The City of Windhoek (CoW) on Thursday renewed its long-standing corporation agreement with the City of Richmond in the United States of America (USA).

While addressing the media during the signing ceremony, CoW Mayor, Job Amupanda, said the first agreement was signed on 20 March 1998. Therefore, it is important for CoW to strengthen its international affairs, which can produce positive results for its intended purposes.

“We have been saying that we can’t be renewing agreements after five years without something tangible that has been done. There must be something that says we have signed this agreement on this day and this is what came out of that agreement. So that is why action plans are very important to us. Every agreement we sign should have a clear implementation plan,” said Amupanda.

He added that there is a lot the city can benefit from its international “friends” but it can only happen if things are well organised and well communicated.

Namibian ambassador to the USA, Margaret Mensah-Williams, who represented Richmond City and spoke at the same occasion, said one of her major roles is economic diplomacy, which is to strengthen cooperation internationally with the aims of enhancing service delivery efficiently, contributing to the decentralised of local governance, promote good civilised discourse and mutual support for a better world.

“The strategic partnership will integrate and enhance the development of the relevant cities as their cooperation looks at areas of strategic management, technical assistance in civil engineering, town planning fields, economic development, education, culture, sports, public safety, police training, environmental health, exchanging of expertise between local universities, facilitating reciprocal trade, tourism and general exchange of local authority expertise,’ said Mensah-Williams.

She added that the smart partnership will also help nurture more local disciplines in the pursuit of real-world challenges, and transform research into practical application to assist with the roadmap in directing CoW’s vision of becoming a smart, caring city by 2022. Therefore, there is a fantastic window of opportunity for the city to start visioning the next generation of urban development, focusing on integrated and smart solutions to manage rapid urbanisation and the lives of many residents.

Source: Namibia Press Agency