The CDS wheel of Urban Development
3.4.1. Defining city-to-city learning
It is important to acknowledge at the outset of this literature review that city-to-city learning as a concept is not well explored in the academic literature. More common is the related, perhaps equally elusive notion of city-to-city cooperation. This concept will be tackled first, as city-to-city learning is considered a subset of municipal cooperation. Despite the voluminous collection of
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writing in this regard and Hafteck’s (2003) effort to begin to define and conceptually map the field, it is acknowledged that there is still no single definition for the concept of city-to-city cooperation.
One point of convergence in the literature that Hafteck (2003) is able to identify are the common ideas of (i) an ultimate goal of achieving sustainable development, (ii) the notion of some form of partnership between municipalities at the center of the cooperation, (iii) a clearly defined area of jurisdiction of a local authority and, finally, (iv) the engagement and participation of civil society stakeholders. Tjandradewi and Marcotullio (2009: 165) look at how international agencies make sense of city-to-city cooperation, and note that for the UN-Habitat and World Federation of Towns and Cities, city-to-city cooperation includes “all possible forms of relationships between local authorities at any level in two or more countries that are collaborating together for mutual interest and benefits, with or without external support”.
Similarly, Bontenbal (2009: 35) observes that the notion of city-to-city cooperation is an umbrella term covering all forms of relationships between local authorities “at any level, in two or more countries which are collaborating over matters of mutual interest and leading to sustainable development”. More importantly, Bontenbal (2009) notes that even though the term city-to-city cooperation has gained ground as an accepted academic concept in recent years, there is still no discernible blueprint in the literature for the activities, actors, scope or contact frequency for city- to-city cooperation. Despite the high diversity in content, Bontenbal (2009: 36) is however able to discern five key general characteristics which set apart city-to-city cooperation as a unique form of international development cooperation. Each of these characteristics will be outlined briefly here as they provide a framework for understanding city-to-city cooperation, but more importantly they can be interrogated for relevance in the southern Africa context, using the findings of the case study.
The first characteristic of city-to-city cooperation identified by Bontenbal (2009) is a two-pronged approach of empowering municipal officials on the one hand, and simultaneously facilitating the effective participation of civil society actors on the other hand. The exchange of know-how and experience between local administration actors it seems is the key aim, with the goal of achieving sustainable development through improving municipal performance. In the case of eThekwini Municipality’s strategic planning and visioning process, this could imply the transfer of skills from
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eThekwini Municipality planning officials to Namibian and Malawian staff around how to develop a strategic planning process that promotes a more sustainable form of city development. The focus on ensuring civil society participation has also been identified as being important, not only as it assists in raising public awareness and public support, but in that it also has an important symbolic meaning (Mamadouh, 2002). This characteristic will be revisited in the later analytical chapters, as the reflections from the Namibian civil society participants from the city of Otjiwarongo in this regard were very instructive.
The second characteristic that is identified is the north-south aspect of the cooperation, given the intention to enhance local government capacity in the global South. This characteristic is not as relevant here, given the south-south focus of the mentorship program. Still relevant though is the aspect of capacity enhancement, this time rather than from north to south, it would mean between cities in the south. Local government capacity within municipalities and within Local Government Associations is an important theme and one that will again be interrogated in later chapters.
The third general characteristic is that of a long-term, formal bilateral partnership agreement between the two participating municipalities and their civil society stakeholders. It is interesting to explore the extent to which this is in place in the case study, and whether this is an important determinant in securing commitment to achieving outcomes.
The fourth characteristic relates to the securing of funding from northern donor municipalities’
budgets. As the UCLG and the Cities Alliance are regarded as the global northern partners and play a key role in securing funding for the program, it is considered relevant here. The fifth and final characteristic identified by Bontenbal (2009) is that of mutual benefit and two-way capacity building and is most interesting. Whilst this is stated in theory, empirical evidence in the international literature does not necessarily substantiate this claim. Determining the extent to which mutual cooperation, joint learning and capacity enhancement occurs in this example of south-south collaboration is an important consideration that is also explored in the research.
It is this notion of building capacity in city-to-city cooperation that resonates most with the notion of city-to-city learning or peer-to-peer learning as described by van Ewijk et al. (2015) – a concept
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that, as alluded to earlier, is only more recently gaining traction in the learning literature. For purposes of the research, Campbell’s (2012a) conceptualization does, however, offer useful insights. Defining learning in its most basic form as the acquisition of new knowledge, Campbell (2012a: 9) makes the point that learning in cities happens during the process of city-to-city exchanges – “technical visits of professional practitioners who actively seek new knowledge and good practice”. During this process, Campbell (2012a: 9) argues that proactive cities begin developing a new dynamic of leadership incorporating the elements of “outside knowledge acquisition, development of internal capacities to learn and idea-exchanges on both policy and practice in order to influence strategic city changes in the long-term”.
Lee and van de Meene (2012: 199), in facilitating an investigation into learning in cities, similarly conceptualize learning as “a process comprising information seeking, adoption and policy change”. This aspect of translation into policy changes made on the assumption that adoption will be successful locally, has been receiving dedicated attention by numerous scholars (Peyroux et al., 2012; Temenos & McCann, 2012; Wood, 2014). It is Campbell’s (2012a) notion of the acquisition of outside knowledge - in this case of municipal visioning and strategic planning from a mentor city as well as the development of internal capacities to learn by the mentee city - in order to improve planning practice and contribute towards long-term sustainability is useful in helping frame the research.
The idea of improving practice also resonates with Toens and Landwehr’s (2009: 348) notion of
“improvement-oriented learning” as opposed to the nominal concept of learning which focuses on mere change. In drawing on the work of Nullmeier (2003 cited in Toens & Landwehr, 2009: 349), they argue that improvement-oriented learning is learning which can be designated as an improvement, based on a set of certain pre-determined criteria. The applicability of this notion will be tested in the southern African case study, and will be revisited later. For now, however, it is timely to briefly trace the history of city-to-city learning before the detailed mechanisms of exactly how cities learn is dealt with.