Mentoring Programme

Objective

The objective of the ‘city-to-city mentoring program’ is to share expertise and enhance practical knowledge between key professionals in CDIA partner city administrations and selected professionals in developed country cities to strengthen the process for implementation and operation of investment infrastructure. This mentoring is strictly a volunteer program on a no-fee basis.

While the primary beneficiary is expected to be the professional within cities of developing countries, the mentoring program is intended to be a two-way exchange of knowledge. Through participating in such a programme the mentor side (city and volunteer professional) will also gain a better understanding of barriers to development in different contexts that could help them look at their own issues and approaches. Additionally, such direct approaches of professional-to-professional have the opportunity to build bridges that will support city twinning arrangements and potentially other exchanges. Therefore, participating mentor cities that permit one or more of their professional staff to participate in the program should view this within the context of their ongoing outreach programmes and twinning arrangements that many of them currently engage in.

Target groups

• The recipient side is to be selected senior technical professionals within CDIA partner cities that have responsibilities related primarily to the planning, financing, implementation, operation and maintenance of investment infrastructure

• The mentor side is to be selected professionals from cities in developed countries (typically in CDIA Implementing Partner countries)

Responsibility of the Mentor

• To act as an advisor and mentor to a professional in the target city regarding issues of urban development in the context of developing countries/ cities

• Establish and maintain regular contact (a once per week basis is recommended) with the assigned professional in the target city. The means of initial communication will typically be by email with a possibly for future exchange visits if proven successful

• Keep CDIA informed on the status of the mentoring activities and suggest means for improvement as necessary

Content/ Format

• ‘Mentoring’ topics would be professional in nature to support the decision-making and analysis process of the professional in the target city. It is not intended to replace technical consultancies

• The designated persons in both the recipient and mentor cities will be the only points of contact and this cannot be delegated to other staff

• The format of the mentoring would initially be email-based that would typically take the form of a Question & Answer that would likely be restricted to 1 ‘focus theme’ per week where the discussion should not require input beyond ½ hour of time on the part of the mentor

• All correspondence will be cc’d to CDIA and where appropriate, the CDIA-CMT may provide additional input and points of clarification to either side in order to facilitate the discussion if needed. All such correspondence between the parties may subsequently be edited and placed upon the CDIA website as a ‘blog’ for others to also learn from (but not participate in) the discussion

• If after 1 year, the email-based mentoring proves successful and rated as useful by both parties, an annual exchange visit of 1 week may be considered in order to complement the knowledge exchange process depending on approval of the participants’ home organizations as well as availability of funding support

Approach

• CDIA is building a roster of selected individual professionals within our partner cities that would benefit from, and actively participate in, such a mentoring programme. The roster identifies the professional’s position, background, and likely range of initial discussion areas focusing on key issues the city and his/ her department are confronting. The direct supervisor of the participating professional would be asked to complete an annual evaluation regarding observed benefits from participation in the program

• Concurrently, CDIA is building a list of participating mentor cities and overviews of the professionals and areas of expertise from those organizations that would volunteer to participate in the program as mentors. Mentor cities would be encouraged to recognize the participation of any of their staff in the programme as a professional contribution and as part of their internal staff evaluation

• Based on potential for a suitable match, the roster of professionals from CDIA partner cities would be subsequently circulated to participating ‘mentor cities’ for selection of a suitable counter-part professional that would be matched on a professional-to-professional basis

• The matching would be on an individual-to-individual basis where a mentor would have only one person in one city that he/she would deal with

• CDIA would undertake to subsequently do an ‘email-based’ introduction of the parties, and if after an initial exchange both parties wish to proceed, then have both parties sign an agreement as to the basic objectives and level of expected inputs from both sides

• Should either party wish to withdraw from the mentoring program, they must so advise CDIA-CMT and indicate the reasons. If requested and appropriate, the mentor/ recipient would then be placed back on the roster for future potential matching with another party

Want to participate as a Mentor?

If you are interested in participating as a Mentor within this program and wish to discuss it in more detail including how you can be matched with a professional from one of our partner cities, you may contact David Villeneuve at the CDIA CMT using the contact form below, or by telephone at +63 2 631-2342 here in Manila, Philippines.

Additionally, you can download information sheet (MSWord format): Register as a Mentor and attach it through the contact form below, where we will promptly follow-up with you.

[contact-form 5 "Mentoring Programme"]