Making City Development Strategies Come Alive in South Africa

Fifth Cities Alliance Public Policy Forum

November 13, 2004

Durban, South Africa

• Agenda (4 pages, 33 KB PDF)

• Presentations

• Media

• Link to eThekwini online: The official site of Durban, South Africa - Cities Alliance Conference

The city of eThekwini/Durban recently hosted the fifth annual edition of the Cities Alliance Public Policy Forum from November 1 to 3, 2004.Over 250 participants attended the three-day event with the theme, "Making City Development Strategies Come Alive in South Africa". These included mayors, city administrators and slum dwellers from eThekwini and other municipalities in South Africa, as well as representatives of local and national governments, donor agencies, financing institutions and NGOs. The well-organised Forum enabled participants to see and learn from eThekwini's rich experience of city development strategies (CDS), its tremendous successes as well as the barriers it had to overcome on the road to successful implementation.

A CDS, is an action plan for equitable growth in a city, developed and sustained through public participation to improve the quality of life for all citizens. The goals include a collective city vision and an action plan to improve governance and management, increasing investments to expand employment and services, and systematic and sustained programmes to reduce poverty. 

The PPF sessions focused on three key issues:

• CDS and Economic Development; the objective being to examine the strategies which may be adopted by cities in response to global economic integration, economic transformation and urban poverty;

• CDS and Slum Upgrading: the objective being to examine the shelter strategies which may be e adopted by cities in response to urbanisation pressures and urban poverty;

• Sustainable Finance Strategies: to examine strategies to fund the implementation of CDS within a partnership context, focusing on the use of own funds, the gearing of external funds and the mobilisation of community/end-user finance.

Key lessons from the eThekwini experience include:

• Citizen participation is fundamental to achieving our outcome of improving people's quality of life

  Participation occurs at all levels:

  • Ward level

  • City wide level

  • Public budget hearing sessions 

  • Sector discussions

• Good governance is key - In the case of eThekwini it has proved to be an essential tool for moving the city onto a more sustainable development path. Keys to good governance: 

  • Democracy

  • Community participation, 

  • Integrated delivery and 

  • Strategic planning that embraces social environmental and economic concerns.

• A Performance Management System is necessary to continually review and evaluate the performance the implementation of the strategy.

eThekwini's experiences are captured in the book Making City Development Strategy Come Alive: Experiences From eThekwini Municipality, Durban, South Africa, launched during the Forum, and available from the Communications department of the Municipality. Following are the presentations from the Forum.

Presentations:

• Speech by Ethekwini Mayor, Councillor Obed Malba.

• Speech by LN Sisulu Minister of Housing 

• National Perspectives on CDS and the Urban Strategy. Mr Yusef Patel, Chief Director, Department of Provincial and Local Government.

• The State of the Cities Report 2004 and Implications for City Development Strategies. Andrew Boraine, Chairperson, South African Cities Network.

• eThekwini (Durban) City Development Strategy. Dr. Michael Sutcliffe, City Manager: eThekwini.

• Joburg 2030 - Johannesburg's Economic Development Strategy. Mr Thokozani Thwala, Programme Manager: Investment Facilitation and BEE.

• 2020 Economic Growth & Development Strategy Promoting and Supporting Pro-poor Economic Growth. Vuyo Zitumane, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Municipality.

• INK Urban Renewal and Area-based Management Programme. Mr Linda Mbonambi, Area Based Manager, eThekwini Municipality

• Slum Upgrading in São Paulo and lessons from Brazil. Paulo Teixeira Former Secretary of Housing City of São Paulo.

• Ekurhuleni - Developing a Pro-active Land Release Strategy to Address Urbanisation Pressures. Neville Chainee, Executive Director: Housing, Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality.

• Tshwane - Promoting social and economic inclusion of informal settlements in remote areas. Mr Dumisa Dhlamini, General Manager: Housing Services, the city of Tshwane metropolitan municipality.

• The Role of Micro Finance in Meeting SA's Housing Challenge. Johan De Ridder, Director, African Bank

• Linking Cities With Domestic Capital. Rajivan Krishnaswamy, Cities Alliance.

• Obtaining finance - Some ideas from the Municipal Fund. Mr Declan Duff, Director, Municipal Fund, International Finance Corporation/World Bank.

• The Comprehensive Plan to Eradicate Informal Settlements In South Africa.

• Tour of INK

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Media:

• How to Keep Our City Coping with the Pace. Sunday Tribune, October 31, 2004.

• A Special Supplement for The Cities Alliance Public Policy Forum. Cities Alliance, South African Cities Network and Ethekwini Municipality:

  • Durban to Host Cities Summit

  • Putting It in Writing - City's New Book

  • About the Cities Alliance

  • Cities Without Slums

  • City Plan in the Spotlight

  • 8 City Outcomes

  • The Integrated Development Plan and You

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