Jan Feb March 2012

Embed Size (px)

Citation preview

Vol18 No12012janfebmarch

CREATIVE INDUSTRIES AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT SoCIAl hoUSINg IN NElSoN MANDElA METRo ThE WAY fORWARD

PoSINg ThE qUESTIoN oN ThE fUTURE of PRoVINCES AN ATTEMPT TO OPEN UP ThE DEbATE CREATINg A NETWORKED SOCIETY

AgRARIANISATIoN oR DE-AgRARIANISATIoN IN ThE EASTERN CAPE? ThE IMPLICATIONS fOR jOb CREATION IN ThE AgRICULTURAL SECTOR

THIS PUBLICATION IS SPONSORED BY THE FORD FOUNDATION

ContentsPosing the question on the future of Provinces > Nontando Ngamlana

1

Social housing in Nelson Mandela Metro: The Way Forward > Anthony Ngcezula

14

Creating a Networked Society > Noxolo Kabane

30 34

Local politics and factionalism: local government as a site of contestation > Pamela Masiko-Kambala

3

Agrarianisation or Deagrarianisation in the Eastern Cape? The implications for job creation in the agricultural sector > Clifford Mabhena (Phd)

17

Making Co-Relations: Media and Civil Society > Penelope Vellem

Embracing Complexity: Supporting an Evolutionary Approach to Development > Ronald Eglin

5

Addressing Food Insecurity through the Household Food Security Programme > Artwell Chivhinge

21

Small Scale Agriculture > Lashiola Kutya

38

The History of Foreign Aid Dependency: Challenges for Africa > Tinashe Nyatoro

10

Creative Industries and Rural Development > Clarah Dapira

25

AFESIS CORPLAN: 9 Wynne Street | Southernwood PO Box 11214 | East London 5213 | telephone: +27 (0) 43 743 3830 | facsimile: +27 (0) 43 743 2200 fax2email: +27 (0) 86 514 5624 | [email protected] | www.afesis.org.zaCopyright Policy: Unless otherwise stated, content in Afesis-corplans Transformer journal is licensed under Creative Commons with Attribution - Non-Commercial - No Derivative Works.

Design and Layout www.openform.co.za

Image by Afesis-corplan

Posing the question on the future of ProvinCes> NoNtaNdo NgamlaNaImage by Openform

The debate around the future of provinces in South Africa is an old one that tends to gain momentum at certain points within the political calendar and die down again. In the run-up to the Polokwane African National Congress (ANC) conference in 2009 and during the review process of the White Paper on Local Governance, the debate was at its most intense stages. As usual, the debate is usually emotionalised and is full of party-political diatribes. Recent events in various provinces throughout the country have forced the debate back onto the table, only this time there is an added effort to move beyond the ideological clichs in debating the issue to looking at long-term goals of improving the quality of democracy in South Africa and the role provinces play or are to play in that. As mentioned before, this debate is mainly taking place within political party structures and processes. This article aims to lift the lid on this debate and

to pose it in the public domain. It presents some of the main arguments presented in the debate to aid the reader to formulate their own position and come to their own conclusion on what the future of provinces should be. As a point of departure, it may be useful to first look at the role of provinces currently. For far too long the role of provinces in South Africa has been dominated by the political concerns which dominated the constitutional negotiations of 1992 to 1994. The central political preoccupation at that time was the issue of power and the fear of the minority parties that central government would become too overbearing. The notion of countervailing power was and continues to be central to the current definitions and conceptions of the role of the second sphere of government in South Africa. Kitano and Rapoo (2001) note that major opposition parties, academics and proponents of

a multi-tier system of government saw provinces serving not only as multiple centres of power outside of central/ national government, but also as countervailing sources of political, legal and constitutional authority to be counterpoised against the power of central government. Therefore, the post-1994 provinces were positioned as secondorder prizes to be won by political parties which perceived no prospect of capturing power at central/ national level. This explains the frantic reaction by opposition parties at the slightest rumour that the ANC might be thinking of radically restructuring or abolishing provinces. Currently, the ANC has majority control in most provinces in the country. So why does it continually toy with whether it should abolish provinces completely, or restructure them into oversight structures to allow municipalities to become central institutions for implementing policy and delivering services to citizens? Vol18 No1

1

In the past, the ANC has traditionally been less enthusiastic about the provinces than some of the opposition parties. It perceived them as an unnecessary additional layer of government and since 1998 leading to Thabo Mbekis ascendance to the presidency, there was a perceptible hardening of attitudes

Currently, the ANC has majority control in most provinces in the country. So why does it continuously toy with whether it should abolish provinces completely, or restructure them into oversight structures to allow municipalities to become central institutions for implementing policy and delivering services to citizens?in the ANC to the provinces due to their perceived inefficiency, corruption and ineffectiveness in delivering services. In August 2010 the Democratic Alliance (DA) published a discussion document accusing the ANC government of seeking to centralise power. The paper reads that: The drive to centralise power in the ANC-controlled national government has accelerated since President Jacob Zuma took over office. This trend, favoured by his predecessor, Thabo Mbeki, has gained momentum in recent years as a result of two notable processes: renewed efforts to deploy loyal ANC cadres to key positions of power and, secondly, through a torrent of new centralising legislative and policy proposals that seek to take power away from municipalities and provinces and place all state security, revenue distribution and planning functions under the direct control of the national government. (Democratic Alliance, 2010) For a while this debate has taken place within political circles with position papers, discussion documents, round tables and commissions created to look at the question. While the ANC on the one hand claims to seek to optimise efforts to realise good local governance, social equity and efficient use of state resources through this debate, opposition parties on the other side see the ANC as intensifying efforts to centralise power. Within the ANC, there have been somewhat opposing voices around this debate. While some call for the complete abolishment of provinces, others call for a shift in emphasis, with provinces assigned an oversight role over local municipalities. This is of course assuming that provinces have enough resources and capacity to play that oversight role. So, what will it mean if provinces are abolished altogether? Provinces currently serve as the middle layer of leadership within the ruling party. Currently a trend exists where one climbs the ranks from local government level, to province and then to national. This pattern offers a career growth path which is good whether one is a politician or a civil servant. No employee or politician wants to be locked forever in one position, in particular those at municipal level, so province offers that second layer up the ladder. As a result of the career growth pattern outlined above, provinces are able to attract better skilled and capacitated people and generally pay better salaries in comparison to local municipalities. A position at a provincial legislature is considered much more senior than one at local municipal council level and in turn senior provincial and regional party leaders get assigned to provincial legislatures and local branch leaders and independents are assigned to local council level. A move from a position

at provincial level to a position at municipal level is generally considered a demotion. And so, if provinces were to be abolished, and municipalities suddenly have at their disposal the pool of skilled and experienced personnel and politicians that provinces are able to attract, first they would have to match the salary scales that provinces are able to offer, and secondly, the state would have to pay relocation and all other related costs for all employees employed at provincial level. Looking at the current and even long-term developmental needs of South Africa this is an event it can ill-afford. However, looking at recent events in provinces such as the Eastern Cape, where most departments are performing poorly, threatening to lock the entire province in poverty for decades still, and Limpopo where corruption and maladministration have sanctioned most of national government departments intervention, one can agree that drastic steps are necessary to turn the fate of provinces around. To assign the Eastern Cape provincial departments an oversight role over municipalities, for example, raises very little confidence when they have failed time and again to perform their own functions. Whatever the future of provinces may be, what is becoming apparent is that it is time for citizens to get involved in this debate and to push it outside the political boundaries into the public domain. In looking at the future of provinces, it is also becoming clear that it must be looked at in conjunction with the future of local municipalities. While everyone agrees that local government has not delivered on what it was intended to deliver, which propelled the ministry of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) to develop the turnaround strategy in 2009, it has been noted that the capacity challenges in local municipalities can largely be addressed if provinces were to be abolished. If we are to consider the debate and ponder the question it is useful to also, in the same vein, ask the following questions: - If provincial resources were to be redirected to local government, would this guarantee a local government system that works well? - Do provinces have to be abolished for the government system to operate efficiently, or are there other ways in which provincial and local governments can be restructured to enhance resource efficiency and delivery? The debate on the future of provinces has undoubtedly instigated a potentially powerful and necessary process of revisiting the role of the second sphere of government. But the parameters of this debate have so far been very narrow, failing to deliberate seriously on the nature of provinces, their current form and what structure they should take in future. While it is within these narrow parameters that the potential for improving on the three-sphere system has emerged, discussions around the future of provinces will add little value to governance if it continues to be confined within narrow political interests.

