Presentation Internship AUA UCLG Africa - Eng

THE UNITED CITIES AND LOCAL GOVERNMENTS OF AFRICA (UCLGAFRICA), THE AFRICAN LOCAL GOVERNMENT ACADEMY (ALGA) AND THE AFRICA UNION OF ARCHITECTS (AUA) LAUNCH THE INTERNSHIP PROGRAM Supporting and Introducing Architecture Students’ to practice in African Local Governments and Municipalities

Presentation Note I.

CONTEXT, BACKGROUND AND GENESIS OF THE IDEA

UCLG-Africa and the AUA have signed, in Cape Town, South Africa, on November 03, 2016, a Memorandum of Understanding guided by a common vision of a united and strong Africa and the need to build partnerships between governments and all segments of non-state actors; UCLG-Africa and AUA are aware of the challenges and commitments contained in the new Urban Agenda and commit to work together to support local governments to deal with these challenges and to implement these commitments.

They are also aware that on-the-job training and internship are essential components in any training process.

This Internship Program is proposed as concretization of UCLG-Africa, its Academy and AUA’s visions towards sustainable African cities through good governance and exchange of experience.

II.

THE MAIN OBJECTIVES OF THE PROGRAM

Making internships for the students one of the vectors of the modernization of the African Local Governments, linking African Local Governments and Universities, by enabling them to open up to their respective environments, to learn from each other, and to support each other, and by strengthening interactions between the African Local Authorities.

1

III. -

-

-

-

-

IV.

SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES Making the role of Local Governments for African Unity become a reality; Drawing lessons and conducting research from the reality, issues and concerns of the Local Governments; Opening the African continent to exchange and mobility of Architecture Students by offering positions of interns within Local governments and municipalities in different African countries. This program introduces mobility, practice and exchange as vehicles for learning for the students, preparing them to urban realities; Through this academic/professional exchange, a group of Architecture Students would be able to practice in real contexts, to face different urban challenges and to open up to local governance issues and local urban planning approaches in various contexts; Training and preparing a new generation of urban practitioners to face the environmental, cultural, and socio-economic and governance challenges resulting from the rapid and dynamic urban transformations around the continent and to reflect on urban issues and compare different experience between theory and practice. This goal may also assist in the generational renewal of the staff of Local Authorities; Interns could get in touch with different players and stakeholders and introduced to different policies and planning documents available and made by local authorities to address urban challenges of demographic, social, economic, and environmental nature; Renewing the intervention methods and techniques within the Local Governments; Opening up employment opportunities for students.

OVERVIEW OF THE CONTENT

1. Introduction of architecture students to local governance and Planning -

Strategic planning;

-

Planning processes and various local actors and different urban stakeholders: public, private and civil society (if any) ;

-

Local urban policies ;

-

Reflect on the integration, the diversity and the coherence of different urban projects (new development, rehabilitations, slum eradication‌);

-

Experiment and reflect on decision making processes, challenges and participation of local community and civil society;

-

Budgeting and technical tools.

2

2. Fostering students mobility and knowledge exchange -

To help create an open Data and comprehensive data base about different cities in Africa;

-

To benchmark and exchange knowledge and experience in different countries;

-

To evaluate experience for future development project in the continent;

-

To introduce students to the African market, its opportunities and its challenges.

V.

PARTNERS

The Program of Internship is based on a solid Partnership, Cooperation, and Network between:

1. UCLG-Africa and its ALGA UCLG-Africa is the umbrella organization and the united voice and representative of Local Governments in Africa. It results from the unification of the three pre-existing continental groupings of local governments, namely the African Union of Local Authorities (AULA), the Union of African Cities (UVA), and the Africa Chapter of the Uniaödas Ciudades e Capitaes Lusófonas Africanas (UCCL AFRICA).It is an institution that gathers 40 national associations of local governments from all regions of Africa as well as the 2000 cities that have more than 100.000 inhabitants. Therefore UCLG-Africa represents nearly 350 million Africans citizens.

UCLG-Africa is a founding member of the United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) world organization, and its Regional Chapter for Africa. UCLG-Africa is currently headquartered in the City of Rabat, in the Kingdom of Morocco, where it enjoys a diplomatic status as a Pan-African International Organization.

UCLG-Africa was created to achieve three main objectives: •

Promoting Decentralization and the recognition of Local Governments as a level of governance, with a legal personality and political and financial autonomy;

•

Strengthening the capacity of local governments to provide better services to the population, support and train the national associations of local governments to better organize themselves to ensure an effective political dialogue with national governments, civil societies, the private sector, development partners, and the international community on the implementation and evaluation of decentralization and cooperation policies;

•

Making the voice of local authorities of Africa heard and representing them at the Pan-African and international levels.

As part of the objectives defined above, and in order to enhance Local Governments’ performance as well as that of their associations, the UCLG-Africa members requested the General Secretariat, during the AFRICITES Summit held in Marrakesh in 2009, to create an African Local Government Academy (ALGA) to contribute to strengthening the managerial 3

capacities of elected officials and improving the professionalism of Senior Staff of the Local Governments The Academy conducts four main missions: i. ii. iii.

iv.

