Sibongile Hlatshwayo

City of Ekurhuleni

The City of Ekurhuleni is found in the heart of the Gauteng province in South Africa, and set to be the first Aerotropolis in Africa. Spread over 15.6% of Gauteng's land, it houses 5.4% of the country's population and 29% of Gauteng province's population. Pronounced ‘e-koo-roo-le-ni', Ekurhuleni is a Tsonga (one of the 11 official languages of South Africa) word meaning ‘place of peace'. The choice of a Tsonga word for the name of the metropolitan municipality is symbolic of the diversity of the new city, and of its vision of an equitable and progressive community. In 2013, the City of Ekurhuleni adopted its Growth and Development Strategy 2055. This GDS 2055 gave the City structure and vision for the years ahead. For the City to navigate itself five long term goals will guide the 2055 journey namely: sustainable urban integration, job creating economic growth, social empowerment, environmental wellbeing and effective cooperative governance. The five leading strategies deployed to pursue these goals are: • Re-urbanise to achieve sustainable urban integration; • Re-industrialise to achieve to job creating economic growth; • Re-generate to achieve environmental wellbeing; • Re-mobilise to achieve social empowerment; and • Re-govern to achieve effective cooperative governance.