programme adds important spillover effects in mutual learning, resulting in both policy transfer and mobility. By creating multilevel governance networks, knowledge circulation was also strengthened. This paper contributes to the debate by showing that locally based, multilevel hybrid networks are strategic for governance processes.