1 The Municipal Institute of Learning, (MILE) is a knowledge management initiative of the eThekwini Municipality that will help position Durban as a city of learning. Its programmes aim to enhance the capacity of local government prac- titioners not just within eThekwini, but across the global south. Its man- date also includes providing munici- pal technical support to selected mu- nicipalities, collaborating with local universities and fostering strategic national and international learning partnerships. This summer 2012 edition focuses on MILE learning activities held since the release of the winter issue and it also provides a glimpse of future events that are scheduled to take place. For more information please visit the MILE website: www.mile.org.za About MILE Latest News Issue 5, Summer 2012 MILEstones Dubbed as one of the biggest research events ever hosted by eThekwini Mu- nicipality, the Inaugural eThekwini- University Research Symposium saw over 350 academics, officials and stu- dents converge on the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s (UKZN) UNITE Centre. The symposium was hosted on 19 September 2012, in partnership with Durban’s tertiary institutions, the Durban University of Technol- ogy (DUT), Mangosuthu University of Technology (MUT) and UKZN. The Symposium was based on re- search papers that focused on seven sub-themes which contributed to the overarching theme of “Enhancing the Quality of our Living Environment.” These sub-themes included: Develop- ment within the Built Environment; Localising Economic Development and Job Creation; Climate Protec- tion and Energy Efficiency; Fostering Governance and Local Government Responsiveness, Health; Enhancing Social Equity, Safety and Security. Fifteen Chairs facilitated the forty-four research papers which were presented by a mix of academics, post-graduate students and city officials. This event provided a platform for networking whilst tackling research outputs which are relevant for local government. This single event has energised the city-university partnership. The eThekwini-University Research Committee played a vital role in the planning and hosting of the success- ful eThekwini- University Research Symposium. A research-proceedings publication will be released soon. eThekwini-University Research Symposium 2012
Transcript
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The Municipal Institute of Learning, (MILE) is a knowledge management initiative of the eThekwini Municipality that will help position Durban as a city of learning.
Its programmes aim to enhance the capacity of local government prac-titioners not just within eThekwini,
but across the global south. Its man-date also includes providing munici-pal technical support to selected mu-nicipalities, collaborating with local universities and fostering strategic national and international learning partnerships.
This summer 2012 edition focuses on
MILE learning activities held since the release of the winter issue and it also provides a glimpse of future events that are scheduled to take place.
For more information please visit the MILE website:
www.mile.org.za
About MILE
Latest News
Issue 5, Summer 2012
MILEstones
Dubbed as one of the biggest research events ever hosted by eThekwini Mu-nicipality, the Inaugural eThekwini-University Research Symposium saw over 350 academics, officials and stu-dents converge on the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s (UKZN) UNITE Centre.
The symposium was hosted on 19 September 2012, in partnership with Durban’s tertiary institutions, the Durban University of Technol-ogy (DUT), Mangosuthu University of Technology (MUT) and UKZN.
The Symposium was based on re-search papers that focused on seven sub-themes which contributed to the overarching theme of “Enhancing the Quality of our Living Environment.” These sub-themes included: Develop-ment within the Built Environment; Localising Economic Development
and Job Creation; Climate Protec-tion and Energy Efficiency; Fostering Governance and Local Government Responsiveness, Health; Enhancing Social Equity, Safety and Security.
Fifteen Chairs facilitated the forty-four research papers which were presented by a mix of academics, post-graduate students and city officials. This event provided a platform for networking whilst tackling research outputs which are relevant for local government. This single event has energised the city-university partnership.
The eThekwini-University Research Committee played a vital role in the planning and hosting of the success-ful eThekwini- University Research Symposium. A research-proceedings publication will be released soon.
Over 3 500 delegates attended Af-rica’s single largest local government summit, the Africities 6. The event was hosted by the United Cities and Local Government Africa (UCLGA) in Dakar, Senegal and has been heralded as a phenomenal success. eThekwini offi-cials from the Safer Cities Programme, Small Business Unit, Architecture De-partment, Finance Cluster and MILE who made presentations at the invita-tion of various international agencies, maximized the unique opportunity created by this platform to share the cutting edge work done in Durban with their peers from Africa and be-yond. Officials also used the platform to learn from other good practices in local government and create new Af-rican and international learning net-works. The Cities Alliance graciously allowed space at its exhibition stand to showcase the work done by MILE.
