This workshop on the campus of UNISA, attended by nearly 100 people from government and UNISA, carried the Learning City 2020 series of PASCAL events in 2014 forward.  Becoming a Learning City – not if, but how - was the theme of the speech by Prof. Mandla Makhanya, Vice-Chancellor of UNISA (Africa’s largest university), who put the Learning City at the centre of UNISA’s commitment to community engagement.  And it was the closing refrain of Prof. Deon Tustin, Head of the UNISA Market Research, summing up the day’s interventions.

How to make it happen?  Prof. Narend Baijnath, Pro-Vice-Chancellor, gave a masterful half-hour overview of why community engagement is important to UNISA, and how the institution supports it.  The Executive Mayor of the City of Tshwane, His Worship Consellor Kgosientso Ramokgopa, then took the floor for a sustained, in depth exploration of urbanization as the driving force for economic development in the world, the scale of urbanization in Africa, and the initiatives which under his leadership to reduce the spatial disparities in Tshwane and to improve the way in which spatial change fosters a sustainable environment, economic development and human capital. 

After  recapitulating the origins and development of PASCAL, I specified how PASCAL can facilitate the partnership between cities and universities, emphasizing confidence-and trust-building, balancing among social, economic and environmental objectives, and the use of international comparators and good-practice tools to inform the strategic intelligence needed to make best use of projects.  The afternoon was devoted to presentations of the work of Statistics South Africa to provide analytically useful data at a disaggregated spatial scale, and to several case studies of UNISA engagement with municipalities: Bright Site Durban, a distressed inner city area benefitting from a training programme for social workers; a study to ensure injury prevention; and a project bringing together parks, biodiversity and the environment in Johannesburg.  

Reflecting on the common rhetorical device to call community engagement the “third leg” of what universities do, Catherine Odora Hoppers repositioned community engagement at their heart. She emphasized the UNISA-PASCAL team as a “formidable team”. Prof. Hoppers said that in this first workshop signaling the new contract between universities and society, “we are preparing a way in which the inner voice of disenfranchisement meets the outer voice of empowerment”.

So much that governments do – everywhere – is in response to problems that already exist, be it poverty, low participation in the workforce, crime, bad housing, inadequate access to public services, etc.  Shifting to a pro-active, early preventive approach with existing human and financial resources is a major challenge. That would mean a city learning about itself, learning from its mistakes, learning how to build trust and confidence to do things differently, and feeding the lessons of experience back into the city.

From this workshop and other meetings in UNISA and with Statistics South Africa, a preliminary list of issues of relevance in South Africa and to PASCAL more generally looks like this:

Helping mayors and other stakeholders understand and explain the importance of cites: a forum with mayors, to discuss the drivers of urban economic development based on local assets, human capital and competitiveness, and how data can highlight ways to achieve positive agglomeration effects in large urban areas.  This can be linked to specific projects which draw on PASCAL expertise to develop comprehensive visions of how to pull together the different parts of urban economies. A  “smart city” or “sustainable city” objective often calls for physical change and infrastructure investment. How can these be integrated into a “learning city?”

Data work to improve the measurement of the impact of policies on people on a spatial basis: PASCAL can help associations of local government and universities to help city leaders improve their capacity to express demand for data and advice.

Service delivery – a major issue which led to over 200 demonstrations in South Africa, withf implications for how the public sector operates and is structured. This can be paired with local efforts to cut red tape to reduce opportunities for corruption and rent-seeking, and to improve the local climate for investment and entrepreneurship.

PASCAL should survey what its members are doing to mentor or train students and young professionals in urban-related policy fields and in public administration. There are several programs underway at UNISA but no overall co-ordination to make mentoring a key asset.  In addition, and following on the Tampere conference in June 2014, a note should be drafted to show how PASCAL can help graduating doctoral students and young professionals improve the policy impact of their work. This could be a feature in future conferences and workshops.

It is not too soon to start preparing the agenda and invitations for the September 2015 UNISA-PASCAL Conference, “Sharing the Passion for Change”, with a focus on university-municipality relationships in developing countries.