Theme: Service Delivery to Urban dwellers in Eastern Africa
Date: July 25-28 2012
Venue: Arusha, Tanzania

Africa’s urban population will increase from 414 million to over 1.2 billion by 2050 (UN report on World Urbanization Prospects 2011). East Africans witness a surge transformation of villages into urban centers and urban center population growths at a scale never witnessed before. While this unprecedented increase in urbanization and urban population provides new opportunities for service providers, it also poses new challenges in such areas as job provision, housing, energy, communication infrastructure and curtailing the expansion of slums.

Eastern Africa Sister Cities (EASC) offers urban council leaders, experts in urban matters, business leaders and NGO’s who deal with urban related issues an opportunity to participate in the upcoming EASC Regional forum. The forum will focus on the following objectives:-

•To identify the challenges facing urban service delivery in Eastern Africa
•To discuss how to improve service delivery in urban areas in Eastern Africa
•To explore whether city twinning can be an avenue for best practice sharing to improve service delivery in Eastern Africa

Who should attend?

Business leaders offering services in urban areas; urban council leaders in the Eastern Africa region; Experts in urbanization in Africa and NGO’s dealing with urbanization challenges.

If interested, please send a brief bio and key focus area by June 30, 2012 to [email protected]  Selected participants will be notified by July 15, 2012.

Background of EASC

The Eastern Africa Sister Cities (EASC) was established following the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between Sister Cities International and the Inter Region Economic Network (IREN) in August 2011. EASC’s main goals are to develop, coordinate, incubate, help sustain existing city, town and municipality links worldwide with emphasis to promote a south to south city twinning and strengthen Sister Cities in Eastern Africa region.