While everyone agrees that local government has not delivered on what it was intended to deliver, which propelled the ministry of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) to develop the turnaround strategy in 2009, it has been noted that the capacity challenges in local municipalities can largely be addressed if provinces were to be abolished.

References: Athol Trollip, 2010, Centralisation: The ANCs plan to undermine Constitutional Principle. Democratic Alliance August 2010 | De Villiers, B, The Future of Provinces in South Africa, Republic of South Africa, 2008 | Human Science Research Council, 2007, Looking at the future of provinces, HSRC Review Vol 5 - No. 3 | Kitaho C, Rapoo T, 2001, Future of Provinces in South Africa, Centre for Policy Studies, 2001

2

Vol18 No1

Image by blogs.dickinson.edu

LoCaL PoLitiCs and faCtionaLism:South Africas municipalities are a contested terrain. Divisions within (and between) political parties are overflowing into the life of municipalities, rendering some of them dysfunctional. Factionalism, patronage politics and corruption, maladministration, cadre deployment, political interference and a conflation of the party and the state have all contributed to the erosion of democratic, accountable and effective local government in some municipalities, while it has hindered service delivery provision in others. The King Sabatha Dalindyebo Municipality is one glaring example: its main town, Mthatha, is regularly hit by power blackouts and water shortages, while piles of uncollected rubbish line the towns potholed streets. The municipality is reported to be rife with factionalism, with assassination plots and corruption blamed for the breakdown in services. There are countless other examples across the country. For many citizens, local government is failing to carry out its basic functions the hundreds of service protests that take place across the country each year bear witness to the frustration and dissatisfaction of ordinary citizens with their local officials. Signs that the elected leaders are part of the problem are widespread: from the dissolution of Executive Committees torn apart by struggles for mayoral nominations in the KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) municipalities of uMgungundlovu and Msunduzi; Gautengs Midvaal, subject of a damaging report of conflict of interest in a supposedly model municipality; to a series of murders in KZN, Mpumalanga and North West, which have been linked to power struggles within political parties at the local government level.

LoCaL government as a site of Contestation

> Pamela masiko-kambala

Assessments conducted by the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) in 2009 confirmed that political party factionalism is a major contributor to the deterioration of functioning municipal government. More recently, National Treasurys 2011 Local Government Budgets and Expenditure Review directly attributed failures in municipal performance to failures in local political leadership rather than a lack of capacity in municipalities. Municipal governments, by their very nature, are political structures, the stage for various forms of contestation and conflict between people with different interests, ideas, skills and ambition. Yet municipalities are not identical with the affairs of the parties that govern them. They are state entities: public institutions with mandates and tasks to fulfil in the collective interest. It is the challenge of marrying political objectives with state priorities that gives rise to some of the chronic problems in municipal councils. Local

Political contestation in and of itself need not be a concern; it is a positive sign of vibrant local democracy and as such should be nurtured.

Vol18 No1

3

Citizens are not bystanders in the running of their municipalities, and their agency is increasingly being witnessed in the form of stay away voters, the rise of independent candidates, and of course service delivery protests.

administration has the difficult task of governing for all, while simultaneously advancing a political agenda and translating the municipal budget in line with the priorities of the municipalitys majority political party. Any dominant political party in a municipality is bound to use that power to its advantage. What other way of doing so other than ensuring that the municipal budget (drawn by the administration) mirrors or addresses the political objectives of the majority party? Political contestation in and of itself need not be a concern; it is a positive sign of vibrant local democracy and as such should be nurtured. But two prerequisites need to be in place if it is not to prevent good governance. First, it needs robust and resilient institutions that can withstand the potentially eroding effects of contestation. Secondly, it requires neutral, clear and transparent mechanisms to manage contestation and to allow recourse for those who feel that their issues, concerns and complaints are not attended to. Evidence across the country

often conflicting) interests for limited resources and opportunities. This leaves the door open to unhealthy political interference and exploitation, whether for personal, factional or party gain. There are rules guiding municipal administration in the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa (1996), the White Paper on Local Government (1998), the Municipal Structures Act (1998) and the Local Government: Municipal Systems Amendment Act (2011) amongst others. The last of these, designed to remedy some of the failings of local government mentioned above, sets out mechanisms to enable the professionalisation of local government. The Acts intent to prevent undue influence by political officials or political parties over the administrative function of a municipality has been welcomed by many different stakeholders, though many note that there are limitations to the extent to which legislative provisions can address political culture and behaviour.

Some of these are in the realm of role clarification, awareness raising and capacity building, whereas others fall within the domain of political education. The institutional design of local government needs to be assessed, to interrogate whether it does not contribute to or exacerbate negative contestation. For example, there is a concern that the two-tier system of local and district municipalities fuels factionalism at times, as political dynamics between the district and local systems manifests itself in municipalities. Only political parties themselves can govern how politics plays out in state institutions like municipalities. The responsibility lies with parties, especially the ANC, to manage the contestation that comes with contradictions of a growing society. Political parties have to discuss the thin line between politics and administration, as a failure to respect this distinction leads to problems. Parties must make an honest assessment of their practices and find ways of professionalising themselves for the benefit of state institutions and citizens. The legal definition of a municipality includes political structures, professional administration and a third leg - the local communities themselves. Citizens are not bystanders in the running of their municipalities, and their agency is increasingly being witnessed in the form of stay-away voters, the rise of independent candidates, and of course service delivery protests. Alongside elected officials who pursue their political agendas while maintaining a clear sense of their ultimate responsibility to serving the electorate, South Africas municipalities also need strong and vigilant communities who will fight to make real the statement that The people must govern.

The institutional design of local government needs to be assessed, to interrogate whether it does not contribute to or exacerbate negative contestation.shows that the absence of either (or both) of these is proving to be highly divisive and destabilising. The (local) state appears ill-prepared and illequipped to take on the roles and responsibilities expected of it, including managing competing (and If the past 15 years of local government transformation have taught us anything, it is that there is a limit to what legislation can achieve. There is a need for other interventions and incentives to safeguard the integrity of the administrative and political structures in local government.

References: This opinion piece is extracted from Isandla institutes discussion document titled Local politics and factionalism: Local government as a site of contestation. Visit www.isandla.org.za to view the references used for this article.

4

Vol18 No1

embraCing ComPLexity:suPPorting an evoLutionary aPProaCh to deveLoPment> RoNald egliNThe National Planning Commission, chaired by the Minister for National Planning in the Presidents Office, Mr Trevor Manuel, launched a draft National Development Plan1 for South Africa in November 2011. The 400 page plan sets out a national vision for the country in 2030 and proposes broad strategies to achieve this plan. Box 1 provides an extract from the vision.

Image by elblag24.pl

THE NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN VISION NOW IN 2030 WE LIVE IN A COUNTRY WHICH WE HAVE REMADE.We have created a home where everybody feels free yet bounded to others; where everyone embraces their full potential. We are proud to be a community that cares. We have received the mixed legacy of inequalities in opportunity and in where we have lived, but we have agreed to change our narrative of conquest, oppression, resistance, and victory. We began to tell a new story of life in a developing democracy. ... Our new story is open ended with temporary destinations, only for new paths to open up once more. It is a story of unfolding learning. Even when we flounder, we remain hopeful. In this story, we always arrive and depart. ...

Vol18 No1

5

The plan outlines strategies that respond to nine key challenges that the commission feels are facing the country as outlined in a Diagnostic Report developed earlier in 2011 (see box 2 challenges and strategies). The two priority challenges identified for the country are too few people work and the standard of education of most black learners is of poor quality.

