Blantyre and Ekurhuleni Blantyre is keen to consolidate planning mechanisms and implement the Cities without Slums and Millennium Cities Initiative (MCI) projects to assist the city in achieving the MDGs. Ekurhuleni has the institutional capacity to assist with this aspect of mentoring, and good contact was established with the IDP manager and the CEO of Blantyre. However, due to personnel changes in both cities, some impetus had been lost in this mentorship. The status of the City Development Strategy is that work has already started in different sectors and there is funding for service delivery projects and capacity building. “We should be open to learn why initiatives do not learn: in Ekurhuleni, the political commitment has to be worked on”
Mombasa and Bergen Mombasa has prepared needs assessment for the “We are experiMENTORS – how orientation of their CDS and Bergen accepted the role of do we make mentorship a mentor. After a visit by Bergen to Mombasa, the terms success? “ of reference were amended and Mombasa and Bergen agreed to prioritise GIS and land use management. Outline project and process design, organisation and contents had been agreed. The presentation was full of humour and friendship. Their suggestion is that success is possible if there are clear objectives and a common understanding, and ambitions are proportional to the resources available.
Group Discussions: Establishing Consolidating Current Initiatives
New
Mentorships/Partnerships
and
Divided into three work groups, the first group deliberated on how to consolidate and upscale existing mentorships. It was agreed that future mentorships must be more focused on particular needs, rather than be open-ended. Time was spent documenting some of the key lessons learned during the process, their specific successes, as well as the pre-conditions for mentorship. Thereafter, it was agreed that each city be tasked with devising clear work plans that suited their own unique context and with timeframes that were achievable. The roles of their respective Local Government Associations were also identified as an important area to be considered. 19