I was busy (and tired)
during the weekend so I didn’t have the opportunity to write anything. So let
me go back to the rest of the activities we did last week.
On Wednesday we
visited the department which is in charge of the financial management in Mwanza
City. I wanted to know the financial procedures and discuss about the new
guidelines that AFLRA has brought about for the new project period. There are a
lot of challenges in the financial management since the project is just a small
drop in the ocean in the massive system of Mwanza City. We have to be able to
fit in somehow with our specific rules that our funder requires. It is a
difficult and somehow sensitive topic but all in all, we had a good discussion
and managed to come to a conclusion that hopefully satisfies both parties.
After the meeting we
took a taxi to the far end of the rural Mwanza, in Sahwa school. It is a remote
school with limited resources but with very friendly teachers and a green
environment. The school is especially engaged to the composting activity and
they have grown a lot of trees in the surroundings of the schools with
assistance of the compost manure. Sahwa will be one of the areas where
bio-waste will be transported from the city area for composting. They will also
arrange demonstrations and raise awareness to the surrounding community on
composting and the plan is that some of the farmers will want to engage
themselves in composting as well.
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| Compost at Sahwa School, picture by Ruusa Gawaza |
On Thursday morning we
were back in the City Council and met with the Economic Planning Department,
which will be taking part in the administration exchange. Through that
discussion I really got to understand the core challenges of the city, which is
struggling with minimum resources but wants to deliver good services to the
population. It was also funny to realise that we are dealing with many same
challenges in Tampere, for example how to set tangible indicators for the
activities conducted in the city or what the relationship between the politically
chosen city council and the implementing departments is. Mwanza city is very
advanced in implementing local democracy and decentralising responsibility from
the city council to the grass root level. Tampere has certainly more to learn
from that!
Very good and
interesting two days, I can say! What happened over the weekend? Find out in
the next post…
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