Xai Xai is a southern Mozambican city of 140.000 inhabitants, located along the Limpopo River, in a mainly agricultural area. It has been very active in the UCLG network, benefiting from cooperation projects with cities, associations and NGOs from Canada and the Netherlands. It has also now established partnerships with the Brazilian cities of Porto Alegre and Vitoria.  In March 2012, the partners met there to help Xai Xai implement its city development strategy. Also involved were Architects without Borders, the Dutch NGO AMURT,plus UCLG and the Mozambican LGA, ANAMM.

 

First came the presentation of Xai Xai’s 2009 city development strategy; this requires a break-down into concrete municipal and private commitments and activities.Porto Alegre provided support in performance and institutional capacity, developing a tailored mix of instruments for revenue generation, city management, land cadastre, and public service management. The partnership with Victoria will focus on agricultural development.

 

To give added value (in line with ’aid effectiveness and harmonisation’), other cities will be involved in the learning process, through partnerships established under the ceilings of the associations ANAMM and Frente Nacional de Prefeitos do Brazil (FNP).First lessons show:

 

• The benefits of the proactive attitude of XaiXai, involving the whole city council in this process, and allowing the partners to better understand the context and work jointly in identifying issues;
• The step from an individual towards a collective understanding of cooperation is helpful for all, and the involvement of politicians and technicians from several departments (on both sides), seems likely to make the partnerships more robust. Xai Xai is recognized as a committed partner, with its own system of participatory local governance.

 

The work is part of the UCLG CityFuture program, coordinated in Mozambique by ANAMM, which aims to increase peer learning opportunities, and has started to systematize knowledge management and develop a needs assessment. This assessment, even in its initial stage, helps the Brazilian association FNP to mobilize more cities.