Promoting sustainable development in South Africa

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[email protected]) (eastern cape), Enoch Mhlanga ([email protected]) (rural dev), Eddy Moeketsi (Already in study 2), ...
Promoting sustainable development in South Africa Key issues Ajoy Datta and Nikki Funke August 2015

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Promoting Sustainable development in South Africa: key issues

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Promoting Sustainable development in South Africa: key issues

This document is an output from a project funded by UK Aid from the UK Department for International Development (DFID) to support South Africa’s Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA) in its implementation of the environment sector Research, Development and Evidence framework. The views presented, expressed and contained in it are those of the author(s) are not necessarily those of or endorsed by DFID, DEA, BCURE or VakaYiko which can accept no responsibility for such views or information or for any reliance placed on them. 3

Promoting Sustainable development in South Africa: key issues

1.

Introduction ..................................................................... 6

2.

The policy context ........................................................... 8 History .................................................................................................... 8 International engagements..................................................................... 8 Development context ............................................................................. 8 Policy framework .................................................................................... 9 Financing ............................................................................................... 9

3.

Flagship initiatives and achievements......................... 11 Good practice cases ............................................................................ 11 Stories showcased at the WSSD...............................................................11 Clean Development Mechanism ...............................................................11 The National Cleaner Production Centre ...................................................11 The global partnership for action on sustainable development and the green economy .........................................................................................12 Provincial and municipal level initiatives ....................................................12 National Green Fund .................................................................................13

Unintended consequences................................................................... 13 Progress with room for improvement ................................................... 14

4.

Observed influential factors ......................................... 15 External factors .................................................................................... 15 Leadership and coalitions .................................................................... 16 Relationships between actors in the sustainable development ‘ecosystem’ ................................................................................................. 17 Across government ...................................................................................17 State-business relations ............................................................................18 Local level processes ................................................................................18 Deliberative stakeholder engagement .......................................................19 Relations concerning civil society ..............................................................21

Knowledge and discourse .................................................................... 21 Sustainability as an issue for DEA.............................................................21 Multiple framings .......................................................................................22 Addressing implementation issues ............................................................23 Learning from good practice......................................................................23 A dependence on science for framing .......................................................23 Inadequate contestation ............................................................................24

Capacity and resources ....................................................................... 24 Values and trade-offs ........................................................................... 25 4

Promoting Sustainable development in South Africa: key issues

Accountability and learning .................................................................. 26

5.

Some reflections ........................................................... 28 Moving from problem solving to negotiating ......................................... 28 Raising the quality of interactions ........................................................ 28 Shaping the policy debate .................................................................... 29 Deploying existing capacities better ..................................................... 29 Focussing on both process and outcomes ........................................... 30 Measuring, learning and adapting ........................................................ 30

6.

References ..................................................................... 31

Annex 1: Draft interview questions ..................................... 35 Annex 2: Drafting the National Strategy for Sustainable development ......................................................................... 40

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Promoting Sustainable development in South Africa: key issues

1.

Introduction

This is the fifth in a series of five studies undertaken as part of the diagnostic phase of the VakaYiko project on supporting implementation of the environment sector Research, Development and Evidence (R, D & E) framework. It is intended to help understand what might need to be done to support DEA as it designs and implements a strategic and systematic approach to evidence-informed policymaking across the department. DEA needs to fulfil a dual mandate: it is responsible for the delivery of environmental policy and programming but is also a coordinating and influencing department, responsible for ensuring that environmental issues are addressed in policies created and implemented by other line ministries. The need for this particular study arose because of the National Strategy for Sustainable Development (NSSD) endorsed by the Cabinet in 2011 in line with the medium term strategic framework 2009- 2014. DEA, as the NSSD coordinator was in the process of deciding whether to re-commission the NSSD, and if not, what other approaches might better promote sustainable development. The overarching question was thus: should the NSSD be re-commissioned? If not, what instrument/policy/programme would be more likely to facilitate sustainable development outcomes in South Africa? However, early in 2015 during the research process, DEA made a decision not to re-commission the NSSD as among other reasons, the five strategic priorities of the NSSD are embedded in the National Development Plan endorsed by Cabinet in 2012. The main question subsequently changed to: what approach(es) were likely to better facilitate the promotion of sustainable development outcomes in South Africa. This helped us formulate subsidiary questions including: 1.

How is sustainable development understood by the South African government, private sector, civil society, academia and NGOs?

2.

What policies, instruments and tools exist to promote sustainable development in South Africa? What are their goals and how do they fit together?

3.

What factors shape policymaking (design, delivery and evaluation) on sustainable development issues?

In answering these questions we took the following approach: 

Policy content mapping and analysis: this included mapping the content of the main instruments that have been developed to promote progress in the area of sustainable development. We looked at the National Development Plan (NDP), the NSSD and the New Growth Path (NGP) and other relevant policy documents and explored similarities, differences and how they fitted together.



Exploring the context in which sustainable development policy plays out: this included identifying the key actors (nationally and internationally, governmental and non-governmental) that had an important stake in sustainable development, their formal mandates, the processes that shaped their interaction and relationships, how this was influenced by power and interests and what this meant for the design and delivery of policies linked to sustainable development.



Making observations about improving sustainable development nationally: Given the analysis we made tentative observations about what DEA could do to better facilitate the emergence of sustainable development outcomes.

We collected the data for these elements in two ways: 

Documentary analysis: Policy content mapping was based predominantly on government documentation, strategies and plans. We also drew on a limited scoping of some of the accessible academic and grey literature on policy processes in sustainable development in South Africa.



Interviews: We interviewed 14 people comprising officials from local and national levels (who comprised most of the interviewees) as well as representatives of civil society and the private sector. Through these interviews, we generated 1) generalizable knowledge from across the sustainable development ‘theme’ and 2) to a lesser extent, knowledge about specific sustainable development related examples.

Preliminary thoughts were presented at a project steering group meeting on June 9th 2015. This report in no way aims to be a comprehensive review of all the work being done on sustainable development in South Africa. This would be impossible given the work that is happening across government, civil society and the private sector as well as time and resource constraints. The DEA has also produced the NSSD M&E report as well as an internal and confidential 6

Promoting Sustainable development in South Africa: key issues

document named “life after NSSD 1” that may go wider and deeper than this document. As such, this document aims to provide a ‘flavour’ of some of the issues brought up by a sub-section of the available literature and the interviewees. The aim is not to be negative about existing processes but acknowledge the challenges faced in bringing about sustainable development as a basis for discussion as VakaYiko in South Africa develops a ‘change’ strategy to improve the strategic and systematic use of evidence in DEA. The information in this report is organised in the following way: 

The next section provides some context on sustainable development in South Africa starting with a brief overview of some historical trends, the country’s engagement internationally after the abolition of apartheid, an overview of the recent development context, the policy framework in place to promote sustainable development as well as issues regarding the financing of policy



Section three draws on the available literature to suggest what notable achievements have been made in the area of sustainable development



Section four aims to suggest what factors might explain this level of achievement. It is split into seven parts: external factors; leadership and coalitions; relationships, processes and spaces; framings, knowledge and discourse; capacity and resources; values and trade-offs; and finally accountability and learning.



Section five reflects on what the analysis might mean for actions DEA could consider taking

The next section aims to set the scene.

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Promoting Sustainable development in South Africa: key issues

2.

The policy context

History The legacy of the history of environmental policy in apartheid South Africa still lingers in the structures, approaches and experience of the implementation of sustainable development today. Before apartheid was abolished, government was not set up to deliver services for large sections of society. Planning systems and basic information about non-white communities were poorly understood. And policy commitments towards meeting the needs of the poor were rarely based on an understanding of the needs of the poor (see Patel, 2006). Key environmental policies from the past include moving black South Africans off their ancestral lands for the establishment of game parks, enjoyed mostly by white South Africans; housing black South Africans in cities like Johannesburg, on arid and inhospitable land, next to mine dumps and industries; spending disproportionate amounts of public money on protecting fauna and flora, whilst the majority of people living in townships lived under conditions without adequate food, shelter and clean water; spending billions of rand on maintaining a strong biodiversity conservation ethic – some of South Africa’s rural areas remain a big draw for the thousands of tourists who flock to the country annually. The environmental concerns were of preservation and conservation and driven by a largely white middle class constituency (see McDonald, 2002a, b; Cock and Fig, 2002, Patel, 2006), whilst conservation meant dispossession for the majority of South Africans (Ngobese and Cock, 1997)

International engagements After the fall of apartheid, South Africa re-engaged with the international community. Ten years after Rio’s Earth Summit, the country hosted the anniversary summit in Johannesburg in 2002, the 5th World Parks Congress in Durban in 2003 and the COP 17 in 2011 amongst others.

Development context The sustainable development context in South Africa is rooted in the politics of natural resources, the population and the economy. South Africa relies heavily on a cheap and inefficient coal fired power sector whilst the country accumulates its resources through energy intensive industrial and mining sectors (Bond, 2002). Coal accounts for 77 per cent of the country’s primary energy supply and over 90 per cent of electricity generation (Winkler, 2009 and http://www.energy.gov.za/files/coal_frame.html). Problems with electricity supply from the parastatal utility Eskom have led to power shortages, at the same time that the company is seeking to expand into continental energy markets. Solutions to the power shortages include two major Eskom coal-fired power stations, in Medupi and Kusile which will be the third and fourth largest coal fired power plants in the world (while Sasol’s Secunda plant is one of the largest point sources of CO2 emissions anywhere on the planet (Resnick, Tarp and Thurlow, 2002; Yield 2011). Alternatives include long running (on and off) plans to expand South Africa’s nuclear power industry which have proved controversial with local communities and environmental activists (Chatterjee et al, 2013). The national macro-economic strategy has consistently been directed toward achieving higher levels of GDP and consumption, in order to reduce chronic un- and under-employment. This was expressed in the Growth, Employment and Redistribution Strategy of 1996 as well as the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa (AsgiSA) of 2006. Both these strategies only paid limited attention to questions of sustainability with inequality growing in line with the economy (Chatterjee et al, 2013). However, energy security concerns may galvanise action around climate change mitigation. Although sustainable development cuts across all government agencies, coordination and promotion are included within the Environment Affairs Departments (as mandated by the National Environmental Management Act (NEMA) – we describe this below), which have concurrent functions at national, provincial and municipal levels. However, sustainable development issues pose a challenge to policymakers as they are resistant to traditional single issue policy responses and cannot be dealt with by any one government department nor by government alone. As such there are a number of governmental and quasi-governmental organisations – panels, working groups, expert committees, advisory bodies, missions and independent regulators who together shape sustainable development policy (Chatterjee et al, 2013). The private sector has shown interest in social and environmental responsibility, following changes in corporate governance triggered by the abolition of apartheid and the recognition of the role that business can play in rebuilding society. Corporate governance principles have been institutionalised both in the King Codes which incorporated sustainability as a key pillar and in 8

Promoting Sustainable development in South Africa: key issues

statutory requirements for companies to engage Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) and environmental impact assessment (EIA). Business support for large conservation organisations – such as the endangered wildlife trust – has often been substantial (see Chatterjee et al, 2013). Environmental issues have traditionally been the domain of white, middle class, English speaking groups, and campaigns around climate change, recycling and biodiversity protection have failed to attract widespread popular support (Cock, 2006; Raubenheimer, 2001:11). Analysis of the 2005 South African Social Attitudes Survey concluded that ‘collective action in the name of environmentalism in South Africa is lacking’ (Struwig, 2010:200). Almost 49.3 per cent of South Africans agreed with the statement that people generally worry too much about the future of the environment and not enough about jobs (ibid). However, popular grassroots movements have increasingly campaigned on environmental justice issues such as land rights, urban pollution, air and water quality, sanitation and electricity prices (Bond, 2002; Cock, 2006).

Policy framework South Africa has a very favourable policy environment at the national level as well as a suite of tools at the local level to guide decision making. We elaborate on some of them here. Commitments to sustainable development, democratic decision making, and social and environmental justice are enshrined in the constitution (RSA, 1996), which sets the tone for all subsequent environmental legislation and policy. It entitles South Africans to a healthy environment and the right to have the environment protected from activities which are damaging and degrading (Patel, 2006). The publication of both green and white papers informed the development of the National Environmental Management Act (NEMA). NEMA guides environmental decision making and prescribes a set of decision making and bureaucratic procedures. South Africa has conducted considerable policy work around climate change. South Africa launched a national climate change response strategy in 2004, and discussions at a climate summit in 2005 eventually led to a government team being assembled and mandated to produce a Long Term Mitigation Scenario (LTMS) exploring different development paths for South Africa, a project which has attracted a lot of interest nationally and internationally. The LTMS was completed in 2007. In mid-2008, Cabinet released the “Vision, Strategic Direction and Framework for Climate Change Response Policy”. In December 2009, the president announced South Africa’s Copenhagen Pledge which was formally submitted under the Copenhagen Accord the following year (Wills, 2010). In 2010 a Green paper was finalised and National Treasury released a carbon tax policy document (Tyler and Gunfaus, 2015). The National Climate Change Response White Paper was finalised just in time for COP17 in Durban in 2011. More broadly, a National Framework for Sustainable Development (NFSD) was endorsed by Cabinet in 2008 whilst a National Strategy for Sustainable Development (NSSD) was endorsed in 2011. Sustainable development was prioritised by national government as one of the key delivery outcomes of the current administration (Department of Presidency, 2010). Several other development plans and instruments had components relating to sustainable development. These included: the National Development Plan, the New Growth Path, the Green Economy Accord, the Integrated Resource Plan and the National Skills Development Strategy III (Nhamo, 2013). To help decision making for sustainable development at a more local level, a number of tools emerged including; indicators; cost benefit analysis (CBA), environmental impact assessments (EIAs), strategic environmental assessments (SEAs), Local Agenda 21 (LA21) frameworks, environmental auditing and reporting, environmental management frameworks, spatial development frameworks, amongst others. From this list of tools, NEMA prioritised the use of EIA’s. As one interviewee during our research said “whenever someone mentioned sustainability, everybody would look to an EIA and environmental authorisation”. The assumption was that these tools would serve the public interest due in part to the impartiality of the procedures followed. South Africa’s approach to environmental decision making using primarily EIAs combined an expert driven approach with a deliberative or participatory approach to decision making.

