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The Erasmus Mundus Program offers scholarships to non-European students and scholars to participate in the interdisciplinary Advanced Master's Course in International Co-operation and Urban Development. The English taught program is jointly offered by the Technische Universität Darmstadt (Germany), the Università Tor Vergata in Rome, the Universitat Internacional de Catalunya in Barcelona and the Université Pierre Mendés France in Grenoble and leads to a double degree.

Applicants for student scholarships (value € 42.000,- over two years each) should have concluded previous studies of a minimum of 4 years with excellent results in a career related to urban development and have professional working experience of a minimum of one year. Scholars from outside Europe may apply for short term bursaries (€ 4000,- per month) to teach and conduct research at one of the above mentioned universities. In both cases the deadline for applications is January 15th, 2008 for the 2008-2010 cycle. Further information: www.mundus-urbano.eu.

To this effect and as per Cities Alliance Project Agreement, the Association has scheduled a Workshop for the Proposal development on December 5 & 6, 2007, to discuss and bring up to date the participating local authorities on the way forward. The Omaruru Council was nominated to host the said Workshop and Mr. Shingi Mushamba, the FCM Regional Coordinator (Africa) from Zimbabwe will be facilitating the Workshop.

The process of developing the NCDS is aimed at being all inclusive off relevant stakeholders who are envisaged to play a vital role in the development of these NCDS. Consequently, each Council is expected to nominate a delegation comprising of: Council staff (CEO and LED Manager - dealing directly with LED), an elected official (Mayor), one member from the Civil society and one member from the Private sector to participate in this workshop. Furthermore, among the participants would be the representatives of the institutions that were significant in the Proposal development together with ALAN such as Nalao, UTN, and the Ministry as our full CDS national team.

It is against this background that ALAN EXCO members are invited and expected to be part of this 2 days Workshop scheduled for 5 - 6 December 2007 in Omaruru. Kindly register availability at your earliest convenience as to allow for prompt facilitation of modalities pertaining to traveling arrangements and accommodations!

The traveling cost and PerDiems for delegates will be borne by the Workshop Organizers - ALAN as per the Cities Alliance Project Budget Line.

The Association received a communiqué that the Directorate of Decentralization Coordination managed to secure limited funding for the Local Authorities (LAs) with the development of their Strategic Plans.

All LAs that require assistance are expected to forward their needs to the Decentralization Directorate through the Permanent Secretary of the MRLGH ASAP, since the window for this assistance would be as from November 2007 until February 2008 only and no late requests would be accommodated thereafter.

A copy of the Terms of Reference for the Strategic Planning can be downloaded here

The communique comes with reference to our previous correspondence dated March 08, 2007 in which the Association requested local authorities to submit strategic planning needs and priority areas for the Association to assist in lobbying for financial resources that will aim towards accomplishment of these needs.

In addition to this, the National Planning Commission held a stakeholders consultation workshop from 26 - 30 October 2007, during which it was noted that local authorities have been omitted in the National Development Plans drafting documents. For purposes of determining estimated costs for possible funding by the National Planning Commission, all local authorities are hereby requested to kindly, submit their capital projects and budgets estimates directly to ALAN. Local Authorities are urged to please make use of these opportunities offered as these will assist toward

The programme for the stakeholders consultation workshop can be downloaded [here.]

In a follow up to the work that Gender Links has done with ALAN, GL has invited a representative from ALAN to a Local Government Gender Action Plan TOT and materials development workshop from 5 - 9 November 2007.

This 5-day training of trainer workshop will bring together a cadre of facilitators from Ministries of gender, local government, local councils and associations from four countries (Lesotho, Mauritius, Namibia and South Africa) where gender strategies or frameworks have been developed for mainstreaming gender in the work of local government

The trainers will develop locally adapted materials for assisting local councils in formulating gender action plans in 2009 in each country. The workshop includes a one-day planning session for the upcoming Sixteen Days Campaign as a way of starting flagship gender projects. The outputs of the workshop will be local tool kits for developing gender action plans in each country; plans for rolling out these action plans in 2008 as well as immediate plans for the Sixteen Days of Activism from 25 November to 10 December.

Proposed details of the trip are as follows:

On Monday the 8th October 2007, the delegation will briefly visit the ALAN office and then proceed to pay a courtesy call on the Mayor of Windhoek, followed by a meeting with the City of Windhoek, NALAO and relevant Municipal Councilors and Officials and Local Government representatives on the same day. They delegation is planning on returning to Nairobi, Kenya on the 9th October 2007.

The areas of interest about the study include the following:

1. Financial management
2. Central Fiscal transfers
3. Local Resources
4. Budget preparation and execution
5. Participatory budgeting
6. Oversight and monitoring of council budget by Central and Provincial Governments.