CHALLENgES AND STRATEgIESCHALLENgES 1. Too few people work 2. The standard of education for most black learners is of poor quality 3. Infrastructure is poorly located, under maintained and insufficient to foster high growth 4. Spatial patterns exclude the poor from the fruits of development 5. The economy is overly and unsustainably resource intensive 6. A widespread disease burden is complicated by a failing health system 7. Public services are uneven and often of poor quality 8. Corruption is widespread 9. South Africa remains a divided society STRATEgIES 1. Creating jobs and livelihoods 2.Improving education and training 3. Expanding infrastructure 4. Transforming urban and rural spaces 5. Transitioning to a low carbon economy 6. Providing quality health care 7. Building a capable state 8. Fighting corruption and enhancing accountability 9. Transforming society and uniting the nation

The public only has until 11 of March 2012 to comment on the plan. The National Planning commission will then resubmit the plan to Cabinet in late May or early June 2012. Popular four page versions of the plan are available at www. npconline.co.za/pebble.asp?relid=25 The National Development Plan is premised on the understanding that, as a country, having a national plan that we all agree with and work towards we will solve the identified key challenges. The intention is that all sectors and spheres of government will buy into the plan (or a modified version of it) and incorporate the recommendations emerging from the plan into their existing programmes and/ or establish new programmes where appropriate. The whole process assumes we can plan our way out of trouble. It is motivated in this article that this is a flawed assumption, and that a more evolutionary approach to socio-economic development has a better chance of addressing our challenges and achieving our vision.

A complicated system is a static and predictable system. Doing one thing will cause another thing to happen. Building a house is a complicated system. You can predict that if you construct the foundations in a certain way, and then build the floor, walls and roof in that order, you will build a house that will stay up. Sending a person to the moon is also a complicated system, where using a certain amount of fuel and pointing the rocket in the correct direction will result in the rocket reaching the moon.

a specific outcome. You cannot predict that by implementing the recommendations outlined in the National Development Plan you will achieve the vision. There are just too many role-players and variables in the system each influencing and being influenced by the other and therefore the outcome of the system. For example, the skills base of the country might be improved but this may lead to people emigrating as better work opportunities are found elsewhere rather than using these skills for the countrys development.

You cannot predict that by implementing the recommendations outlined in the National Development Plan you will achieve the vision. There are just too many role-players and variables in the system each influencing and being influenced by each other and therefore the outcome of the system.

COMPLExITY AND EVOLUTIONIn order to understand why it is unlikely that the National Development Plan on its own will achieve its objectives we need to understand the difference between complicated and complex systems.

Complex systems, on the other hand, are dynamic and unpredictable systems. There are many elements in the system each interacting with and influencing the other. A sports match is an example of a complex system, in that you cannot predict, with the people starting the game, who will win the game. The elements (people) in the system all affect each other as the game progresses. The socio-economic development of a country is also a complex system. You cannot predict, based on the starting conditions, that if you implement certain plans that this will result in achieving

This unpredictability should not imply we are unable to do anything. One needs to embrace complexity when working with socio-economic development. Evolutionary processes are found in complex systems. Biological evolution is when an organism reproduces, and as a result of the process of reproduction variations occur in the offspring. Through the process of natural selection, as the organisms interact with their environment, those offspring that are more compatible with the environment have a better chance of further reproducing and transferring their slightly adapted traits onto future generations.

6

Vol18 No1

Image by michael.heiss

The development of new products in the market can also be seen as a process of evolution. Companies try out new and innovative products. Consumers evaluate and choose which products they like. Consumers provide feedback to producers by buying the better products. Over time those products that better suit the needs of the consumers become the predominant products in the market. This evolutionary approach can be summarised as a four step process: replication (of organisms in biology, and products in the market); innovation (or variation in biology, and product innovation in the market); evaluation (or natural selection in biology, and consumer preferences in the market); and feedback (or further reproduction in biology, and product demand and purchasing patterns in the market).

THE EVOLUTIONARY APPROACH TO SOCIO-ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENTIn order to understand how these evolutionary steps can support the socioeconomic development of a country, lets conceptualise development as the implementation of a number of different projects over time. These projects come from all sectors of society from housing, agriculture, business, transport, education, health, micro finance, etc. The conventional way of organising projects is one where a government department develops a series of programmes. These programmes disburse funding to projects according to agreed rules for what the project must deliver and the process that needs to be followed in implementing the project. Projects have a start and an end. They have a specific outcome and are implemented in a specific series of steps. The National Development Plan is an example of this conventional development approach where the recommendations coming out of the development plan are turned into a series of projects. The plan already makes suggestions for a number of projects across all sectors, such as broadening and expanding public works programmes, setting up business incubators, procuring energy from renewables and neighbouring country hydropower plants, creating regional and national water and waste water utilities, increasing investment in irrigation infrastructure in identified areas, investing in reliable and affordable public transport, piloting a nutrition programme for pregnant women, increasing teacher training, building new universities, broadening coverage of antiretroviral treatment to all HIV-positive people, rationalising existing social benefit payment systems, implementing a formalised graduate recruitment programme for government positions, centralising the awarding of large tenders and tenders of long duration, and promoting a bill of responsibilities.

Projects that are replicated are based on projects where there is evidence of the success of these projects and not just on the flavour of the month of some politicians views.

Vol18 No1

7

The evolutionary approach to socio-economic development would organise projects differently. Using the four stages of evolution identified above, projects get replicated (reproduced) as role-players - government, for-profit companies, non-profit organisations, communities etc - complete previous projects and start new projects following the same or similar processes that were used to complete previous projects. Innovation, or variation within projects comes as different people/ groups try things differently in their projects. They may innovate by producing different products (e.g. build different types of houses, establish different types of clinics) or they may implement projects following different processes (e.g. organising the way that labour is managed in the building of houses or how decisions are made about what the houses will look like; or use different people in different ways in running a clinic).

world wide web. The feedback process of selecting what projects have been successful and replicating them in subsequent rounds of evolution is a key aspect of the evolutionary approach. Owen Barder in his blog2 sums it up nicely, We should not try to design a better world. We should make better feedback loops. Evaluation and learning are key elements of this feedback process. Evaluation includes evaluation by experts and evaluation by the people themselves. Evaluation occurs at different stages of a project: before, immediately after, and a few years after a project. This ongoing evaluation is important as often projects may lead to short term success but be a long term failure, or they may not be seen as very spectacular at the start but be a long term winner. There are two aspects to good evaluations. The first

these projects and not just on the flavour of the month of some politicians views. The second aspect of good evaluations is that it is preferable that the people who are most affected and/ or benefit from a project are the ones that are involved in its evaluation. Perception surveys etc can be conducted to hear the views of the community directly. One should not only rely on, for example, the view of some external expert. In conventional approaches to development the feedback loops are often very long. By the time the plans have been developed, the original conditions leading to the plans developed may have changed. With longer feedback loops the impact of bad policies and plans are more pronounced as they are in place for longer. The feedback loops of the National Development Plan are likely to be fairly long. Any problems with the implementation of projects emerging from the National Development Plan are likely only to be picked up many years into the future. The evolutionary approach has a much shorter feedback loop. The feedback process also relies strongly on good processes for sharing experiences from previous project implementers with subsequent project implementers. One way to do this is to put all information on projects out in the open allowing all role-players to access it. The evolutionary approach accepts mistakes as part of the process. This poses challenges for innovation in the socio-economic context, because, unlike electronic products for example, you cannot throw away people when a mistake happens. Systems need to be put in place to deal with mistakes. For example projects could be required to contribute towards a contingency or insurancelike fund, that project implementers can access to correct mistakes that occur on projects that lead to negative outcomes for the community. There will probably also be the need for an ethics committee of some kind to be established to evaluate projects prior to them being approved against the ethical implications of experimenting with real people. A strong element of community participation in the planning of projects will also contribute towards mitigating mistakes. It is important that the people who are likely to be affected by any mistakes are involved in making the decision to proceed with a project. A community group will likely be more sympathetic to the decision makers of a failed project if they themselves were the decision makers rather than some outside specialist.