Financing South Africa responded to the world financial and economic crisis by launching a US$7.5 billion stimulus package of which about 11 per cent was allocated to environment related themes. In May 2010, the South African government hosted a Green Economy Summit and in November 2011, just before the COP17 in Durban, the Economic Development Minister launched a green economic accord which aimed to create 300 000 green jobs during the next 10 years. This was complemented by initiatives such as the national Green Fund which was set up with R800 million in 2012 and expanded by a further 300 million in 2013 to 9

Promoting Sustainable development in South Africa: key issues

‘provide catalytic finance to facilitate investment in green initiatives that will support South Africa’s transition towards a green economy’; (Gordhan, 2013; Green Fund, 2012; Death, 2014; Mthembu-Salter and Cullinan, 2011). As part of South Africa’s New Growth Path endorsed by Cabinet in 2011, the green economy is identified as one of priorities with potential to create a large number of jobs, help catalyse industrialisation and help to create a more sustainable future (Parker, 2011). However, according to some interviewees, finance for sustainability initiatives was limited, and government departments were not always able to deploy their own funds to such initiatives, with some senior managers apparently conceding that implementation of sustainable development and climate change policy was dependent on donor funding (Winkler, 2009). Perhaps it is not surprising that South Africa has been a high profile location for Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects and according to Winkler (2009) accounted for over half of sub-Saharan Africa’s total number of projects (ibid). Several departments and agencies across government have also provided different actors across society with incentives and disincentives as a way of bringing about changes in practice. Some are fiscal or tax based whilst others are subsidies. For instance, households received a subsidy if they install a solar powered water heater, industrial firms receive subsidies if they make their production equipment more efficient while a non-renewable power generation levy was introduced. However, it is unclear whether together these policies have had the desired effect. In addition, the government has administered a number of taxes and levies to address perceived market failure in the environmental sector. In 2004 the government introduced a plastic bag levy. Levies on electricity, filament lamps, international flights, fuel, carbon dioxide emissions of motor vehicles were also introduced. In 2009, environmental taxes contributed R26.4 billion or 4.2% of national income. In 2013 total tax revenues was expected to contribute R61.6 billion or 7.4% of National Income (this paragraph draws on GIZ, 2014). However, tax revenues were not directly earmarked for spending on environmental priorities as this goes against sounds fiscal management practices. Instead, various revenue recycling options such as “soft” earmarking - on budget allocations-, tax incentives or tax shifting were being considered (Morden, 2013).. The National Treasury stated its intention to increase the contribution of environmental taxes and levies to total tax revenues. To account for external costs associated with carbon- dioxide emissions, National Treasury stated that additional incentives would be created to change behaviour and encourage energy-efficiency including the introduction of a carbon tax. The government was hoping to raise between 8 to 30 billion rand a year from the proposed tax and to cut emissions from 34 percent by 2020 and 42 percent by 2025. However, in February 2014 the South African government announced it would postpone the planned carbon tax until 2016. Prior to this decision the main business lobby, declared that the original version and timing of the tax would lead to major job losses in mining, chemicals and food processing (This paragraph draws from GIZ, 2014). Nevertheless, Nhamo (2013) cites a panel of 26 experts, 19 of whom concurred that the government had made inroads to setting up green economy funding mechanisms.

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Promoting Sustainable development in South Africa: key issues

3.

Flagship initiatives and achievements

Here we describe examples of sustainable development initiatives and related achievements we have found as a result of our research (beyond those directly linked to the NSSD).

Improvements in ‘lived realities’ cases According to interviewees, sustainable development policies have resulted in several cases of good practice, though somewhat isolated through for instance pilot projects.

Stories showcased at the WSSD A number of stories were showcased at the WSSD in 2002 and included: 

The Soweto Mountain of Hope (SOMOHO) project was initiated as a means to reduce crime in the heart of Soweto. The Tshiawelo Koppie (the mountain of hope), was once a barren and dangerous hill, dividing the community. In order to integrate the community, efforts were made to make the hill safe and secure, including clearing to increase visibility and access. The initiative has since developed further and is now an arts, culture and environmental hub for the local community (Greening the WSSD, 2002 in Patel, 2005).



The Banareng Feed the Children, Feed the Nation Project was started by the school’s enterprising principal, who made the link between children with frequent headaches and complaints of dizziness with the need for proper nutrition. The Banareng primary school in Atteridgeville Township in Pretoria established a permaculture vegetable garden on its school grounds. The project has since grown and now has a self-sustaining garden with vegetables, indigenous plants, cut flowers and a rockery. The gardens have become an integral part of the school curriculum and provide an environmental educational programme as well as a focal point for wider environmental education in the community. The school now feeds 670 children, which has resulted in a dramatic drop in the absentee rate (Greening the WSSD, 2002). By improving the nutrition of its pupils, the school has enhanced the quality of education and has instilled positive environmental values in its learners and the surrounding community.



A number of projects in the township of Alexandra in Johannesburg aimed to address the social and infrastructural malaise through an integrated approach – integrating economic, physical, and institutional objectives whilst simultaneously encouraging community involvement civic pride and sustainable institutional structures. The environmental benefits that have emerged from this include the rehabilitation of the Juksei River, the cleaning up of schools, the ongoing greening of the area including the planting of an indigenous forest and domestic permaculture gardens as well as ongoing monitoring of air and water quality (ibid)

Patel (2005) suggested however that these and similar achievements were not the result of pre-determined programmes to address sustainable development directly but tended to be ‘by-products’ of broader development processes.

Clean Development Mechanism More recent examples include South African CDM projects which range from ‘flagship’ schemes such as the Kuyasa low cost housing project in Cape Town which retrofits township housing with solar water heaters, and has been awarded a ‘gold standard’ rating, to the controversial Bisasar dump methane extraction and electricity generation project in Durban, which has attracted substantial local opposition and has divided communities (Lohmann, 2006).

The National Cleaner Production Centre The National Cleaner Production Centre (NCPC) was set up at about the same time as South Africa hosting the WSSD in 2002. It is a national government programme that “promotes the implementation of resource efficiency and cleaner production (RECP) methodologies to assist industry to lower costs through reduced energy, water and materials usage, and waste management. It is

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Promoting Sustainable development in South Africa: key issues

hosted by the CSIR on behalf of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI)”1. Case studies and successes featured on the NCPC website include: 

Feltex Automotive Trim Ltd, a supplier of automotive acoustic and trim components conducted an energy audit in February 2012 as part of the National Cleaner Production Centre of South Africa (NCPC-SA)’s Resource Efficiency and Cleaner Production Programme. The audit identified the need to address energy management within the plant, which led to Feltex developing an Energy Management System (EnMS) which in turn resulted in a saving of 1,070,000kWh and a payback period on investment of less than 12 months. A reduction in GHG emissions of 1,024 tonnes of CO2 was achieved.



At Source Foods supplies dried fruits to large retailers in South Africa and exports about fifty per cent of its products to the international market. Production has increased year-on-year, resulting in expansion of the manufacturing plant. The company adopted a culture of continuous improvement, with an interest in identifying opportunities to save energy and money. An assessment highlighted the drying ovens as one of the major significant energy users in the company and took steps to improve the efficiency of drying. An investment of R 100 000 in one year (2012-13) realised an annual saving of R113 583 with a payback period of 9 months. 137 663 kWh of energy was saved, with a concomitant GHG reduction of 131 743 ton CO2.



Sappi Cape Craft is a global manufacturer of paper and paper-based products. The firm has a paper mill based in Montague Gardens, Cape Town, and is the only plant in South Africa which uses only 100% recycled paper as its input raw material. As a result of an NCPC project, significant savings were achieved, primarily through training of personnel in energy efficient practices and the efficient use of equipment, without any major capital investment. During 2012/13, five projects were undertaken, resulting in a total saving of 944 445kWh of electricity and 540,553 kWh of steam. A financial saving of R 894,000 was achieved for an investment of R70,000 resulting in a 2 month pay-back period.

The global partnership for action on sustainable development and the green economy In addition, South Africa has won several awards from SEED to promote sustainable development initiatives. SEED founded at the 2002 WSSD, is a global partnership for action on sustainable development and the green economy, set up by UNEP, UNDP and IUCN and supports innovative small-scale and locally driven entrepreneurs around the globe to integrate social and environmental benefits into their business operations. For instance, in South Africa DEA chair the SEED SA steering committee. Amongst the shortlisted entries for the 2015 Special Recognition Award is greenABLE - a South African non-profit enterprise that has set up a recycling facility with the double aim of reducing waste and environmental pollution while also offering disabled persons a livelihood. They remanufacture empty printer cartridges and provide income generating opportunities for previously disadvantaged and unemployed women with disabilities. In its recycling facility, greenABLE provides workplace training for the disabled persons who dismantle the cartridges, enabling them to attend certified courses adapted for school leavers and to access the job market. SEED Award winners include All Women Recycling which turns discarded plastic bottles into unique gift boxes, called kliketyklikboxes, which are sold internationally. In the production of the gift boxes the enterprise employs young women, primarily previously unemployed single mothers. All Women Recycling also contributes to cleaner townships by strengthening environmental awareness, particularly in schools which as a result set up collection points for the plastic bottles.

Provincial and municipal level initiatives In addition, there is evidence of some positive schemes at provincial and municipal levels (although this does not include examples of outcomes): 

A team of prominent internationally recognised experts put together a proposal for a developmental green economy in Gauteng in 2010, which presented a more transformative vision of sustainable development and a low carbon future (Spencer, et al, 2010)



Limpopo produced a green economy plan in 2011 focussing on the growth possibilities of sectors like bio fuels and solar energy (Musyoki, 2012)

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From http://ncpc.co.za/about-ncpc

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Promoting Sustainable development in South Africa: key issues



KwaZulu-Natal launched a green growth website and hosted two annual green growth conferences in 2012 and 2013 (see http://www.kzngreengrowth.co.za/)



The Western Cape created a green Cape Sector Development Agency which was established to unlock the manufacturing and employment potential in the green economy in the Western Cape (see http://green-cape.co.za/about.php)



The City of Cape Town has a number of programmes designed to showcase sustainability and bring together public and private sector initiatives on climate change adaptation and mitigation (see Cartwright et al, 2012)



Free state launched a green economy strategy in 2014 as its contribution towards the vision 2030 (see https://www.environment.gov.za/projectsprogrammes/greeneconomy/resources )

However, the scope and coherence of these initiatives are variable, with some provinces and municipalities not always acknowledging the existence of national priorities (Death, 2014).

National Green Fund The establishment of the national green fund in 2012 provided further practical support for the transition to a green economy. One of highlights from the national green fund is the ‘Wastepreneur’ programme. The programme promotes the recycling, reuse and recovery of waste in a manner that creates job opportunities for under employed segments of the South African workforce, such as youth and women. The Wastepreneur programme is partially government funded, but is implemented by the Wildlands Trust – an NGO, and is currently operational in Kwa Zulu Natal and Gauteng Provinces, with small-scale operations in areas bordering Mpumalanga Province. The Programme operates by linking buyers of various types of waste material with waste collectors and sorters (i.e. sellers). For example, in the Midlands in KZN, Wildlands Trust has identified and engaged buyers for waste glass, aluminium cans, cardboard, white and coloured paper, newspapers, polystyrene and plastics. The wastepreneuers collect and sort waste to supply to buyers. In 2011 the Midlands project was reported to be collecting an average of 120 tonnes of waste per month through a network that has recycling depots at 52 schools and 100 businesses. A total of 600 “wastepreneurs” collect recyclables in exchange for goods such as groceries, building material, bicycles and education support. Up to 48 communities are involved in the Wastepreneur, and 17 eight-tonne trucks (14 bought with the Green Fund support and three with Unilever support) are operational, with support equipment having been purchased as well (UNEP, 2015).

Unintended consequences In translating principles of sustainable development into legislation and procedures to shape outcomes, especially in urban areas a number of unintended injustices have emerged such as: 

In an attempt to reduce the amount of plastic in the environment, plastic bags must now be purchased, resulting initially in a decrease in demand for plastic, and the subsequent loss of livelihoods for thousands of retrenched workers (although this may have changed since)



The government was committed in the housing programme to increasing the capital subsidy for the delivery of houses. However, to meet basic infrastructural requirements, more was spent on the structure than on the land, resulting in the poor being located on marginal land, and paying more for services



Tourism infrastructure, including golf estates and polo field were not just reducing the biodiversity of coastal areas, but were also serving to restrict access of communities to the sea, thereby jeopardising livelihoods



Housing projects were stalled because of biodiversity concerns, delaying the provision of houses, water, sanitation and energy to homeless people, raising ethical and moral dilemmas.



The urban edge policy, being run by the city of Johannesburg, aimed to promote sustainable development by reducing the size of its ecological footprint. A consequence of compacting and densifying the city within a boundary had the effect of restricting the supply of developable land in a rapidly growing city. A consequence of this was increasing land prices making it difficult for the poor to access land, thus promoting illegal land occupation and the delivery of subsidised houses on marginal land (see Patel, 2006).

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Promoting Sustainable development in South Africa: key issues

Progress with room for improvement Overall, there were several examples of good practice on the ground. The biggest challenge was achieving scale (interview data, 2015). Given this evidence, it appeared that despite commitments in various policy documents to promote sustainable development on a nationwide scale, isolated achievements notwithstanding, there is space for improvement. This was particularly so outside big cities and the provinces of Gauteng, KwaZulu Natal, and the Western Cape. Evidence in Patel (2009) indicated that the poor and the natural environment continue to be marginalised in decision making and implementation. New policies were developed but then came up against the same obstacles that previous policies had come up against (Interviewee response, December 2014). Although section 24 of the constitution defined sustainable development, there seemed to be a ‘disconnect’ between academic understandings of sustainable development and what it meant in practice. The principles of sustainable development were still in their infancy and few implementing agencies and practitioners had a clear understanding of how to translate global principles into practice (Provincial Government Official, Gauteng Department of Agriculture, Conservation, Environment, and Land, 2004). Against this backdrop, there was need to assess the factors that shaped implementation. We explore these issues in the next section.

