May 9, 2006
By Anish Abraham
WITH the Joburg economy remaining bullish, the city is set to adopt a Growth and Development Strategy designed to further enhance its long-term growth trajectory.
The Growth and Development Summit will be held on 12 May at the Expo Centre, Nasrec Hall 10, from 9am. The Growth and Development Strategy (GDS) is the Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality's long-term vision, divided according to sectors and identifying long-term goals and strategic institutions.
"During the local government elections, the African National Congress manifesto called for all party-ruled metros and districts to create a growth and development strategy," explains Rashid Seedat, the director of the City's corporate planning unit.
However, Graeme Götz, a specialist in the unit, says the City already had identified the need to consolidate documents like the Integrated Development Plan and the Joburg 2030 Strategy, in February 2005.
Whereas the Joburg 2030 Strategy focuses exclusively on economic development, the GDS comprehensively deals with a wide variety of issues facing the city, across all sectors. It encompasses most elements of the Joburg 2030 Strategy.
Compared to the Joburg 2030 Strategy, the GDS has changes in the underlying development approach, updates analyses of trends and clarifies long-term goals and the City's plans to meet them.
Revision of the strategy was also needed because of newer national government programmes such as the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa, or Asgisa, which the 2030 strategy predates by almost three years.
"We want to convey one clear, overarching message about the path that the City is on," Seedat says.
Public participation
The new mayoral committee members discussed the GDS soon after they were appointed, and called for extensive public participation in the creation of the strategy. Apart from waiting for comment from the public, the City has also solicited feedback from residents through ward committee meetings and sectoral workshops.
Seedat says the strategy has also been presented to members of business and labour, through platforms such as JCCI-Nafcoc (Johannesburg Chamber of Commerce and Industry-National African Federated Chamber of Commerce), the JSE Securities Exchange and the tripartite alliance.
"By having sector consultations, we can identify the concrete steps to be implemented jointly with our social partners to accelerate growth, reduce poverty and develop sustainable communities. It is the essence of what we are trying to do," Götz explains.
Masondo will also announce the first five-year Integrated Development Plan (IDP) at the Growth and Development Summit, a document now more suited to medium-term planning for local government. Previously, the document had a one-year timeframe.
"It is required by the Municipal Systems Act and is informed by the programmes of national and provincial government, but also to our own specific conditions," Seedat says.
The IDP is a much more specific document, setting out programmes and capital projects and indicating the financial resources required, as well as the organisational and institutional requirements to deliver on those programmes.
The strategy is also ensuring there is full alignment between sectors, long-term goals, departments, the mayoral committee and portfolio committees, to accelerate service delivery. This alignment is already at "90 percent to 95 percent".
Being a long-term document, the GDS, for example, would not have to deal with issues of financial resources.
Global city
As the provincial government increasingly starts to view much of the province as a global city region, Götz says the GDS also takes this into consideration. "We are at the core of a complex urban region with some 10 million people. We can't take decisions without considering their consequences for our neighbours."
As such there is a need constantly to improve co-operative governance between various local authorities, spheres of government and other stakeholders. "We cannot work in silos and just consider our own interests," Götz explains.
The public consultation process, which began when the draft IDP was released on 4 April, will end at the summit, from which both the IDP and GDS documents will be sent to the City council for approval on 24 May.
Comments received after the summit will not be discarded, but considered during future revisions of both documents. By law, the City is required to review its IDP annually, with the GDS being reviewed after a longer period.
Seedat says it is impossible for the document to remain static, since there are constant changes in policy as well as in the socio-economic environment that can affect it.
"We should have a document that covers the critical problems that face the city and solutions for them, so Joburg emerges as the leading African City in financial, social, spatial and environmental terms," he concludes.
Permission to use web site material
Publishers may use material from this site free of charge, as long as:
- Credit is given to either the "City of Johannesburg website
(www.joburg.org.za)" or to "Johannesburg News Agency
(www.joburg.org.za)";
- If the article is used online, a link is provided to the original
article on this website;
- The name of the article's author is acknowledged;
-
The webmaster is informed of how and where the material is used (fill
in this brief online form).
Johannesburg News Agency is operated by BIG Media at 011-484-1400 |
