By Nangamso Mabindla
11 February 2008

KNOWLEDGE management is necessary for a municipality to achieve its core responsibility of delivering services to the people.

That was the message of South African Cities Network (SACN) Chief Executive Sithole Mbanga, speaking in East London at a two-day strategic session organised by the Knowledge Management Reference Group (KMRG).

The KMRG was established in 2004 to promote a shared-learning partnership between different spheres of government in support of good governance in cities.

The session was attended by knowledge managers from the nine cities making up the Cities Network, provincial government knowledge management practitioners and representatives of the University of Fort Hare

"If you look at the cities that make up the Cities Network, you will notice that there are a lot of similarities. Buffalo City is very similar to Mangaung and eThekwini is very similar to Cape Town; so because of these similarities, it is possible for them to learn from each other," said Mbanga

The nine cities that make up the SACN are Buffalo City, Cape Town, Ekurhuleni, eThekwini, Johannesburg, Mangaung, Msunduzi, Nelson Mandela Metro and Tshwane.

Because of these similarities, each city needed to learn how other cities delivered services successfully, and effective knowledge management would play a major role.

"Effective knowledge management will also improve intergovernmental relations and local government will be able to be a key participant in government policy debate. All government spheres need to influence each other. Each municipality needs to have a knowledge manager," added Mbanga

With effective knowledge management, cities would be able to learn best practices from cities with similar challenges.

"If we were serious about knowledge management, we would not have so many sister cities partnerships; we would not need to go overseas for best practices, we would learn those from local cities with similar characteristics."

Delegates at the workshop were urged to improve the quality of knowledge management in cities around the country.