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Promoting Sustainable development in South Africa: key issues

4.

Observed influential factors

In this section, we discuss a number of observed overlapping issues at and between different levels of governance that have shaped the implementation of sustainable development policies. These were: -

External factors that have shaped the domestic sustainable development context

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Leadership and coalitions around sustainable development

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Relationships, processes and spaces for discussion between different actors in the eco-system

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Knowledge and discourse around sustainable development and their framings

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Capacity and resources of actors, particularly government to design and deliver sustainable development policies

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Values and trade-offs made during the decision making process

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Accountability and learning from sustainable development practices

External factors Engagements with the international community appear to have had considerable impacts on domestic policy. Although the development of a NSSD was mentioned in White Paper on Environmental Management Policy for South Africa in 1997 (DEAT, 1997) (interviewee data, December, 2014), a number of interviewees suggested that international commitments particularly the 2002 Johannesburg call to action for countries to prepare national strategies for sustainable development provided further impetus (see also Rennkamp, n.d). South Africa was often cited as a country which had made great strides towards putting the concept of sustainable development into practice (Barbier, 2010; ILO, 2013). The country was first out of 27 countries listed (between them comprising over 90 per cent of the global green economy) in terms of leadership performance on the green economy. Some interviewees believed that South Africa was playing a leading role in the shaping of global policy discourse on the issue, illustrated in its establishment of a Green Fund, which other countries were keen on emulating (interviewee data, 2015), whilst the LTMS attracted a lot of attention (Raubenheimer, 2011). This was despite the country’s energy reliant profile, and per-capita CO2 emissions which were far higher than any other BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, South Africa) country including Brazil and India and above even those of more industrialised and more populous countries such as the UK (Raubenheimer, 2011). Prior to the 2009 Copenhagen COP15 conference, South Africa made high profile commitments to reduce national emissions to 34 per cent below ‘business as usual’ levels by 2020 and 42 per cent by 2025, dependent on finance, technology and capacity building support from industrialised countries (Death, 2011; Never, 2012). Michelle Ntab Ndiaye, executive director for Greenpeace Africa, observed that ‘this makes South Africa one of the stars of the negotiations’ (Greenpeace, 2009). The NSSD was finalised and endorsed more or less the same time as Durban hosting COP17 in 2011. One interviewee suggested that the development of the NSSD may have been fast tracked to showcase what South Africa was doing domestically. These global events with their focus on poverty eradication and addressing community needs had a significant influence on South African policymakers (Chatterjee et al, 2013). One interviewee suggested that participation in global sustainable development events and discourse inspired several local government actors to take action in their own communities. However, one respondent argued that despite some positive two way engagements in global fora, South African actors were unable to interpret what was predominantly a ‘Northern agenda’ in the context of local imperatives, institutional prejudice and questions about capacity (interview data 2015). Why did engagement with the international community appear to be so influential? The literature offers some suggestions. The fall of apartheid and democratic elections in 1994, saw South Africa negotiating a new role internationally, to in part, attract investment, tourism, trade, talent as well as international legitimacy (Chatterjee et al, 2013; Aronczyk, 2008:42). As such, sustainable development played a key role in contemporary South African foreign policy, national identity formation and ‘brand development’ (Chatterjee et al, 2013; Death, 2011). Hosting the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), South Africa set out South Africa’s aspirations to be seen as the “negotiating capital of the world” and a “custodian of sustainable development” (Death, 2010). The summit succeeded in illustrating the capability of South Africa to organise ‘mega events’ and showed them to be representatives of the global South’s 15

Promoting Sustainable development in South Africa: key issues

environmental movement (ibid). Moreover, the decision to make Durban host city for the 2011 COP17 meeting was greeted by domestic media as “both a mark of South Africa’s growing diplomatic status and another opportunity to shine on the world stage” (Groenewalde, 2011). The desire to attract tourists also shaped the role that the environment has played in foreign policy.2 South Africa branded itself as a haven for mega-fauna and mega-flora. The presence of the ‘Big Five’ – the lion, leopard, elephant, rhino and buffalo, on the national currency also communicated a powerful message (Chatterjee et al, 2013). Environmental issues were also closely entwined with regional politics. South Africa’s inclusion within the BRICS and BASIC (Brazil, South Africa, India and China) groupings rests on its status as a gateway to Africa. This has influenced work with neighbouring countries through the development of more than 20 trans-frontier conservation areas (TFCAs) or ‘peace-parks’ in Southern Africa (Duffy, 2006; van Amerom and Buscher, 2005). Recently, given perceived failures to promote collective international action in pursuit of climate change and sustainable development, there were some in government who believed that South Africa need not ‘jump ahead’ and take mitigating actions. There was also a feeling that the middle classes in South Africa felt the responsibility and burden of climate change mitigation rested on Northern shoulders. However, there were those who believed South Africa should seize the opportunity and demonstrate leadership, based on an assumption that the last ten years or so had demonstrated that taking such a path was beneficial (Interview data, 2015). Tyler and Gunfaus (2015) suggest a number of reasons why the LTMS got onto the policy agenda at a time when policymaking in South Africa had moved mainly into the sphere of implementation. Among them was the fear of undesirable choices being imposed upon it by the international community as well as Nicholas Stern’s tour of South Africa to promote his review (Tyler and Gunfaus, 2015) which increased awareness of climate change, particularly within the National Treasury. This in turn raised the profile and prioritisation of the LTMS process and enabled the country to know what to say internationally, including what to ask for in terms of international finance and technology transfer (ibid).

Leadership and coalitions Progressive leadership and supportive coalitions appear to be influential factors in the promotion of sustainable development. Tyler and Gunfaus (2015) suggest a factor that enabled the LTMS to happen was the presence of a number of high level and competent policy champions in DEA (formerly DEAT) including the Minister, key Director Generals and Chief Directors. Additionally, the South African climate change negotiating team drawn from across society and working together in high pressure situations were also seen as strong and were able to act as a strong interest group in the domestic context. Tyler and Gunfaus (2015) go on to suggest that DEA leadership could have done more to foster ownership of the LTMS in the years after its development. However, contrary to Gunfaus and Tyler (2015), Nhamo (2013) suggests that South Africa demonstrated high level commitment beyond the LTMS process as illustrated by Jacob Zuma’s announcement at the Copenhagen Climate Summit in 2009 to commit South Africa to reduce carbon emissions by 34 per cent by 2020 and by 42 per cent by 2025 (on condition that funding and technological support be provided mainly by international mechanisms). The Green Economy Summit of May 2010 and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change’s Seventeenth Session Conference of the Parties (COP17) hosted by South Africa in Durban (2011) were highlighted as other high level commitments to green economy transition by South Africa. Nhamo (2013) also cites a survey of 26 ‘experts’ the majority of whom agreed that there was no doubt that the South African government had made a high level commitment at the level of pronouncements, in policy statements and in speeches about policy change towards more sustainable development. Nevertheless, interviewees suggested that one of the reasons the NSSD may have had limited influence on the work of departments was not being housed in a senior institution (such as the Presidency) which could galvanise action. One respondent noted that “…when something comes from the presidency, everyone would want to respond”. However according to another interviewee there was little appetite for sustainable development within the presidency (we return to possible contradictions in the rhetoric of South Africa’s leaders in the section on values and trade-offs). At local levels particularly within in Metropolitan areas, good leadership was one of several factors responsible for good practices (interviewee response, January 2015)

2

Until 2009, Environmental Affairs and Tourism were under the same ministry (DEAT)

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Promoting Sustainable development in South Africa: key issues

Relationships between actors in the ‘eco-system’ Across government Interviewees suggested that if DEA was to promote sustainable development nationally it needed to coordinate and engage with other departments such as Mineral Resources, Energy, Transport and others. There were some good examples of this. In 2010, DEA worked with Department of Energy to include a carbon cap on South Africa’s 2010 integrated resource plan (IRP) for the electricity sector. This was the first time emissions were quantitatively considered in energy planning and led to a large increase in renewable energy usage. This was achieved partly due to sustained engagement of senior officials from DEA working with policy champions within the department of Energy informed by credible DEA scientific research. In another example, DEA worked well with the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries on eco agriculture and land care. This resulted in strong land care programmes that were strongly influenced by DEA (interviewee data, January 2015). Engagement between the Department for Trade and Industry (DTI) and DEA constitutes further evidence of good practice. They have to-date maintained a fruitful relationship which has helped navigate potentially overlapping mandates. For instance, before DEA engages internationally, the department invites representatives from government departments including DTI to help put together a joint position. The two departments were also working together to improve the energy efficiency of power plants. DEA helped to expand the DTI’s focus to include costs of generating power to the environment. The DTI established a unit on environment and energy efficiency to support environmental (and sustainable development) objectives mentioned in the NSSD. According to one interviewee, this was unlikely to have happened without the NSSD (and DEA’s involvement). In fact virtually all key sector departments with significant climate change and sustainable development (or green economy) mandates have instituted directorates dealing with climate change (Nhamo, 2013). While their establishment may not have been a direct consequence of the approval of the NSSD, the broader favourable policy environment and political commitment towards sustainable development were likely influential factors. The same interviewee went onto say that DEA’s participation in DTI policy development would be welcome, particularly at a strategic level. An example of this would be within the executive committee for the National Cleaner Production Centre. However, DEA’s voice needed to be heard before policies were rolled out for implementation whilst they needed to be more visible during monitoring and evaluation initiatives. DTI and the department of energy have undertaken some interesting work around sustainable development. For instance the DTI’s industrial policy action plan features a green industries unit whilst the department of energy have been working on developing green industries within the renewable energy sector. These have been informed by consultations with DEA and other government departments and have since been operationalised. Moreover a range of Departments including those on Public Enterprise, Minerals, Water and Agriculture have drafted or approved climate change and/or sustainable development related strategies and plans. This response may also be as a result of the NEMA requirement for schedule 1 and 2 departments to prepare and publish their Environmental Management and Environmental Implementation Plans for mitigating their activities that are impacting on the environment. Nevertheless, coordination with other departments is not without its challenges. Climate change is a case in point. For instance, the Department formerly known as DEAT was responsible for encouraging other departments to incorporate climate change into their policies. However, the Climate Change Response Strategy stated that “ officials in other departments in all spheres of government often [didn’t] perceive climate change as a priority and some even consider[ed] it to be working against national development priorities” (Climate Change Response Strategy, RSA, 2004). The perception of climate change in institutions was that it was for ‘other people’ (see also Giordano et al, 2011 and Nhamo, 2013). However not all interviewees agreed with this as the NEMA Environmental Implementation Plan (EIP- NEMA) required each Department to say to DEA on a regular basis how they would mitigate the negative impacts of their work on the environment. The NFSD drafting process provides a mixed picture in relation to cross-governmental coordination. The initial process in the early 2000s was highly consultative reaching out to various government departments as well as other stakeholder groups. The debate that was created around the process was conflictual, drawing out several positions and understandings and was probably as important as the final product. However, the NSSD was therefore initially endorsed as the NFSD in 2008 rather than a strategy due in part to political considerations and institutional readiness. Nevertheless, DEA proceeded years later towards the NSSD and although DEA did work through government stakeholders (interview data: January 2015) including its gazette for public commenting in 2010, the drafting of the subsequent strategy and action plan appeared to draw on very limited consultations. The cabinet endorsed the NSSD so ministers were aware of its existence.

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Promoting Sustainable development in South Africa: key issues

Once published, DEA policy managers undertook significant work to market the plan to other parts of government through crossdepartmental meetings/mechanisms. However, one interviewee suggested the NSSD was effectively ignored by most other departments whilst other interviewees provided very little evidence of its use. Other interviewees suggested DEA may have marginalised itself by developing a strategy for other departments to implement, which had little participation in the process whilst having their own mandates and targets to meet (including those of the national development plan).The lack of constructive engagement across government led to a situation captured by the South Africa OECD environmental performance review, which suggested that the country’s approach to sustainable development was fragmented and lacked coherence (interviewee response, December 2014).

State-business relations In relation to government business linkages, there are a number of fora and bilateral discussions occurring between national government and the business sector. The NCCC is one example structure for government and multi-stakeholders quarterly engagement on climate change issues. Another example is the CEOs forum with government that convened during COP17. However, apart from the energy intensive industry, few other business sectors in South Africa recognise what their role should be (this paragraph draws from Koch et al, 2007; Patel, 2009).

Box X: incentives for the private sector In the energy sector, private firms do not yet think it is worthwhile making significant investments in renewable energies. Since the country is water stressed hydro-power is not an option, it does not currently have the capacity or infrastructure to store solar or wind energy, while capitalising on wave energy is a challenge given South Africa’s ‘rough’ coastlines. Large investments are required to help bring about scale which the government cannot afford, while Corporate Social Responsibility is unlikely to make a major positive impact on sustainable development outcomes (Fig, 2005). Private sector investment is required to ‘green’ the energy sector. So the question remains what sorts of policies and incentives does the government need to establish to make it viable for the private sector to invest in scalable products, without drastically curbing profits, increasing risk and reducing their sustainability as businesses?

A number of examples illustrate the power of the energy and industrial sectors. In 2010, Business Unity South Africa (BUSA), the Chemical Allied Industries Association (CAIA) and Sasol questioned the data used and the quality of work undertaken during the LTMS (Marquard, 2013), despite the work being praised internationally. More recently, the government accepted ESKOM’s (South Africa’s second biggest emitter of greenhouse gases) application to postpone compliance with air quality standards, claiming that “Widespread load-shedding will be inevitable in order to protect the national grid from total collapse”.3 DEA in response has been reluctant to intervene, despite the standards being strongly mandated (interviewee data January 2015).. Moreover, little was known as to the extent to which soft ring-fencing (where the treasury would endeavour to redirect tax revenue to sustainable development initiatives) would work in practice (interview data, 2015).

