“Are cities driving local and national development?”
Deputy Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Mr Andries Nel,
Our host Mayor, and the Committee Chair of the 2016 State of Cities Report, Councillor Kgosientso Ramokgopa,
Secretary-General of the UCLG-Africa, Mr Jean Pierre Elong Mbassi
Chairperson of the South African Local Government Association, Councillor Thabo Manyoni,
Chairperson of the South African Cities Network Board, Councillor Parks Tau, Mayors present today,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
This Urban Conference is hosted at a time when the world’s attention is on redefining the 21st century urban agenda. As the world population becomes more urbanised, the greatest challenge is to define an urbanisation model that promotes resilient, inclusive and equitable cities.
Globally, urban areas have experienced dramatic population growth in the last 20 years. About half of the world’s total population live in urban settlements. This represents a totally different picture from that experienced 30 years, ago when only 13 percent of the population lived in urban areas; and just 16 cities in the world contained at least a million people. Today, there are almost 400 cities around the world with more than a million residents. About 70 percent of these cities are in less developed countries.
Urbanisation is part of a historical process, as the world transitions from one mode of economic and social existence to another. It cannot be separated from the major technological, economic and social trends of a period. Above all, it must be viewed and analysed as part of the political economy of an era, the globe and a country.
As we deliberate during this conference, we need to consider some of these elements in the current political economy:
- Migration versus anti-immigration;
- Multipolarity and the contestation for resources;
- Economic balances/imbalances and related issues, such as austerity measures or the role of the various sectors;
- Social divisions/imbalances;
- Inclusion versus exclusion;
- Trust deficit;
- Corporate deficit; and
- Geopolitical tensions and contestations.
It is important to look at the developmental model that will benefit all citizens, young and old, rich and poor. Such a model should ensure that all people enjoy the freedom of our democracy. As Steve Friedman correctly says:
“Unless freedom is for everyone, not just for us, it is not freedom. We are bound to try rescue it from those who turn it into a tribal prejudice.”
Looking at the theme of the conference, some of the questions we need to think about as we reflect on the urban vision and future we want are:
- Is the day-to-day decision making consistent with local and national development?
- Are our institutions truly inclusive?
- Are we just partners to old and new extractive elites?
Speaking at the first session of the Preparatory Committee of the United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development in New York on the 17 September 2014, the Executive Director of UNHABITAT, Dr Clos said:
“we should focus on creating a coherent view of this important phenomenon (urbanisation) and its role in sustainable development. We need cities and human settlements that are inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable.”
Gatherings such as this conference, the second session of the United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development (UNHABITAT PREPCOM 2) meeting to be held in Nairobi, Kenya in April 2015, as well as the seventh edition of the Africities Summit to be hosted by the City of Johannesburg from 1–5 December 2015, provide us with platforms to think about the path we need to take, and to contribute on the new urban agenda that will be adopted during the UNHABITAT III session in Ecuador in October 2016.
Furthermore, our own processes, such as the evolving work on the Integrated Urban Development Framework and the development of the 2016 State of Cities Report, is an opportunity to define a clear and relevant South African urban agenda to develop inclusive, safe, resilient and equitable cities.
All these initiatives acknowledge the fact that we are living in an urban century, and that the battle for sustainable and inclusive development will be won or lost in cities.
It is beyond doubt that our cities have a role to play in local and national development due to their economic potential. Cities generate more than 80 percent of the global GDP, and no country has achieved sustained economic growth without the growth of its cities. According to a report by the McKinsey Global Institute, only 600 urban centres generated about 60 percent of the global GDP. Our own urban centres produced 81.4 percent of the country’s GVA, with more than half of the contribution coming from the four city-regions namely Gauteng, eThekwini, Port Elizabeth and Cape Town.
Poorly managed urban growth, on the other hand, is likely to have substantial costs and a negative impact on development. Urban sprawl, poor public transport infrastructure and a lack of basic services such as water, sanitation, waste and energy can hinder accessibility and mobility, increase air pollution, exacerbate urban poverty and reduce economic benefits. As indicated in our National Development Plan, the main challenge in planning for urban areas is to enable job creation linked to sustainable livelihoods and to establish well-performing human settlements.
Speaking at the New Urban Age Conference in Delhi, Dr Joan Clos, summed this well when he said:
“Good cities do not come about by accident. The prerequisites for a good city are broad community consensus, long-standing political determination and sound urban planning which, over the course of time engender urban environments that can provide well-being and security to their inhabitants, guarantee the supply of water, energy and food and promote a compact and diverse urban structure in which innovation, trade and economic prosperity are encouraged.”
