BuaNews (Tshwane)
Makoena Pabale
9 April 2008
Lilongwe — Representatives from the City of Johannesburg are in Lilongwe, in Malawi, to help mentor it in developing its own City Development Strategy, based on Joburg's experiences.
Jan Erasmus, one of the South African delegates in Malawi, was pragmatic about the trip, according to the City's official website.
"Lilongwe must not put us on a pedestal because we are also still working on building a better Joburg. But we will help them where we can," he said on Tuesday at the workshop.
Joburg officials will provide technical assistance regarding the drafting of the strategy.
It will help with strategic analysis related to national frameworks, opportunities, environment, pre-evaluation and relevant lessons learned by the mentor city.
Lilongwe will also be given advice on key topics such as local economic development, innovation and productivity, urban and spatial planning and natural resources, management and financing of infrastructure and services, set up of participatory processes, and methodologies and tools for an action plan.
City delegates will tour the Malawian capital, and assess public service provision and growth trends.
Delegates arrived on Monday and have already visited businesses and got a geographical view of the place.
On Wednesday at the workshop, there will be a presentation on the approaches undertaken by Lilongwe in drawing up its City Development Strategy.
Johannesburg representatives will give a presentation on moving from zero to results, and will speak about applying lessons learned. There will also be questions and discussions.
The relationship between the two cities goes back to July 2007, when Joburg hosted 19 African countries.
Representatives from Lilongwe said that they were struggling with a number of issues and asked for help from the city.
The chief executive of the South African Local Government Association, Xolile George, was tasked with supporting mentoring activities in Africa with formalising the mentor relationship between Lilongwe and Johannesburg. It is led by the city's central strategy unit.
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