UCLG Position Paper v_2 (eng)
22/12/09
18:13
Página 61
A Compilation of Case Studies
12 The Twinning Cooperation between the City of Liege (Walloon, Belgium) and the City of Lubumbashi (Congo)
event) were represented at this working session, during which careful consideration was given to the existing national programmes and sectoral priorities of local and national governments in Congo. Issue The areas identified (birth, marriage and death registries rehabilitation) in 2007 were the same that Liège and Lubumbashi were already working on in 2001. This underlines the fact that the creation and rehabilitation of these registries were considered essential as a source of information, and as a tool for reconstruction planning following the massive destruction caused by the conflicts in Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The registry was seen as a first step an essential means to ensure the recognition of inhabitants' rights.
Prepared by the Union of Cities and Municipalities of Wallonia and the Association of the City and Municipalities of the BrusselsCapital Region (UVCW-AVCB), November 2008
The Cities of Liège and Lubumbashi have been twinned since 1961. But until the Municipal International Cooperation (MIC) Programme was launched in 2001, few interactions existed.
The Cities of Liège and Lubumbashi have aimed at cooperating in the most tangible and practical way in this area, through the development of a census, the creation of the birth, marriage and death registries, the installation of the required office equipment, including the introduction of computers to back up handwritten documents and files, and maintenance of the archives.
This Programme, which aims at providing institutional support to municipalities in the South, has been designed by the associations of cities and municipalities (Union of Cities and Municipalities of Wallonia and Association of the City and the Municipalities of the Brussels-Capital Region), at the request of and with the financing of the Belgian Federal Cooperation. It was first based on annual calls for proposals but has evolved since then, after an assessment was made, towards a multi-year programme (2008-2012). The multi-annual scheme, the sectoral and geographical concentrations, and the exchange of experiences and collective capitalization represent the main improvements of this programme.
Results The general computerization of registry offices in 2006 has allowed entry into a new phase. Almost 1.2 million people have been registered manually between 2001 and 2006, which was a first for the entire Congolese territory. The former census was conducted in 1984, with an estimated population in Lubumbashi at that time of about 800.000. The birth, marriage and death registers are now kept up to date and the population recorded at the beginning of 2009 has escalated to 1.4 million inhabitants.
Background Already active in institutional and capacity building since 2001, Liège and Lubumbashi, joined the new Municipal International Cooperation Programme (2008-2012), funded by Belgian Federal Cooperation. To date, through this Programme, twelve Belgian-Congolese municipal partnerships have agreed to collaborate to meet a key objective of the Congo: to increase the coverage of the population with registered birth, marriage and death certificates. This area of cooperation had been identified during a planning workshop organized by the associations of municipalities of Brussels and Wallonia in February 2007. All Congolese and Belgian municipalities involved in the programme (eight partnerships at the time of the
Mrs Nelly Nzeba Mwa Musadi, Head of the Central Registry Office of the City, explains: "The best relay is actually the local authority", evoking the African oral tradition: "Because the local authority gets in touch every day with the population and the people in charge of all the municipalities forming the City of Lubumbashi. The Mayor, for example, communicates directly with the seven other mayors, who can themselves increase the street leaders' awareness. It is eventually buzz marketing which works out best. The churches, law and healthcare centres are also among our communication partners." 61