The Gauteng city region perspective seeks maximum benefit for all from the flow of goods, services and people between the different parts of Gauteng and with neighbouring provinces and other economic regions, writes Mbhazima Shilowa.
In March 2003, the national government released the National Spatial Development Perspective (NSDP). The NSDP contains spatial guidelines for infrastructure investment and development. It aims to provide a framework within which to discuss the future development of the national space by reflecting the localities of severe deprivation and need, of resource potential, of infrastructure endowment and of current and potential economic activity by describing the key social, economic and natural resource trends and issues shaping the national geography. It also aims to identify key areas of tension or priority in achieving positive spatial outcomes with government infrastructure investment and development spending.
To give content to the issues raised in the NSDP, the Gauteng Inter-Governmental Forum of November 2003 agreed "on the need for the development of a common Gauteng region that is both globally competitive and smart; and the need for improved mechanisms of integration and intergovernmental relations and...to work towards improved consultation, coordination and integration at sectoral and provincial levels recognising the different nature and capacities of districts and municipalities."
In May 2004 the Gauteng provincial government adopted a resolution that realises the importance of "building Gauteng into an integrated and globally competitive region where the economic activities of different parts of the province compliment each other in consolidating Gauteng as an economic hub of Africa and internationally recognised global city region".
During the same month, the Premier's Coordinating Forum identified "the creation of an integrated globally competitive region as an intergovernmental priority".
As part of the preparations for the ANC Gauteng 9th Provincial Conference, the issue was discussed extensively. In a section titled, 'A better future is possible and in the making: A shared vision necessary', the base document says:
"Integration will be the key to unlock resources to halve poverty and unemployment. The possibility of unity in action as a single developmental region is a significant opportunity available to the province:
The sectoral document on challenges and outcomes on transformation of the state and democratisation of governance during the second decade says that there are key features that distinguish Gauteng from all the other provinces of our country:
Our unique position as South Africa's most densely populated and urbanised area poses both challenges and opportunities. The increasing urbanisation and migration of people from all over the continent puts pressure on infrastructure and service delivery. And yet, the inflow of people with skills is to the benefit of the economy of the province. Gauteng's compact urban landscape and highly developed infrastructure provide unique possibilities for us to create an integrated province in which provincial government and municipalities implement a common developmental vision for making Gauteng an integrated globally competitive economic region that is best positioned to take forward the country's commitment to a better Africa and a better world.
At the heart of our vision for the next ten years is the need to place developmental local government as a locomotive for quality service, local economic development and democratic participation of citizens in the affairs of governance. To do this successfully, local government needs to continue to be organised and transformed into an effective agent of development and popular democracy. For Gauteng, we propose that the best institutional organisation required is a single system of metropolitan developmental local government that has capacity and a resource base to ensure quality service delivery, local economic development and participatory democracy.
After discussion in the policy conference and ultimately at the 9th Provincial Conference, the conference resolved to adopt a shared vision of Gauteng as a "City Province" that is characterised by, among others:
On 29 August this year, the provincial and local government in Gauteng launched the Gauteng city region perspective at the provincial legislature.
For the first time in the history of our legislature, public representatives sat together in a joint assembly to discuss social, economic and developmental challenges.
The perspective signifies a turning point in the history of our development as a province. It entails exciting new possibilities for advancement and will propel us onto a higher path of development. It is an initiative which seek to marshal all the province's forces towards the common good and help us take the qualitative leap forward that we need to fulfil the people's aspirations and achieve our vision of shared growth and prosperity for all.
Gauteng, with its three metropolitan municipalities, is already regarded as a global city region by virtue of its population density, levels of economic activity and development. However, we know that fulfilling our obligations to the people of our province, our country and the continent requires that we all redouble our efforts.
In the next few decades, the Gauteng city region will continue to grow and face challenges of rapid urbanisation and population growth. The question we need to ask ourselves is whether we want to continue to grow in an unplanned and inefficient manner that reinforces inequality and uneven development, or manage this growth and agree on an integrated, high-level plan to coordinate our efforts and effectively address our development challenges.
Put differently, the question is not whether or not we become a globally competitive city region, but the development of a common perspective that should henceforth guide the development of the Gauteng city region.
Important as it may be to achieve consensus on the perspective between local and provincial government, it is even more important to ensure that the perspective is shared by all stakeholders in the province and informs their long term thinking on social and economic development.