Local level processes Here we talk about relationships amongst local government. At a provincial level, when working on sustainability issues, officials from the environment unit have had to work closely with the office of the premier. For instance, in the development of a spatial development framework (to indicate where development could and could not take place), the environment department worked with the office of the premier to ensure participation from other sectors. Once the framework was finalised, the Executive Committee (Exco) passed a resolution for it to be implemented. A top down approach alone for promoting sustainable development was unlikely to achieve success – for several reasons. Chief among them were the lines of authority. While there are structures such the MINTEC/MINMEC in place, for instance, provincial departments for the environment primarily reports to the provincial premier. As such provincial environmental departments’ primary reference points were provincial priorities that do not always reflect priorities of the national departments. A review of the Integrated Metropolitan Environmental Policy (IMEP) in the City of Cape Town highlighted the significant lack of spaces and fora for meaningful interaction, both between different departments and directorates within a department, and between the political and administrative bodies (Laros, 2013, Greyling and Patel, 2013). 4 Although those involved in policy, including policy managers were often very sharp and were equipped with significant knowledge as well as good ideas, Patel (2013) suggested that the formal system did not seem to be geared towards open discussion or debate, which allowed for honest dialogue in which issues of values and ideas could be explored in order to facilitate collective actions amongst people who were

3 4

http://www.enca.com/south-africa/enforced-air-quality-standards-will-cause-widespread-load-shedding-eskom Interestingly, the diagnostic study by Funke and Strydom (2015) suggests that

18

Promoting Sustainable development in South Africa: key issues

actively involved in implementing policy, nor did they allow for higher orders of learning to take place (where existing paradigms could be challenged). . The same report also identified the lack of integration as a key theme. Laros (2013) noted that interviewees were of the opinion that in order for environmental sustainability to gain prominence, it would be necessary for the Environmental Resource Management Division (ERMD) in the City of Cape Town to engage more closely with issues of poverty and inequality and to adopt a more-broad based ‘whole of city’ approach to sustainability. This was illustrative of a trend where sustainable development did not acknowledge economic and social dimensions (ibid). The review also found that integration between ERMD and other departments was poor and that there was a tendency for a sectoral approach to policy – perpetuated by policy approaches such as that of the environmental agenda – to dominate within the City and exacerbate existing organisational silos (ibid). The lack of a central co-ordinating function and champion for environmental sustainability at an appropriate level remained a critical institutional gap (ibid).

Deliberative stakeholder engagement Here we discuss how various stakeholder groups are engaged, particularly at the local level in order to promote more sustainable outcomes. Section 2 of NEMA makes provision for extensive public participation processes in environmental decision making. Specifically, it broadens the scope for civil society groups to assist the state in monitoring environmental standards and recognises the rights to public participation need to be supported by capacity building amongst those who want to make use of the rights (Hamann, 2003). The EIA regulations define public participation as a process in which potential interested and affected parties are given an opportunity to comment on or raise issues relevant to specific matters (Murombo, 2007). Policy processes are subsequently robust. However, there are a number of issues worth mentioning. The environmental sector in South Africa is arguably more advanced than other sectors with respect to the requirements and mechanisms for public input; as a consequence a government official from formerly DEAT observed that “stakeholders often come to environmental processes with issues that are peripheral to the environment, as other processes for engagement are weak. Given the broad interpretation of the environment in the legislation, opportunism is rife and discussions often lose focus confusing the outcome” (in Patel, 2006). Moreover, a provincial official suggested that “it is primarily objectors who attend participation meetings, and the voices of those who approve are not heard” (ibid). It is assumed participatory processes need to engage with a typical citizen. However, the reality is that there is a diversity of public groups, each with a different understanding of the problem and with varying levels of power with which to influence the policy process (Patel, 2006). In an unequal society, treating all public groups as equal perpetuates inequality (Campbell and Marshall, 1999). Assuming that everyone has common interests in sustainable development masks real conflicts of interest. As implementing sustainable development is largely a matter of trade-offs at different scales and between different groups, the very nature of sustainable development means that reaching consensus through participation is unlikely (Connelly and Richardson, 2005). There is also a polarisation between the rich and the poor (which is still divided strongly along lines of race). One provincial official (in Patel, 2006) said that just as South Africa reflects a dual economy, there are still two discrete environmental paradigms operating within South African society. Just as the priorities of the rich and the poor differ, so too, does their ability to influence the decision making process. The views of society that are recorded thus provide a skewed reflection of the needs of society (this paragraph draws from Patel, 2006). Khan (1998) went further suggesting that disadvantaged communities lacked the knowledge and networking necessary for effective institutional engagement and to make legal challenges. See box 1 below which illustrates how different groups of people found formal participatory processes perpetuated difference and did not succeed in finding compromise.

Box 1: EIA of the Sparrebosch golf course The decision making process surrounding the Sparrebosch gold course in Knysna in the Western Cape between 1997-1998 was accompanied by significant conflict. The opposition was voiced primarily by environmental interest groups and NGOs made up mainly of white and affluent people who were concerned largely with the detrimental effects on fauna and flora. They dominated the formal public participation process. Representatives of poor black communities were supportive of the project on the basis of expected employment opportunities. However, meetings were held in the town centre in the evenings, which made attendance difficult due to the considerable distance from the townships. Moreover, information provided during the process was too difficult to understand for those with English as their second or third language. Further, representatives from poor communities felt that the environmental groups could not relate to or take into consideration the priorities of the majority of poor residents, whose interpretation of environment related primarily to their everyday living circumstances and poverty. The participation process could not provide a forum where different interests were expressed and related to each other in terms of potential trade-offs and compromises. Instead, the pro and opposing positions became entrenched in terms of racial and social categories, reinforcing an 19

Promoting Sustainable development in South Africa: key issues

‘us and them’ mentality between the various interest groups. Ultimately, authorisation for the project was eventually granted by the relevant provincial minister (from Hamann, 2003).

The politics and power dynamics that shape participation processes, can result in special interest capture (Rydin and Pennington, 2000). There are several examples where business and industrial interests have exerted a disproportionate influence in shaping the outcomes of decision making processes. NIMBYism (Not In My Back Yard) is rife amongst the more articulate and procedurally empowered in society resulting in the location of environmentally undesirable land uses being sited adjacent to the poor, perpetuating patterns of environmental injustice and unsustainable development (Patel, 2006). There are some examples where decisions have already been made and resources allocated before public participation processes have been initiated The decision to go ahead with a Pebble Bed Modular Reactor as a solution to South Africa’s energy crisis is a case in point (see Fig, 2007). Further, the EIA process for the Rail link between Pretoria and Johannesburg, did not provide adequate participation in the project design and the suggestion of alternatives. The rail link was presented to the public as the solution to the perennial and worsening traffic congestion and transport problems between the two cities as a fait accompli, without inviting proposals of alternative means of alleviating the problem. The public were only consulted once the resources had already been spent and committed to going ahead with a rail link as the solution to the transport problem, therefore not providing real opportunity for the public to shape solutions (this paragraph draws from Patel, 2009).. Stakeholder input is also constrained by: the formalised requirement for written submissions and/or attendance at public meetings; and information which is often couched in technical terms, with little allowance for translation to languages other than in English. Legislation only requires the use of decision making tools such as EIAs in instances of greenfield developments or changes in land use, which imply that vast areas of informal settlements and other informal activities are in effect falling through the net as they are considered to be illegal and outside the formal regulatory framework(Oelofse and Patel, 2000). Although a lot of progress has been made since the abolition of apartheid, unresolved issues provide challenges in relation to partnership building, trust, negotiation and participation – the key ingredients for sustainable development (see Patel, 2009). As such the tools being used for environmental decision making have a limited use with respect to prioritising the needs of the poor and marginalised (ibid). Increasingly practitioners are suggesting the sorts of policy that are likely to be implemented are ones that are co-created. A good example of co-creation of policy is the Climate Change policy. Its development started in 2005 and it was published in 2011. Although long, it was highly participatory and when it was published, there were few objections. Another example can be found in the City of Cape Town, where academics have been part of the policy formulation process, not as consultants, but as collaborators or partners with city officials. Policies have subsequently been more defensible and legible while the process has exposed officials to academic debates, situated their own positions and perspectives within wider discourse and opened their eyes to the level of innovation across the city – benefits which they could not have gained from sending city officials on a short course. Despite good intentions, the use of SEAs and EIAs have often resulted in unintended consequences due to a number of reasons: inadequately designed processes, showing little regard for the local conditions and political and cultural dynamics of localities (Patel, 2006); exclusion of local knowledge and values which can exclude useful contextual knowledge from the process (Jacobs, 1996 in Connelly and Richardson, 2005) and a tendency for local processes to focus inward, involving only local stakeholders in participation processes, when real power influencing and shaping decisions in those areas have arisen from actors at national and global levels (Patel, 2006). For instance sustainable development at the local level often involves issues about land which is usually owned by national level parastatals. Moreover, time and resource constraints mean that is rarely possible to undertake comprehensive and inclusive participatory processes demanded by the situation (Hamann, 2003) The technical nature of these tools and processes has led to what an official from a conservation parastatal called ‘discourse juncture’ where the power is skewed towards formal processes, giving the environmental practitioner the power to determine outcomes according to a narrow set of parameters (in Patel, 2006). Moreover, scientific language and framings of environmental problems and solutions serve to create barriers between actors. Many of these issues were acknowledged in the 2008 Efficiency and Effectiveness Report presented to the Portfolio Committee Parliamentary Hearing in 2013, citing for instance, that EIA’s did not adequately address social issues, were more about procedure and administration rather than sustainability while public participation was not meaningful (DEA, 2013). However, the presentation included activities that DEA was undertaking to deal with concerns raised including

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Promoting Sustainable development in South Africa: key issues



the initiation of the Environmental Impact Assessment and Management Strategy. This aimed to better operationalise integrated environmental management as contained in Section 23 of NEMA within the context of the principles of sustainable development.5



Restructuring of the Environmental Impact Management Function



Development of system to review EIAs

Relations concerning civil society Here, we discuss relations that civil society have with other groups of actors. In some cases, civil society has managed to negotiate agreements with big business. For instance, the South Durban Community Environmental Alliance (SDCEA) set up to represent civil society during the 1996 South Durban Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) managed to negotiate an agreement with the oil refinery Engen, the local subsidiary of the Malaysian oil group Petronas, which agreed to a five year pollution reduction plan. This occurred without the intervention of formal authorities however, with the air pollution officer for the province stating that it would have been an almost impossible achievement using formal institutional mechanisms (this paragraph draws from Patel, 2003). Where civil society groups have not been accommodated by formal processes, protestors have in some cases taken to the street. For instance, at the 2002 Summit on Sustainable development, over 20 000 protestors marched from Alexandra township to the conference centre in the luxurious suburb of Sandton to raise their concerns about unsustainable development. The marchers comprised activists from groups including the Landless People’s Movement, Earthlife Africa, and the Anti-Privatisation Forum who had campaigned against water and electricity cut-offs (this paragraph draws from Death, 2010). Since 2002, these groups and others like them have formed the hub of a brown environmental justice movement who have campaigned against the racist legacies of urban pollution in the poorer communities of South Durban and the Vaal triangle (Cock, 2006). The environmental concerns of the past – preservation and conservation – driven by a largely white middle class constituency are being supplanted by new struggles with a different social base (Patel, 2006). However, such grassroots movements have often found themselves being disciplined. The 2002 Johannesburg Summit movements were infiltrated by the South African intelligence services and 196 activists were arrested and detained during the summit (although they were all eventually released without charge). The police used stun grenades and rubber bullets against protestors with candles and placards, and the social movements were frequently portrayed as naïve, irresponsible, criminal or foreign influenced by the state and media (this paragraph draws from Death, 2010). During the COP 17 in 2011, there was a strong South African civil society representation that was tailored to South Africa’s needs through the “One Million Climate Jobs campaign”. For the most part civil society groups peacefully protested and demonstrated their commitment to climate change issues. However, during the Global Day of Action, civil society protestors had their placards torn up and were physically threatened while the police looked on.6

Knowledge and discourse Sustainability as an issue for DEA The manner and form in which sustainable problems are recognised can shape whether and how they will be addressed by policymakers. In South Africa, state and other actors often responded to sustainable development issues as environmental issue and as such one that was to be discussed and dealt with by DEA at all levels of governance (see also Patel, 2006). For instance, the problem of climate change was associated with carbon emissions. This led to a deep understanding of emissions but an under emphasis on development. This had two effects: first the policy issue arose from and is still championed by DEA and second, the level of climate change mitigation ambition did not reflect the development reality (Tyler and Gunfaus, 2015).

