uTshani Fund

One of the main events in the calendar of the SA SDI Alliance in 2013 was the National Conference, which brought together FEDUP and ISN affiliated groups from across the country. At this 4 day conference, which was also attended by senior government officials, the two social movements made a commitment to a much closer working relationship in the context of landlessness, homelessness and urban poverty. Read more about the National Conference in this blog post.

Pre-eminence is given to the joint action-orientated charters of the two social movements, and this blog post aims to give a historical background to the emergence, peaks and troughs, and the horizon of the future of these national social movements.

The struggle years *

The 1980s was a decade marked by open conflict between the white-minority apartheid regime and a sustained mobilisation of the black majority. Liberation movements such as the United Democratic Front (UDF), founded in 1983 with the slogan “UDF Unites, Apartheid Divides”, was at the forefront of making urban space ungovernable through protests, strikes, rent and service charge boycotts, and other forms of direct and confrontational politics (Seekings 2001:21). Other marginalised racial groups such as Indians and coloureds were also centrally involved in the mobilisation against apartheid, having been displaced by major spatial reconstruction through the 1913 Land Act and the 1950 Group Areas Act. Church- and faith-based groups also played a significant role in promoting the ideals of a free and fair society, and took advantages of the slightly more lenient conditions due to recognised religious freedom.

By 1986 the beleaguered apartheid state called a State of Emergency, which saw tens of thousands of opponents detained. Movements such as the UDF, which played a role in forging a sense of unity and coherence in community based organisations (CBOs), significantly enhanced and escalated the opposition against apartheid, by that time led by exiled African National Congress (ANC) diaspora, Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and smaller anti-apartheid groupings under the banner of Black Consciousness.

uMfelandaWonye WaBantu BaseMjondolo is born *

In 1994, these savings schemes united to form the new social movement, uMfelandaWonye WaBantu BaseMjondolo, or the South African Homeless People’s Federation (SAHPF). Khan and Pieterse (2004) have further observed that the SAHPF advanced a “people-controlled development [which] is about fostering self-replicable and self-reliant social development practices” (2004:10). South Africa’s first democratic elections saw the ANC voted into power, the SAHPF was an important actor in the urban sector, uniting communities around the common struggle against homelessness, landlessness and poverty.

On 26 November 1995, President Nelson Mandela visited the SA Homeless People’s Federation. In his speech, he said

“In approaching this task we have learned a great deal from the people – from those who are the biggest providers of housing in the country, the homeless themselves. We have learned the value of partnership between ourselves and the people in their communities. We recognise the efforts but into housing by the people themselves. We are proud of the way our people use their initiative, mobilise their meagre resources, sharpen their skills, and put in their labour, in order to provide shelter for their families. Government has committed itself to supporting the people’s housing process. We will provide mechanisms and funds to support it in such a way that the standard of housing can improve – particularly for the poorest of our people”

Despite the lack of “an enabling environment”, the SAHPF engaged the first minister of the Department of Housing and member of the Communist Party, Joe Slovo. At a national meeting with the SAHPF, Minister Slovo remarked, “Look here, show us the way and we will support you. We will rely on your creativity and energy. You have our hearts with you” (SA SDI Alliance 2008:9). A subsequent agreement with the National Housing Board placed the uTshani Fund as a conduit for housing subsidies. This arrangement was called the ‘uTshani Agreement’ (Ley 2009:261). Through this agreement, the Provincial Housing Board – who, at that time, was responsible as the “developer” of housing projects – paid the eligible beneficiary’s capital subsidy into the uTshani Fund, allowing the Federation to oversee implementation. This was a radical departure from mainstream housing delivery supply, in which private companies secured contracts through an open tendering process, to build the agreed number of houses (Khan and Pieterse 2004; UN Habitat 2006).

The Pledge agreement *

In the period 1996 – 2000, the Federation constructed more than 7,000 in the informal settlements of South African cities and uTshani Fund administrated more than R60 million in loans and subsidies. In the period 2000 – 2005, uTshani Fund was financially crippled, since state agencies no longer honoured the uTshani Agreement. Housing delivery slowed down rapidly, and the uTshani Fund only constructed 300 houses between 2004 – 2007 (Mitlin 2008b:20). Despite the financial constraints, SAHPF was able to demonstrate to government a compelling argument: Poor people were able to build larger and better quality houses with the same capital subsidy compared to the private sector housing contracts.