Any problems with the implementation of projects emerging from the National Development Plan are likely only to be picked up many years into the future.These different projects all operate in different socioeconomic contexts. Some are in inner city areas while others are in lower income rural areas. Those projects that succeed in a particular context will then be picked up and repeated, copied and replicated in subsequent rounds of project implementation. Projects are evaluated to determine if they address the needs of people. Feedback occurs when the lessons from previous projects are fed back into the plans for subsequent projects. Visions are still useful in the evolutionary approach. One does not assume, in the evolutionary approach, that one knows at the start of the process what series of projects will result in the achievement of the vision being worked towards. The vision provides a beacon to work towards, and it helps role-players evaluate which projects are helping them move towards their vision. As Confucius says, if you dont know where youre going, youll probably end up somewhere else. However, visions are not fixed. Through the evolutionary approach one might find different and more appropriate visions emerging. For example, who could have envisioned 20 years ago the type of society we live in today with cell phones and the is the concept of randomised trials. In the medical sector for example, this involves two groups of patients that have been randomly identified and given a new drug that is being tested, with one group given the real drug and the other given a placebo (substitute), with the groups not knowing if they got the placebo or not. In this way its easier to attribute any significant improvement in the health of those that received the drug to the drug itself and not some other external factor. In the socio-economic development environment randomised trials may involve, for example, certain groups of children, identified from different schools randomly, being taught using one teaching method while others are taught using another teaching method. It is then easier to attribute any improvement in learning to one teaching method or another. In the housing development process, one group of households could form part of one type of Peoples Housing Process, while another group forms part of a more conventional developer driven approach. Any improvement in the living environment created by either approach, as determined by the role-players themselves, can then be attributed to one housing delivery method or the other. In this way one is able to minimise subjective evaluations of different approaches. Projects that are replicated are based on projects where there is evidence of the success of

8

Vol18 No1

gOVERNMENT SUPPORT FOR EVOLUTIONARY DEVELOPMENTThere are a number of things that government can do to embrace and support evolutionary approaches to development. At a more general level, government needs to develop a culture where people value the importance of innovation and experimentation. This requires the development and implementation of an awareness-raising and education programme where the evolutionary and innovative approach is explained and highlighted. Commitment to an innovative approach needs to come from the highest level in government. Regular pronouncements from the state president, for instance, encouraging innovation in government and society, will go a long way to promoting the concept of a more evolutionary approach to development. More specifically, each government department, each province and municipality, and each parastatal should be mandated to set up an innovation and learning unit to encourage and support innovation within government (and society as a whole). These units can start by developing a list of issues they want to address in innovative ways. Each innovation unit within government needs to be accompanied by an innovation budget. This does not have to be started with new funding but rather can be created by redirecting a small percentage of existing programme funds towards the innovation budget. Innovation units can then call for proposals thatinnovatively address the identified (and other) issues. Innovation does not always follow clear paths so often innovation occurs in areas where you least expect it. For this reason innovation units need to be open to unsolicited proposals for innovative projects on topics that may not have been identified by government. An example of an innovation programme would be one where the Human Settlements Department establishes a fund where NGOs and others are able to access resources to test out new approacheson, for example, the provision of make it easier for such projects to be able to side step many of the rules and regulations that would make many of these innovative products and processes difficult, if not impossible, to establish using more conventional products and processes. Within each government department there will then be basically two types of projects that get implemented: the majority of projects will be those that form part of existing conventional government programmes; but there will also be space for a handful of more innovative programmes that are testing the waters for new and innovative project approaches. Over time the successful projects from the innovation unit will get incorporated into the conventional programme. In this way, future policy emerges from experience and not through the ideas of some people sitting in an office removed from the reality of the ground. There will be a number of challenges to establishing such an innovation approach within government. As a start, government does not like unpredictability. Government bureaucracy is geared towards standardised programmes and procedures so that it is much easier to account for how it spends taxpayers money. Government does not like to accept failure as it is difficult to explain to the electorate. Innovation and experimentation by its nature often leads to failure: failures are necessary if we are to learn what is successful.

...each government department, each province and municipality, and each parastatal should be mandated to set up an innovation and learning unit to encourage and support innovation within government (and society as a whole).tenure to people living in informal settlements, the involvement of the community in the layout of plots in new site and service settlements, creating new dry sanitation toilet systems, and building new houses using modified indigenous building materials. The innovation programme needs to

ConClusionAs a country we need to promote a far more experimental and do it society. The section on improving education training and innovation (chapter 9) within the National Development Plan talks about the importance of innovation in the context of technology and science, but this concept of innovation, as part of the evolutionary process of replication, innovation, selection and feedback needs to permeate all sectors and aspects of the National Development Plan. We need to develop a more evidence-based development intervention culture where decisions on how government can intervene are not only made according to what communities want, the will of politicians, or the latest development fad, but are more regularly being made based on what has been proven to work in the past. The evolutionary development concept needs to be incorporated into the National Development Plan as a key component of the plan, and we also need to immediately start to implement the evolutionary development strategy in parallel to the conventional programmatic approach of government. We must not stop developing visions and goals and systematically planning and working towards achieving these goals; but an exclusive reliance on such an approach, which the National Development Plan tends to rely on, will not, on its own, result in the achievement of our vision. Innovation and experimentation with clear learning loops are equally, if not more important than conventional planning processes. The general attribute of African countries is not poverty, stagnation, or exploitation - rather it is their receipt of foreign aid. Mkandawire et. al. (1999) remarked that, one of the notable conditions.

References: Bar-Yam, Yaneer, Making Things Work: Solving Complex Problems in a Complex World, NECSI Knowledge Press, 2004 | Harford, Tim, Adapt: Why Success Always Starts with Failure, Little Brown, 2011 | Marshall, Stephen, Cities, Design and Evolution, Routledge, 2009 | Wilson David Sloan, The Neighborhood Project: Using Evolution to improve my City, One Block at a Time, Little Brown and Company, 2011 Notes:1

http://www.npconline.co.za/ | 2www.Owen.org/blog/4018

Vol18 No1

9

Image by infosurhoy.com

the history of foreign aid dePendenCy:ChaLLenges for afriCa> tiNashe NyatoRo

Financial reliance of the third world countries on developed nations is a deep-seated characteristic of the current world economic order. This is not caused by too little resource transfers to the poor nations, rather, it is the current global market setup where transfer of resources takes place within a context that leads all the time to increasing inequality between nations. A quick glance on aid inflows to developing countries shows a growth in size since the 1970s, however, the returns from aid are still over the horizon. In such a milieu, is it possible for developing countries to delink from the international financial institutions and at what cost? Who is in charge of African development?This article is based on the premise that the availability or non-availability of aid creates a double tragedy. Firstly, foreign aid in general creates dependence on technology, industries, culture, capital, and ideologies from the metropolitan/ centre countries. This dependence generates a special umbilical cord that ties African economies to the metropolitan, thereby distorting their traditional economies (Babu, 1981). Secondly, foreign aid represents an important source of finance; it supplements low savings, narrow export earnings, and thin tax bases (Njeru, 2003). Though a number of policy attachments covering both economic and political areas have accompanied aid to African countries, it has largely played a key role in human and capital development (ibid). Hence, reducing aid to African countries would spark off a political backlash and will exacerbate state incapacity, and social hardships that Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs) brought in the 1990s. Despite the fact that aid has had some successes in African countries, the loans and grants made by the developed countries, as well as multilateral institutions are not based on African countries real needs, nor on any performance criteria, but primarily on the interests of the donors. In other words, this article argues that, directly or indirectly, aid dependence obstructs or limits the possibility for change and autonomous development in the developing countries.

Economic growth as advocated by the modernisation theorists entail more than capital injection, as aid reduces the capacity of developing countries to service their debts.

10

Vol18 No1

DEFININg AIDOverseas Development Assistance (ODA) and Overseas Development Finance (ODF) are two major concepts that are used by different donor agencies to refer to aid. This article uses these two concepts, aid and foreign assistance, interchangeably. Chakravarti (2005) defined aid as all official concessional flows from bilateral and multilateral agencies, whether in the form of a loan, or grant that can be considered developmental in intent. Krueger (1986) also defined aid as capital inflows into the country, this includes, among others, foreign direct investments. Food aid and humanitarian assistance that does not fall within the definition of ODA has been excluded from the purview of this article. Aid can be multilateral or bilateral. Multilateral aid is when assistance is given by an organisation consisting of more than one state such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF) or assistance provided by development agencies of the United Nations (UN) such as the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and World Food Programme (WFP), as well as concessional assistance provided by limited membership multilaterally established by the European Community (Krueger & Ruttan, 1989). On the other hand, bilateral aid is given by individual donor countries (such as Britain and China) directly to another state. There are also NonGovernmental Organisations (NGOs) such as World Vision, Care Africa and Oxfam that give aid. Of late, development practitioners have been advocating channelling aid through NGOs, rather than governments as NGOs have earned the reputation of getting aid to the poorest people (Madeley, 1991). However, a number of NGOs have become agents of regime change and this has created animosity between them and some African nations.