5

See also https://www.environment.gov.za/documents/strategicdocuments?q=content/strategic_docs/eiams_environmentalimpact_assessment_managem ent_strategy 6 This draws from http://www.climate-justice-now.org/civil-society-at-the-un-climate-change-conference-african-activism-at-cop17/

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Promoting Sustainable development in South Africa: key issues

Multiple framings Although academically there was agreement on how sustainable development was defined, the reality of how the concept was used in practice was ambiguous. Some academics, activists and communities saw sustainable development as a radical, revolutionary transformation of economic (and hence social and political) relationships to bring them in line with natural limits and ecological virtues (Death, 2014). For example, some principles of the NSSD seem to be aligned with this sort of thinking. It advocated a systems approach to assessing sustainability; referring to “ecological sustainability in the first instance” and to humans as “part of nature”; it advocated for stewardship of the environment, linked sustainability to the vision and values of the country, recognised the unsustainability of the growth path being GDP-focused and recognised that long held beliefs and ideologies had to be challenged. Within government, the stated commitment to sustainable development was as a realignment of the prevailing growth model and development path (as articulated by the Brundtland Report). Economic growth remained the driver of progress while the environment was a resource for human development. For instance, in his State of the Nation address on 14 th February 2013, president Zuma declared that the National Development Plan ‘is a roadmap to a South Africa where all will have water, electricity, sanitation, jobs, housing, public transport, adequate nutrition, education, social protection, quality healthcare, recreation and a clean environment (Zuma, 2013). However, the dominant interpretation of sustainable development is one which sees the environment as an economic opportunity, rather than focussing on limits and scarcity, the emphasis was on new markets, new services, and new forms of consumption. This seemed to come across in some aspects of the NSSD. One interviewee suggested the NSSD was reductionist, tried to condense the concept of sustainable development into ‘bite sized chunks’ and didn’t challenge ‘business as usual’, while the concept of the Green Economy was seen as problematic by others given that the idea of turning nature into a commodity was opposed by many civil society groups at Rio + 20. 7 Chapter five of the National Development Plan – the most important development plan across government - drew heavily on the NSSD section on the green economy, which some interviewees said made sustainable development (and the environment in particular) another industrial centre for employment creation, rather than challenging ‘business as usual’. In fact, Death (2014) argued that recent developments8 suggested sustainable development had been interpreted by the state and the private sector as the commodification of the environment and the promotion of a model of economic growth that did not redress social exclusion and poverty in the country The National Development Plan was inconsistent on the issue of sustainable development, making some ‘uncomfortable comprises’ (interviewee response, January 2015). For instance on one page it stated the need to transition to a low carbon economy but on another it stated the need to increase coal exports to pay for that (interviewee response, January 2015). Death (2014) argued that the three specific environmental measures listed in the National Development Plan seem to signal that the government continues to see environmental issues from a ‘preservationist’ perspective, failing to challenge the broader model of socio-economic development. 9 While the New Growth Path also endorsed in 2011 made reference to green economy and climate change issues, it made no reference to the NSSD. Inconsistencies were mirrored at more local levels. For example, the City of Cape Town’s Integrated Metropolitan Environmental Policy (IMEP) raised the conflict between conservation and infrastructure goals and targets. It also demonstrated City’s ambition to decrease electricity consumption even though the sale of electricity was a significant source of income for the institution. Nhamo (2013) suggests that several definitions of, for instance, renewable energy and energy efficiency can be found across sustainable development policies and related acts. Chatterjeee et al, (2013) argue that many of South Africa’s traditional core industries, especially in the mining, energy and petrochemical sectors continued to see sustainability issues as niche middle class interests threatening job creation and economic growth, despite public commitments to sustainability from organisations like the National Business Initiative, and a visible business presence in the WSSD in Johannesburg in 2002 and Durban COP 17 in 2011

7

http://www.elasa.co.za/uploads/1/1/8/2/11823994/presentation_-_ms_susan_mosdell.pdf Developments include the promotion of new energy, communication technologies, commercial and genetically modified agriculture, and big infrastructure projects like the Gautrain, new nuclear power plants and the second phase of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project, and the Grand Inga Dam in the Democratic Republic of Congo, are viewed by some as a commodification of the environment and (Death, 2014). 9 These are an environmental management framework to ensure developments which have serious environmental or social effects need to be offset by support for improvements in related areas; a target for increasing protected areas; and a set of indicators and reports for natural resources. 8

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Promoting Sustainable development in South Africa: key issues

In several cases there seemed to be a contradiction between local level sustainability and a more macro level sustainability (Patel, 2003). The Macroeconomic Strategy - the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa (Asgi-SA) illustrated some of the tension in decision making between development and the environment. The strategy was shaped around energy intensive industries such as the Aluminium Smelter at Richards Bay. Whilst South Africa boasted one of the cheapest electricity rates in the world, further discounted to bulk users, the coal was of poor quality, resulting in high pollution levels and high rates of respiratory diseases (Fig, 2007).

Addressing implementation issues The debate during the LTMS process did not include a conversation about how difficult it was to reduce emissions given that the Country’s economy was driven by fossil fuels and had been so for about 100 years. The LTMS implied big losers in the shift to a low carbon economy. However, the process did not engage with this issue, nor how losers might be compensated (Tyler and Gunfaus, 2015).

Learning from good practice At the time of undertaking research, the Green Fund financed 22 projects through grants and loans, including 16 research projects and 6 capacity development initiatives (Interviewee response, January 2015). These were closely linked to the priority areas stated in the NSSD and aimed to develop an evidence base for government in its transition to a ‘green economy’. However, one interviewee suggested there was need for a more effective mechanism for policymakers and shapers to gather insights, learning and good practices from green fund projects.10 Moreover, given experience on sustainable development on the ground may be limited in South Africa, there is merit in learning from cases in countries (with a similar context and/or the BRICS as well as countries within the Southern African Development Community (SADC)) with more experience of implementing similar policies.

A dependence on science for framing While sustainability issues were handled by DEA as well as a range of other departments such as the Treasury, and the DTI, through sustainable development, climate change and/or green economy units, they tended to be staffed mostly with scientific experts and/or economists. As a result, Patel (2006) suggests that sustainable development has come to be a technical and scientific process. Issues like air pollution require a reliance on experts and scientists for their detection, but they have also been relied upon to find solutions, which in turn has given experts a primary role in defining policy agendas (ibid). Sustainable development problems are therefore strongly characterised in scientific terms (ibid). When asked what values should be prioritised in decision making, an environmental consultant stated: “the biophysical factors are critical. Social issues are integrated into decision making, but, the biophysical issues remain paramount. They are the only variables that allow us to make objective decisions, without the confusion that community views invariably bring to the processes” (Environmental Consultant, 2004 in Patel, 2006).

A dependence on science was illustrated when an interviewee said that a consultant was hired to translate the NFSD which was seen as very technical and scientific document into something that was more appropriate for non-specialists (interview data, 2015). This resulted in an approach that did not allow for a questioning of the causes of the environmental issues and the characteristics of the institutions that were faced with addressing these issues(Patel, 2001, 2003, 2005, Freund, 2001).Not enough attention was paid to the ‘lived realities’ of the people who were affected by these problems, which on occasion resulted in strategies not being supported by the people and institutions that were directly affected by policy intervention. This in turn had the potential to facilitate distrust between civil society and formal institutions of government. So, a lack of engagement may have been less to do with a disagreement with the ideals of sustainable development and possibly more to do with a lack of trust in government structures (Patel, n.d.).

10

This was illustrated when despite regular reporting from the Green Fund, some members of the Green Fund working group, learnt about green fund projects for the first time only recently at a training course where a Green Fund policy advisor was in attendance.

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Inadequate contestation There might be a tendency to invest more time and resources on creating further data and refining models than on building trust and engaging in negotiation. For instance Tyler and Gunfaus (2015) refer to an example where the way in which findings from the LTMS were used after the LTMS process appeared to breach trust built during the LTMS and undermined further policy development. Businesses participated in the process partly because government had assured them the LTMS would not lead to specific policy decisions. There was considerable shock then, when the LTMS was used to announce ambitious targets to cut carbon emissions just before COP17. One interviewee from the business sector in their study said: “if you use data for policy, you must know that the data is correct and scenario building exercises are by their nature imprecise and therefore should not have been translated into policy without discussion and interrogation of the data” (Tyler and Gunfaus, 2015).

Capacity and resources Koch et al, reported in 2007 that a lack of capacity and high mobility of staff within and between departments limited the environment department’s ability to engage constructively with other government departments during climate negotiations. As a result, meetings were postponed and rescheduled at short notice or other institutions were only made aware of meetings at the last moment (Koch et al, 2007). Tyler and Gunfaus (2015) also suggest that changes in staff and leadership as well as excessive focus on international (and subsequently less focus on the domestic policy content), resulted in a loss of momentum after the LTMS. However, climate change has since become a branch within DEA with five chief directorates dedicated to address different climate change and air quality aspects (Nhamo, 2013) so this may be less of an issue than it was as illustrated perhaps by the participatory process that produced the climate change response white paper as argued by Funke and Strydom (2015). Some functions such as M&E are sometimes over-stretched. For instance, during the NSSD’s three year implementation period, little M&E work was undertaken, due in part to a lack of manpower and skills within DEA whilst the assessment to review progress towards the NSSD’s indicators was outsourced to the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). One interviewee in Koch et al (2007) noted that more permanent institutional memory was required and more attention needed to be paid to records, investing in retained expertise and better institutional management in order to limit the loss of capacity. However, this on its own was unlikely to substitute the establishment of new relationships between policy managers across government all of which took considerable time. As alluded to earlier, there was a perception that DEA and then DEAT lacked the ‘power’ to ensure sustainable development issues were integrated into key policy areas. Koch et al (2007) claims this was the case in relation climate change whilst one interviewee suggested that early on during the NSSD drafting process, there was a realisation that locating the process in DEA, would make implementation difficult (interviewee response January 2015). Death (2011) reinforces this by saying that the less senior status of the environmental ministry and departments in the organising committee of the 2010 FIFA World Cup meant that they were unable to promote more of a legacy of the World Cup greening strategies (to facilitate sustainable development well beyond the mega-event). The different spheres of government had limited capacity to conduct the assessments required for making decisions about the environment, resulting in an over dependence on a burgeoning community of environmental consultants. Consultants thus conducted the processes to provide the alternatives on which policy managers had to adjudicate. Dependence on consultants often meant that problem definition and the construction of solutions were removed from the direct influence of the state (this paragraph draws on Patel, 2006). While DEA nationally, had initiated a number of processes to promote sustainable development, much of it faced challenges in filtering down to provincial and especially local levels (interviewee data, January 2015). There may be a number of reasons for this. Not all municipalities had environmental departments (Patel, 2001; Sowman, 2002). If they did, environmental departments at provincial and local government level were often the newest structures within local government and often lacked human and financial capacity, which could result in poor participation at workshops and international negotiations, and when there was participation, a lack of expertise potentially excluded representatives from actively engaging with the issues. However, there were some cities such as Durban and Cape Town which had amassed a considerable body of experienced, dedicated and knowledgeable policy managers. Death (2011) describes how these capacities were utilised and boosted with the ‘greening’ strategies organised around the World Cup. One interviewee working at provincial level said ‘we never have enough people’, whilst experiencing a high vacancy rate. Another interviewee suggested that many local level departments lacked town and regional planners and often had to sub-contract 24

Promoting Sustainable development in South Africa: key issues

private town planners if required. Policy managers found it difficult to find time to attend planning and coordination workshops which in turn made it difficult to promote open and continuous dialogue about key policy issues. Against this backdrop, some municipality level officials felt challenged when asked to deploy newly developed national policies, instruments and tools (interview data, 2015). On the issue of climate change, one interviewee said there was a push to develop a national climate change adaptation strategy. However, an interviewee said resources would be better spent taking a ‘bottom up’ approach - working with provinces and local authorities to develop plans rooted in local contexts. However, environmental staff at provincial and local levels currently address adaptation issues through disaster risk strategies and plans. On sustainable development, another interviewee said that although an overarching national strategy could help establish a dialogue and develop understandings amongst different groups of people, the development of specific actions and indicators would need to be devolved to lower levels of governance. A further issue, especially outside the major metropolitan areas, was the possible lack of understanding amongst local government leadership of the relevance of environmental management and sustainability agendas to alleviating poverty and to addressing local concerns in the long term (Sowman and Brown 2006). Similarly, some officials could not fully interpret the developmental consequences of climate change (Patel, 2006). Since provincial level Treasuries approved funding for provincial level departments for environmental affairs, this often meant that latter received limited resource transfers to meet sustainability goals. Moreover, environmental departments often did not have the institutional coordination abilities of partner directorates/units resulting in challenges in coordinating different departments within local government and between different levels of government on sustainability issues. This was facilitated by the way in which budgets were allocated along line functions.

Values and trade-offs Participatory processes often prescribed as part of EIA processes have been criticised for rubber stamping and rarely overturning potentially unsustainable developments, illustrating that tools for environmental decision making and implementing sustainable development are not neutral – their use reflects certain power dynamics and results in specific political, social developmental and environmental consequences. See box 1 below for an example of how an SEA failed to overturn a potentially unsustainable development in South Durban.

Box 1: the use of SEA in South Durban South Durban had a complex land use mix with poorer, largely black residential areas, heavy industry an international airport and port infrastructure all juxtaposed in a relatively small area. The communities in the areas had been mobilising and protesting for decades in response to the social and environmental injustices of being exposed to pollution and industrial risk on a daily basis. As a response the Durban City Council undertook a Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) in 1996, with the objective of providing a policy framework to achieve sustainability whilst alleviating and reversing injustices in the future development of the area. The SEA was highly contested and ran beyond its budget and timeframes. The science of the air pollution study was called into question on a number of occasions throughout the SEA. The outcome was initially contested by business and industry, who later ended up supporting it. The SEA was continually contested by community groups in the area, who in the penultimate stages of the process walked out of the public participation meetings, and did not support or accept the final outcome (Patel, 2003). Development proposals included a petrochemical expansion and a related naphtha cracker, which used by-products of the petrochemical plants and converted these into plastics It was to be based on the use of a non-renewable resource to produce a non-biodegradable environmentally unfriendly product – i.e. plastics. However, according to the SEA, it would create 40 500 jobs over the next 20 years, and would contribute 11.7 – 14.4 billion rand per annum to the GDP. However, the nature of the jobs and the impacts of the large scale infrastructure development were not considered by the SEA. Moreover, the land requirements for such a development also necessitated the large scale removal of people from within South Durban. A petrochemical expansion would however, support the then macro-economic strategy the Growth Employment and Redistribution Strategy that was being favoured by national government. The final conclusion of the SEA was to recommend that the area should be industrialised in order to promote sustainable development. A direct consequence of this conclusion was the removal of some people out of the area in order to accommodate industrial expansion with no measures in place to address air pollution issues in the short to medium term (Patel, 2009).

Ultimately, once knowledge has been acquired and contested and deliberations are complete, sustainable development requires trade-offs to be made. But not all interests can be secured at any point in time. Nonetheless, the aim of trading off should be to maximise good for the maximum number (Campbell, 2002). However this raises tensions when considering the spectrum of priorities and needs created by the fragmented nature of South African society (Patel, 2006).

