The international cities platform, Connective Cities and its initiators, the Deutsche Gesellschaft fuer Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, the German Association of Cities (DST) and Engagement Global gGmbH / Service Agency Communities in One World (SKEW), invite urban practitioners from Sub-Sahara Africa and Germany to take part in the Connective Cities dialogue event “Improving public service delivery at local level – solutions for participatory and accountable management” in Harare, Zimbabwe. The event is scheduled to take place on from 20^th to 22^nd of August 2019.

The accelerating urbanisation in Sub-Sahara Africa tends to increase the demand for public services in cities. This has a number of adverse impacts on sectors such as water, sanitation, waste management and transport, which in turn pose serious repercussions on the living conditions of the urban population. Municipalities are thus required to adapt public service delivery strategies.

The workshop aims to promote the exchange on innovative approaches of public service delivery optimizing urban services by means of public participation to achieve greater social accountability. Aspects from Sub-Sahara African and German cities such as public service management and delivery in municipalities and local utilities, improved governance for accountability and greater transparency, enhanced participation as well as climate resilient public services will be included.

Based on the exchange of existing good practices, ideas for urban projects will be developed in a systematic manner. During the workshop, peer-to-peer advisory sessions will help to unblock challenges and to jointly create new knowledge. Participants from Sub-Sahara Africa will also be supported in developing their local action plans for the improvement of public service delivery.

This event will bring together practitioners from a variety of African municipalities as well as municipal experts from Germany, who will contribute their expertise and good practices  to identify the underlying challenges in the urban and regional public service context and develop innovative project ideas together.

Connective Cities organizes this dialogue event in cooperation with the GIZ project in Zimbabwe, “Strengthening the Urban Councils Association of Zimbabwe (UCAZ) to promote intercommunal knowledge transfer and capacity development”.

All event related costs will be covered for the selected urban practitioners from Sub-Saharan Africa
(2 from each nominated city) and Germany such as travel costs (economy class) including meeting package as well as accommodation costs.

Further information in the detailed <link file:6230 download for>“call for participants” [pdf, 834 kb]

Contact

Alice Balbo, Connective Cities Project Manager, responsible for the cooperation with the German Association of Cities (<link mail ein fenster zum versenden der>alice.balbo@engagement-global.de)

Dr. Manfred Poppe, Connective Cities Senior Project Manager; Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit GmbH (GIZ) (<link mail ein fenster zum versenden der>manfred.poppe@giz.de)