After a significant revision of the terms to which housing subsidies were allocated to the Federation, a new era broke with the Department of Human Settlements. Six Provinces signed the Pledge and those were: Gauteng, Western Cape, KwaZulu Natal, North West, Limpopo and Free State. Each of these provinces pledged to ring-fence 1,000 subsidies for FEDUP groups, tallying more than R220 million (more than US$ 30 million). The agreement stipulated that provinces would pay top structure subsidies (roughly 40% of the subsidy quantum) upfront and provide serviced greenfield plots (remaining 60% of the subsidy quantum). However, many provinces were uncomfortable with these arrangements, and in most cases, uTshani Fund continued to pre-finance loans to FEDUP groups, and retrospectively claim back subsidies back into the revolving fund.

The emergence of the Informal Settlement Network *

At the same time, a daunting realisation pressed national coordinators: “… for every Federation member with tenure security, there were another 20 without land” (FEDUP 2010:5). At this point, “the men in the Federation decided to reach out to community organisations of the urban poor, to form the Informal Settlement Network (ISN) and to use Federation capacities and [practices] to start to upgrade these settlements as well” (ibid). A series of dialogues were organised in 2008/09 starting in Johannesburg and Durban.

The growth of informal settlements over the past two decades have by far exceeded government’s efforts to deliver better services, provide adequate housing and mitigate against disasters and vulnerability. The Informal Settlement Network (ISN) has responded to the urban and land crises in South Africa by mobilizing communities around internal capabilities and capacities, and around specific settlement issues relating the incremental upgrading, tenure regularization and land. Building solidarity and unity among the urban poor, the ISN aims to creating a change process by connecting “political opportunity structures” (cf Tarrow 1996 cited in Bradlow 2013) to partnership formations with government.

The FEDUP-ISN alliance *

ISN and FEDUP have in common a shared value system and practices that build community capacity and generates knowledge. These practices are widely employed by all country federations in the Shack / Slum Dwellers International (SDI) network.

There is a reciprocal relationship between ISN and FEDUP, and the agencies and practices of the two national social movements complement one another. It is worth citing an internal concept note at length to illustrate the working relationship:

ISN networks and links communities around specific needs and issues, especially land and access to basic services. When the need arises for information gathering and savings mobilization, FEDUP moves in to establish women’s savings collectives, forge links with formal institutions and to leverage development finance. ISN plays the lead political role, which is oriented towards a people-centered engagement with a democratically-elected government” (SA SDI Alliance 2010:6).

A learning network *

Peer-to-peer horizontal exchanges are central to building networks and platforms of the urban poor. This is also the primary learning space, and communities that have generated learning on a certain aspect become “learning centers”. FEDUP and uTshani Fund’s experience in building strong local capacity to drive projects in the form of the Community Construction Management Teams (CCMTs)  (Each CCMT has a bookkeeper, a procurement officer, and administration assistance and a project coordinator) could be compared to ISN “learning centres”.

Organising dynamics	FEDUP Community Construction Management Teams (CCMTs)	ISN Learning Centre
Primary modality of community mobilisation	Woman’s saving schemes	Woman’s saving schemes and socio-spatial data collection
Governance structure	Highly organised and roles and responsibly defined	Open governance structure with undefined roles and responsibilities
Purpose	Project management and coordination	Learning and reflection
Project focus	Housing developments and subsidy allocation	Informal settlement upgrading and growing the network
Outcome	Effective project management and pre-financed subsidy recovery	Nodes of experience towards city-wide upgrading agenda

Charting the way forward

The Joint FEDUP-ISN charter has special relevance for the future. Drawing on the two movements’ particular qualities has the potential to define a strong bottom-up and people-centred approach to addressing some of the most daunting challenges cities and towns face in the post-apartheid era: the growth and continued marginalisation of “informality” and the urban poor.

