It is time for Africa.

The famous song performed by Shakira at the opening of the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa was just translating the new appetite for Africa that is rising up in the mindset of many Africans and the international community.

It is time for Africa, when one considers the demographic growth of the continent that will be the most populated region of the world by 2050 with a population of over 2.0 billion people out of which 1.3 billion will be urban dwellers. The African population is also the youngest across the World with more than 50% of people under the age of 19. The labour force of the continent will be tripled between 2000 and 2050, rising from 400 million to 1.2 billion.

It is time for Africa given the huge endowment of the continent in untapped natural resources at a moment when the emerging economies are parching for raw materials and commodities, and when climate change is pointing attention on the limits of the planet for accessing mineral and agricultural resources, and for extending the ecological footprint of human activities.

It is also time for Africa as the leadership of the continent is launching a foresight exercise tagged as Agenda 2063, the Africa We Want, championed by the African Union, and aiming at defining the most appropriate route to get the continent right in terms of the improvement of the living conditions of the African People, the unity, integration and development of the continent.

But it will be time for Africa only if and when the continent would have made a drastic change in its public governance system for the better, which in turn would contribute to building trust between the government and the people. Trust between government and the people is the cornerstone to reinforcing the legitimacy of the State.

In order to sustainably effect any change in public and democratic governance system on the continent, one should start with improving the governance of the local territories. It is at the local level that public authorities are better placed to negotiate a new social and territorial contract that will allow for the deepening and consolidation of democracy and, through planning practices, reconcile the citizen with long term and foresight thinking.

Reforming public governance at the local level supposes that greater attention is given to the central role of local governments as the public authorities closest to the people, which have the responsibility to initiate and conduct any dialogue and negotiation with the local stakeholders on the way to ensure access to basic services for all, adopt a partnership approach in the management of local matters, and agree on the performances assessment of public policies at the local level. Such dialogue and negotiation generally results in the emergence of a more participatory governance system, favourable to a more responsive citizenry.

However one should also be mindful that local governments are at the confluence of tensions between the forces stemming from the dynamic of modern State, and those stemming from the local social fabric which legitimacy derives from local social capital networks and their capacity to mobilize the populations for any endeavour in economic, social, cultural development. This simply means that the realization of the Agenda 2063 is closely related to the way these tensions are addressed and resolved at the local level, in order that all living forces can effectively be mobilized around the public authorities to make the Agenda 2063 a reality for the majority of Africans.

Building the Africa We Want starting from the grassroots requests a complete change of mindset with regard to the policy and strategy to put in place for Agenda 2063 to effectively contribute to the development, integration and unity of Africa within the 50 years ahead. So far reflections on development and integration policies had taken national States and their interaction within the regional economic communities as point of departure. Hence the perception by most Africans that development is not really happening despite a growth rate averaging 5% witnessed on the continent over the past 15 years. In other words for most Africans development is either local because its impact translated in the improvement of the living conditions of the people where they live in, or it does not simply take place. A majority of Africans have also the feeling that they are put under house arrest since the borders of African States are the most difficult to cross in the world, despite the fact that they often separate the same people and the same communities sharing the same cultural background.

Africities Summit in Johannesburg, South Africa, on 29 November to 3 December 2015 will be a rallying point for all African stakeholders and their friends and partners, determined to see Africa taking a more positive route towards her sustainable human development and her rightful place and voice in the world, at a moment when the international community is defining the global agendas that will guide the international cooperation for the 20 years ahead, be it around sustainable development goals, climate change, financing for development, or the new urban agenda. 

In that sense Johannesburg 2015 will be the moment and the place of Africa’s new beginning, since it will allow all stakeholders of the continent to contribute to the content and the implementation strategy of Agenda 2063. Shaping the future of Africa from the grassroots with local governments as fulcrum will without any doubt give a strong impetus to the movement of integration, unity, and development in Africa, which will nurture a feeling of hope and self confidence in African youth, and contribute to the forthcoming emergence of the Africa of the Peoples beyond the Africa of the States inherited from colonial times.

