Whats MDP?
The Municipal Development Partnership (MDP) was launched in May 1991 to improve the capacity of local governments and support the process of decentralization in Sub-Saharan Africa. The Programme has two regional offices: the Western and Central African office in Cotonou, Benin and the Eastern and Southern African office in Harare, Zimbabwe. Both units collaborate closely but maintain separate regional offices in order to increase administrative flexibility and respond to different local government modalities in Western and Eastern and Southern Africa. Each unit has a Board of Directors composed of Mayors, Town Clerks and local government practitioners and representatives of donor agencies. >>Read More

Participatory Budgeting Facility for Africa
The World Bank's Social Development Department (SDV), in collaboration with the World Bank Institute (WBI), has provided funding to MDP-ESA through the Norwegian and Finish Trust Fund (TFESSD) to establish a Participatory Budgeting Knowledge and Action Support Facility for Africa.
The Facility will establish links and serve as a focal point to channel demands from various institutions and individuals, such as policy experts, program managers and legislative drafters seeking expertise and advice in the area of participatory budgeting and other related fields. MDP-ESA will rely on acknowledged experts in the Africa region and beyond in responding to this demand. A similar Facility has also been established for the Latin America and Caribbean Region at the International Centre for Urban Management (CIGU) in Ecuador. MDP-ESA and CIGU will collaborate closely to promote cross-regional knowledge sharing, where possible drawing from, and involving other regional networks. More information about the Africa facility can be obtained from the Facility's Website on http://www.asaaf.org.zw/thefacility.html

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Delegates to the Africa Regional Conference on Participatory Budgeting, Royal Hotel, March 10 - 14, 2008, Durban, South Africa >>Read More

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Urban Agriculture

The Cities Farming for the Future (CFF) is a global programme that seeks to integrate agriculture into urban development. The Programme is coordinated globally by the Resource Centre on Urban Agriculture and Food Security (RUAF) and funded by Directorate-General for International Cooperation, Netherlands (DGIS) and the International Development Research Center, Canada (IDRC). The Municipal Development Partnership for Eastern and Southern Africa (MDPESA) is responsible for managing the programme in the region. The main objective of this programme is to contribute to urban poverty reduction, urban food security, improved urban environmental management, empowerment of urban farmers and participatory city governance by capacity development of local stakeholders in urban agriculture and facilitating participatory and multi-stakeholder policy formulation and action planning on urban agriculture, including safe reuse of urban organic wastes and wastewater.>> More

MDP-ESA Becomes the 8th African Member of the United Nations Public Finance and Administration
MDP-ESA has become the 8th African organisation to be admitted to the prestigious United Nations Public Administration Network (UNPAN). MDP-ESA was admitted on the strength of her contribution to the promotion of participatory budgeting and governance in general at sub-national level in Africa. The mission of UNPAN is to promote the sharing of knowledge, experiences and best practices throughout the world in sound public policies, effective public administration and efficient civil services, through capacity-building and cooperation among the United Nations Member States, with emphasis on south-south cooperation. >> More