An opportunity indeed exists for the creation of prosperous cities, cities characterised by high productivity, good infrastructure, better quality of life, social inclusion and environmental sustainability. Successful cities provide stimulating environments for their inhabitants. They meet multiple goals, including living and working environments that promote health and well-being, and support a prosperous economic base.
But, this will not happen automatically. It is dependent on the quality of the administrative and political leadership, the quality of the decisions we take as cities as well as a concrete understanding of the local political economy.
On the 18 September 2014, President Zuma launched the Back-to-Basics Approach. The objective of the approach is to ensure a well-functioning and efficient local government system in support of the national developmental agenda. This is an approach that says: let us get the non-negotiable basics of urban management and governance right, before we focus on the most sophisticated things in order to compete globally. This is because quite often we tend to focus on the most sophisticated things, while ignoring the most basic things required for our cities to function properly, thereby losing an opportunity to impact on the lives of ordinary South Africans. We need to be able to strike a balance between getting our basics right and keeping on track with the global discourse in order to remain competitive.
The five pillars identified by the Back-to-Basics Approach, namely Putting People First, Service Delivery, Good Governance, Sound Financial Management and Capable Institutions and Administration are well aligned to the City Prosperity Index developed by the UNHABITAT. This Index combines several dimensions to ensure a prosperous city – a city that promotes inclusive economic growth, ensures equitable development, promotes social dignity and reduces risks and vulnerabilities.
Understanding the local political economy:
A prosperous city contributes to economic growth and development, generates income, and provides decent jobs and equal opportunities for all by implementing effective economic policies.
It is acknowledged that macro-economic policies have an impact on city economies. There are, however, basic things that cities can and should do to improve productivity. The 1998 White Paper on Local Government identifies maximising social development and economic growth as one of the characteristics of developmental local government. The policy further acknowledges that the role of local government is to ensure that the overall economic conditions are conducive to the creation of employment opportunities.
Attaining this requires understanding the local economy, the various (competing) interests and taking decisions that will benefit the majority of the residents, particularly the most vulnerable and marginalised.
One of the most worrying phenomena is the widening gap between the poor and the rich, the increase in the urban poor and high unemployment levels despite the potential in the cities. The majority of our cities have developed economic development strategies and have established economic development units, yet the impact of such remain unfelt by the majority of the residents.
Ways to address this include ensuring that economic development strategies are relevant and respond to the local conditions, and that we employ people with the right economic skills and capabilities in economic development units. It would be interesting to assess how many of our cities have development economists or people with the required economic capabilities to drive the city’s economic agenda.
Furthermore, as one walks in the various townships and informal settlements, one sees a lot of economic activities being undertaken. The extent to which local policies and plans acknowledge and support such initiatives is not great.
Some of the more practical questions we need to be asking ourselves in relation to our own cities and towns are:
Enterprise Development: What are we doing as cities to create an environment that is conducive for the development of enterprises? Do our economic strategies, policies, planning schemes and land-use management systems support the development of SMMEs or are they stifling enterprise development?
Township Economies and Home-Based Enterprises: Do we have concrete plans to support the economies in our townships, home-based enterprises and other urban livelihoods? Do our economic strategies even acknowledge the existence of such economies and thereby respond to the reality on the ground. There is a lot we can learn from organisations such as the International Rescue Committee on how to harness the energy and economic potential in these areas.
Partnerships: What partnerships are we building with the private sector and other role-players in support of economic development? Through programmes such as the Business-Adopt-a Municipality, we have seen how partnerships can help create a conducive environment for business to flourish. Partnerships between SAB Miller and the Nelson Mandela Metro, Santam and several municipalities, for example, are some of such partnerships that cities should pursue. Our engagements with various stakeholders indicate that there a lot of people of goodwill, ready to partner and cooperate with us to change the lives of our people. We need to reach out to this group of people. We should also mobilise all national skills, within and outside government in order to reach our developmental goals.
Innovation: What innovative programmes are we implementing to create job opportunities or create an environment that allows people to start businesses? Initiatives such as the Tshwane Wi-Fi project aimed at improving access to information to deal with physical barriers are commendable. What are we doing in this regards? Are we fully engaging and partnering with our research institutions and civil society to develop innovative responses while also promoting the social economy?
These issues are also captured in the Draft Integrated Urban Development Framework being consulted upon. The proposed lever, inclusive economic development deals with some of the challenges and proposes strategic priorities. As we engage with the draft during this consultation phase, let us identify concrete initiatives for immediate implementation in order to improve the productivity of our cities and thereby deal with the challenges of poverty, inequality and unemployment. It will be important to identify policy priorities and concrete actions that will have an impact even on the ordinary citizens.