Following the success of the Revenue Management Master Class hosted by MILE in partnership with CEFEB and the World Bank Institute in March 2012, MILE hosted the same Master Class in the city of Accra in Ghana, to assist mu-nicipalities who are struggling to imple-ment structures that can bring forth
income much needed to run any city.
The objective of the Master Class was to raise the capacity level to mobilize funds, facilitate investment and help overcome poverty. The specific objective was to improve the management of cities through
better revenue management.
The Master Class went beyond foster-ing the building of local government practitioners capacity and also pro-vided south-to-south cooperation and gave the participants an opportunity to learn from each other.
Officials Learn Innovative Ways to Generate and Manage Revenue
The Economic Development Commit-tee (ECOD) were thrilled and amazed at the Councillor Seminar 2 as they journeyed through the activities that take place within the King Shaka Inter-national airport and the Dube Trade Port AgriZone.
This event, hosted by MILE gave coun-cillors an opportunity to tour the first integrated perishable supply chain in Africa.
The purpose of the visit was to allowcouncillors to understand the value of these two entities and the role they play in enhancing the economy.
Councillors got first-hand experience as they toured the facility. Deputy Mayor and Chairperson of the ECOD Committee, Councillor Nomvuzo Shabalala, was impressed with the high-tech agricultural cluster that hosts the largest climate-controlled growing area on the continent.
She said, “We are very happy with what we have seen here today. Such development is what we strive for because it gives hands on experience of technological advancements in agriculture.”
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City to City Learning in Barcelona!
Peer learning Exchange in Maputo
Informal Trading is deemed to be a positive development in the mi-cro business sector as it contributes to the creation of jobs and has the potential to expand the City’s eco-nomic base further and it also adds to the creation of globally com-petitive world class African cities.
With this in mind the eThekwini team attended a peer learning event from 6-8 November 2012 in Maputo.
The Provincial capital cities and twinned cities of Mozambique to-gether with the cities of eThekwini Municipality in South Africa, Belo Horizonte and Porto Alegre from Brazil converged on the City Hall to
exchange practical ideas and experi-ences on how to improve the work-ing conditions of informal traders.
This event was organized by a range of partners including the UCLG, ANAM, ILO, Cities Alliance and the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The focus of the event was on lo-cal economic development placing emphasis on street food vendors. This exchange was a good exam-ple of south to south peer work be-tween Belo Horizonte, Durban and Maputo. A detailed Learning Note can be found by clicking here:Learning Note, Maputo Peer Exchange.
The services of MILE as a facilitator were once again called on by the in-ternational development commu-nity. This time MILE was asked by the United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) - the voice of cities at the United Nations- to assist in facilitat-ing a learning exchange on how cit-ies learn from each other. This issue of city learning, networking and in-
novation has come to fore recently, as its importance has been gaining increasing international recognition. World-renowned learning expert and author Professor Tim Campbell shared his insights making the point that the most successful cities internationally are those that learn from each other and share with each other, draw-ing on relationships built on trust.
eThekwini Municipality’s Environmen-tal Planning and Climate Protection Department (EPCPD) in partnership with the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), German Development Cooperation (GIZ), Global Engagement and the Mu-nicipal Institute of learning (MILE) sup-
ported by eThekwini’s Intergovernmen-tal Relations Office hosted a networking meeting for African municipalities par-ticipating in the “50 Municipal Climate Partnerships by 2015”initiative from 8-10 October 2012. African municipali-ties from Tanzania, Ghana and Zan-zibar attended the three-day event.
The Municipal Technical Support team recently attended a review workshop at Lilongwe, the capital and largest city of Malawi. The purpose of the workshop was to review the men-torship programme between eThek-wini Municipality and Mzuzu thus far.
Mzuzu has been mentored by eThek-wini Municipality to develop a Strate-gic Plan and the Mzuzu City Council is currently implementing a strategic action plan. The team advised them
to undertake a public participation process. Ongoing mentorship and assistance will be given to Mzuzu. This can be through the MILE Master Classes that are facilitated by eThek-wini officials who are experts in their field to assist the Mzuzu City Council.
Also conducting their mentorship re-view workshop at the same venue was Lilongwe City who is currently being mentored by the City of Johannesburg.