Our joint objective must therefore be to build Gauteng as an integrated and globally competitive region where the economic activities of different parts of the province complement each other in consolidating Gauteng as an economic hub of Africa and an internationally recognised global city region.
During engagements with various stakeholders on the perspective, the initiative was generally welcomed with a number of issues raised, most of which fell into three main categories:
Workers raised issues of retrenchments, casualisation and the poor quality of some of the jobs that may be further exacerbated by the city region.
Together with local government we were able to point to a range of strategies currently being implemented or developed. These include the Growth and Development strategies, the comprehensive Gauteng Aids Strategy, the Social Development Strategy, the Gauteng Safety Plan, the Gauteng Youth development strategy, the Gender policy, the Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment Strategy, our Human Resource Development strategy, initiatives to promote small businesses and cooperatives, our 20 townships urban renewal plan, our strategies to promote competitive sport and creative industries, and others.
Our development trajectory The initiative to build Gauteng as a globally competitive city region demands a new, integrated way of addressing our development imperatives in Gauteng. In defining our future development trajectory, we need to reiterate some of the key assumptions behind our development agenda. In particular, we are saying that shared economic growth is the main pillar of our efforts to address poverty, underdevelopment and unemployment. Shared growth is a fundamental prerequisite for a sustained improvement in the quality of life of our people.
We also reiterated the need for a developmental state and active state intervention to reverse inequality and marginalisation and ensure that the majority of our people have access to meaningful economic activity and sustainable livelihoods. For those who are unable to engage in economic activity, we need to provide a social safety net, including social grants.
However, we should aim to liberate the majority of our people from dependence on social grants through creating access to sustainable economic opportunities.
In achieving our goals, it is a priority that we improve the capacity and organisation of the state to ensure economic efficiency and growth to address social needs.
Over the past ten years Gauteng has experienced unprecedented and sustained economic growth and a sustained decline in unemployment, from 30.4% in 2001 to 22.8% in 2005. However, this is not enough as we continue to face unacceptably high levels of joblessness and poverty. A key challenge is therefore to avoid a situation where continued population and environmental pressures, combined with the negative social impact of poverty and unemployment, negate the benefits of growth.
In attracting both domestic and foreign investment to expand the productive capacity of the economy and create jobs, we are aiming to increase both foreign and domestic investment. However, in taking this a step further, we need to ensure that we have an efficient public transport system, that we deal with traffic congestion, that we reduce crime, that we improve social and economic infrastructure, that we improve the quality of our health and education systems and lift our skills levels, and that we accelerate the empowerment of women and the youth.
We therefore have a convergence of issues that are priorities for both our people and investors. In addressing priorities such as transport infrastructure, education and skills development, human settlements, safety and security, the environment and health care, we are on the one hand fulfilling the promises we made to our people and responding positively to the concerns of the electorate, while at the same time promoting our province as a destination for investment, tourism, competitive sports and other major events. This creates the possibility of a virtuous circle, in which we improve the conditions of our people and attract investment, which in turns creates more quality jobs and further improves the incomes of our people, which in turn attracts more investment and so on.
Research shows that some city regions have failed to effectively respond to the challenges of globalisation and urbanisation but have instead succumbed to greater inequality, poverty and social exclusion. While we can certainly learn from the experiences of other countries, our response to these challenges must be a homegrown solution that is appropriate to our own socioeconomic conditions, our own history, culture and the needs and aspirations of our people.
While we may share with other city regions challenges such as rapid urbanisation, in-migration, congestion and infrastructure needs, apartheid spatial planning left a legacy which is distinct from the challenges facing other global city regions. Apartheid established townships as dormitory ghettos for cheap and subjugated labour, far from the white cities.
Townships were denied decent infrastructure, services and facilities, while the former white areas had well-developed infrastructure. Today many people still live far from economic opportunities and face high transport costs.
We also face a situation in Gauteng where the three municipal districts -Sedibeng, Metsweding and the West Rand - are underdeveloped compared to the three metropolitan areas of Ekurhuleni, Tshwane and Johannesburg. This is both for historical reasons and due to the changing nature of the economy and the shift to the tertiary and services sectors away from mining, agriculture and, to some extent, manufacturing sectors.
The Gauteng city region today faces the challenge of continuing to reverse the legacy of inequality and uneven development and break apartheid spatial settlement patterns to ensure more even development and opportunities for all.
