Aurangabad, India hosted a two-day national national dissemination workshop on local government good practice from 22-23 September. The theme of the workshop, run by CLGF in collaboration with the Aurangabad Municipal Corporation was service delivery and community engagement, with good practice and lessons from partnerships between councils in India and the UK and South Africa. 

Aurangabad Municipal Commissioner Dr Purushottam Bhapkar welcomed the delegates to the workshop.  Presentations were made by the partnerships between India and their counterparts in the UK and South Africa, on how their projects have helped to build local capacity, with a particular focus on waste management and strengthening community engagement with local government.  Partnerships have developed between:

• Aurgangabad Municipal Corporation and Birmingham City Council, UK
• Rajkot Municipal Corporation, Ludhiana Municipal Corporation and Leicester City Council, UK
• Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation and the London Borough of Hounslow, UK
• Vadadodara Municipal Corporation and Cardiff City Council
• Kohima Municipal Council and Cape Town City Council
• Gondal Municipal Council  and Vhembe District Municipality, South Africa
• Thruvananthapuram District Panchayat and Mopani District Municipality, South Africa.

 The workshop allowed CLGF to highlight their achievements and share the learning with municipalities and other stakeholders who did not have the opportunity to participate.  Participants supported the community resource model for delivery of core municipal services and hoped it would be developed into practical guidelines for wider dissemination and use by other councils.

Participants also made recommendations on waste management delivery, developing inclusive sustainable development plans and developing local economic development strategies.

The workshop is part of the final phase of CLGF’s three year capacity building programme, the Good Practice Scheme (GPS) which is funded by DFID (UK), and seeks to improve local service delivery through the sharing of good practice and practitioner to practitioner learning. The Aurangabad workshop is the third in a series of Good Practice Scheme dissemination workshops which are being held in Ghana, Jamaica, Sierra Leone and South Africa.