Forging sister city connections in a Covid world

What exactly is a sister city and what does it mean to have them?

Sister cities are partnerships – they’re broad and long-term. They can come from anywhere as well – business relationships which starts people talking, a school exchange, a horticulturalist – as in the case of Hastings, New Zealand and Guilin, China – whose interest in botany took him to China, or an Indonesian PhD student arriving in Canterbury.  

While sister city agreements are formalised and signed by local officials on either end, often the ties between cities already exist, fuelled by anything from business to culture and education.  

Sister cities have a strong history in New Zealand that is celebrated to this day– recently, the organisation Sister Cities New Zealand hosted its 40th annual conference, bringing together local government and community representatives from around New Zealand together.  

The Sister Cities New Zealand conference was held in Te Papa over April 15 and 16. Photo: Southlight/Simon Hoyle

After WWI, many of New Zealand’s first sister city relationships were established, often within countries like Australia, England or the US. From the 1970s however, that began to change.  

According to Sister Cities New Zealand, currently, towns, cities and districts in New Zealand have 159 links spread across 24 countries. More than half of these sister city links are between New Zealand and Asia: Japan and China alone make up 82 of these links, with 44 and 38 respectively. These links started growing throughout the 1980s, reflecting New Zealand's growing trade and interest in the region.

At the recent Sister Cities New Zealand conference, delegates from local councils, community organisations and local government around the country joined to take a closer look at these relationships, especially in the time of Covid.  

Speaking on a panel focused on relationships and economic development, Auckland Unlimited general manager of economic development Pam Ford says, “it is really hard work to make [sister cities] work but it has multiple, multiple benefits to bringing cities together.” 

Pam Ford speaking at the Sister Cities New Zealand annual conference. Photo: Southlight/Simon Hoyle

She said these benefits included strengthening ties, promoting trade and investment, and building people-to-people links. 

Speaking on the same panel, Marlborough District Council economic development manager Neil Henry made a similar point. Marlborough is twinned with the Chinese region of Ningxia and the two regions have much in common. 

Ningxia is China’s third largest wine region and has around 50,000 hectares of vines to Marlborough’s 30,000.  

Since 2013, winemakers from Marlborough have been exchanging their skills and technology with their counterparts in Ningxia and a sister region relationship was formalised in 2017. 

“A lot of this relationship is about wine technology,” Henry says, “They’re interested in what technology we use.” 

VinWizard, a Marlborough company specialising in winery control and automation, has already installed their technology in Ningxia wineries and the wine tech boom in China is paying off for New Zealand region as a whole. According to the Marlborough council’s numbers, the spend on visits to the Ningxia region since the relationship was established is $37,000 but the gross revenue earned by Marlborough in that time is estimated at around $1.1 million. 

Neil Henry speaks on the economic benefits of the Marlborough District Council's sister relationship with Ningxia in China. Photo: Southlight/Simon Hoyle

Beyond economics, a common theme of many discussions at the conference was the importance of people-to-people connections. While the concept of sister cities existed before World War II, it was in the wake of the war that sister city relationships surged, when there was a demand for more people-to-people links across the globe. 

Selwyn District’s Graham Robertson, chair of Toraja Rural Development Charitable Trust, showcased this when he talked about his district’s relationship with a district in Indonesia. 

Selwyn District has New Zealand’s first sister city (or in this case, region) relationship with Indonesia, with the region of North Toraja. 

While the sister relationship formally began in 2014, Selwyn farmers have had a longer history with Toraja and the Indonesian farmers growing coffee beans on the region’s steep hills. 

Toraja, Indonesia (pictured) has a sister city relationship with Selwyn District.

The relationship started from a PhD student who arrived in Canterbury from Indonesia. He brought along his wife – who came from Toraja – and their children.  

When his wife’s father came for a visit to Canterbury, he “formed the opinion that New Zealand farmers were a bit organised”, Robertson says. 

From that grew a farmer-to-farmer initiative, with Kiwi farmers sharing their knowledge and skills with their Indonesian counterparts, even suggesting a coffee growing competition at one point, to fuel innovation.  

Want to find out more about your town’s sister relationships? A good place to start is with your local council’s web page.  

- Asia Media Centre