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Despite recent high level commitments being made to promote sustainable development including Jacob Zuma’s announcement at the Copenhagen Climate Summit in 2009 to commit South Africa to reduce carbon emissions, the Green Economy Summit of May 2010 and the hosting of COP 17, politicians have also previously made statements which suggested that trade-offs must be made in favour of economic development and investment. For instance President Mbeki said that green laws were causing development delays that had contributed to a quite considerable slowing down of economic activity (in Macleod, 2006). The Minister of Housing suggested that the building of housing would no longer be slowed down by EIA’s when she said “we cannot forever be held hostage by butterfly eggs that have been laid, because environmentalists would care about those things that are important for the preservation of the environment while we sit around and wait for them to conclude the environmental studies.” The key priorities of national government included the need to attract investment and provide jobs, which most often meant large scale infrastructure development (Patel, 2003) and skewed development priorities away from the poorest (Hamann, 2003). Such statements and developments influenced what policy managers thought was good in a political sense. One local government official indicated that “if a project has not been championed at a political level, there is little chance of getting approval, regardless of its potential to promote justice, even if a substantiated argument is put forward” (in Patel, 2006). While there may be agreement that community and environmental needs should be met through decision making, political agendas often overshadowed the real needs of the community, where decisions were made for political gain (in Patel, 2006). Actors involved in sustainable development debates may not have considered or may not be aware of the implicit values underpinning their positions. Policy documents often espouse a number of shared values such as people centredness, inclusivity, access, opportunity, participation and others .However, these values are usually not spelt out explicitly in the policy process or in the policy documents themselves. And it is not known how these common values are prioritised or de-prioritised and acted upon by different departments and stakeholder groups. As common values are not made explicit, there is little obvious common ground on which those who promote sustainable development as a necessary goal and those who perceive it to be an obstacle to a community’s economic and social development can build dialogue (this paragraph draws on Patel, 2006).

Accountability and learning Some interviewees suggested that government actors at different levels were more likely to act in support of sustainable development if they were held to account formally. One way was through targets. The implementation of policy through a target based approach had its merits and drawbacks: on one hand they were necessary for departments and units to have specific goals to work towards. However, on the other, targets encouraged compliance based box ticking that further reinforced organisational silos, whilst targets themselves did not lead to implementation. Moreover, where departments such as economic development or housing had clear targets which were politically more imperative, sustainable development objectives were often vague and undefined. The NSSD identified 20 headline indicators for high level attention from across government. However, one interviewee suggested that departments may have taken action if the strategy was translated into legislation (as recommended by the NSSD) or directly into outcome delivery agreements as part of the Outcomes Reporting system. Another interviewee said that the NSSD priorities were used as part of a criteria to commission new projects. However, it was not clear whether such moves would shift pre-existing priorities and behaviours and the extent to which such mechanisms would be ‘gamed’ In addition to the 20 high level indicators to measure progress towards objectives set out in the NSSD, a longer list of indicators was identified for all government departments to monitor. However, the NSSD M&E report conducted in 2014 to review progress against each of the indicators found that information was available for only 34 per cent of the indicators, whilst there was no guarantee that the information available was accurate. Interviewees suggested that the NSSD indicators appeared to be designed without consideration of whether data existed for data to be measured and if so, where it would be sourced from and how. Several indicators, such as levels of social integration, would require a number of proxy indicators and more in-depth research, qualitative in nature. DEA’s development of the environmental sustainability indicators technical report presents some good practice with regards to indicator development. A draft framework was produced based on an assessment of similar frameworks. Workshops were held with various government departments, provincial departments, academia, the private sector and civil society. Representatives provided comments as to what would work and would not but also made suggestions as to how data could be collected. The team ultimately arrived at 20 measurable indicators. At the local level policy managers were often focused on delivering against their Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) which did not always include the fulfilment of environmental sustainability, even though this was their goal (Laros, 2013). KPIs also

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influenced how budgets were allocated (interview data, 2015). However, it was unclear how KPIs were shaped what impact this had on the work of policy managers. DEA is responsible for regularly reporting and/or coordinating other government departments as well as business. However, DEA officials faced difficulties in acquiring reports from industry and other departments whilst in relation to compliance monitoring of business, one interviewee suggested that there was a perception that DEA officials ‘would check for what was wrong’. Such a compliance culture was said to have led to poor relations with DEA officials and key lessons which might led to progress, being buried. The last section concludes with some reflections for DEA to consider.

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Promoting Sustainable development in South Africa: key issues

5.

Some reflections

Having identified a number of factors which from our research have been seen to influence sustainable development actions and outcomes to a greater or lesser extent, we conclude by exploring what this means for what DEA and other government departments might do in practice. This falls into six elements: 

facilitating stakeholder negotiation on contested issues



improving the quality of interactions with different stakeholders;



helping to shape the quality of debate around sustainable development;



deploying existing capacities more effectively;



helping to clarify peoples’ underlying values during periods of contestation and;



promoting better learning.

Some of these elements feature in DEA’s Ten steps to scale up mainstreaming of sustainable development towards policy operational programme by 2019 (DEA, 2015) and also have linkages with R, D&E framework (DEA, 2012). In sum we suggest DEA strengthen its engagement and coordination function with implications for the role of evidence and elements of participation. We discuss these below.

Moving from problem solving to negotiating Our research has confirmed that sustainable development issues are difficult to define whilst solutions cannot be easily found. Problems cut across different sectors. The knowledge base is patchy. There is a high degree of uncertainty. The risks and tradeoffs are not always measurable. And there are also a lot of actors involved in the policy process who all have diverse knowledge and potentially different values, which increases the risk of conflict. This is exacerbated by high levels of inequality which mean a wide range of environmental and development issues need to be addressed at the same time. Hence, strategies and interventions for rural, informal, formal and industrial areas will have to vary considerably. Climate change is a good example of such a problem. Climate change adaptation involves several state and non-state actors, from all levels of government, parastatals and non-governmental organisations to industry and business organisations. The problem is characterised by multiple linkages with other issues such as environmental degradation, food security and poverty reduction (Clark et al, 2002). There are a number of ways of conceptualising the issue and it cannot be addressed in isolation. Such issues pose a challenge to policymakers as they are resistant to traditional single issue policy responses and cannot be dealt by single government departments through the application of research and the implementation of appropriate policy responses. The key is to help stakeholders negotiate a shared understanding about the problem and its possible solutions (Conklin, 2007). This is a social process that requires the input of multiple stakeholders at all levels both within and outside the organisation which in turn require spaces for deliberation and meaningful interaction (see Davison et al, 2015 forthcoming). As a consequence we affirm DEA’s desire to refrain from issuing further policy instruments and instead reflect – collectively - on the multitude of policy documents that exist to address climate change, sustainable development and the green economy (interview data, 2015 and Nhamo, 2013).

Raising the quality of interactions Patel (2009) suggests the key ingredients for sustainable development are partnership building, trust, negotiation and participation. As such we suggest DEA consider taking steps to improve the quality of interactions within DEA, with other departments and with other multi-stakeholder groups. This relates to 4.6 of the R, D&E Framework on enabling collaborations, partnerships and institutional arrangements. DEA could foster these ingredients by creating spaces within and beyond DEA for people in different directorates to have a more thoughtful, open and informed dialogue. At local level, Laros (2013) suggests that officials interviewed as part of the IMEP review process showed a desire for a defined space for relatively informal discussion, debate, deliberation or information and knowledge sharing between departments in terms of environmental sustainability, as well as between the political body and the administrative body of the organisation. Similarly, Nhamo (2013) suggests that at the national level, improved individual and interpersonal relations between relevant policy managers across departments is likely to improve the mainstreaming of sustainable development and green economy issues. 28

Promoting Sustainable development in South Africa: key issues

Where there was a high degree of uncertainty surrounding a body of evidence, DEA might take steps to provide more space for contestation by different stakeholder groups, which in turn could help foster trust and build coalitions for change. Tyler and Gunfaus (2015) suggest that where the problem is hard to define and data is contested, one might be better off spending more resources on the political and legal issues rather than on refining models and creating further data. In addition, to support DEA engage systematically and strategically with other departments, it could consider developing an engagement strategy to guide its work with a number of influential government departments. Planning processes could include collecting ‘intelligence’ on the key policies the government departments were planning to develop, understanding competing policy positions, identifying important spaces for discussion (committees, clusters, working groups, informal groupings) and people to engage with (including policy champions), determining engagement activities (including research) as well as generating key messages. These elements could be documented in the form of a plan, which would be an internal ‘working’ document. There is also a need to map and engage with other key players beyond government (including networks or platforms for business and civil society) with respect to sustainable development in South Africa. To inform these engagement plans, DEA may want to consider undertaking case research to gain a better understanding of different stakeholder groups and/or government departments, power relations between them and potential consequences of alternative policy actions, which together could more adequately inform sustainable development related decision making processes. This sort of analysis could help either in agreeing on a negotiating position which aims to work in the existing space for change (that is, where there are few vested interests capable of derailing suggested changes), or in seeking to expand the space for change proactively to ultimately accommodate new policy options. In engaging with stakeholder groups, especially at the community level, DEA may want to take steps in reducing the knowledge and power differentials that might exist between various actors in the policy process. This would include giving less powerful participants more control over the process, through the provision of information and training, logistical support, compensation for time utilised and/or effective marketing (as suggested by Pophiwa et al, 2015). We think this could also include helping stakeholders to make explicit the values they come to ‘the negotiating table’ with. In addition, we agree with Hamann (2003) who suggests that participatory processes should be both fair, in that they increase the opportunities and capacities of the poor (and the more vulnerable) to participate in decision making and also promote social learning, in that they provide improved opportunities for disparate interests (such as the poor, the middle class, big and small businesses as well as government) to engage with each other in a compromise seeking deliberative way.

Shaping the policy debate One might ask whether sustainable development issues such as climate change mitigation policy framed through the lens of competitiveness, jobs, inequality or regional security could have led to more impacts on the ground. As such, DEA could consider re-framing sustainability issues through an economic and social perspective in a bid to gain more widespread support for its work in bringing about social, economic and environmental outcomes. Moreover, discussing how a policy might be implemented during the policy formulation stages may help to understand some of the barriers to and opportunities for practical action on the ground and in turn help shape a more realistic (and in some cases a less ambitious policy document) (Tyler and Gunfaus, 2015). DEA could also consider widening debates about sustainable development to include the media, politicians, business and ordinary citizens. Nhamo (2013) suggests government embark on an ‘offensive’ to educate the masses and raise awareness of the green economy (or sustainable development) so ordinary citizens can relate to and identify with the national vision, with multimedia such as television, print, arts and drama playing a key role. The department could also build on the highly profiled greenest municipality competition that has been running for several years by generating and circulating regular newsletters and holding ‘good practice’ conferences. DEA could consider creating a more visible profile for itself so it is approached for advice, informing departments about new and cutting edge developments, moving away from, for example, being seen to put a break on business to a leader of sustainable development. This could include improving existing mechanisms to share new and emerging knowledge from the Green Fund, local level experiences around the country and cases from the region, BRICS and other middle income countries to stimulate discourse about how sustainability might be facilitated. DEA could consider different ways of filtering and brokering such information with key decision makers.

Deploying existing capacities better Section 5 and 6 of the R, D&E framework outlines the human capital and finance required to take a more systematic and strategic approach to using evidence across DEA. Our analysis suggests that sustainable development related gains at the local level were 29

Promoting Sustainable development in South Africa: key issues

most likely to be made when national representatives worked with and adapted tools and approaches already being used by local government counterparts. Moreover, if DEA (and other government agencies working on sustainable development issues) wanted to explore alternative framings as discussed above, it could consider employing personnel with a background in the social sciences to help provide a broader framing of sustainable development (beyond say environmental policy). And if assessments were contracted out, DEA might consider contracting environmental, economic and social development specialists jointly.

Focussing on both process and outcomes Although processes through which policy is formulated are important (see for instance Pophiwa et al, 2015), so too are the quality of outcomes. As such policy managers are expected to make choices about what is good and bad in relation to the public interest. This includes the identification of ‘winners’ and ‘losers’, if ‘just’ outcomes are to be realised. Policy managers in the three spheres of government could also do more to reflect the diverse values and needs of communities they are working with and think more critically about the interests and motivations of the private sector especially key industry actors. This could mean policy managers doing more to understand the distributive consequences of the values they hold, and doing more to promote equitable decisions.

Measuring, learning and adapting Some interviewees suggested that outcomes might be more likely to emerge if there were a small number of strategic indicators which could be used to assess progress and generate useful lessons or insights that could be fed back to those responsible for implementation. DEA has started work in this area as part of the NDP commitment on a set of indicators. The aim of these indicators is understood as to avoid implicating specific departments and promote more collective action across government, private sector, business and civil society. DEA is commended on this work and in addition we suggest that monitoring information be shared widely to contribute to the policy debate within and beyond government as a means to galvanise actions amongst key implementing actors. DEA could also consider undertaking further work on how KPIs were shaped, how they influenced local government actions, and how they could help them better promote sustainable development. In sum, it is suggested that DEA focus more on playing a facilitative role, maximise learning from sustainable development initiatives and support positive developments at the local level as they emerge.

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6.

