Integrating Poor Populations in South African Cities - Agence ...

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Public Policies on Housing and Urban Integration in South Africa These obligations implied applying horizontal governance within new municipal territories to ensure that development operations would be crosscutting, and ensure vertical governance between the three spheres. Prior to the 1996 Constitution, South African municipalities were in charge of producing public housing. The Housing Act of 1997 favoured the national and provincial spheres. The first sets national policy and elaborates the institutional and financial framework. The second manages national programmes and must help the municipalities fulfil their housing responsibilities. The municipalities, for their part, must elaborate, plan, coordinate and facilitate appropriate housing development. The emphasis is on their role as intermediary and mediator facilitating the actions of the two other protagonists, in particular by providing the necessary infrastructure. The Housing Act nevertheless gave them the possibility of intervening directly in housing production. This Act allows them to be accredited to manage national programmes, and therefore to infringe on the Provincial Housing Departments’ prerogatives. Inadequate coordination between public housing production and municipal strategies and the difficulties mobilizing private promoters led to a new direction being taken in 2001. Municipalities were called to play a stronger role as the contracting authorities for public real estate projects and to become the promoters in most subsidized housing projects, which has poisoned their relations with the provincial authorities. Lessons from Experience 22 Most of the reports by researchers (including Morange, 2004; Boraine et al., 2006; Pillay, 2008; van Donk et al., 2008) insist on both the growing housing deficit (which has grown from 1.5 million units in 1994 to 2.4 million units in 2006) and the need to rethink the foundation for collective action. In a prophetic paper, Vanessa Watson had underscored the primary obstacles that implementation of the initial model faced or risked facing (Watson, 1999). First, its success depended on partnerships that made it possible to mobilize private companies that were supposed to negotiate “social agreements” with communities. These agreements were to condition access to public financing. However, the private sector was not very responsive, and community participation rarely worked as the stakes were very conflict-ridden among city-dwellers. Among other things, the Integrating Poor Populations in South African Cities © AFD 2009
Public Policies on Housing and Urban Integration in South Africa housing fund never received the 5% of the national budget as the state was not able to comply with one of the recommendations in the White Paper on housing. Given this cascade of failures, annual production never reached the 350 thousand homes needed to meet estimated needs, while the urban population grew by +1.6% per year from 1996 to 2001. Sprinkling aid also brought about a drop in project subsidies, leading to lowest-cost production and cheap buildings. Between half and two-thirds of the maximum subsidy amount was absorbed by equipment costs, and the base units (core houses, starter houses) destined to be expanded later were small — one or two rooms with a bathroom (40 to 50 square meters at best, but 15 to 25 square meters in most cases) — and often of poor architectural quality. Second, there were multiple dysfunctions in horizontal and vertical governance. The effectiveness of the housing policy was contingent on the existence of operational provincial and municipal administrations. However, the politico-territorial reconfigurations were difficult. Integrating administrations that had different cultural legacies, often different ways of operating, and different staff hierarchies and salary scales, while simultaneously taking affirmative action and attempting to prevent the loss of technical knowledge following the departure of white professionals was a real exploit. Unifying budgetary rules in the metros took time, and for the municipalities included in districts where distributing resources among urban hubs was conflictual, managing budgets supplemented by the Equitable Share 7 was complicated. In addition to this laborious horizontal reconstruction, there were also relational problems within the multi-level administrative galaxy. Because of the vagueness of texts regulating the reciprocal responsibilities of the provinces and municipalities, contracting authority was all the more disputed by the two spheres as its clientelistic dimension was an essential political given. Conflicts over authority, especially in Western Cape and Kwazulu-Natal, were intensified by administrative blockages about transferring and allocating funds from the central sphere: budgets granted late, insufficient amounts attributed by the provinces, and interference of all sorts in the selection of housing recipients, a task that was already tricky because of competition among city-dwellers defending their eligibility priorities. From one plot or settlement to another, the locals had defined themselves as belonging to competing categories — haves and have-nots, insiders and outsiders — forged 23 7. The system of allocating budget resources from the central sphere and destined for the provinces and local governments. © AFD 2009 Integrating Poor Populations in South African Cities
Page 1 and 2: Integrating Poor Populations in Sou
Page 3 and 4: The author Fanny Hervé, an enginee
Page 5 and 6: Abstract In South Africa, urban dev
Page 7 and 8: Résumé En Afrique du Sud, les enj
Page 9 and 10: Contents METHODOLOGY ..............
Page 11 and 12: Contents CONCLUSION ...............
Page 13 and 14: Methodology The purpose of this stu
Page 15 and 16: FOREWORD Public Policies on Housing
Page 17 and 18: Public Policies on Housing and Urba
Page 21: Public Policies on Housing and Urba
Page 29 and 30: Introduction At the end of aparthei
Page 31 and 32: PART ONE: An Urban Context Marked b
Page 33 and 34: An Urban History of South Africa: F
Page 35 and 36: 1. An Urban History of South Africa
Page 49 and 50: Current Challenges 2 The apartheid
Page 51 and 52: 2. Current Challenges 2.1.2. The Na
Page 53 and 54: 2. Current Challenges However, desp
Page 55 and 56: 2. Current Challenges Progressively
Page 57 and 58: 2. Current Challenges far from the
Page 59 and 60: 2. Current Challenges commutes are
Page 61 and 62: Urban Development Policies in a Uni
Page 63 and 64: 3. Urban Development Policies in a
Page 69 and 70: PART TWO An Uncertain Determination
Page 71 and 72: Planning as Implemented in South Af
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4. Planning as Implemented in South
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The Hindrances to the Effectiveness
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5. The Hindrances to the Effectiven
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Paths Toward More Profitable Planni
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6. Paths Toward More Profitable Pla
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PART THREE Develop Living Spaces fo
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Access to Housing: The Main End Goa
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7. Access to Housing: The Main End
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The Limits of the Government’s Ac
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8. The Limits of the Government’s
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Toward Greater Integration of Publi
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9. Toward Greater Integration of Pu
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Conclusion Nearly fifteen years ago
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Acronyms and Abbreviations ABM AFD
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Acronyms and Abbreviations RZ SACN
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Appendices Appendix 1: Interviews I
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Appendices • Claire Bénit-Gaffou
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Appendices Pretoria • Revelation
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Appendices Appendix 3: Map of Johan
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Appendices Appendix 5: Map of Ethek
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Bibliography Books DU TOIT, J., U.
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Bibliography Articles BÉNIT, C. (2
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Bibliography REPUBLIC OF SOUTH AFRI
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Publications Les titres de la colle
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Publications No. 23 : Libéralisati
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What is AFD? www.afd.fr Agence Fran
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