This is being achieved through a range of programmes, including the promotion of mixed income settlements close to economic opportunities. In addition, provincial and local government are together embarking on a massive urban renewal programme in 20 major townships in the province. This entails investment in social infrastructure and the creation of viable transport and economic hubs that will contribute to the expansion of economic opportunities closer to where people live.
We are finalising the Gauteng spatial development perspective, which will map out current and future development patterns for the province, including social, economic, infrastructure, human settlement, environmental, transport and other characteristics. The spatial development perspective will aim to ensure better urban and land use planning. It will take into account and aim to provide a framework for the spatial development plans of cities and other municipalities. It will become an important tool for planning for both the public and the private sector.
Growth, employment and competition Gauteng is the country's economic engine, produces over a third of the country's gross domestic product (GDP) and is the fourth largest economy in Africa.
Like other city regions, we face rapid urbanisation alongside massive in-migration to Gauteng from other parts of the country and from other parts of our continent and the world. Most Gauteng residents are migrants in one way or another and our population continues to increase by about 20% every five years. We are already home to about 9.5 million people, making us the country's most populous province. Current demographic projections indicate this will increase to around 14.6 million people by 2015. Gauteng will then rank among the largest metropolitan settlements in the world.
While this puts significant pressure on infrastructure, state resources and services, it also has exciting possibilities in attracting skills and innovation, creating new and more viable markets and in making Gauteng a dynamic, diverse, innovative and productive urban hub.
During consultations, concerns were raised that increased social and economic success in the Gauteng city region will lead to more people coming to the province and putting even more pressure on the social and economic infrastructure. The advent of democracy and the abolition of influx control means, among others, that South Africans will continue to choose to go to areas with perceived and real economic prosperity.
Work by the Presidency on a revised national spatial development perspective and linkages with provincial growth and development strategies (PGDS) and municipal integrated development plans (IDP) will hopefully help expand economic and development opportunities in other provinces and mitigate the need for people to travel to Gauteng. In addition, improved economic linkages between provinces can contribute to overall growth and opportunities. However, it is not an option to say we should become less successful so that we don't attract people. All global city regions attract people, and rapid urbanisation and population growth in Gauteng will continue for the foreseeable future. The challenge is for all of us to effectively confront the challenges.
Among the central priorities of our people is the creation of decent work and the reduction of poverty. We have committed ourselves as a province to contribute to the national goal of halving poverty and unemployment by 2014.
Our ability to create quality jobs and sustainable livelihoods for our people depends in large measure on our ability to attract investment and tourism in our country and our province. Our growth and development strategy has identified key sectors for growth and a range of complementary strategies that, if properly implemented, will enable us to reach our target of 8% growth by 2014.
Some of our stakeholders have raised concerns that the Gauteng city region strategy places too much emphasis on competitiveness and not enough emphasis on development. In their view, this plays into the 'neoliberal agenda'.
Competitiveness can be conservative or progressive.
Our aim in becoming competitive is to build and improve the efficiencies and infrastructure that will lead to accelerated economic growth and enable us to achieve our ambition of contributing to the national target of halving poverty and unemployment.
Our commitment to doing this is within the context of growth that is both balanced and inclusive. Our aim is to fulfil the aspirations of our people by marrying shared growth with social progress and ensuring that the benefits of growth are spread as widely as possible.
Many of our stakeholders have emphasised the need for our institutions of higher learning to be able to compete with the best in the world. As one representative said, we need to place Gauteng "at the cutting edge of knowledge production". We need to produce the skills and knowledge that can build new sectors of the economy and provide quality jobs in our province.
We need to reach a point where our young intellectuals don't feel the need to go to London and the United States to gain work experience but use Gauteng and its universities and research institutions.
The reality is that we are also competing with other countries for investment and jobs. For example, we have attracted certain car manufacturers to Rosslyn due to the availability of a skilled workforce, logistics and transport infrastructure and other capacities. Their location in Rosslyn has created quality jobs in the province and, together with the Automotive Industry Development Centre (AIDC), contributed to skilling of workers in the sector.
A key challenge is to ensure that the three major metropolitan municipalities of Johannesburg, Tshwane and Ekurhuleni, and the other smaller cities in the region, work together in the interests of the province, the country and the continent. The Gauteng city region strategy provides a framework to facilitate the alignment of provincial and local growth and development strategies, to ensure synergies between their investment and tourism strategies and to align city development strategies and integrated development plans. The aim is to cooperate internally so that we can compete more effectively externally, in the international arena.
