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Mayor of Cape Town wins the 2008 World Mayor Award

left to right: Sebastian Winkler (Head of Countdown 2010 and LAB Steering Committee member); Stephen Granger (Manager: Major Projects and Programmes, City of Cape Town and Chair of the LAB Steering Committee); Executive Mayor Helen Zille at a LAB event at Kirstenbosch, South Africa, in March 2008. Photograph: Bruce Sutherland

 

 

Helen Zille, Executive Mayor of Cape Town, South Africa, has been awarded the 2008 World Mayor Prize by global local government think-tank City Mayors. The competition, the only one of its kind, has run for the past 18 months.

International cooperation and involvement in LAB: key to sustainability

Mayor Zille commented on the significance of being involved in international projects like ICLEI’s Local Action for Biodiversity project: “Finally, we are also actively involved in international programmes and projects, which help us build sustainable partnerships because we realise that we cannot achieve our objectives alone as we seek to balance conservation and development. An example of this is the Local Action for Biodiversity (LAB) project, which Cape Town initiated in 2006 at the ICLEI Local Governments for Sustainability World Congress that was held in our city. This is now a flourishing international programme drawing together 21 cities from all continents to enhance biodiversity at local government and city level.”

How can Cape Town grow sustainably?

Zille responded to a question about long-term plans to keep Cape Town the ‘jewel’ that it is in future: “Our IDP [Integrated Development Plan] recognises that Cape Town’s natural resources are our biggest economic asset. We also recognise how demographic pressures, from a variety of sources, threaten these assets. It is a particular challenge to secure land for human settlement in a region that has the world’s richest, and most threatened biodiversity. This means that we have to find ways of increasing densities in areas designated for development, while carefully preserving other areas.”

About the World Mayor project

The aim of the international World Mayor project, which was launched by the urban affairs think-tank City Mayors in January 2004, is to raise the profile of mayors worldwide by honouring those who have served their communities well and have made significant contributions to cities nationally and internationally. Participants in the competition are invited to nominate and vote for city leaders who excel in qualities such as leadership and vision, management abilities, social and economic awareness, ability to provide security and to protect the environment as well as the will and ability to foster good relations between communities from different cultural, racial and social backgrounds.

Results

The top 11 mayors of World Mayor 2008:

  1. Helen Zille, Mayor of Cape Town, South Africa

  2. Elmar Ledergerber, Mayor of Zurich, Switzerland

  3. Leopoldo Eduardo López, Mayor of Chacao, Venezuela

  4. Phil Gordon, Mayor of Phoenix, USA

  5. Ulrich Maly, Mayor of Nuremberg, Germany

  6. Jaime Nebot, Mayor of Guayaquil, Ecuador

  7. Marides Fernando, Mayor of Marikina City, Philippines

  8. Mohammad Baqer Ghalibaf, Mayor of Tehran, Iran

  9. Göran Johansson, Mayor of Gothenburg, Sweden

  10. José Fogaça, Mayor of Porto Alegre, Brazil

More information