An accreditation mission of training institutions dedicated to Local Governments and approval of the curricula and courses they offer; A monitoring mission on Human Resources of Local Governments and their management through the establishment of an Observatory of local governments professions and their evolution ; A training mission of elected officials and executives of Local Governments, to improve their managerial capacity and their professional practices through several initiatives, making the most of the opportunities offered by ICTs, by establishing an e-learning platform; Encouraging, supporting and animating the Networks of African Local Governments Managers.

2. Africa Union of Architects (AUA) The Africa Union of Architects (AUA) was inaugurated in Nigeria in May 23 1981 by his Excellency, ALHAJI SHEHU SHAGARI former president of Nigeria. This was done to unite architects from all over the continent regardless of nationality, race, religion or doctrine, and to unite their national organizations. Initially AUA was made up of delegations from 23 countries.

Today, it groups together the key professional organizations in 40 countries, thereby representing nearly 35000 architects.

In parallel with the development of major intergovernmental institutions with which it maintains close relations, AUA has become an accomplished nongovernmental organization and an incomparable professional network of architects.

AUA was granted observer status via resolution CM/RES 1116, adopted by the OAU Council of Ministers meeting in its 46th ordinary session in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia from July 20 to July 25, 1987.

AUA’s mission is to create, among architects, ties based on friendship, understanding and mutual esteem to enable them to confront their ideas and concepts, share their experience, broaden their knowledge, and learn from their experience in order to better fulfill their role in the improvement of Man`s living conditions and environment. AUA’s main objective among others is to unite the architects of the continent on a democratic basis, represent architects at the African and governmental levels and defend the rights and status of architects in every country.

4

3. Local Governments (LG) and Municipalities The identification process of local governments and municipalities partners will be based on several criteria including: • •

•

The representation of the African Diversity, by targeting the 5 African Regions; The representation of diverse categories of Local Governments: Metropolitan areas, Medium-sized Cities, Small Towns, and Rural Municipalities. (One can refer to the Fourth Global Report on Decentralization and Local Democracy (GOLDIV 2016) of UCLG), Heritage cities, etc…; The representation of Gender: Local Governments led by women.

UCLG-Africa will use its database of the Associations of Local Authorities as well as its Networks in this regard.

4. Schools of Architecture (SoAs) The Africa Union of Architects is conducting a survey about African Architecture Schools. The Union will ensure the networking coordinate and with architecture schools via its member sections in the 5 regions: North, South, East, West and Center.

VI.

TARGETED STUDENTS

1. Internship Program for undergraduate The internship is open to undergraduate students to finish their architecture curriculum and the competition brief could be part of their graduation project if agreed with the Architecture school. Students could enter a competition with their projects ad selected by a Jury Panel composed by representatives from UCLGA/ALGA, AUA and the Architecture school partner.

2. Internship Program for postgraduate The internship is open to postgraduate students. It is mainly a research internship for student in masters and PhD programs (Architecture and urban planning departments in the architecture school) and the internship has to be related to their masters or PhD Thesis.

5

VII.

INTERNS’ SELECTION PROCESS

1. Undergraduate Students Students Competitions

Selection of Winners

A Jury Panel made up of the Representatives of UCLG-Africa/ALGA, AUA, and SoAs

Allocation of Internships

UCLG-Africa/ALGA/AUA Input: UCLG-Africa/ALGA and the AUA team would work on collecting necessary information and documents (plans, reports, analysis, case studies, studies …) to create a database that will help in dispatching and preparing competition briefs. Collected information and documents fromLocal Governments, Municipalities, and SoAs would be related to existing data about site specificities, urban challenges, needs or new development intended in their respective urban areas, namely: • Data about demography, topography, climate, soil, economy, urban growth, urban extension areas, transportation, water treatment, energy, informal settlements ; • Applied regulations and rules ; • Master plans; • Any studies and analysis available; • Any reports or studies concerning the area and pointing at major urban issues.

Students Output: Students would generally be asked to elaborate visions for identified urban problems within a specific context. Students’ works will be judged upon the criteria set by AUA and UCLGAfrica/ALGA generally related to the following points: • • • • •

Promoting sustained, inclusive and sustainable Urban Growth; Developing socially inclusive and engaging visions; Promoting collectively managed cities and collaborative strategies; Innovative ideas in term of resilient, sustainable, healthy, friendly, and safe cities; Economic development through urban visions and sustainable consumption and production patterns; 6

• •

Promoting cultural adequate development ; Promoting Integrated and inclusive visions and solutions for urban poor.

2. Postgraduate Students Postgraduate students could apply for the research internship by submitting a presentation of their research project, in addition to objectives and expected outcomes, letter of motivation and provisional internship schedule.

VIII.

IMPLEMENTATION, MONITORING AND EVALUATION OF THE PROGRAMME

The implementation, the monitoring, and the evaluation of the Program will be governed and leaded by a Steering Committee composed of the Representatives of UCLG-Africa/ALGA, AUA, and the SoAs, and any resource person who can add value to the Program

7

8