Connoisseur Strategies for Global Business Management Page 10 of 93 Archers & Elevators Publishing House www.aeph.in Locating the Sign Qua None of Good Urban Governance to Harare’s Economic Development *Shingai T Kawadza ** Innocent Chirisa *Planning Officer, Urban Development Corporation, 51 Samora Machel Avenue/Julius Nyerere Way, 3rd Floor, Throgmorton House, Harare, Zimbabwe **Senior Lecturer, Urban and Regional Planning, Department of Rural & Urban Planning, University of Zimbabwe, PO Box MP167,Mt Pleasant, Harare, Zimbabwe; “Good governance is perhaps the single most important factor in eradicating poverty and promoting development” [Kofi Annan: 2000]. Abstract Contemporary Harare is haunted by a host of urban governance challenges that has resulted in the city’s economic development sprawling over the years. These challenges include, among other things rising unemployment and poverty. This is despite the city’s vast infrastructural advantage fit enough to explore profitable business opportunities that can spearhead the economy of the city to greater heights. Unfortunately, the formal urban economy has been usurped by the informal economy turning Harare into a vending city. Various schools of thought point the current challenges facing the country to poor urban governance in the part of the responsible Local Authority (City of Harare). This is because, good urban governance is viewed as antidote to foster economic development in the cities especially Harare. Taking into context the city’s vision of achieving world-class city status by 2025, this paper examines the different dimensions that the city of Harare can pursue in stirring up managerial, financial, and socio-economical development. Key words: Urban Governance, urban management, Economic development Harare Introduction From east to west, north to south, the world is flooded by a horde of unending challenges. People from distinct cultures are slowly losing faith in their future as events on the ground especially in urban areas are hard-nosed. African cities seem to be the most affected despite efforts by its leaders to improve the cities. To this realisation, they urgently require strenuous and collaborative efforts to mitigate grinding poverty and inequalities persisting within and among countries. Harare is the capital city of Zimbabwe. The City of Harare (CoH) (Zimbabwe) unfortunately is also inevitably trapped in a quagmire of poverty. This is evidenced by its diminishing economy. Despite possessing one of the best infrastructures in Africa, the infrastructure has of late largely remained stagnant giving rise to poor service delivery. The 2012-2025 CoH Strategic Plans cites four main causes of this slumber as being;  Lack of shared vision and implementable strategic plan together with lack of prioritization creating serious pressure on limited financial resources  Financial crisis (2005-2009) resulted in lack of focus on financial management  Depleted skills base, lack of clarity about roles, blurred accountability and lack of performance monitoring systems, and  Poor corporate governance resulting in gross mismanagement of municipality assets Whilst these generalised four chief causes are worthwhile to mention, much blame still rests with the way the CoH IS managed (c.f. Sunday Mail, 2013). The city is in dire crisis financially. Financial and social accountability, operational transparency and lack of apparent policies to address the city’s ills have resulted in the city losing its sunshine city status and plunging into the doldrums of poverty. Good governance is rooted on the doctrine of carrying out business with absolute integrity and equality, transparency in transactions, making rational decisions, adhering to the laws of the land, accountability and responsibility towards the stakeholders and commitment to conducting business in an ethical manner (c.f. Environment and Urbanization, 2009, Tibaijuka, 2005) .This has been the missing puzzle the CoH operations. This paper is divided in four sections and the first section gives an overview of governance followed by a brief history of governance in Zimbabwe. One section includes the governance problems the country is facing. This problem is costing the city millions of dollars each day. The last two sections concentrates on the way forward in stirring up managerial, financial, and socio-economical development and the conclusion of the paper respectively.