1. Election of mayors
2. Power, role and responsibilities of Executive mayors
3. Powers, roles and responsibilities of the Chief Executive Officers
4. Relationships between Chief Executive Officers and the executive mayor and the councilors
5. Qualifications of Mayors and councilors
6. Disqualification of Mayors and Councilors
7. Separation of power of Mayors and chef officers
8. Code of conduct of councilors
9. Conducting of council meetings
10. Remuneration of the Mayors and councilors

2nd UCLG World Congress

The 2nd UCLG World Congress will take place on 28-31 October in Jeju, Korea. Local and regional leaders from all over the world will be coming together in Jeju to set the international agenda of local governments.

We have a massive challenge ahead of us and it demands the pooled expertise, experience and enthusiasm of members of United Cities and Local Governments and its partners in Jeju to focus the international communities' attention on the exemplary performance and unquestionable potential of local governments in resolving problems affecting everyone.

The theme of the congress "Changing cities are driving our world" captures both the dynamism and the crucial role played by local authorities of all sizes. Our aim is to focus on some key aspects of global governance where we feel the involvement of local authorities is essential: ·

• Cities the future of humanity; addressing climate change
. ·
• City Diplomacy: Local Governments building peace
·
• 2015: a better world is possible. The Role of Local Government in Global Governance.

The official website of the 2nd UCLG World Congress allows you to proceed with online registration. Click on this link to register: www.uclg2007jeju.org. The deadline for early registration is 31 August 2007.

To benefit from discount flights to Jeju, please go to the Star Alliance website and quote the event code: 0Z020S7.

Contact the UCLG world Secretariat in Barcelona at info@cities-localgovernments.org for further information.

Preparatory Study: Participatory City Development Strategies (CDS) in Namibia: Cities Alliances Grant

ALAN was awarded the Grant to kick start the above mentioned Preparatory study and implement the selection criteria thereof. The overall objective of the proposal is the pending submission of a proposal for a Preparatory Grant to fund the initial design and selection of municipalities to participate in a larger project to elaborate CDS in partnership with the participating Local Authorities in Namibia.

1. To undertake a preparatory study that will evaluate and define the components and steps needed that will result in a Namibian Comprehensive Development Strategy (NCDS) for Local Economic Development (LED) for three Local Government Authorities
2. Development of a process for NCDS planning at the local government level that will be disseminated and replicated in Namibia.
3. The involvement of two national associations such as ALAN and NALAO will provide a vehicle for more widely sharing the experience of developing CDS with Local Government Associations thus enabling and empowering LAs to increase their knowledge on such issues as participatory planning, fiscal and financial budgeting, and local economic development
4. The development of a community involvement process with UTN and our LADCs will be beneficial and offer a replication opportunity for future CDS and other governance processes.

At the Coalface: Gender and Local Government [Summary]

With a growing number of Southern African countries from different political and electoral backgrounds showing that gender parity can be achieved in local government, there is no longer any excuse for any country in the region not to achieve this goal. However, if women are to make a difference in this sphere of decision-making - the ?coalface? of service delivery - far more needs to be done to strengthen local government and to integrate gender considerations into its work.

These are the key findings of a ground breaking new study on gender and local government in Southern Africa to be released on 22 March by Gender Links, a Southern African NGO that specialises in gender, governance and the media.

• Lesotho which, with 58 percent women, has the highest level of women in local government in the region, thanks to a legislated 30 percent quota in the country?s first elected local government in 2005.
• Namibia, which has had over 40 percent women in local government for several years, thanks to a PR system and legislated quota, as well as the ?zebra? system adopted by the ruling Swapo party of one woman, one man on its electoral lists.
• South Africa, where the ruling African National Congress (ANC) fielded a substantially higher proportion of women in both the ward and PR seats in the country?s mixed electoral system in the 2006 elections, boosting the proportion of women from 29 to 40 percent.
• Mauritius which, with 6.4 percent women in local government, represents the many countries in the region that have a constituency electoral system and also an extremely low level of women in all areas of decision-making.

Highlighting the range in women?s representation in local government from 1.2 percent in Angola to 58 percent in Lesotho, the study notes that where governments have been willing to take special measures to increase women?s representation this is more likely to be so at local than at national level. For example Lesotho introduced a quota for local but not national elections held in February 2007.

What is unfortunate, the study says, is that measures to increase women?s participation at local level appear to result from a calculation that local government is not as serious a sphere of politics than the national level, rather than because of a commitment to deepening democracy through decentralisation and the equal participation of women.

However, examples like Lesotho, South Africa and Namibia (representing the constituency, PR and mixed electoral systems) show that the SADC target of 50 percent women in decision-making can be achieved in pretty much any situation, provided that there is the necessary political will. Case studies such as the normality that has returned to the constituency in Lesotho in which a male candidate took up a high court challenge against the quota show that despite resistance to quotas, rapid change is possible and does not lead to the backlash that is often predicted.

In instances where governments have been reluctant to force the pace of change, women?s representation is lower at local than at national level because the forces of culture, tradition and religion tend to be more concentrated at this level than at national level. Through numerous personal accounts and case studies as well as quantitative data gathered through questionnaires, the study explores the many barriers to women?s effective participation at local level. These are reflected in the 41 council meetings observed, where researchers found that there was not a single instance in which women participated in meetings in proportion to their strengths in such meetings.

