Newsletter – n°32 – April 2015

The world at a glance

By Nomveliso Nyukwana, Mayor of Emalahleni, South Africa

“We have heard it many times before: the future is local. Developmental challenges are most evident at local level. Take, for example, my own municipality of Eastern-Cape Emalahleni Local Municipality in the South-East of South Africa. My country might meet some of the Millennium Development Goals targets as a result of the national average, but we still have much to do to tackle extreme poverty in my own area. I am really worried about opportunities for youth and for vulnerable groups in our municipality. The issue of unemployment, as well as the need for housing, is particularly problematic in my Emalahleni.

Local governments must respond to the development challenges of our citizens. Our municipality’s task is to think about innovative ways of job creation and food security. We need to localise our production, to ensure that for every product we produce, we are able to process it locally. A value chain within the municipality needs to be created. (...)

Emalahleni municipality is supported through the Local Government Capacity Programme, managed by VNG International, the international co-operation agency of the Association of Netherlands Municipalities (VNG). This type of co-operation, in which Dutch municipal experts from the City of Dordrecht (Netherlands) partner with experts from our municipality, complements other relevant support. The co-operation focuses on local economic development, a very important matter for my municipality, as I mentioned earlier.

I have found that this type of peer-to-peer decentralised co-operation has a high degree of relevance, efficiency, effectiveness and sustainability in comparison to other development co-operation programmes. The themes and issues addressed in the co-operation initiatives are based on the key priorities for the municipalities involved and on long-term relationships, which are based on trust, transparency and good dialogue.

I think it is very important that this instrument of local government development co-operation be recognized as one of the ways to reach the post-2015 development goals.”

Read the full article here.

Nomveliso Nyukwana is mayor of Emalahleni Municipality, South Africa, since 2011, after serving many years as a councillor. Since 2012 she has been appointed as Champion on Development Cooperation for the global organization of United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG). The UCLG Champions are supported by the UCLG Capacity and Institution Building Working Group, which has its secretariat within VNG International.