How can Transnational Municipal Networks foster local collaborative governance regimes for environmental management?

While there is abundant literature on Transnational Municipal Networks (TMNs) and collaborative governance regimes (CGRs) to respond to environmental change, few studies address TMNs as exogenous agents driving CGRs dynamics locally. TMNs have emerged as important actors in multilevel governance, providing formal structures for local governments to share best practices, access funding and influence the international policy arena on global environmental change. We argue that TMNs also have a pivotal role in the activation of CGRs and in strengthening the four dimensions of Capacity for Joint Action (CJA) identified by the literature: structural arrangements, leadership, knowledge and learning, and resources. Through the analysis of empirical evidence, based on semi-structured interviews and data sources (2014–2021), we investigate how TMNs built capacities and facilitated the emergence of a CGR in the case of waste management and composting initiative in Gangtok, India. In this case, two TMNs developed a toolkit to enable the local government to assess climate risks in the context of urbanization, poverty and vulnerability in Asia. Furthermore, at a certain point the local actors started to provide knowledge to the TMNs to be shared among other local governments and activating new CGRs, such as the case of Gangtok, which is active in sharing its knowledge in composting and climate change actions with other cities.