However, the observation of meetings showed that there is a greater participation of women when they comprise half or more of the participants; a strong argument for raising the target for women in decision-making from 30 to 50 percent. The findings also show that on average women participated more in meetings led by women, underscoring the importance of women occupying leadership positions such as mayors, chairpersons, deputy mayors and speakers.

While the study found that there are still men in local government who openly oppose gender equality (especially in countries that have a low level of women?s representation) it cites several examples of men who have become champions of women?s empowerment and gender equality as an important yardstick of change.

The study acknowledges that not all women are the same and that not all believe it is their duty to raise the concerns of other women. But the overwhelming majority of those interviewed spoke of the obligation they feel towards other women. In the 92 focus group meetings conducted with civil society, women and male constituents many spoke about how women councilors are more accessible, hard working and honest.

The study cites numerous examples of ways in which women are making a difference at a practical level in local government (which suffers from many structural weaknesses in all countries) by helping to cut through red tape and providing access to housing, electricity and basic needs. These practical interventions raise strategic questions: such as in Lesotho where councils are responsible for allocating land and women are beginning to ask about access to title for land.

But a key conclusion of the report is that unless gender is systematically mainstreamed into the work of local government, increased representation of women at local level may become a case of ?jobs for the girls? rather than gender equality for the region.

The study highlights the absence of such strategies at local level, with the result that efforts to ensure that women and men benefit equally are piecemeal and often driven by a few individuals rather than by institutions and systems. Drawing from the work of GL with the City of Johannesburg that has developed a Women Development Strategy including a plan for mainstreaming gender into Soccer 2010, the study recommends that all countries and councils in the region begin to look at how local government can become a motor for achieving gender equality where it matters most: on the ground.

Technical Study Trip for A.R.C. and A.L.A.N

The Association of Regional Councils in Namibia (ARC) has embarked on a comprehensive review of its constitution with a view to bring it in line with constitutions of similar organisations in the region and worldwide. To that end, the association held a two days workshop to review the current constitution and to define the way forward in the process of coming up with the new constitution.

Against this background the Ministry of Regional and Local Government, Housing and Rural Development has deemed it relevant - through the Finnish Support to the Namibian Decentralisation Process - to organise a technical fieldtrip to Finland and Denmark to share experiences with the sister organisations and to get inspiration from the way the Finnish and sub-national government association is organised in terms of mandate, regulatory and functional framework, institutional set-up and practical operations including the financing of the operation of the association. Furthermore the mission will acquaint itself with the Finnish system of regional administration (laaninhallitus) and regional authorities formed by the local governments themselves (maakunta/maakuntien liitto).

The Ministry has found it equally important to invite representatives from the Association of Local Authorities in Namibia (ALAN) to share the same experiences and draw lessons that can be used for further work back in Namibia.

As the Finnish association caters for both local and regional authorities, it may also be of interest to the two Namibian associations to identify areas where they could benefit of enhanced cooperation and joint ventures in the development of their respective organisations.

Purpose and objectives of field trip

The purpose of the technical fieldtrip is to expose relevant staff from ARC and ALAN to the experiences and lessons learned with regard to the associations? mandate, roles, institutional and organisational set-up, regulatory framework, and functioning in relation to sub-national governments, as well as central government.

Hence, the objectives of the fieldtrip are to:

• Obtain understanding of and in-sight in the regulatory and functional framework for the Association of Finnish Local and Regional Authorities
• Institutional and functional arrangement between central government and the association pertaining to, among others, annual fiscal negotiations (transfers from central government to sub-national governments, resource envelope national policies and priorities, and national standards)
• Relationship between the membership and the association pertinent to, among others, mandated functions, advocacy role vis-à-vis central government, consultancy services to members and technical/legal assistance, and international consultancy services
• Membership and funding of the association
• Mediating role between individual members and central government
• Role in government reforms with particular emphasis on the current restructuring of the regional and local government system
• The associations role in promoting local democracy and good governance
• Establish a net-work for future consultations and sharing of experiences between host institutions and ARC and ALAN
• Acquaint the delegates with the system of regional administration in Finland (laaninhallitus)
• Acquaint the delegates with the work and role of regional authorities formed by the local authorities themselves (maakunta/maakuntien liitto)
• Acquaint the delegates on intergovernmental fiscal relations in Finland.

Expected outcome

A staff member from the Directorate of Decentralisation Coordination with the assistance of the CTA, FiSNDP will compile a detailed travel report draft presenting findings, analysis of lessons learned and recommendations for the way forward. This draft will be analyzed and finalized in a one day workshop with the field trip participants to a final draft that will be presented to the Boards of the respective associations. Also the management of the Ministry of Regional and Local Government, Housing and Rural Development shall be briefed and a briefing meeting with the National Council will be seeked for.

It is expected that the learning experience will provide with inputs and ideas that can be used in the process of revising the ARC constitution and in the process of creating closer working relationship between ARC and ALAN.

The report will be made available with emphasis made to the lessons learned and recommendations for the way forward.