Johannesburg 2015 will be truly the decisive point towards a more elevated sense of Africa’s freedom and autonomy, Africa’s pride for what she represents for the humanity, Africa’s self confidence and Africa’s trust.

Come and participate in Africities Johannesburg 2015, and associate yourself with Africa’s new beginning.

Jean Pierre Elong Mbassi
Secretary General, UCLG-A

 

The Italian city of Torino will host, from 13 to 16 October 2015, the 3^rd World Forum of Local Economic Development (LED). The Forum (Plenary Sessions, Panels and Workshops) will take place in Polo Reale, the architectural and museum complex, which hosts one of the royal residences of the Savoy.

 

The forum is organized by the Executive Committee (EC) comprising the Municipality and Province of Turin, the global network of United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) and its Committee on Local Economic Development, through the Andalusian Fund of Municipalities for International Solidarity (FAMSI). Also in the EC, the Organization of United Regions (ORU FOGAR), the Brazilian Service of Support for Micro and Small Enterprises (SEBRAE), the International Labor Organization (ILO) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

The theme of the forum is underlining the Post-2015 Agenda and the new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which have been adopted in September 2015 by the United Nations. The crucial question of the forum will be the examination of how the concrete implementation of SDGs can be achieved through local economic development and territorial development.

UCLG and its regional sections and partners are representing local and regional governments, who constitute a big part of the forum through panels, workshops and B2B meetings attended by representatives of municipalities, cities and territories, non-governmental organizations, international institutions and governments, the academic and business sectors, and local associations.

In fact, UCLG and its Sections (ORU-FOGAR, Metropolis, and UCLG Africa), members (FAMSI) and partners (FMDV) will be organizing panel sessions and workshops within Focus area 3 “Towards sustainable urbanization: LED strategies for creating positive urban-rural linkages”.

UCLG Africa will organize, Thursday 15 October (17:00-19:00) a panel session on “LED in Africa: Status, challenges and prospects” that UCLG Africa Secretary General, Mr. Jean Pierre Elong Mbassi, will moderate. He will also be among the speakers during the plenary session on: “A new universal agenda for development. How can LED become the means to implement Post2015 Development Agenda at the local level?”

Ahead of this forum and given the important participation of local governments in it, UCLG prepared a Key Positioning document where key messages of local and regional governments on LED are gathered. It will be disseminated during the forum. However, an electronic copy is available here.

 

The complete programme of the 3^rd World Forum on Local Economic Development is available here.

More information about the Forum available here.

 

Local and regional governments of the world seized the occasion to be present in New York, at the UN Headquarters, during the UN Summit for the Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development held on 25 – 27 September 2015. The stakes are high since the old Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are going to be replaced by 17 new ones called the Sustainable Development Goals (MDGs). 

 

The Global Taskforce facilitated by UCLG, organized a number of events to celebrate the occasion and to assess the role of cities and local leaders in the Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development going forward. The Global Taskforce of local and regional governments was created in 2012 in order to bring together the main international networks of local and regional governments who are working jointly ever since to represent their members during the Post-2015 and Habitat III process.

The mayors who formed the UCLG delegation to the summit had the opportunity to take part in several events such as the event on “Cities Driving Sustainable Development: Endorsing the SDGs and Committing to Their Implementation”, where the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, praised the work of the Global Taskforce over the last three years. Joan Clos, Executive Director of UN Habitat, delivered the statement.

The President of UCLG Africa and Mayor of Dakar, Khalifa Ababacar Sall participated to the summit and underlined that the SDGs are “a true revolution” because they are global and have been developed through wide consultation. He also stated that “until now global goals were defined without local governments, but the Post-2015 process has shown that we are able and ready to make this change”.

At the end of the UN summit, the Global Taskforce has presented a joint declaration to mark this important event on the adoption of Agenda Post-2015, titled “All SDGs are Local: Towards an Action Agenda in Habitat III”.

 

To watch the streaming of the conference “Cities Driving Sustainable Development: Endorsing the SDGs and Committing to Their Implementation”, click here.

The list of the 17 SDG proposed is available here.