As a nodal agency to the Government of Kerala for capacity development of local governments, the Kerala Institute of Local Administration (KILA) has been working with the mandate of promoting local governance in rural and urban areas since 1990. The institute endeavours to train, conduct research, and provide policy support and consultancy in local governance and decentralisation KILA has played a lead role in the capacity building and training for democratic decentralisation in Kerala and now it is engaged in institutionalising the process of decentralisation and to make the local government system sustainable. KILA is a link between people and the Government and is also a think tank for policy formulation.

Apart from the main campus in Thrissur, KILA has three regional centres and three sub-centres in Kerala. To ensure state of the art quality in capacity building, KILA have established thematic centres such as Centre of Urban Governance, Centre for Sustainable Development Goals and Local Governments; Local Government Knowledge Centre on Environment, Climate Change and Biodiversity; Innovation and Incubation Hub for Local Governments, Gender School for Local Governance, Child Resource Centre, Centre for Geoinformatics and Legal Resource Centre for Local Governments. KILA continues its collaboration with various national and international agencies and also works hard to develop as a supporting agency to other states and agencies at the national and international levels.