PRO AID THEORY: CAPITAL DIFFUSIONThe proponents of the modernisation theory presume that the development of third world countries will happen through the diffusion or trickling down of capital, technology, and organisation methods from modern capitalist areas to developing countries. This theory views underdevelopment as an original condition of backwardness and proposes that, for developing countries to draw level with the developed countries, there is need for greater penetration of modern economic principles and institutions (De Beers et. al., 2000). This postulation given by the modernisation theorists is that underdevelopment is primarily a result of the lack of capital and technological expertise, thus underdevelopment is looked upon as a kind of deficiency disease which can be taken care of through injections of missing ingredients with foreign aid being one of these missing ingredients. In other words, aid represents supplementary capital and is essential for speeding up economic development. Given these suppositions, it is evident that modernisation theory places strong weight on the need for intervention in promoting economic development and on the thought that more capital leads to greater development.Image by wallyg

ANTI-AID PARADIgM: DEPENDENCY THEORYDependency exits when one party relies on another without the reliance being reciprocal. Baldwin (1980) defined dependence in terms of reliance on others, lack of self-sustenance and self-sufficiency. He also defined it in terms of the benefits that would be costly for one to forego. Thus, most developing countries found themselves in this tragic situation. McKinlay (1977) further elaborated that in such a relationship, one party may choose to terminate the relationship with little or no costs while the other can do so only at considerable costs. Given the above suppositions, the reliant state, therefore, operates in a subordinate or dependent position. More so as Moon (1983) puts it, the dominant party establishes a dependent relationship because it generates a degree of control or influence, and the main use of aid is the potential to control. Caporaso (1978) alluded to the fact that this control can be used for a variety of reasons dictated by the dominant state. Given the above definition of dependence, one can argue that the provision of aid creates a relationship of unreciprocated reliance. McKinlay (1977) elaborated that the donor can terminate the provision of aid with little or no costs. The recipient on the other hand incurs considerable costs when aid is terminated. Aid provides the donor with a potential of control over the recipient. This potential to control is derived from three factors: Firstly, the excess demand for aid places the donor in an advantageous bargaining position. The donors can, therefore, dictate to some extent a number of conditionalities under which aid is to be supplied. Secondly, the nature of aid provides the donor with the means for intervention in the recipient country for instance with programme aid, it entails some intervention in the recipients fiscal, monetary and development policies while project aid entails future reliance of the recipient on the donor for the servicing and maintenance of the particular project (ibid). Thirdly, repayment can create another situation where the donor is in an advantageous bargaining position. Given these three factors one discovers that many developing countries are experiencing difficulty in repaying their debts, and the problem is becoming more acute. This article, therefore, argues that economic growth as advocated by the modernisation theorists entails more than capital injection, as aid reduces the capacity of developing countries to service their debts.

Aid dependence has reached a point where it is counterproductive and is doing nothing to generate processes that would obviate the need for it.

Vol18 No1

11

AID DEPENDENCY AND STATEHOOD IN AFRICAThe general attribute of African countries is not poverty, stagnation, or exploitation - rather it is their receipt of foreign aid. Mkandawire et. al. (1999) remarked that, one of the notable conditions of African countries is their high dependence of economic performance on the external environment. Most African countries failed to restructure the postcolonial state; rather they have preserved the legacy of colonialism, which is the concentration of export earnings on one or few primary commodities that are vulnerable to exogenous terms of trade and demand conditions. Derouen and Heo (2004) noted that the more dependent a state is on foreign aid, the more responsive it is likely to be to external pressure. The reason according to the above authors is that, it is sufficient that the smaller state is aware that the Big Brother is watching. Babu (1981) stated that most African countries tremble in horror if they are threatened with the withdrawal of aid. Interestingly, this intimidation has been used as a weapon with which to coerce African countries into accommodating unpalatable policies (ibid). Amazingly, some African leaders frankly assert that, they cannot challenge imperialism because as realists and pragmatists, they must safeguard their national interest of which continued access to foreign aid is one. They also accept the premise that, no foreign aid no development. In this regard, they view aid as a right. Furthermore, the role of the African state in development is questionable in such a milieu of dependence. Bradshaw and Tshandu (1990) stated that because of foreign aid, the African state is weak, repressive, feeble, fragile, dependent, and collapsing. McGowan et. al. (1988) categorically stated that African countries have little decision latitude in their attempts to devise policies appropriate to overcoming underdevelopment. In other words, African countries always display compliant political behaviour towards the donor countries. Bradshaw and Tshandu (1990) posit that economic dependence erodes state capacity to intervene in local affairs, as foreign lenders manipulate the African countries governments. Therefore, aid should be seen as an instrument, not a gift as it plays a key role in maintaining and even expanding developed countries influence on African countries. Goldsmith (2001) viewed aid as a narcotic; fostering addictive behaviour among states that receive it. States are thought to exhibit the symptoms of dependence that provides a short run benefit from aid, but increases the need for external support that does lasting damage to the country. By feeding this addiction, the aid donors have supposedly weakened the resolve of African states to act on behalf of their citizens (ibid).

Image by vorige.nrc.nl

Foreign aid is a tool of statecraft used by the government providing it to encourage or reward politically desirable behaviour on the part of the government receiving it.Mkandawire et. al. (1999) blasted aid dependence as it has given foreign institutions so much power on African national affairs and the capacity to impose Structural Adjustment Programmes reflects this. In other words, the IMF and World Bank have seized this opportunity to declare financial and monetary stabilisation as preconditions for economic growth. The IMF and World Bank policies emphasise the importance of rolling back the role of the state and minimising any restriction on the free play of the market forces (Pender, 2001). These policies of the IMF and World Bank are highly politicised as they stand in direct opposition to those policies of many economies, which remained organised around a state-led model. Thus in practice, stabilisation programmes are given priority while development programmes are shelved (Alschuler, 1976). Pender (2001) further elaborated that because African countries are weak, they are forced to abandon protectionism to foster infant industries, and instead to establish primary commodity exports, particularly agricultural as the centrepiece of economic strategy. Therefore, one should view stable exchange rates, devaluation, reduced inflation, and trade liberalisation as instrumental for the repayment of debts to the aid donors, for the repatriation of profits by foreign investors and the introduction of exports to the centre. Aid dependence has reached a point where it is counterproductive and is doing nothing to generate processes that would obviate the need for it. The aid recipient relationship in Africa has developed into one that neither generates mutual respect nor harnesses the capacities of all those involved. Instead, it has generated the dependency syndrome, cynicism, and aid fatigue. Cardoso (1972) sums it up by saying dependency is a national derangement or functional incompleteness of a national economy.

