CDS in Lilongwe

Lilongwe city officials attended our CityFuture workshop in Johannesburg last summer and have started to work toward becoming a Cities Alliance partner city and access its CDS support. Cities Alliance regarded the city initiative very positive, despite some weaknesses in starting the CDS process. Developing a CDS is not easy for Lilongwe, mainly because of little former experience on strategic planning, development and setting up an own long-term strategy. This context makes the process of Lilongwe an interesting example to monitor -and to learn from- becasue since the beginning, the process is a learning process for the city itself. Lilongwe has prepared a CDS proposal, which was transformed into a grant proposal which is currently beeing considered. 

The requested grant of about 70.000 $US will enable the CDS team of Lilongwe to analyze the legislative, economic and social environment in detail, and to properly prepare and plan a CDS. The principal outcome of this grant will be a well assessed proposal for driving a complete CDS process and a revision of necessary frameworks. As the country is under transition, the impact of the CDS will not only be of economic and social importance, it will also be a political impact.

Mentoring – A south-south success story

The mission team, composed of three Johannesburg city officials and one UCLG project manager provided  advice and guidance on the upcoming steps. The Lilongwe CDS Task Force has a clear picture now as to which next steps are crucial in order to prepare the CDS proposal and they have now taken the lead on defining the priorities and commiting partners. The Mentoring, especially of the Jo’burg staff, has established a fruitful partnership relation that will likely move beyond punctual assistance.
The team conducted interviews, assessments and field-visits to identify situation in Lilongwe, possible players, opportunities and limitation. The outcomes are shared and analysed with Johannesburg and UCLG.  Johannesburg will constantly aid formulation, preparation and (in the future) the implementation of the CDS proposal. This mentoring process itself is a very interesting way of knowledge transfer.