ISN understands its vision “to create solidarity and unity among the urban poor by building a national network in order to make the flow of resources and planning of cities more inclusive and pro poor.” ISN’s core focus areas of mobilisation (profiling), governance (establishing committees), networking (exchanges), knowledge generation (enumeration) and partnership development with government agencies creates a strong platform for sustained engagement. This process lends itself for an authentic “bottom-up agglomeration” of local community based organisations. By introducing locally responsive knowledge generating tools,

FEDUP, as a founding member of the SDI network, regards itself “an affiliate of the SDI network, FEDUP is a nationwide federation of slum dwellers in South Africa dedicated to building united, organized communities, to address homelessness, landlessness and creating sustainable and self-reliant communities led by women through informal and formal incremental human settlement upgrading.” The gendered-focus and -sensitive mobilisation by which FEDUP sets up saving schemes and CCMTs  has a lot of potential to

The Joint Charter draws together the synergies created in these social movements two decades of experience. The Charter not only commits the social movements to the SDI organising principles, but also localises the agenda:

Wherever possible the skills, expertise and experience of both social movements shall be used to help further the vision, mission and goals of either movement. In practice this means the formation of joint working teams supported to sharpen and implement the agreed SDI rituals in all informal settlements of South Africa. FEDUP and ISN agree to wherever possible, conduct joint planning sessions that would allow for resources to be maximized through efficient use

The Charter ends by saying “the ISN shall strive to open up spaces within communities for FEDUP to establish new savings groups.  The FEDUP shall strive to support ISN in their communities and promote the ideals of a networked movement of the urban poor”. Considering the historical narrative framed in this blog, the charters are a reminder of the part, and starts to create a roadmap for the future.

* Excerpts taken from: Fieuw, W. forthcoming. A Politics of Resolve: people-centre development in South Africa .

Selected reference list:

• Bradlow, B. 2013. Quiet Conflict: Social Movements, Institutional Change, and Upgrading Informal Settlements in South Africa. Submitted to the Department of Urban Studies and Planning on May 23, 2013 in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master in City Planning. MIT
• Khan, F and Pieterse, E. 2004. The Homeless People’s Alliance: Purposive Creation and Ambiguated Realities. A case study for the UKZN project entitled: Globalisation, Marginalisation and New Social Movements in post-Apartheid South Africa. Durban: University of Kwa-Zulu Natal
• Ley, A. 2009. Housing as Governance: Interfaces between local government and civic society organisations in Cape Town, South Africa. Dr‐Ing thesis, Von der Fakultät VI – Planen Bauen Umwelt der Technischen Universität Berlin
• Mitlin, D. 2008b. Urban Poor Funds: development by the people for the people. Poverty Reduction in Urban Areas Series, Working Paper 18. London: International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED).
• South African SDI Alliance (SA SDI Alliance). 2011a. uTshani Buyakhuluma: the grassroots are talking. June 2011, Vol.1, No. 2.
• United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN – Habitat). 2006. Analytical Persepctives of Pro-Poor Slum Upgrading Frameworks. Nairobi

Today Tanja Winkler, senior lecturer in Urban and Regional Planning, University of Cape Town, joined CORC staff and the Europe informal settlement leadership on a planning session at Europe, an informal settlement located in Gugulethu, just of the N2 national highway in Cape Town.  The purpose of the planning meeting was to align the 2014 UCT Urban Planning practical learnership with that of the Europe community leaderships’s agendas in a “planning studio”. This studio will form part of the Master Students in Urban and Regional Planning curriculum, and have direct interactions with the community.  The aim of the studio is to expose the students to alternative planning approaches when considering one of the most pressing challenges of our post-apartheid cities: urban informality in its various expressions. Moreover, the nature of the studio also means that technical support is given to the community’s plans for upgrading the settlements, and hence a two way beneficial relationship is established from where new tools of engagement with the state can be created.

The discussion included drawing experiences from the last studio, which was in 2011. Since that time, many dynamics in the settlement has changed. Read more about the interactions with the Europe community in 2011. Observations on a new planning practice from the 2011 experience included:

• Involvement of the government from commencement and the community can use the platform to engage with the municipality to solve the water and sanitation issues.
• Language barrier – this could cause communication breakdown between the students and the community.
• Sensitivity, the community and the leaders need to be aware that some of the students have never been to an informal settlement in their lives.
• The community needs to take charge of the project and they need to set their vision for the project from the beginning.
• Political climate- the leadership made it clear that the unstable political climate which caused disruptions in the past studio still exists but assured CORC and Tanya that the community now has a unified vision for the settlement.
• Commitment of the ISN and community leadership in leading the process, facilitating engagements between other stakeholders in the community with the students.
• Clarity on results expected after the studio, Tanya clarified that the students are town planning students and not engineers.  Thus the expectations from the community must not be aligned to projects rather on the production of maps that can be used as engagement tools with the state.