12

Vol18 No1

THE SUSPENSION OF FOREIgN AIDOne of the major challenges confronting Africa is the suspension of aid through: temporary stoppage of deliveries; withholding new aid commitments; reducing the amounts of aid committed or delivered in comparison to previous amounts; and purposive delay by the donor community in making a decision, one way or the other, about future aid to the country. Suspension of donor aid is done on four grounds: formal breach of international law (as determined by the security council); failure to comply with formal contract (Structural Adjustment Programme Agreement, debt contract); imputed breach of international law (United Nations Charter, human rights covenants); and bilateral dispute or because of donor self-interest (Archer, 2005). African countries that fail to adhere to the statutes of the international financial institutions are showered with sanctions (targeted/smart/full economic sanctions) through the withdrawal of aid. However, withholding aid defeats the current idea of development cooperation, which is focusing on ownership and partnership. Ownership refers to the extent to which a country can pursue internal and external policies independently of incentives provided by multilateral lenders (Drazen, 2002). The logic behind this premise is to encourage equal partnership based on a clear division of roles and responsibilities. Thus, partnership lays the foundation for a realistic dialogue regarding what donors can contribute and what the recipient country can take responsibility for. The above conception of development partnership between the developing and developed countries remains a contentious issue. Abrahamsen (2004) refuted the above notion of partnership and argued that it perpetuates the dominance of the developed countries over African countries. The model of partnership would see developing countries in charge of their own development, which is an ideal situation development practitioners would want to see. However, Abrahamsen posits that partnerships are a rhetorical innovation, a re-branding of old style practices and policies. In other words, partnerships are used to conceal the continued exercise of power by international agencies (ibid). A review of the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSP) and New Partnership for Africas Development (NEPAD) demonstrates that the idea of partnership is a fallacy. The protagonists of these models argue that these two development strategies present a degree of partnership between the African and developed countries. Countries that are highly indebted are required to develop PRSP for debt cancellation. However, the IMF and World Bank still have the power to veto a countrys PRSP placing the notion of ownership and , partnership under serious question (Abrahamsen, 2004). Similar concerns arise on NEPAD, which is championed to be Africas own development plan, a break-away from SAPs, yet it has explicit commitments to neo-liberal norms and values. In overall, NEPAD perpetuates dependency on foreign assistance. It is also a neo-colonial project through which developed countries want not only to promote their strategic and national security interests, but also to ensure perpetuation of Africas dependent development under globalisation. Moon (1983) noted that in most cases the powerful countries secure the cooperation of the weaker states using the reward and punishment behaviour. In other words, the behaviour of the recipient country is viewed as a partial payment in exchange for the maintenance of benefits they derive from their economic ties to the donor country. Therefore, to employ sanctions by withdrawing aid poses more dilemmas, both in terms of affecting development and marginalised groups and by contradicting the principle of partnership and ownership.

CONCLUDINg REMARkSIn concluding this debate on foreign aid, it is important to note that the extensive flow of foreign aid to African countries has not yet been reciprocated by growth and development. In fact, the advent of the 21st century has not changed the situation of many African countries with regard to dependence on aid. It appears now that most African countries have become more dependent on aid than ever before. In fact, these African countries have become addicted to foreign aid. The net effect of aid to African countries is that it has eroded selfconfidence, creativity, and the pride of citizens and leaders. Moreover, aid dependence has eroded and undermined the moral authority of African leaders to govern (Ishengoma, 2002:9). Foreign aid has done more damage to African countries. It has led to a situation where African countries have failed to set their own pace and direction of development, free of external interference, since development plans for developing countries are drawn thousands of miles away in the corridors of the IMF and World Bank.References:

This article further noted that developed countries Realising the failure of aid to African countries, this view aid as something to be bartered with. Thus, article recommends the following: the West exchanges aid for political or ideological support or uses aid to influence strategic decisions There is need to repudiate all forms of foreign aid, and strengthening allies. excluding disaster relief assistance. The postcolonial state is designed to serve foreign The African state has no autonomy to control interests thus the state should be recaptured and and direct national capital and even increase its restructured to serve African interests. bargaining position with respect to foreign capital. In the light of this, postcolonial African development For the above two recommendations to take has been thwarted by external pressure acting place, there is the need for an exit strategy from against internal values and traditions. In short, aid aid dependence that requires a drastic move both has led to the re-colonisation of Africa through the in the mindset and in the development strategy of strings attached to it. countries dependent on aid. There is a need for a deeper and direct involvement of people in their Foreign aid is a tool of statecraft used by the own development. This requires a radical and government providing it to encourage or reward fundamental restructuring of the institutional aid politically desirable behaviour on the part of the architecture at the global level. government receiving it. It is an instrument of coercion and a tool for the exercise of power with This article has been adapted from the book: The little relevance to the lives of the recipients. More so, Impact of Aid Dependence on Social Development: the pattern of bilateral aid distribution is explained the case of Zimbabwe. The book can be ordered by donor interests rather than the recipient interests. online from www.amazon.ca or www.ebay.co.uk

References for this article can be viewed on the Afesis-corplan website: www.afesis.org.za

Vol18 No1

13

Image by John W Roskilly

soCiaL housing in neLson mandeLa metrothe Way forWard> aNthoNy Ngcezula

Social Housing is meant to address structural, economic, social and spatial dysfunctionalities thereby contributing to governments vision of economically empowered, non-racial and integrated society living in sustainable human settlement.The Social Housing Policy defines social housing as a rental or cooperative housing option for low income persons at a level of scale and built from which requires institutionalised management and which is provided by accredited social housing institutions or in accredited social housing projects in designated restructuring zones (Tokin, 2008:10). The Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality (NMBM) hereafter referred to as the Metro is heralded as one of the Metropolitan municipalities that have done very well in the delivery of RDP houses. However, there are Metro residents who neither qualify for a home loan nor a housing subsidy. They are called the gap market. Most of them live on the periphery of the city of Port Elizabeth (PE) and towns of Uitenhage and Despatch. They have to travel long distances to work, thus losing an opportunity to prepare children for school as they sometimes leave for work way before the school children wake up. In winter, they sometimes leave home while its still dark and are at the mercy of criminals. Moreover their earnings are depleted by the cost of transport to and from work. Some Metro gap market residents from previously disadvantaged backgrounds live close to their work places. However, they are tenants in rental accommodation where they pay rent at commercial rates. This commercial rate does not take into account the salary which they earn. As a result, some of them struggle to pay the rent and are forced to sacrifice some basic necessities to pay for rent for fear of eviction. Clearly, this gap markets housing needs should be catered for under Social Housing in the NMBM. One of the priorities of the South African government post-1994 is the integration of South African cities. This integration is supposed to ensure that the urban poor have access to the city and enjoy benefits brought about by being close to the economic hubs and centres (Department of Housing, 2005). Social Housing is meant to address structural, economic, social and spatial dysfunctionalities thereby contributing to governments vision of an economically empowered, non-racial and integrated society living in sustainable human settlement. Social Housing in the Metro has taken off very slowly when compared with the progress made by the Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality (BCMM). This is as a result of a number of problems.

14

Vol18 No1

i. Lack of local accredited social housing organisation to deliver social housing projects. Hence one of the biggest social housing projects, Park Towers, is owned and managed by an East London-based social housing association. ii. The stakeholders of social housing in the metro work in isolation. There is no common vision and integrated plan at any given time. iii. The social housing policy of the Nelson Mandela Metro is not communicated effectively to all the stakeholders and residents of the Metro. iv. Lack of political will to accommodate low-income households on well located land. v. Lack of cooperation between the Eastern Cape provincial government and local NMBM government with respect to social housing. The World Charter on the Right to the City (as tabled at the World Urban Forum in Barcelona in 2004) states that cities must comply with their social function, including the equitable right to the citys economic resources and culture, while also ensuring ecological and cultural sensitivity (Royston, 2009:259). Social Housing projects cater for households earning between roughly R3, 500 and R8, 500 per month as they must be able to pay rent and

There is a perception that Housing Cooperatives have failed.rates. Not many of Metro households are in this income band, some earn below R3, 500. This means that Social Housing projects in the Metro might not easily cater for the very poor. Thus, the majority of the Metros poor faces exclusion from the city and will remain far from areas which offer major economic opportunities. Most of the Metros inner city buildings remain unoccupied and unused for years. They belong to private landlords who are happy to bolster their property portfolios. These buildings are ideal for social housing purposes as they are close to taxi ranks, hospitals, schools, municipal offices and shopping centres. However, private property owners price these buildings very expensively preventing any attempt by local government to facilitate their acquisition for social housing projects. Moreover, well located land is being used up for commercial developments such as shopping malls and town house complexes. Another new but disturbing trend is the use of most inner city buildings for student accommodation. These buildings can serve a better purpose of social housing as they are far from Nelson

Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU) where most of the students who live in them are studying. One student accommodation, namely Laboria, which is next to all public amenities has provided a bus to shuttle students to and from NMMU. While this serves the need to house students for the university, it could well serve a much more pressing social housing need had the Metro been willing to facilitate its sale for such a purpose. The Social Housing effort of the Metro needs to be intensified. Local Social Housing activists and social entrepreneurs must establish locallybased Social Housing Associations which are accredited by Social Housing Regulatory Authority (SHRA). These housing associations should receive the necessary support from the Eastern Cape government, NMBM and NGOs. There is a perception that Housing Cooperatives have failed. However, with better capacity-building, housing cooperatives can deliver few medium-density and well-located social housing units. SHRA needs to give housing cooperatives a re-look as the social housing solution lies not only in delivering rental units at scale. The resuscitation of the Port Elizabeth Social and Rental Housing Forum is a step in the right direction. It is important that government officials, municipal officials, social housing practitioners, architects, town planners, academics, landlords, property owners, NGOs and potential social housing beneficiaries have a platform where social housing issues can be discussed and best practice shared. The forum also presents NMBM with an opportunity to communicate its social housing policy and outline its social housing strategy to a relevant social housing broad community. It is important for the NMBM to communicate its social housing policy to its residents more effectively. Tenant education and responsible ratepayment can be communicated using community organisations and NGOs. The Constitution of the Republic of South Africa (Act no. 108 of 1996) obliges the state to improve living and working conditions on an equitable and sustainable basis, so that everyone will have equitable shelter that is healthy, safe, secure, accessible, affordable, and that includes basic services, facilities and amenities and will enjoy freedom from discrimination in housing and legal security of tenure (Public Service Commission, 2003).

