Signature of a framework partnership agreement between UCLG Africa and the University of Lomé
On April 29, 2021 at the University of Lome (UL) in Togo, Professor Dodzi Komla Kokoroko, President of the UL and Mr. Jean Pierre Elong Mbassi, Secretary General of UCLG Africa have signed a framework agreement of partnership and cooperation between UCLG Africa and the University of Lome. The convention will be implemented through the Regional Center of Excellence Sustainable Cities in Africa (CERVIDA).
In his speech, the Secretary General of UCLG Africa explained that without quality human resources there is no sustainable development. The partnership of UCLG Africa with the University of Lomé is a sign of recognition of the excellence of the human resources of this university and explains why the continental umbrella organization wishes to collaborate with the University of Lome to accompany local and regional governments in their development and the exercise of their mandate. The complexity of African cities calls for a new and more comprehensive look at cities by their actors, especially young people, as well as an innovative effort to propose technological packages and institutional and financial arrangements adapted to the context of African communities characterized by rapid urban growth and the limited financial and human resources of local public authorities. The challenge is therefore considerable. But it can and must be addressed. And the framework agreement signed between UCLG Africa and the University of Lomé should help to meet this challenge.
In his concluding speech at the ceremony, the President of the University explained that the signing of the framework agreement is to be linked to the Center of Excellence on Sustainable Cities of the University of Lomé. He insisted on three key points to build an active partnership between UCLG Africa and the University of Lome:
- to work on the legal positioning of the umbrella organizations of local government such as the umbrella organization of the communities of Togo to recognize them as public entities governed by public law;
- mobilize academics competencies and young graduate students to support local and regional governments in the exercise of their mandate;
- to promote the reinforcement of the capacities of the actors of the city, and spaces of collaboration between these last ones and the academics so that they rub shoulders with the concrete lived realities at the level of the management of the territories.
For Mr. Aboubakari SYLLA, from the municipality of Abobo-Abidjan, “this initiative allowed us to rub shoulders with other local authorities and other actors that we were not used to seeing. In terms of decentralized cooperation, this opens up prospects for us. For us, it is a question of matching territorial coaching and the Social and Solidarity Economy, because the territorial realities are that populations, especially in Africa, find it difficult to work in synergy with communities. In the municipality of Abobo, territorial coaching has enabled us to bring the populations together “.
They held their national seminars with the technical support of UCLG Africa. This support started in May 2020 with the production of a compendium, an analytical report and a draft version of the roadmap. A total of 14 national roadmap validation seminars were held during the first quarter of 2021 for the following countries: Liberia, Tunisia, Sierra Leone, Mozambique, Congo, Gambia, Central African Republic, Guinea, Libya, Nigeria, Cameroon, Zambia, Cape Verde, Senegal. 
Ms. Rahmatouca Sow, Advisor for International Relations and Political Affairs of UCLG Africa, presented the work plan of the organization focused on the renewal of its strategic priorities, with the aim of making UCLG Africa a “one stop shop” for Local Africa over the 2021-2030 decade (GADEPPA 2.0).
Gender & Climate
Through the Freetown -Blue Peace project launched in December 2020, the Freetown City Council (FCC) intend to obtain innovative funding to implement a sustainable water project in the capital city. “ The Freetown-Blue Peace project considers water as an entry point for interventions that build peace and foster development, because conflict is more likely to occur where there’s no development. We start with water, but we move very quickly into sanitation, which cannot happen without adequate water. Then we will move into markets, which is a source of livelihood—over 60% of our population operates in the informal economy. You don’t often think of water when you think of markets, and that itself is a challenge: the need for water for sanitation in the markets, for cold storage, and so on. And the final element is water drainage. So, it’s beyond running taps. Significantly, Freetown-Blue Peace is about sustainability, and that has three components: first is a real water element, which consists of the provisions of water kiosks. This targets informal settlements, and 35% of our people live in informal settlements; second is sanitation, from the perspective of public toilets. We’ll be constructing 40 water kiosks and 25 public toilets; and lastly, there is the element of collection of solid and liquid waste. We will be procuring vacuum trucks for better collection of solid and liquid waste. Only six percent of liquid waste was being collected in Freetown when I became Mayor in 2018. We have a target to increase that to at least 60 % by 2022.”, she explained in the interview with Africa Renewal 
The second part of the webinar was devoted to sharing experiences on the responses given to the migrant population of the city of Rabat during the pandemic. These actions were notably carried out by the city of Rabat, IOM, UNHCR, the “Orient Occident Foundation”, and other stakeholders.