City- Systems Leadership Programme
Janaagraha and Jana Urban Space Foundation with the support of the British Deputy High Commission (BDHC), Bengaluru, conducted a two-day City-Systems Leadership Programme for mayors, councillors and administrators of municipal corporations in Karnataka in Bengaluru. The event had 30 participants from cities across Karnataka including Mysore, Vijayapura, Mandya, Shivamogga and Hubbali-Dharwad, besides Bengaluru. The Mayors of Mysore, Vijaypura were among those who participated.
The programme comprised five sessions spread across two days covering topics on city-systems, participatory budgeting, urban road design, civic technologies, municipal finance reforms and solid waste management. The session on municipal finance reforms was conducted by Mr Vara Prasad Reddy, Joint Director of the erstwhile Karnataka Municipal Reforms Cell (now Karnataka Municipal Data Society), which spearheaded landmark accounting reforms in urban local bodies in Karnataka. Mr. D G Nagaraj, Health Officer, Mysore Municipal Corporation shared the best practices in solid waste management.
The highlight of the City-Systems Leadership Programme was a role play to illustrate the importance of backing budgets by data based preferences and through citizen participation. Participants were also taken for site visits to ‘completed’ and ‘in-progress’ Tender S.U.R.E roads, to give them first-hand exposure to understand the systemic nature of the Tender SURE solution.
We believe that systemic challenges in our cities cannot be addressed without focussed political leadership and hope that the City-Systems Leadership Programme has served as a platform for mayors, councillors and commissioners to exchange create critical views and opinions.