There needs to be political will in the Nelson Mandela Bay Metro to accommodate low-income households on well located land and prevent the urban sprawl which is costing the municipality millions of rands on infrastructure development.Vol18 No1

15

There needs to be political will in the Metro to accommodate low-income households on well located land and prevent the urban sprawl which is costing the municipality millions of rands in infrastructure development. The Nelson Mandela Bay Metro and the Housing Development Agency (HDA) need to make a concerted effort to find well located land for social housing in Port Elizabeth, Uitenhage and Despatch. For some proposed new social housing projects in Port Elizabeth, delays result because of the objections from ratepayers in the suburb next to which the social housing project is to take place. Property owners who are resistant to an integrated city use the National Environment Management Act to block social housing projects and perpetuate the exclusion of the urban poor from the city. This is in the form of NOT IN MY BACKYARD campaigns by the rich, who see having property nearby whose tenants are from a lower income levels as an eye-sore which might lead to the value of their properties dropping. The Charter on the Rights to the City commits cities to comply to equality and non-discrimination, requiring commitment of resources to and implementation and monitoring of public policies on equality on the basis of age, gender, sexual orientation, language, religion, opinion, racial or ethnic origin, income level, citizenship or migratory situation (Royston, 2009:259). The Nelson Mandela Bay Metro Council needs to ensure that the mandate of the government and the

Constitution of the country take precedence over rate-payers concerns. The National Environmental Management Act must not be considered in isolation. It must be interpreted with the ambit of the Constitution and Housing Policy of South Africa. There must be inter-governmental cooperation. Thus the Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipality and the Eastern Cape Provincial government need to work together to cut the backlog of social housing units. Currently there is only one fully-functional social housing accommodation in Port Elizabeth, namely, Park Towers which has 136 units. Imizi Housing Association is in the process of constructing social housing accommodation of 347 units at Walmer Link in Walmer, Port Elizabeth. However, according to the manager of this project, it has taken them over 10 years to start the project. Problems which they encountered along the way pertain to availability of land, a complex funding model and difficulty in accessing top-up funding. There is also a social housing project on the pipeline in Uitenhage. Provincial and local government need to come up with a strategy of converting hostel upgrades and some available (but unused) municipal buildings to Community Residential Units (CRUs). According to one social housing municipal official, NMBM faces a problem in the area of CRUs. The residents who stay in hostels such as Kwa-Ndokwenza in Kwa-Zakhele have not been paying rent and/ or rates for years. When proposals are presented to them for the renovation and upgrading of the hostel and them paying

rent thereafter, the residents refuse to let NMBM renovate and upgrade the hostels. They choose to stay in the derelict hostels as they are and continue paying nothing rather than having them upgraded and paying rent. This presents a dilemma for NMBM officials as CRUs form part of Social Housing. Thus, if residents are refusing CRUs then they are excluding themselves from social housing. Some applicants to Park Towers and Walmer Links will not qualify on the basis that they cannot afford rent there. These residents are willing and can manage to pay rentals of between R400 and R800. These are the residents of NMBM who could benefit from CRUs, provided they are built or made available in and around the inner city. Surplus municipal land and buildings can be utilised for this purpose. A database of those applicants failing to qualify from the Park Towers and Walmer Links could be used as a needs analysis tool. The intensification of the delivery of social housing in the Nelson Mandela Bay Metro is essential to the reversal of the racial, economic, social and spatial dysfunctionalities of the Metro. Local Housing associations like Imizi and Port Elizabeth Inner City must be given a more meaningful agency role in assisting NMBM in implementing their social housing policy and strategy. NGOs like Ubutyebi Trust can act as a facilitator in the partnership between the Metro and the Local Social Housing Associations.

References:

Tonkin, Anzabeth. Sustainable medium density housing. DAG: 2008 | Public Service Commission. 2003 | Department of Housing. 2005 | Royston, Lauren: Making towns and cities work for people. Cordaid: 2009

16

Vol18 No1

Image by Afesis-corplan

agrarianisation or de-agrarianisation in the eastern CaPe?> cliffoRd mabheNa (Phd)

the imPLiCations for job Creation in the agriCuLturaL seCtorINTRODUCTIONAgriculture development was widely supported by the homeland administrations (Ciskei and Transkei) in an endevour to promote food security at the household level as well as within its territories. Willowvale in the Transkei was once the hub of cropping, and large quantities of maize were produced in this area. The homeland administration used to provide tractors to till the land and inputs such as seed were also distributed among the communal farmers. The marketing of maize was organised in such a way that local stores or general dealers acted as market places in which local farmers deposited their surplus for onward transmission to various markets in Butterworth and beyond. Working on the fields was viewed by the locals as part and parcel of their livelihood, it was not regarded as employment per se. Family members who contributed to the farming activities were not paid a wage or salary but benefitted in terms of food from crops such as maize (umqgushu), and non-food items that were purchased from cash generated from surplus maize sold. In other words working on the household fields was not a job as such but an obligation of every family member. The post independent South Africa has also promoted agricultural development in the former marginalised areas and even embarked on different agricultural projects spearheaded by sector departments. For instance the Department of Social Development has supported a large number of agriculture and agriculture related projects throughout the province under the banner; Food Security Projects. Organisations such as Ruliv has supported to a great extent wool production in the Willowvale area by providing grade rams and shearing sheds. However research done by the Fort Hare Institute of Social and Economic Research, (CLaRA, 2007; UNDP Human Development Index, 2008; 2009) found that a majority of households had stopped farming the fields and where they Vol18 No1

17

were still farming, cultivated in the gardens. There is however no clear evidence on the decline of livestock numbers as Anslie argued that by 2005, the livestock numbers were the same as those of the 1930s. There are a number of reasons why de-agrarianisation is happening in the rural Eastern

Cape, chief among them is the flight of human capital to the urban centres, leaving the old, aged and the sick in rural areas. The flight of human capital to the towns and cities has been compounded by the lack of employment opportunities and incomegenerating related activities in rural areas. Farming

has not been engrained in the way of life of the youth of today and has been viewed as a job of elders and the uneducated. Numerous grants given to rural households have also slowed down agricultural activity in communal areas.

