City Partnerships for an Inclusive Economy: Lessons in Sustaining Solidarity Event
The Cities Support Programme convened a session on building solidarity for economic recovery through its Economic Strategies Facility hosted within the World Bank on the 18th June 2020. The solidarity focus emerged at the CSP's City Economic Recovery workshop held on the 15th April 2020, and has been prioritised by the metros as they grapple with their COVID-19 economic recovery planning.
The CSP's Inclusive Growth Partnerships team facilitated a highly participatory session that had participants from the public, private and civil society sectors. The objectives of the session were to: learn about and from inspiring examples of solidarity in cities in South Africa and globally; create a safe space for frank conversation and discussion on what it will take to create and / or sustain trust among government, civil society, academia and business; think about how to build on these ideas and foundations through meaningful partnerships; understand points of entry to
start to partner with cities; and understand the role of partnerships in delivering city mandates and creating competitive cities.
A virtual fishbowl was used where experiences in solidarity were shared from the cities of Ethekwini, Cape Town, Tshwane, Teresina (Brazil), Buenos Aires (Argentina) and Medellin (Columbia).
The event highlighted the fact that a shared sense of urgency in responding to Covid-19 had unlocked a number of partnerships that had overcome bureaucratic obstacles that had frustrated previously. The event highlighted that building and sustaining solidarity required : collaborative leadership; new skills; transversality; self-organising communities, trust; and, institutional platforms.
Any Other docs
For further information contact:
Karen Harrison: CSP-NT
Karen.Harrison@treasury.gov.za