Decision-making
The amount of time we take to make decisions and the quality of the decisions we take in cities have a bearing on contribution to local and national development.
Our economic governance models will determine how productive our cities are and the impact on the quality of life of ordinary citizens. Simple things, such as the red- tape; enforcement of by-laws; decision making processes and turn-around times, are an indication of our ability to contribute to development. For example, due to a delay in getting the necessary decisions and receiving timeous feedback from a municipality, one company had to set its production plant elsewhere, which was not its first choice. This is just an indication of the importance of dealing with the “softer issues” in ensuring that cities function efficiently. It is an example of how a protracted decision and poor governance can disadvantage the growth of the city.
Our office is inundated with complaints from big corporates due to the frustrations with their encounters with various municipalities.
There are also good stories to tell, where municipalities have streamlined their governance processes making it easier for the private sector to operate. Speaking at the Presidential Local Government Summit, the CEO of SAPPI, Mr Alex Thiel, indicated contrasting experiences as they work with municipalities. Mr Thiel spoke of the positive relationship with Mandeni Municipality, which among others, includes regular contact with both the political and administrative leadership as well as other partnerships in the implementation of various development projects. The company’s experience with the KwaDukuza Municipality, on the other hand is different. Challenges range from unreliable power supply, inaction from both political and administrative leadership, and many more, resulting in significant direct losses for the company. These are some of the things that require attention for urban areas to contribute to local and national development.
Spatial transformation
Where people live, work and play matters. It is well acknowledged that since democracy, we have not been very successful in reversing the apartheid spatial patterns. Our cities still mirror the apartheid planning patterns, with the poor located far from social and economic opportunities, and thereby spending a lot of time and money to access these opportunities. They continue to be highly inefficient due to the low densities and sprawl. This is despite the availability of various planning instruments to increase densities and contain the sprawl.
Prof Mark Orange, in a paper titled “Spatial Transformation and Urban Restructuring: Lessons for the 20 year old post-apartheid South African city” provides a vivid scenario of the road we have travelled since democracy when he says:
“Despite this barrage of attention, South African cities, two decades after democracy still bear, in most ways, the core apartheid features of:
- Quality living and accessibility to economic opportunities, school and retail and entertainment facilities on formalised residential areas in which property has value, for the few;
- A sniff of some of these attributes for some; and
- Very little to none of these, for the many,”
It is the last two categories that we should be worried about, the some and the few that are not fully enjoying the benefits and opportunities that our cities have to offer.
Some of the local strategies adopted by our cities in pursuit of sustainable development have included renewed emphasis on public transport and more compact forms of urban development that closely track the key transport corridors within cities. This is highly commendable. There is, however, a need to move with urgency.
Our focus should be on using the available instruments such as integrated spatial planning, infrastructure investments, regulatory instruments and financing mechanisms to re-orientate our thinking and actions in order to transform our spaces. This would require strong intergovernmental collaboration.
The London School of Economics and Politics (LSE Cities) proposes an interesting model for alternative urban development, called the 3C model. This model, which advocates for compact urban growth, connected infrastructure and coordinated governance provides sound pillars we can pursue in support of spatial transformation.
An analysis conducted by Statistics South Africa on the alignment between city capital expenditure and priority areas identified through the spatial development frameworks (SDFs) provides an encouraging picture. Although only a few cities were analysed, the analysis showed a good alignment between SDFs and capital expenditure. Cities are applauded and encouraged to pursue this. This is also a challenge to other public entities to ensure that capital spending is aligned with the SDFs.
Infrastructure Development
Provision and maintenance of adequate infrastructure for water, sanitation, roads, information and communication technology is critical for enhancing productivity, mobility and connectivity and thereby improving urban living and the quality of life.
While most of our cities face backlogs on capital infrastructure, what is becoming more worrying is the continuing under-investments in infrastructure maintenance. It is on this basis that one of the pillars of the Back-to-Basics Approach, Service Delivery, emphasises, in addition to the provision of a basket of services, the need to assign not less than seven percent of the operational budget for operations and maintenance of infrastructure. It is therefore important that, as we look at how we have performed as cities, and determining future priorities, infrastructure maintenance is at the core of our operations.
Infrastructure remains a tool for ensuring inclusive development. It is not just about the availability of infrastructure and related services, but more about who has access to it. If world-class infrastructure is available, but inaccessible to a large portion of the population, it compromises the notion of equity.