News in Brief
The highly successful Forum drew more than 8,000 partici-pants from 152 countries. MILE champion Ms Soobs Moon-samy the Head of Developmental Planning, En-vironment and Management at eThekwini Municipality rep-resented MILE at a network-ing event on “Peer exchange of city leaders at the World Urban Forum (WUF) – Tailor-ing global tools to foster local identities,” hosted by UN Hab-itat in Naples. Ms Moonsamy attended the UCLG side event.
World Urban Forum 6
MILE shares eThekwini’s Story in India
The eThekwini Municipal-ity through its Municipal In-stitute of Learning (MILE), was invited by the Govern-ment of India’s National In-stitute of Urban Affairs to share the lessons that the City has learned over the last fifteen years on urban strate-gic planning and in particular the role of capacity build-ing for enhancing planning. The purpose of the work-shop was to allow all the city planners in India to be ex-posed to good practice, as India now begins its second gen¬eration of City Devel-opment Plans (CDPs) and is very keen to consider what has worked internationally.
MILE is currently engaging withthe University of South Africa (UNISA) to explore the potential forcollaboration.
MILE Tenth Management Seminar: Is the creative arts sector in Durban
dying?
Spatial Planning and Land Use Management Master Class
MILE in partnership with eThekwini De-velopment Planning and Management Unit hosted a three day Master class on Spatial Planning and Land use Man-agement from 25 – 26 October 2012. This Master class was well attended by local government planners across
KwaZulu-Natal. The Master Class formed the ideal platform for planners to discuss the existing and emerging planning practices and lessons learned.
The Master Class went beyond ca-pacity enhancement as it also ena-
bled planners to network around their common interests and there was consensus that planners should use this gathering to commit to deepen municipal relationships be-tween cross border municipalities.
This was the controversial is-sue that officials grappled with on 27 September 2012.
The plenary session began with short inputs from the various stakehold-ers in the industry. Karen Karen Van Pletsen from KUMISA who is also a
performing artist shared her inter-est in trying to revive the arts sector.
Some of the key issues that emerged from the event were: the lack of marketing and publicity of Durban events, the absence of an eThekwini policy for the creative arts, scarce
business drivers/ producers who can create opportunities for artists, the need for a Champion who will take charge and drive the force to imple-ment change, among other interest-ing and thought provoking points.
Embedded Power Generation for Local Municipalities
The Water and Sanitation Mas-ter Class was hosted by MILE in partnership with eThekwini Mu-nicipality’s Water and Sanitation Unit from 5-7 September 2012 . The primary focus for this event fo-cussed on, “Getting the Basics Right.”
Participants tackled informative modules and witnessed the type of structures eThekwini has in place with the EWS department always clinching top international awards.
Technical practitioners left the water and sanitation Master Class with a burn-ing desire to make changes in the wa-ter sector within their municipalities.
eThekwini Municipality together with the KZN Sustainable Energy Forum (KSEF) hosted a workshop on the role of Municipalities in Embedded Power Generation on 31 August 2012. Dur-ing the workshop informative pres-entations were done on embedded generation by: Non-Governmental Organisation, Sustainable Energy Af-rica, South Africa’s main supplier of energy, Eskom and the Electricity De-partment within eThekwini Municipal-ity. Pertinent processes such as the application process for embedded generators was discussed. It was re-vealed during the presentations that
eThekwini Municipality is the only Metro Municipality that has issued Power Purchase Agreements (PPA’s) in terms of embedded generators.
A delegation from The Ministry of Housing from Namibia recently at-tended a study visit to learn more about South Africa’s approach to Sustainable Housing. The learning ex-change entailed the delegation visit
different Municipalities within South Africa to learn more about their ap-proach to housing. Their final stop in their week-long tour of South Af-rica was in Durban to learn with the eThekwini Municipality. Hosted by
the South African National Depart-ment of Human Settlements in part-nership with eThekwini Municipality at the Mayors Boardroom in Durban City Hall, the delegation was given a warm welcome by the Deputy Mayor.
*These are proposed events for the next quarter and are subject to change
Upcoming Events for MILE
• Maximising Developmental Opportunities in City Tourism and Eventing: A practitioner-led Master Class- 22 to 24 April 2013 (TBC)
• Strategic Planning Master Class – 30 January 2013 to 1 February 2013
• Knowledge Management Learning Exchange-13 to 15 March 2013
• Intermediary Cities Workshop- 18 to 20 March 2013
• Solid Waste Management Master Class- 8 to 10 May 2013
For more information about the Municipal Institute of Learning contact us on:
