The International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI) congress brought hundreds of delegates from 470 cities and towns around the world to Cape Town between 27 February and 3 March.

ICLEI - now also known as Local Governments for Sustainability - is an association of local governments committed to sustainable development. More than 470 cities and towns around the world are full members and this congress brought together more than 600 delegates from these municipalities.

The conference, held under the title "Out of Africa: Local Solutions for Global Challenges", offered theme sessions, strategy panels, plenary sessions and networking opportunities to plan and implement sustainable local government.

Delegates, from cities as diverse as Sao Paulo, Copenhagen, Lisbon, Entebbe and Nairobi, and from countries ranging from South Korea to Zimbabwe, heard that solutions to global and local sustainability challenges were not to be found in all the "usual" places.

Delegates debated and discussed topics grouped into seven major themes:

Joburg City's Executive Mayor Amos Masondo, the outgoing president of the ICLEI said that although every delegate has different immediate development needs and goals, "we all face similar challenges; our ultimate goals are the same".

"Whether we are from the developed or the developing world, our greater challenges are similar: rapid urbanisation and in-migration, climate change, service delivery, loss of biodiversity, globalisation … That is what really sets the tone at ICLEI - we can all teach each other and we can all learn from each other," he says.

"Personally, I have become interested in issues around greening and greenhouse gas emissions, which have sometimes been regarded as important only to the developed world. Of course we can never discuss environmental issues without discussing poverty alleviation, but it has become clear that it is the poor who suffer the most from a destroyed environment and climate change, for example."

"Every local government throughout the world is aiming to improve the quality of life for its citizens. We want to know how they do it. But we are not here to copy ideas. Our plan is to identify good ideas and adapt them."

City delegates were particularly interested in international integrated transport systems and non-motorised urban mobility. "We can learn from those with working systems," Masondo explains.

Through its integrated transport plan, Joburg City is investigating a unified ticketing and fare system for Johannesburg - but was impressed by the success in Copenhagen, Tilburg and Geneva of car-sharing, car-pooling and excellent bicycle lanes.

"One of our main concerns is public transport," says Masondo. "We are looking at creative ways to reduce the numbers of cars on our roads and improve cycling facilities. But among our emerging middle classes, cars are issues of status. It's about a change of mind-set, and we are learning from cities that are getting it right."

Sources: Johannesburg News Agency