References

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Fig, D. 2007. “Technological Choices in South Africa: Ecology, Democracy and Development.” In State of the Nation: South Africa 2007, edited by S. Buhlungu, J. Daniel, R. Southall, and J. Lutchman, 226–244. Cape Town: HSRC Press. Fig, David (2005) ‘Manufacturing amnesia: corporate social responsibility in South Africa’, International Affairs 81(3): 599617 Freund, W, (2001) ‘Brown and green in Durban: the evolution of environmental policy in a post-apartheid city. International Journal of environmental policy in a post-apartheid city. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 25 (4), 717 - 739 GIZ (2014) ‘Environmental fiscal reform: case studies’ Gordhan, P. (2013). Budget Speech. Minister of Finance, February 27. Cape Town: Parliament of RSA. Green Fund. (2012). “About the Green Fund.” Accessed October 10. http://www.sagreenfund.org.za/Pages/About. aspx Greening the WSSD (2002) Leaving a greening legacy: thousands are doing their bit. Are you? Brochure produced for the World Summit on Sustainable Development. Greenpeace (2009) ‘South Africa one of the stars of the climate negotiations in Copenhagen’, accessed 24 January 2010 at http://www.greenpeace.org/africa/news/south-africa-oneof-the-stars Greyling, S. and Patel Z. with Cartwright, A., Davison, A., McGaffin, R., Roux, S. and Taylor, A., (2013). CTLIP Governance and Policy for Sustainability Report: Stakeholder Analysis. Unpublished report. Cape Town. Groenewalde, Yolandi (2011) ‘COP17: SA’s chance to shine’, Mail & Guardian, 7 January. Hamann, R (2003) ‘South African Challenges to the theory and practice of public participation in Environmental Assessment’ 2003 (10) South African Journal of Environmental Law and Policy 21-32 ILO. 2013. Sustainable Development, Decent Work and Green Jobs. Geneva: ILO. Jacobs (1997) ‘The new politics of the environment’. In: Jacobs, M (Ed) Greening the Millenium? The New politics of the environment: the political quarterly. Blackwell, Oxford, pp 1-17 Khan, F. (1998) ‘Public participation and environmental decision making in South Africa – the Frankdale environmental health project’ (1998) 80 South African Geographical Journal 73-80. Koch, I.C, Vogel, C. and Patel, Z. (2007) ‘Institutional dynamics and climate adaptation in South Africa. Mitigation Adaptation Strategy Global Change (2007) 12:1323-1339 Laros, M. (2013). Review and re-drafting of the City of Cape Town’s Integrated Environmental Management Policy Phase One: Scoping Report. Unpublished report. Cape Town. Lohmann, Larry (2006) ‘Carbon trading: A critical conversation on climate change, privatisation and power’, Development Dialogue 48, Uppsala: Dag Hammarskjold Centre and Corner House. Marquard, A and Godino, C (2013) ‘ERC LTMS Review meeting notes. Cape Town, South Africa. McDonald, D.A. (2002b). What is Environmental Justice? In McDonald, D.A. (Ed), Environmental Justice in South Africa. University of Cape Town Press, Cape Town pp 1-48 McDonald, D.A. (Ed) (2002a). Environmental Justice in South Africa. University of Cape Town Press, Cape Town McLeod, F (2006) ‘Mbeki joins assault on green laws’. Mail and Guardian online Morden, C (2013) ‘Environmental Fiscal Reform, Carbon Tax & Climate Finance in South Africa’ UNFCC – Experts meeting on Long-term Finance, Makati City, Philippines, Cecil Morden - National Treasury South Africa – 16&17 July 2013. Mthembu-Salter, Gregory and Sue Cullinan (2011) ‘Counting on jobs’, The Africa Report 28: 48-9. Musyoki, A. 2012. “The Emerging Policy for Green Economy and Social Development in Limpopo, South Africa.” UNRISD and Friedrich Ebert Siftung occasional paper, Geneva, June 8. 32

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National Planning Commission (NPC). 2011. National Development Plan 2030 – Our future make it work. Executive Summary. Pretoria: National Planning Commission. Never, B. 2012. “Collective Learning Through Climate Knowledge Systems: The Case of South Africa.” Politikon: South African Journal of Political Studies 39 (2): 231–256. Nhamo, G (2013) ‘Green economy readiness in South Africa: A focus on the national sphere of government. International Journal of African Renaissance Studies – Multi-,Inter- and Transdisciplinarity, 8:1, 115-142 Oelofse, C and Patel, Z (2000) ‘Falling through the net: sustainability in Clermont Township, Durban. South African Geographical Journal 82 (2) 35-43 Parker, F. 2011. “SA’s New Green Economy Accord Met with Skepticism.” Mail & Guardian (SA), November 17. Patel, Z (2006) ‘Of questionable value: the role of practitioners in building sustainable cities. Geoforum 37 (2006)682-694 Patel, Z. (2001) ‘Rethinking sustainable development: power, policy and practice in South Durban. Unpublished PhD. Thesis Department of Geography. University of Cambridge. Patel, Z. (2004) ‘Technical Process, Political Realities: Sustainable Development and the South Durban Strategic Environmental Assessment’ in Human Settlement Development, [Ed. Saskia Sassen], in Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS), Developed under the Auspices of the UNESCO, Eolss Publishers, Paris, France, [http://www.eolss.net] Patel, Z. (2005) ‘Understanding environmental change in South African cities: a landscape approach’ Transformation: Critical Perspectives on Southern Africa, 57, 2005, pp. 24-40 (Article) Patel, Z. (2009) ‘Environmental Justice in South Africa: tools and trade-offs’ Raubenheimer, S. 2011. Facing Climate Change: Building South Africa’s Strategy. Cape Town: IDASA. Republic of South Africa (2004) ‘National climate change response strategy for South Africa, Department for Environmental Affairs and Tourism, Pretoria. Republic of South Africa (RSA) (1996) Act 108, the South African Constitution. Resnick, D., F. Tarp, and J. Thurlow. 2012. “The Political Economy of Green Growth: Cases from Southern Africa.” Public Administration and Development 32 (3): 215–228. Rydin, Y and Pennington, M, (2000) ‘Public participation and local environmental planning: the collective action problem and the potential of social capital. Local environment 5 (2), 153 – 169 Sowman, M. 2002 ‘Integrating environmental sustainability issues into local government planning and decision making. In: Parnell, S, Pieterse, E., Swilling, M., Woodbridge, D (Eds), Policy Ambitions: Perspectives on Developmental Local Government in South Africa. UCT Press, Cape Town, pp 181 - 203 Spencer, F., M. Swilling, D. Everatt, M. Muller, J. Schulschenk, J. du Toit, R. Meyer, and W. Pierce. 2010. A Strategy for a Developmental Green Economy for Gauteng, Preliminary Report. Draft. Johannesburg: Gauteng Province Department of Economic Development. Struwig, Jaré (2010) ‘South Africans’ attitudes towards the environment’, in Benjamin Roberts, Mbithi wa Kivilu, and Yul Derek Davids (eds.) South African social attitudes, second report: reflections on the age of hope, Cape Town: HSRC Press. Tyler, E. and Gunfaus, M.T (2015) ‘What was the contribution of the Long Term Mitigation Scenario process to South African climate change policy. Mitigation Action Plans and Scenarios. Research Paper. Issue 29. UNEP. (2015). Multiple Pathways to Sustainable Development: Initial findings from the Global South, pp 26 van Amerom, Marloes and Bram Büscher (2005) ‘Peace parks in Southern Africa: bringers of an African Renaissance?’, Journal of Modern African Studies 43(2): 159-182. Wills, A. (2010) SA Copenhagen Accord pledge, Pretoria, South Africa

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Winkler, Harald (2009) Cleaner energy, cooler climate: developing sustainable energy solutions for South Africa, Cape Town: HSRC Press. Yield, J. 2011. “Fall in Line on Climate Change, Sasol told.” IOL (SA), November 11. Zuma, J. G. 2013. State of the Nation Address By His Excellency Jacob G Zuma, President of the Republic of South Africa on the occasion of the Joint Sitting Of Parliament, Cape Town, February 10.

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Annex 1: Draft interview questions Part A: Policy formulation context (for specific interviewees)

Policy implementation context (for specific interviewees)

Policy M, R &E context (for specific interviewees)

1.

Are you aware of the national strategy for sustainable development endorsed by Cabinet in October 2011? Or the earlier version the national framework for sustainable development endorsed by Cabinet in 2008? What other policies are you aware of that promote sustainable development? How does your theme or work or organisation relate to the National Strategy for Sustainable Development (NSSD) or SD in general? What role does DEA play (or should play) in bringing about sustainable development policy mainstreaming progress? What level of interest is there in sustainable development policy/strategy amongst government, civil society, business and industry? Who are the actors? How are they encouraged to take appropriate policy actions? Is this effective? What level of coherence exists between the NSSD (or sustainable development) and other key strategies or policies- and which ones specifically? What are the key ‘moments’ or decision points and factors, that led (or lead) to developing sustainable development vision, goals, strategic priorities and objectives?

1.

1.

6.

What are the key ‘moments’ or decision points, that led to implementation of projects/ programmes that promote sustainable development?

6.

What are the key ‘moments’ or decision points, that led to outcomes progress?

7.

What worked (or works) well and what are the main challenges for sustainable development policy formulation/ review process?

7.

7.

What works well and what are the main challenges during the sustainable development M&E process?

8.

What observations can be made about why the NSSD may not have been all that successful in making sustainable development policy impact in South Africa? What specific SD policy/ strategies/ plans development/formulation progress was made and over what time period? What were the key factors that contributed to the progress? How useful was the NSSD compared to other policy instruments which aim to promote SD? Are there any lessons about the way in which the NSSD was used (or could be used) to make impact (good communication, engagement, institutional mechanisms, provision of resources (information, finances, skills), incentives, etc) What changes, improvements or alternative tools would you suggest for the NSSD going forward (content and process)? What further evidence is required for SD policy formulation /review and who might produce it? What role should other policies and strategies play in promoting sustainable development?

8.

What works well and what were the main challenges during the implementation of projects/ programmes that promote sustainable development? To what extent do spheres of government/ private sector/ NGO/ civil society have the capacity to affect implementation of NSSD actions or SD programmes? What specific SD implementation progress was made and over what time period? What were the key factors that contributed to the progress? How useful was the NSSD compared to other instruments which aim to promote SD progress? Are there any lessons about the way in which the NSSD was used (or could be used) to make impact (good communication, engagement, institutional mechanism, provision of resources (information, finances, skills), incentives, etc) What changes, improvements or alternative tools would you suggest for the NSSD going forward (content and process)? What further evidence is required for SD policy implementation and who might produce it? What role should other policies and strategies play in promoting sustainable development?

8.

What processes are there to undertake M&E? How effective are these?

9.

What specific SD indicators progress was made and over what time period? What were the key factors that contributed to the progress? How useful was the NSSD compared to other instruments which aim to promote SD progress? Are there any lessons about the way in which the NSSD was used (or could be used) to make impact (good communication, engagement, institutional mechanism, provision of resources (information, finances, skills), incentives, etc) What changes, improvements or alternative tools would you suggest for the NSSD going forward (content and process)? What further evidence is required for SD policy M&E and who might produce it? What role should other policies and strategies play in promoting sustainable development?

2.

3. 4.

5.

6.

9. 10. 11. 12.

13. 14. 15.

Sub-area 1 35

2.

3. 4.

Are you aware of the national strategy for sustainable development endorsed by Cabinet in October 2011? Or the earlier version the national framework for sustainable development endorsed by Cabinet in 2008? What other policies are you aware of that promote sustainable development? How does your theme or work or organisation relate to the National Strategy for Sustainable Development (NSSD) or SD in general? What role does DEA play in bringing about sustainable development policy implementation progress? What level of interest is there in sustainable development amongst government, civil society, business and industry? Who are the actors? How are they encouraged to take appropriate policy actions? Is this effective?

5.

9. 10. 11. 12.

13. 14. 15.

2.

3. 4.

Are you aware of the national strategy for sustainable development endorsed by Cabinet in October 2011? Or the earlier version the national framework for sustainable development endorsed by Cabinet in 2008? What other policies are you aware of that promote sustainable development? How does your theme or work or organisation relate to the National Strategy for Sustainable Development (NSSD) or SD in general? What role does DEA play in bringing about sustainable development policy M&E progress? What level of interest is there in sustainable development amongst government, civil society, business and industry? Who are the actors? How are they encouraged to take appropriate policy actions? Is this effective?

5.

10. 11. 12.

13. 14. 15.

Promoting Sustainable development in South Africa: key issues

Objective: Sustainable development policy and strategy development/formulation/review Target stakeholders: DDG Alf Wills ([email protected]) , Tlou Ramaru ([email protected] ), Nomazizi Mdi ([email protected]), (Limpopo) Tharina Boshof ( [email protected] North west), Loyiso ([email protected]) and Basani ([email protected]) (Gauteng), Albert ([email protected]) (eastern cape), Enoch Mhlanga ([email protected]) (rural dev), Eddy Moeketsi (Already in study 2), Zakhele Mdlalose ([email protected]) (DTI), Sue (DIRCO), Elise Haber ([email protected]) (DIRCO), Richard Worthington ([email protected]), Gaylor ([email protected]) (TIPS), Douglas Trotter ([email protected]) (CSIR?), Karen and Frances (WC-Covered in study 2, unless specific follow ups), Tasneem Essop….etc Questions:

1. Are you aware of the national strategy for sustainable development endorsed by Cabinet in October 2011? Or the earlier version the national framework for sustainable development endorsed by Cabinet in 2008? What other policies are you aware of that promote sustainable development? 2. How does your theme or work or organisation relate to the National Strategy for Sustainable Development (NSSD) or SD in general? 3. What role does DEA play (or should play) in bringing about sustainable development policy mainstreaming progress? 4. What level of interest is there in sustainable development policy/strategy amongst government, civil society, business and industry? Who are the actors? How are they encouraged to take appropriate policy actions? Is this effective? 5. What level of coherence exists between the NSSD (or sustainable development) and other key strategies or policies- and which ones specifically? 6. What are the key ‘moments’ or decision points and factors, that led (or lead) to developing sustainable development vision, goals, strategic priorities and objectives? 7. What worked (or works) well and what are the main challenges for sustainable development policy formulation/ review process? 8. What observations can be made about why the NSSD may not have been all that successful in making sustainable development policy impact in South Africa? 9. What specific SD policy/ strategies/ plans development/formulation progress was made and over what time period? 10. What were the key factors that contributed to the progress? 11. How useful was the NSSD compared to other policy instruments which aim to promote SD?

