Abstract
Since the early 1990s Decentralised Cooperation (DC) has stepped into the international development arena as a cooperation modality considered able to promote relationships not focused on the paradigm of aid rather than on mutual interests of institutions and persons who despite living in distant places face common challenges. At the end of the 1990s Trentino (Italy) started four DC programmes with Prijedor (Bosnia and Herzegovina), Peja Pec (Kosovo), Caia (Mozambique) and Kraljevo (Serbia). DC in Trentino is called "cooperation between communities" to emphasize the relationships between the institutions involved. These programmes, supported by the Autonomous Province of Trento and implemented by civil society organizations, represent one of the most significant international cooperation policies in Trentino. The article analyses how the system of objectives has evolved in relation to the political and institutional contexts of the territories in which "Trentino with" works. The analysis focuses on the relationships between the evolution of the objectives and the organizational structures of the four programmes. The research aims at reconstructing the history of these programmes, identifying significant practices and providing guidance for future planning through a learning process for the actors involved in the programmes.