This collaborative approach supports community initiatives by pairing technical support with social innovation through an engaging and co-productive process to create a shared vision. Community Studios are therefore spaces of collaboration, and some of the outcomes have included best practice case study research, graphic and drawing skills, conceptual designs, site analysis workshops, and facilitation of multi–stakeholder engagement.  The collaboration works with community groups, local government and local non-profit organizations. Projects are accepted on the basis that there is a community involvement whilst matching the learning interests of students.

CORC and ISN will continue to share experiences on the 2014 Community Studios in the new year.

The City of Cape Town adopted the re-blocking policy on 5 November after an announcement by Councillor Thandeka Gqada, Mayoral Committee Member for Human Settlements, City of Cape Town. In a City of Cape Town media statement, Cllr. Gqada reported

We view this as a turning point in our commitment to redress and a new model of shared responsibility that can change the face of our informal settlements

The informal settlements of Flamingo Crescent in Lansdowne, Kuku Town in Kensington and Mtshini Wam in Milnerton are mentioned as pilot projects the City seeks to push forward in the next financial year. But how did these settlements come on the City’s radar? Perhaps more importantly, what does this mean for the City’s renewed commitment to providing better located services in the 204 informal settlements in the City? For these answers to be answered, context is needed.

What is re-blocking all about?

“Blocking-out” and “re-blocking” are interchangeable terms the South African SDI Alliance uses to refer to the reconfiguration and repositioning of shacks in very dense informal settlements in accordance to a community-drafted spatial framework. The aim is to better utilize the spaces in informal settlements to allow for better service provision. Moreover, re-blocking is done in “clusters” identified by the community, and after implementation, “courtyard” are created to ensure a safer environment for woman and children via neighborhood watches (all shacks face the courtyard), productive places (such as washing lines, food gardens), and generally provides space for local government to install better services.

Read more about reblocking in Chapter 2 of our Project Report Masekhase: The Community Upgrading Finance Facility.

Blocking out is actually a mobilization tool more than anything else. We are saying that we are an informal settlement network. So we need to be preaching informal settlement upgrading.

Rose Molokoane, national coordinator of FEDUP, and regional coordinator with SDI

The successful re-blocking of Mtshini Wam

Through the process of “re-blocking”—an incremental in-situ re-arrangement of shacks in accordance to a community design framework which open up safer and more dignified public spaces (called “courtyards”)—45 short term employment opportunities have been created through the Extended Public Works Programme (EPWP). The special characteristic of this EPWP contract is that the community has taken full ownership of the development project. The EPWP initiative therefore builds on the community’s initiatives to save towards their own development, to conduct a self-census, to establish community project committees, and to design their future settlement layout. See this report on Mtshini Wam’s inclusion in the World Design Capital 2014 official programme.

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/52466961[/vimeo]

The community of Mtshini Wam has also worked with Touching The Earth Lightly (a Cape Town-based design NGO) and Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) from Massachusetts, USA around growing vertical vegetable gardens and have installed “the litre of light”, which amplifies natural light through a chemical-based dispenser installed in the roof of the shack. This was called the “green shack” and drew a lot of media attention at the Design Indaba 2013.

Mtshini Wam has also become a regional learning centre for communities local and international to share experience around engaging government agencies around more inclusive measures of improving living conditions in informal settlements.  Read about the SDI Five Cities conference hosted in Mtshini Wam in February 2013.

“Prior to re-blocking, the settlement was very dense,” said community leader Nokwezi Klaas, “There were no passageways and when there were fires it was virtually impossible to get into the settlement. All the toilets were on the outskirts and there were only three water taps for over 200 households in the settlement.”

Background to the partnership between the City and communities

CORC reported on the initial partnership formation with the City of Cape Town in August 2011 where the new Mayor Alderman Patricia de Lille made an in-principle commitment to furthering the evolving partnership. Initially 23 projects were identified for pilots to experiment in the new people-centered development approaches the ISN presents. Monthly partnership meetings were held in each of the four City regions: South/Central; Strand/Khayalitsha; Eastern; and Blauwberg.

In April 2012, 22 new pilot partnership projects were agreed to and Mayor Patricia De Lille signed partnership accord Memorandum of Understanding with ISN and CORC at a mass gathering held in Vygieskraal – a settlement of 300 households located behind the formal housing development with the same name in Athlone – the Mayor was introduced to the programmes of the ISN. The geographical spread of these projects were true to the need of the City, with eleven projects in the South / Central area, and six in the Khayelitsha / Strand area. Some of the projects (20%) included consolidation and relocation of settlements (those settlements less than 15 households where development is not feasible), some included (40%) formalization and subdivision, and some include (40%) blocking out.