Access in our informal settlements, townships and other marginalised areas is important if we are to talk about inclusive urbanisation. Initiatives such as the eThekwini’s informal settlements programme of providing decent toilet and shower facilities in areas like Cato Manor, Kennedy Road and BottleBrush are a step in the right direction. We need to fully support programmes such as the National Upgrading Support Programme, Neighbourhood Development Partnership Programme and many more targeting these areas.
Quality of life
This dimension talks to the development and use of public spaces to increase community cohesion, civic identity and the safety and security of lives and property.
Once more, the Back-to-Basics Approach emphasises this point. It is how residents experience public spaces, such as streets, pavements, parks and other public areas that determines the quality of life, cohesion and confidence in the local government system. Our basic urban management functions should form the core of what we are and do. Are our streets clean, streetlights working and pavements in good condition, or are they full of uncovered manholes and thereby pose a danger to our residents? Do we enforce by-laws to ensure that public spaces are not “privatised”? Routine actions such as enforcing parking by-laws to discourage motorists from parking on pavements, and thereby endangering pedestrians as they are forced to walk on the streets, are basic functions that cities should prioritise. The same can be said about ensuring that all our parks, irrespective of whether they are in our middle class suburbs or townships, are well maintained, safe and appealing in a way that encourages people across racial lines and classes to use them.
Most cities have embarked on aggressive programmes to improve the quality of public spaces in townships and other marginalised areas. Initiatives such as the open gyms in Soweto and others in many of our cities are applauded. This is another area of possible partnership where we could partner with the private sector and civil society to adopt spots and manage them, and also allow for the usage of the public spaces as areas of social interaction.
Equity and social inclusion
Prosperous cities focus on the equitable distribution and redistribution of the benefits, reduce poverty and the incidence of informal settlements, protect the rights of minority and vulnerable groups, enhance gender equality and ensure civic participation in the affairs of the city.
Insufficient planning to accommodate growth is the main reason for most of the increase in informal settlements. Planning is a basic city function that, if done well, can lead to equity and promote social inclusion. Linked to this is ensuring that all residents, irrespective of gender, creed or race, have an equal opportunity for participating in the affairs of the city. Our National Development Plan also compels us to support active citizenship. Public participation, as outlined in the Back-to-Basics Approach, focuses on giving people a voice and allowing them participate in the activities of the municipality. It further requires the city to provide regular communication and feedback to its residents.
We need to develop different community engagement platforms in order to reach the diverse constituencies in our cities. Initiatives such as Ekurhuleni’s Service Delivery Fridays and the 24/7 Call Centre are some of the initiatives that will enable us to be in touch with the reality of how people experience the services we render.
Leadership
The extent to which the potential of our cities can be realised depends on the quality of both the political and administrative leadership. It requires a strong political will and good governance systems to take unpopular decisions for the long-term development of the city, as opposed to short-termism that has come to characterise some of the decisions we make. Equally so, it requires strong administrative leadership that is able to translate the political vision into reality for the benefit of society. We should therefore, in line with our Back-to-Basics Approach, appoint people with the right skills and capabilities particularly in senior positions if we are to realise our developmental goals.
The founder of our democracy Tata Mandela said:
“Honesty, sincerity, simplicity, humility, pure generosity, absence of vanity, readiness to serve others – qualities which are within easy reach of every soul – are the foundation of one’s spiritual life.”
We require people that are committed to serve with integrity, honesty and humility in order to reap what our cities have to offer.
Conclusion
The notion of prosperous cities, provides a well-encompassing approach that can help us to create inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable cities in line with the objectives outlined in our National Development Plan. This approach is well-aligned to our current thinking and approach, as outlined in the Draft Integrated Urban Development Framework, the Back-to-Basics Approach and other government initiatives.
The focus should not only be on big cities to drive development. Attention should also be on our intermediate cities and larger towns. These centres are currently underperforming far below their potential, inhibiting opportunities for their populations and development benefits within the areas they are located, and thus driving massive numbers of people to migrate to bigger cities. These urban centres are also important for the country at a national scale and perform significant regional services and social roles.
As we continue with the conference, preparing for the 2016 State of the Cities Report, we should consider elements that will put our cities on a solid and firm ground to transform them spatially, socially and economically. Of course this would require all of government to work together and synchronise investments and support to the agreed vision with our cities.
I invite our research and academic institutions to focus on action-based research that helps us to deal with the current challenges facing our cities and towns. Private sector and civil society partnership is also critical to ensure that investments are in line with the shared vision as outlined in our city strategies.
I thank you.