A successful Gauteng city region needs an effective and integrated transport system that includes a variety of different modes of transport including trains, taxis, buses and private cars. Of particular importance in meeting the needs of our people is a public transport system that is safe, reliable, accessible, affordable and integrated.
We are looking at a combination of strategies. The Gautrain is the backbone of the system on the north-south axis and to the development node around the airport in Ekurhuleni in the east. However, many of our people will continue to rely on Metrorail, buses and taxis. Our public transport strategy involving national, provincial and local government and parastatals, must ensure that these are efficient, safe, reliable, affordable and integrated.
Our spatial development plans must also take transport needs into account in identifying new developments, based on the need to ensure that our new settlements are on well-located land close to economic opportunities.
Another important component is air, road and rail freight and the movement of goods around the province, to other cities and provinces, and to other countries. The City Deep container port is Africa's largest inland port and the fifth largest in the world. Improving its efficiencies will improve the performance of the economy and requires further collaboration between all spheres of government, national departments, other provinces and the relevant parastatals.
Sustainable human settlements
The Gauteng city region requires the development of sustainable human settlements on well located land, close to economic opportunities. The 20 priority townships project is an important part of this strategy as well as our comprehensive housing strategy. This must address inequality and promote social inclusion and mixed income developments.
The Gauteng city region must strengthen safety and security. The province has developed a Provincial Safety Plan that sets priorities for the province as a whole and is a crucial component in meeting the needs of our people.
The collaboration between the metro police departments, South African Police Service (SAPS), communities and business will be crucial to our success.
Many of those who are most affected by crime are the poor and the vulnerable, women, children and working people. First and foremost we must therefore address crime to improve the lives of our people. At the same time, improved safety levels will also enhance the implementation of our other strategies including growth and development and investment and tourism promotion.
Health care remains a priority for our people and in stimulating economic activity and attracting skills. We have already become a significant centre for health tourism. In both cases, our aim should be to ensure we achieve excellence. HIV and Aids is one of the most significant challenges facing the Gauteng city region and requires a multi-sectoral, comprehensive and integrated response. While government must play a leading role in implementing the Aids strategy, to succeed, the strategy must be implemented in partnership with all sectors of our society, including in our places of work, our homes, our places of worship, in suburbs and in informal settlements, in cities and in towns.
In a densely populated urban centre such as Gauteng, the environment assumes particular significance. Growth and development has a significant impact on the environment and we need to take steps now to ensure environmental sustainability in the medium to long term. This should take into account the energy requirements of the Gauteng city region now and in the future.
The Gauteng city region must avoid the pitfalls of social exclusion and growing inequality that have been associated with other global city regions.
This is a significant challenge in the context of existing social backlogs, marginalisation and growing in-migration. The reality is that, if we do nothing, we will perpetuate social exclusion. We must put in place integrated strategies to improve the socio-economic conditions of the poor and provide a social safety net for the poorest of the poor. In addition to the social grant system, we are finalising a province-wide indigent policy to be implemented by different municipalities across the province.
Governance
The Gauteng city region perspective emphasises the practical linkages and social and economic relationships, the flows of goods, services and people, between the different parts of the Gauteng region and with its neighbouring provinces and other economic regions.
The strategy does not aim to tamper with the constitutional structures of national, provincial and local government but argues that these structures need to work together to maximise the opportunities for development and progress. It also affords us an opportunity to look at whether, twelve years into our democracy, powers and functions of the respective spheres of government remain properly aligned or need adjustments.
Effectively managing the complexities of building the Gauteng city region requires a conscious, well-informed and sophisticated system of urban governance to ensure close collaboration across the spheres of government and between the public and private sector.
While a single city-region government is not required, "joined up government" is crucial to the performance of the city region - ensuring a well-connected and strategic alliance of government structures, communities and stakeholders. This requires that all structures, especially those at a provincial and local level, think beyond their municipal boundaries. This should involve not just political leaders, but should extend to officials.
Effective governance is not only central to improving social delivery and fulfilling the aspirations of our people, it is also an indispensable component of economic efficiency and job creation.
Both as government and as the movement, we need to determine roles and responsibilities of all stakeholders, including the private sector, develop indicators and benchmarks, examine means for resource sharing across the province, and develop measures to strengthen intergovernmental relations. It is also important to continue to ensure that neighbouring provinces and towns understand the strategy as in the best interest of development and not a threat to their social and economic development.
* Mbhazima Shilowa is the ANC Gauteng Provincial Chairperson and Premier of Gauteng.
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