In this era of globalisation and rapid urbanisation, can city-to-city partnerships provide a unique approach towards contributing to the development needs of South African cities? There is a growing literature dedicated to North-South and South-South municipal international cooperation, exploring impacts on local governance and development, for either or both of the cities. However, there is a paucity of knowledge on this topic in South Africa. This project hopes to address this critical occlusion by examining Johannesburg’s experience of city-to-city cooperation partnerships. These partnerships will be examined with reference to how they are organised and their implementation. Has cooperation provided social and economic development in Johannesburg as agreements often state? To answer the research questions, an in-depth understanding of city-to-city partnerships in South Africa is required; therefore a qualitative data collection approach was adopted. City-to-city cooperation crosses geographical borders, and this study investigates how it also extends across theories, government spheres and topics. The research traces policy and practice of international city-to-city cooperation relationships, identifying the salient aspects of these city-level engagements and incorporates a critical view of policy documents that frame municipal international relations in South Africa, specifically in Johannesburg. The research shows that international city-to-city cooperation agreements should be greeted with a degree of scepticism in terms of the disparity between the agreement’s objectives, and the practical experience of implementation. Municipal international relations are an interesting exercise in city autonomy in the global economy, yet they are often conscribed by provincial and national government requirements.

The sister city concept has now been around for several decades and yet there remains to be a paucity of literature dealing with the subject. Despite this unfortunate fact, there has been some literature written trying to deal with the progression of what sparked cities to try to establish sister city relationships with one another. However, this is still not enough. Diasporas have been neglected as a potential cause, which I try to remedy by employing the method of explaining outcome process tracing in a case study of the sister city relationship that began to be explored between the cities of Governador Valadares, Brazil and Framingham, United States.Information was collected using materials such as news articles from such sources as the Metrowest Daily News and official websites such as Governador Valadares’ official city webpage, and various histories, ethnographies, and other sources were also considered especially focusing on Framingham and the Greater Boston Area, allowing for the collection of materials of both primary and secondary nature and thus an in-depth analysis.What was found was that indeed, it is true that diaspora had a hand in influencing the negotiation of a sister city relationship between the two cities; First, the context of the Brazilian Diaspora in the United States was explained and analysed and it was found that it could be termed a termed a proletarian labour diaspora.Explaining outcome process tracing was then employed to inductively explain how the spark can be created, which suggested that the causal mechanism between the diaspora and the negotiations for the SCR to begin were that of an enclave forming due to the diaspora which then allowed social capital to be accumulated, allowing for Governador Valadares to grow despite Brazil’s bad economic conditions due to remittances, leading to the mayor of Governador Valadares initiating the talks.