So what does the City of Cape Town’s reblocking policy mean to practice?

The City of Cape Town, after sustained engagement with the ISN/FEDUP and CORC/iKhayalami through innovative learning-by-doing approach to upgrading informal settlements, put out the draft policy in July 2013. After all comments were received, including those of the Alliance, the City officially adopted the policy. The policy is aligned with the City’s The five strategic focus areas of the City’s Integrated Development Plan, The National Development Plan 2030, OneCape2040 and the City Development Strategy, and the City’s five-year Integrated Human Settlements Plan. This means there is a long term commitment to making meaningful interventions in informal settlements.

You can download the entire policy document here

The policy document outlines the criteria for viable reblocking projects, the preventative measures to be installed in the reblocking project, alignment with different government departments, and very importantly, the governance interface between the City, communities and supportive NGOs.

In lieu of conclusion: Moving forward

Reblocking is now in the public sphere. The policy space now exists and the City can, after more than three years of lobbying and demonstrating innovative alternatives, commit resources to the projects and ensure departmental alignment.

The Alliance supports this policy innovation. Communities’ vast experience in making dignified and livable spaces, supported by innovative partners and agencies that we have worked alongside, point to the following core lessons learnt:

 

 

• No internal displacement has occurred even though spaces have been opened for community courtyards, water and sanitation service delivery, electrification, and creating primary and secondary road hierarchies;
• Scarce spaces in informal settlements are consolidated and productivity is maximized for communal purposes (safety and security, daily domestic chores) and delivering better services
• The process of negotiating floor sizes builds social cohesion and solidarity. Governance support is part of ISN’s mobilisation and capacity building support in communities.
• Top-structures are improved by using high-quality Inverted Box Rib (“IBR”) galvanised steel sheets with high fire resistance ratings.
• Social mobilization through woman’s savings schemes, enumeration, spatial mapping and design, and eventual collaboration in the implementation of this settlement-wide upgrading strategy generates internal learning (which is shared through the ISN and FEDUP), and builds stronger partnerships with the local government.

There is a buzz in Cape Town on the possibilities of design thinking, doing and living leading a transformation role in the city. But what does Cape Town, with its legacy of spatial segregation through the Group Areas Act of 1950, massive movement restrictions and a burgeoning post-apartheid divide between the rich and the poor, know about design? How can we claim to be a city displaying transformation through design if we lived such divided lives? And what does Cape Town have in common with world class cities and previous World Design Capital winners Turin/Torino, Italy (2008 winner), Seoul, Korea (2010 winner) and Helsinki, Finland (2012 winner)?

The core proposal driving the bid seems to be simple but powerful. According to the World Design Capital 2014 website,

Cape Town’s bid was not about the city claiming that it is already an established ‘design capital’, but instead it was a bid to acknowledge that we are using design thinking as a tool for transformation…

Contemporary Cape Town is a tale of two cities: one a postcard narrative of wild beauty and sophisticated cosmopolitanism, the other a story of poverty and urban degradation….

In the past we were divided by design – by the social engineering of the apartheid era. It is by design, and a reshaping of the cityscape, that a safer, more efficient and inclusive home for all our residents is being forged…

… It is also a chance for Cape Town to help articulate design-based solutions to challenges faced by the 90% of the world’s populations that live in the developing world.

The prestigious accolade of World Design Capital is awarded by the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design every two years. It recognises that “the future success of each city is therefore largely reliant on those who plan, design and manage the shared spaces and functions of their city”.

The Alliance of community organisations and social networks Informal Settlement Network (ISN) and Federation of the Urban and Rural Poor (FEDUP) and support organisations CORC, uTshani Fund and iKhayalami saw this as an opportunity to display, on a global stage, how communities go about designing, inhabiting and reproducing spaces that increase accessibility and productivity of poor people in the city. Informal settlements present the lived spaces of more than 30% of City’s population. 

Cape Town Design NPC, the implementation agency for World Design Capital Cape Town 2014 (WDC 2014), announced the official list of programmes on 31 October 2013. 1,253 projects were submitted over a 10-month window consisting of two calls for public submissions. After rigorous curating and evaluation, the official list of 450 projects was announced.

In the first window of submission, different Alliance organisations  submitted four project proposals to the WDC2014 committee. We are excited to report that all four projects have been officially acknowledged by the World Design Capital 2014 committee and these will form part of the official programme.