AgRARIANISATION DRIVE AND LAND REFORMThe challenge for the state has been to redistribute land to the previously marginalised groups by embarking on a nationwide land reform programme. The land reform programme, according to the then Department of Agriculture and Land Reform, has three key elements, namely land restitution, redistribution and tenure reform. Land restitution it is argued has seen some tracks of land restored to the original occupiers. However in many instances the original occupiers and their descendants settled for cash rather than the land. Bank and Minkley, 2005, Bank and Mabhena, 2011, argue that most of the restituted land in the Eastern Cape still belongs to the former commercial farmers since communities settled for cash rather than the land itself. Furthermore the purchasing of the land for both restitution and redistribution has been constrained nationally by the willing seller, willing buyer principle. Tenure reform has also been constrained by failure by the state and its apparatus to fully consult the communal people in the drafting and enactment of the Communal Lands Right Act (CLaRA, 2004) which was repealed by the constitutional court in 2010 (Bank and Mabhena, 2010). In his recent overview of land reform in South Africa, Lahiff (2008) suggests that the main beneficiaries of land and agricultural policy since democracy have been commercial farmers and entrepreneurs. He states that: a critical challenge for the land reform programme thus remains the development of strategies that effectively target groups such as the landless, the unemployed and farm workers, that concentrate resources in areas of the greatest need and promote solutions that meet the needs of poor and landless people (2008: 40). Du Toit (2009) argues that policy instruments have been marked by an increasing tendency to de-emphasis support for subsistence farming and to emphasise the importance of commercial farmer support (2009: 20). He notes that there has been a shift from earlier more poverty-focused initiatives, which subsidised the assistance of land acquisition by poor and landless people, to ones which required that applicants have their own savings and resources. Du Toit laments that: billions of rands will be spent on establishing a small group of medium scale black farmers while the legacy of rural landlessness, de-agrarianisation and politically charged histories will remain untouched (2009: 20).

Cooperatives have been widely supported in the agriculture sector, and with sound planning, management, including constant monitoring and evaluation they are a workable model that can create rural employment.Faced with the challenges of land reform, the state had to support agriculture in the previous tribal areas by encouraging cooperative development. Cooperatives have been widely supported in the agriculture sector, and with sound planning, management, including constant monitoring and evaluation, they are a workable model that can create rural employment. Rich (2011), an Eastern Cape analyst, comments that; cooperatives are a fantastic model for communal development; however, in the Eastern Cape context we lack crucial ingredients: a strong cooperative culture, stronger work ethic, cooperative leadership that is willing to endure personal sacrifice as opposed to personal enrichment. The argument here is that despite the cooperative education the beneficiaries receive from various sector departments, cooperatives have collapsed in large numbers. For instance successful irrigation schemes such as Ncora and Shilow are good examples where the lack of a strong cooperative culture and lack of a strong leadership contributed to the collapse of these schemes. Furthermore

28 marCh 2012 Earth hourEarth Hour takes place on Saturday, 26 March, between 20h30 and 21h30. By switching off all your lights for an hour, youre making a statement about the threat of global warming and a commitment to a lowcarbon lifestyle. Eskom reported that South Africans who participated in Earth Hour in 2009 saved about 400 MW of electricity, 400 tons of carbon dioxide, 224 tons of coal and about 576 000 l of water. Steve Lennon, MD Corporate Services and Eskom climate change champion, said the South African energy saving was slightly higher in 2010 with 420 MW, which translates to about 4 million 100W bulbs or 6.7 million 60W bulbs being switched off. This shows a concerted effort by approximately one million households.

18

Vol18 No1

cooperatives are faced with other challenges including lack of critical capacity and the notion of get rich quickly before all is gone. This mentality requires a change in the mindset of cooperators and this applies also to Food Security projects. The Eastern Cape Today, 2011:3 acknowledges that among other things, most cooperatives (420 out of 500) have failed to secure additional funding from the state and other agencies because of a failure to meet the set criteria for qualification.

base for households and the province, the role of technocrats and politicians in securing markets for the produce, and the communitys role in ensuring sustainability of the project. How then can agriculture-based employment be generated if entities like cooperatives are not yielding the desired results? Is there an alternative model that can be adopted to generate employment from agriculture? Who should lead the employment creation drive in rural Eastern Cape? Can agriculture employment be generated outside the established commercial farming system? Do rural people of the province really need agricultural employment? These are some of the questions that we should ask ourselves as development practitioners bearing in mind attitudinal complexities of beneficiaries. One issue worth noting in the agrarianisation of the rural areas is that people tend to view crop farming as the backbone of agriculture. They tend to neglect livestock production as one of the agrarian livelihood pillars of the rural communities in the Eastern Cape. There is a belief that greening the rural landscape is a sign of increased agricultural production. I argue that the livestock economy in this province is as important if not more important than crop farming.

Development in rural areas was found to be hampered by the mismanagement of development funds and by intense conflict and mistrust between traditional leaders and local authorities.The agrarian drive is visible in the province, for instance recently the MEC for Social Development commissioned the R1.4-million Siyazama Mgudu Food Security project which basically concentrates on maize, wheat and vegetable production. The emphasis to the community in general and cooperative members in particular was the importance of agricultural land as a livelihood

DE-AgRARIANISATION PROBLEMATIC AND JOB CREATIONThe CLaRA study (CLaRA, 2007) showed that de-agrarianisation had reached alarming levels in the Eastern Cape with rural households intensely dependent on social grants for survival. Development in rural areas was found to be hampered by the mismanagement of development funds and by intense conflict and mistrust between traditional leaders and local authorities. One of the most shocking findings of the 2007 survey was the very low level of participation of households on communal land in agricultural production. Fewer than two percent of households in these areas said that they made living from farming (Bank and Mabhena, 2011). There are complex debates about how, when and why de-agrarianisation occurred in the Eastern Cape, beginning with discussions of the 1913 Land Act and its impact on rural communities. But it is generally agreed that the 1950s were watershed years and that the rural revolts against Bantu authorities and betterment planning in the region represented final gestures of resistance from the collapsing peasantry to inevitable proletarianisation (Mbeki, 1964; Mayer, 1980; Delius, 1996; Beinart, 2008). What happened after this is usually depicted as a steady and progressive decline into poverty and cash dependence for rural households in the former Transkei and Ciskei (Simkins, 1981). What is less well understood is how rapidly this decline occurred during the homeland era and how much the absence of a rural development strategy after apartheid has aggravated the situation. There are conflicting reports on how different aspects of the agrarian system have responded to change. Ainslie (2005), for example, argues that livestock numbers in the communal areas of the Eastern Cape are today at similar levels to those of the 1930s and that they have remained much more constant than the literature indicates, suggesting that the linear decline thesis might need to be revisited, at least to accommodate drought and variations in climate. On the crop production side, Andrews and Fox (2004) argue that the critical shift from field production to reliance on household gardens coincided with the growth of migrant labour in the apartheid years. But McAllister (2001) points out that the abandonment of fields did not necessary mean reduced homestead output as gardens were now expanded and used more intensively than fields. It seems possible to conclude that, while less maize from the homestead sector reached the market during the homeland era, the output of households might not have fallen quite as much as analysts predicted. In trying to maintain rural production, tribal authorities and local agricultural officers played a critical role in securing access to resources such as seed, dip, tractors and even fertilisers for homesteads, through their networks into the homeland state and its agricultural services (Gibbs, 2010). Access to this sort of support depended on the quality of local level social relations, as well as the ability of chiefs and local officials to extract favours within local patronage networks. By ignoring rural areas and the rurality of its rural subjects, the ANC has greatly accelerated deagrarianisation in the former Transkei and other areas over the past 15 years, perhaps doing more to undermine homestead production than 40 years of gruelling apartheid planning had done. Through the removal of agricultural extension services, the disempowerment of tribal authorities as development agencies, and relegation of the rural poor to a nonagrarian constituency, the Transkei countryside has been urbanised in ways that are plain to see. RDPstyle houses are popping up everywhere as the rural economy flounders and households shift their focus from production to a low level consumption lifestyle based on grants and on free land and services. One issue worth noting in trying to address job creation in these areas is that the demand for land hunger is low because agriculture is viewed by most people as a social economy rather than a commercial economy. The women and youth have migrated to urban centres in search of industrial jobs and the likelihood of engaging in commercial agriculture is not certain in the current situation. The number of rural farm workers has drastically decreased in recent years as a result of commercial farmers shifting away from labour intensive farming to nonintensive ventures like game ranching and tourism. This has lead to farmers retrenching a lot of workers. On most of these farms the casualisation of labour has become the norm and the chances of most of these workers becoming a burden to the states fiscus in future years is no secret. In other ways the commercial farming sector is also contributing to deagrarianisation as more and more land is being used for non-agricultural purposes.

Vol18 No1

19

So is the commercialisation of agriculture a vehicle with which to create jobs in rural areas in contemporary Eastern Cape or do other alternatives need to be developed? If they are developed which are those? Cooperatives and other group related activities might salvage the situation if properly planned and managed. For instan