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

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2. Current Challenges South Africa, especially since Thabo Mbeki became president in 1999, has interacted a lot with the rest of the world and gives great importance to maintaining its international visibility. The coming soccer World Cup, which will be held in South Africa in 2010, is part of these efforts. Finally, at the end of apartheid, the government set up a positive discrimination policy to foster employment among black populations and ensure the economic integration that they were denied under apartheid. This policy is called Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) and was recently modified to become Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (BBBEE). The BEE favoured in particular a black elite for jobs requiring relatively high qualifications, and the BBBEE aims to foster the insertion of black populations in all types of employment. 2.1.3. Poverty and Unemployment These efforts to ensure increasing economic development were accompanied by considerable social measures. Among other things, the amount of social spending in the state budget has risen since 1994 in all areas: health, education, housing, personal services. Thanks to these actions, the number of households receiving basic services has risen (see the increase in large South African cities in Graph 5). 52 Graph 5. Number of Households with In-Home Access to Water Number of households 700 000 600 000 500 000 400 000 300 000 200 000 100 000 0 Buffalo Cape City Town Source: State of the cities 2006. 1996 2001 2004 Ekurhuleni eThekwini Johannesburg Mangaung Msunduzi Nelson Mandela Tshwane Integrating Poor Populations in South African Cities © AFD 2009
2. Current Challenges However, despite these improvements, inequalities have continued to grow and the government is struggling to reduce them. Economic growth is not spreading as the government would like, and the gap is widening between economically integrated populations and the poorest. Unemployment is growing: it was officially 23.08% in 1996, and 24.13% in 2004. 26 A large percentage of the South African population lives in extreme poverty: in 2005, 52% of the total population was beneath the Minimum Living Level. 27 2.1.4. Housing Challenges As we saw earlier, a proactive housing policy has been in place since 1994, and has provided a roof to one and a half million households in a decade. This programme rapidly came to be seen as an incomplete response for several reasons. Offering ownership of property to relatively poor households has inconveniences as the households are not necessarily able to regularly pay their house-related expenses (electricity, water, repairs, upkeep) and are sometimes obliged to sell the property for very small sums. Indeed, the RDP houses’ architectural uniformity and minimum comfort did not encourage a true secondary market to emerge, and this lack of encouragement was further strengthened by the government’s discourse discouraging resale. Next, as has already been emphasized, rental solutions were not chosen and do not allow for an alternative offer to meet the diversity of needs. In addition, the subsidy offered by the government starting in 1994 only applies to households earning less than 3,500 rand per month. Thus, there was no housing solution for households above this threshold; these households could neither receive the subsidy nor take out loans from private banks. This phenomenon is called gap housing and found a partial solution through the growing social involvement of banks and a proportional extension of government assistance. 53 The limits of this policy and the growth in the number of households (population growth and smaller household size) perpetuated, even worsened, the housing crisis. The number of households without formal housing grew from 1.45 million in 1996 to 26. Source: Quantec. 27. Percentage calculated from the State of the Cities Report 2006, South African Cities Network. © 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 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: 2. Current Challenges 2.1.2. The Na
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
Page 73 and 74: 4. Planning as Implemented in South
Page 81 and 82: The Hindrances to the Effectiveness
Page 83 and 84: 5. The Hindrances to the Effectiven
Page 85 and 86: Paths Toward More Profitable Planni
Page 87 and 88: 6. Paths Toward More Profitable Pla
Page 89 and 90: PART THREE Develop Living Spaces fo
Page 91 and 92: Access to Housing: The Main End Goa
Page 93 and 94: 7. Access to Housing: The Main End
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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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