Project Title	Project partners	Project Description	Twitter shortcode
Re-blocking of Mtshini Wam	CORC and ISN/FEDUP and the City of Cape Town	Re-blocking Mtshini Wam showcases the co-production value in upgrading informal settlements. Once threatened through evictions, the community initiated a self-design process that re-organised shacks into “clusters” with safer and more dignified public spaces, making  way for the City install basic services.	#WDC238
Langrug informal settlement upgrading	CORC and ISN/FEDUP and Stellenbosch Municipality	Langrug is located on the picturesque hills of Mont Rochelle nature reserve, Franschhoek home to a very poor community. Langrug in-situ upgrading has drawn local and international attention. A path towards regularisation and development now exists due to the community design interventions.	#WDC542
Solid Waste Network	Solid Waste Network, CORC and ISN/FEDUP	The Solid Waste Network, a collective of 350 informal waste pickers, creates an interface between communities and industry. It removes 40 – 60 tonnes of solid waste from the stream each month and provides a steady income stream for poor people. The unique design of the programme puts people first.	#WDC615
Community led spatial design and reconfiguration of informal settlements both pre and post disaster	iKhayalami and ISN/FEDUP	The spatial reconfiguration of informal settlements to those that are more rationalized leads to social cohesion, shelter upgrade and infrastructural improvements . It builds community, acknowledges the positive aspects of informality & helps bridge the urban divide including not removing the poor.	#WDC236

Note: Use the shortcodes to search where the projects are positioned in the Programme Calendar. 

According to the Programme Calendar, Mtshini Wam (#238) and iKhayalami (#236) proposals are year long programmes. The projects have already received news coverage in popular newspapers such as the Cape Argus. At the same time, communities in informal settlements continue to showcase their design potential. In many ways, here lies the potential to rethink and redesign our cities: starting from a bottom-up approach. When the international community considers Cape Town’s design culture, informal settlements will be central to the global spotlight.

If you were appointed as mayor of the City of Cape Town, how would you structure policies, financial management and technical capacity to ensure a participatory approach to upgrading informal settlements?

With this far-reaching question, the South African Alliance introduced the third learning space (read more about the first and the second learning spaces). Essentially we wanted to create a space where we could reflect on policy and practice.

Nkokeli, an ISN coordinator, spoke first, and reflected on the disconnected nature of aligning line departments to informal settlement communities’ agendas. He said that if he were appointed as mayor, he would reconfigure line departments to first report upwards, towards a centrally coordinating body with executive powers (similar to the Urbanisation department, but with more power). Secondly, multi-departmental teams will be assigned to housing districts where monthly fora are facilitated to identify, implement and monitor services which are informed by community action plans. For this, he would allocate budgets to ensure central participation and capacity development. We will need to build strong local organisations. This will also mean greater decentralisation of core municipal functions, and break down the “silo” mentality.

Andy, manger of iKhayalami, echoed Nkokeli’s ideas, and reflected on the massive gains the East Asian countries have made in ensuring that a funding facility, such as the Community Organisation Development Institute (CODI) of the Thai government and the Urban Poor Development Fund (UPDF) in Cambodia. Such instruments have in common shared values of central participation of communities.

Focusing on the such a decentralised approach will have a greater scope to focus on area-based interventions, not the catch-all approach of the current spatial planning aspects, reflected Marlene, a FEDUP coordinator. As a mayor, Marlene said that she will spatial planning will happen at the neighbourhood/area scale, which will then be integrated with other areas to develop a city spatial development plan.

The platform was set, and the group agreed with the current positions being put forward. Other group members reflected on how the political representivity of councillors is fraught with error, and that we need to bind councillors to deliverables. People who voted councillors into power also needs to have the power to revoke their power when they are not delivering on their mandate. Politicians need to be accountable to their mandates. This will enhance the community’s oversight and monitoring capacities.  But we need to ensure that protocols are in place, otherwise government will be destabilised all the time.

The themes that were picked up in this learning space were:

• greater decentralisation with teams delegated to the regions;
• investment in the creation and sustainability of poor people’s organisations, and the legitimacy and representivity in planning fora;
• greater power to monitor and hold politicians to account;
• enhancement of the roles of interim organisations, such as public benefit organisations and non-governmental organisations supporting the cause of poor people; and
• budgetary reform to facilitate a bottom-up process of delivering services.

Till next time then!