Honourable Minister of Construction, Energy, Water & LandsHis Worship the Mayor of Zanzibar Deputy Mayor of Visby The delegation from Visby, GotlandRepresentatives of the STCDALadies and Gentleman
It gives me a great pleasure to be here this morning for many reasons; one is to witness the opening of a week of joint cultural events between the people of Stone Town Zanzibar and representatives from Visby. Secondly it is to extend my sincere welcome to the delegates from Visby, Sweden to Tanzania. As you are well aware of, Sweden is supporting the Stone Town Conservation and Development Authority – STCDA in its endeavour to sustain the conservation and preservation of Zanzibar Stone Town as a World Heritage Site and an Urban human settlement. One of the objectives is to develop institutional co-operation between Zanzibar Stone Town and Visby – the Stone Town of Gotland. (An agreement was signed between the Embassy and STCDA in August 2002 for three years 2002 –2005)
To achieve this goal, I am informed that exchange visits have taken place firstly from Visby to Zanzibar in April 2003 and this was followed by a visit to Visby by STCDA and Mayor of Zanzibar Municipality. The outcome of these two visits was the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in 14 May, 2003. The MOU focuses on creating closer co-operation between the two towns in their position as World Heritage Sites; to exchange and share knowledge and experiences as well as promoting local and international awareness. Capacity building and fund raising management is another area, which will be covered.
Since 1993 Sweden, through Sida has been supporting twining between cities and municipalities in Sweden and cities and municipalities in different developing countries. We believe that direct cooperation between cities and municipalities at this level can develop deeper understanding, foster deeper and wider relations to mutual benefit and eventually contribute to improving living conditions for the urban poor. In a new Swedish government bill, recently approved by the Swedish Parliament, even more emphasis will be put on the involvement of Swedish institutions like municipalities in the international development efforts. Visby is one municipality in the forefront to elaborate how this can be done.
I am very pleased to note that the co-operation between Visby and Zanzibar already contains a wide range of different actors like the municipal government, schools, museums, journalists and government agencies. This will certainly have an impact on many individuals and on different groups in the two Stone Towns.
You have many challenges ahead of you - one is to explore the role of this partnership. So far it has concentrated on Visby Municipality and STCDA, which is a Government Agency. However, in order to achieve long term sustainability the role of the Zanzibar Stone Town Municipality needs to be defined. So far experience has shown that the strength in twining co-operation of this sort is based on peer to peer inspiration in trying to address and solve development problems.
I would like to conclude by assuring you that Sida and the Swedish Embassy in Dar es Salaam will continue to be an active facilitator and not only a financial actor in this partnership.
I thank the Stone Town Conservation and Development Authority for inviting me and I do wish all of you participating in this week’s activities every success in you endeavours.
Asante sana and thank you