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Promoting Sustainable development in South Africa: key issues

12. Are there any lessons about the way in which the NSSD was used (or could be used) to make impact (good communication, engagement, institutional mechanisms, provision of resources (information, finances, skills), incentives, etc) 13. What changes, improvements or alternative tools would you suggest for the NSSD going forward (content and process)? 14. What further evidence is required for SD policy development/formulation/review and who might produce it? 15. What role should other policies and strategies play in promoting sustainable development? Sub-area 1 Objective: Implementation of programmes/projects that promotes sustainable development Target stakeholders: Najma ([email protected]), Michell ([email protected]), Ndivhuho Raphulu ([email protected]) (NCPC), Intelligence Chauke ([email protected]) (SALGA), Questions:

1. Are you aware of the national strategy for sustainable development endorsed by Cabinet in October 2011? Or the earlier version the national framework for sustainable development endorsed by Cabinet in 2008? What other policies are you aware of that promote sustainable development? 2. How does your theme or work or organisation relate to the National Strategy for Sustainable Development (NSSD) or SD in general? 3. What are the key ‘moments’ or decision points, that lead to implementation of projects/ programmes that promote sustainable development? 4. What works well and what were the main challenges during the implementation of projects/ programmes that promote sustainable development? 5. To what extent do spheres of government/ private sector/ NGO/ civil society have the capacity to affect implementation of NSSD actions or SD programmes? 6. What specific SD projects/ programmes implementation progress was made and over what time period? 7. What were the key factors that contributed to the progress? 8. Are there any lessons about the way in which the NSSD was used (or could be used) to make impact (good communication, engagement, institutional mechanism, provision of resources (information, finances, skills), incentives, etc) 37

Promoting Sustainable development in South Africa: key issues

9. What changes, improvements or alternative tools would you suggest for the NSSD going forward (content and process)? 10. What further evidence is required for SD policy implementation and who might produce it?

Sub-area 1 Objective: Sustainable development Monitoring, Reporting &Evaluation Target stakeholders: Leanne Richards ([email protected]) (works with Anna Mampye), Rudolf (CSIR?), Mark New ([email protected]) (UCT), [email protected] (DPME), Josephine Musango ([email protected]) (modelling?),,,,,etc Questions:

1. Are you aware of the national strategy for sustainable development endorsed by Cabinet in October 2011? Or the earlier version the national framework for sustainable development endorsed by Cabinet in 2008? What other policies are you aware of that promote sustainable development? 2. How does your theme or work or organisation relate to the National Strategy for Sustainable Development (NSSD) or SD in general? 3. What works well and what are the main challenges during the sustainable development M, R &E process? 4. What processes are there to undertake sustainable development M, R &E? How effective are these? 5. What specific SD indicators progress was made and over what time period? 6. What were the key factors that contributed to the progress? 7. How useful is the NSSD compared to other instruments which aim to promote SD progress? 8. Are there any lessons about the way in which the NSSD was used to make impact (good communication, engagement, institutional mechanism, provision of resources (information, finances, skills), incentives, etc) 9. What further evidence is required for SD policy M, R &E and who might produce it? 10. What approaches, changes, improvements or alternative tools would you suggest for the NSSD going forward (content and process)?

38

Promoting Sustainable development in South Africa: key issues

39

Annex 2: Drafting the National Strategy for Sustainable development Drafting The concept of a national strategy for sustainable development emerged during the development of the White Paper on Environmental Management Policy for South Africa in 1997 (DEAT, 1998). However, the development of a national strategy was delayed as the new government was still clarifying institutional mandates and functions (interviewee, December, 2014). A number of interviewees suggested that international commitments particularly the 2002 Johannesburg call to action for countries to prepare national strategies for sustainable development provided further impetus (see also Rennkamp, n.d). In addition, although there were several tools to guide decision making at a project level, there was little to guide national level planning and resource allocation – a national strategy for sustainable development served to plug this gap. The process of developing a national strategy for sustainable development started in 2003. It was highly consultative reaching out to various government departments as well as other stakeholder groups. A document was drafted whilst a consultant was hired to translate a document that was very technical into something that was more appropriate for non-specialists. A first draft of document was published in 2005 for public comment. But it was published as a framework rather than a strategy for reasons that were process related (such as timing) and those that were political (such as a concern that some government departments would not support some of its content and question whether it was DEA’s place to develop such a document given the overarching nature of sustainable development). The framework served to establish a number of principles and key areas for action and initiate a country wide debate. The debate was conflictual, drawn out and was probably as important as the final product. It served to raise awareness and reach out to other sectors around sustainability. In 2008, the NFSD was approved by Parliament and became an official government document. A year later, DEA proceeded with converting the Framework into a strategy which served as an action plan to implement the framework. A group of consultants were procured with relatively limited resources, to pull together a strategy with specific actions and indicators. DEA provided clear direction in terms of the areas they wanted the strategy to focus on. The focal areas drew mainly on the NSFD. There were some changes however as climate change and the green economy had achieved prominence in policy circles. There was no further significant research or consultations, but they did work though government stakeholders. For instance one interviewee said that the DEA invited representatives of the DTI to be “part of the development of the strategy”. There was some concern amongst the consultants about the quality of indicators but they were unable to secure feedback from M&E specialists within DEA, whilst DEA officials were concerned that the document reflected the department’s priorities. Once finalised, the Strategy was gazetted for public comment before it was approved by Cabinet in 2011, with the entire development process taking about a year. It appeared more or less the same time as Durban hosting COP17 in 2011. One interviewee suggested that the need to showcase what South Africa was doing domestically may have led to it being rushed. With the cabinet approving the NSSD, ministers were at aware of its existence. Once published, DEA policy managers undertook significant work to market the plan to other parts of government through cross-departmental meetings/mechanisms

inasp.info/vakayiko

Promoting Sustainable development in South Africa: key issues

An analysis of the NSSD The NSSD contained a number of innovative components including: advocating a systems approach to assessing sustainability; referring to “ecological sustainability in the first instance” and to humans as “part of nature”; it advocated for stewardship of the environment, linked sustainability to the vision and values of the country, and required a National Committee on Sustainable Development to work with all sectors of society. It also recognised the unsustainability of the growth path being GDP-focused; recognised that long held beliefs and ideologies had to be challenged; emphasised the need to incorporate principles into policy and legislation; established links between sustainable development and national planning; and created links between sustainability and spatial planning. 11 However, some interviewees argued the NSSD was reductionist and tried to condense the concept of sustainable development into ‘bite sized chunks’, while the concept of the Green Economy was seen as problematic by others given that the idea of turning nature into a commodity was opposed by many civil society groups at Rio + 20. Although the plan aimed to balance ecological, social and economic objectives, the environmental component dominated, which was not surprising given it was led by DEA.

Coherence with other plans Chapter five of the National Development Plan – the most important development plan across government - drew heavily on the NSSD section on the green economy, which some interviewees said made sustainable development (and the environment in particular) another industrial centre for employment creation, rather than challenging ‘business as usual’. The National Development Plan was inconsistent on the issue of sustainable development. For instance on one page it stated the need to transition to a low carbon economy but on another it states the need to increase coal exports to pay for that (interviewee response, January 2015). Death (2014) argues that the three specific environmental measures listed in the National Development Plan seem to signal that the government continues to see environmental issues from a ‘preservationist’ perspective, failing to challenge the broader model of socio-economic development. 12 The New Growth Path made no reference to the NSSD.

11

http://www.elasa.co.za/uploads/1/1/8/2/11823994/presentation_-_ms_susan_mosdell.pdf These are an environmental management framework to ensure developments which have serious environmental or social effects need to be offset by support for improvements in related areas; a target for increasing protected areas; and a set of indicators and reports for natural resources. 12

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Promoting Sustainable development in South Africa: key issues

Annex 3: Policy content analysis and mapping The National Strategy for Sustainable Development and Action Plan 1 1. Definitions The National Strategy for Sustainable Development and Action Plan (2011-2014) (DEA, 2011) contains the following vision for a sustainable South African society: “South Africa aspires to be a sustainable, economically prosperous and self-reliant nation that safeguards its democracy by meeting the fundamental human needs of its people, by managing its limited ecological resources responsibly for current and future generations, and by advancing efficient and effective integrated planning and governance through national, regional and global collaboration.” This vision clearly emphasises elements of sustainability, economic prosperity and the importance of meeting the population’s human needs with a particular focus on the sustainable management of the country’s ecological resources. There is also a clear focus on efficient and effective integrated planning and participatory governance at different levels of scale.

The diagram above illustrates a systems approach to sustainability. According to this approach, the ecosystem, socio-political system and economic system are embedded with each other (and therefore dependent on each other). In addition, these three distinct and interrelated systems are held together by a governance system within the context of a legitimate regulatory framework (DEA, 2011). This approach therefore suggests that equal importance be accorded to each of these three distinct but interrelated systems. These three systems need to become integrated in a continuous and mutually compatible manner over time, particularly in the face of key development challenges (e.g. poverty eradication) that need to be met through specific actions and interventions (DEA, 2011). The NSSD 1 presents DEA’s understanding of sustainable development as well as an action plan and indicators to provide an enabling framework for its implementation. As per the systems approach, the strategy calls for an interdependency approach between different sectors and actions regarding sustainability. In addition, the NSSD 1 provides a high-level road map aimed at providing public and private sector organisations with guidance related to their own long-term planning as well as the development of sector- or subject-specific strategies and action plans that need to be consistent with it. The implementation of the NSSD therefore requires actors from these sectors to participate in an ongoing, innovative and constructive dialogue in order 42

Promoting Sustainable development in South Africa: key issues

find new ways of developing a more efficient and equitable economy. Furthermore, the successful implementation of the strategy will require all actors to implement the strategy initiatives and collaborate in order to significantly contribute to ecological sustainability (DEA, 2011). The strategy covers three key areas namely human development (people), ecological protection (the planet) and economic growth (prosperity). Due to the wide range of interpretations that exist when it comes to the terms sustainability and sustainable development, the NSSD presents fixed definitions for both of these terms for the South African context. In this context, sustainability (or a sustainable society) implies ecological sustainability, which primarily recognises the importance of maintaining healthy ecosystems and natural resources as preconditions for human wellbeing. At the same time, however, ecological sustainability recognises that human beings need to be seen as part of nature and not as a separate entity (DEA. 2011). Sustainable development as a related term describes the process that is followed to achieve the goal of sustainability. It implies the selection and implementation of a kind of development option which allows for appropriate and justifiable social and economic goals to be achieved. This is based on the need to meet basic needs and equity without compromising or damaging the natural system (DEA, 2011). While the NSSD 1 acknowledges the three systems that together comprise sustainable development, its main emphasis seems to be on the ecological system as well as ecological sustainability. While this focus makes sense due the NSSD 1 having been housed within DEA, too strong a focus on ecological sustainability may have resulted in the inadvertent alienation of actors from the other two systems and may have contributed to rendering the implementation of sustainable development focused projects difficult.

2. Reflections on three key elements that feature in the NSSD 1 Towards sustainable development practices Due to South Africa’s drive to maximise economic growth, which has resulted in an energy intensive economy and the erosion of the country’s resource base, a need has been identified to put new socio-economic objectives in place, particularly around issues of equity. This also requires a more radical redefinition of the country’s development path (DEA, 2011). There is therefore a clear recognition of the need to develop and implement a more sustainable growth and development path for the country. A key element of this development needs to be equity and redressing the inequalities that have resulted from the country’s apartheid system.

Changing values and behaviour This element speaks to the importance of promoting human development in order to improve human wellbeing and the quality of life in South Africa. Here the NSSD 1 makes it clear that a new and different view of wellbeing is required that moves away from the definition of the latter as the accumulation of physical goods and money. It is therefore necessary to change some of the current beliefs, values and long-established practices in South African society as these often promote unsustainable patterns of consumption and production. This will include raising awareness about the important potential contribution of ecosystems and natural resources to human wellbeing. Changing behaviour will also require making available appropriate opportunities, providing incentives and involving a range of actors, including government, business and civil society organisations (DEA, 2011). Changing people’s behaviour is not easily achieved. The NSSD 1 recognises this and also makes it clear that a new way of looking at wealth and wellbeing is required – one that is more sustainable and less focused on the unsustainable accumulation of material wealth and money at all costs.

Restructuring the governance system and building capacity The process of developing the NSSD 1 was driven by DEA by means of a consultative process. While at the time of publishing the NSSD 1 a number of sectors had already incorporated sustainability criteria into their policies, legislation, strategies and plans, sustainable development had in many cases not yet been successfully implemented. This can be attributed to a number of reasons including inadequate resources, lack of management, and the absence of institutional and technical capacity. The NSSD 1 therefore states that sustainability-related initiatives need to be linked to an institutional framework in order to ensure the effective coordination of the priorities contained in it. In addition, it is important for principles of sustainability to be incorporated

43

Promoting Sustainable development in South Africa: key issues

into the policy, legislation, strategies and action plans of government in order to facilitate implementation. Monitoring and evaluation of progress is also important (DEA, 2011). While these plans to improve the implementation of sustainable development make sense, they have generally not been successfully actualised and much remains to be done in order to achieve the successful implementation of sustainable development in South Africa.

3. The NSSD 1’s Action Plan and Strategic Priorities The Action Plan that forms part of the strategy is formulated within the context of the five overarching goals and strategic priorities that have been identified in the NSSD 1 (DEA, 2011). 

The NSSD 1 has the following overarching goals:



Develop and promote new social and economic goals based on ecological sustainability and build a culture that recognises that socioeconomic systems are dependent on and embedded in ecosystems;



Increase awareness and understanding of the value of ecosystem services to human wellbeing;



Ensure effective integration of sustainability principles into all policies, planning and decision-making at national, provincial and local levels;



Ensure effective system-wide integration and collaboration across all functions and sectors; and



Monitor, evaluate and report performance and progress in respect of ecological sustainability in relation to socioeconomic goals (DEA, 2011).

Again, a very definite ecological sustainability focus comes through here, coupled with a realisation that social and economic goals need to recognise the importance of this kind of sustainability for the South African context. Simultaneously, the NSSD 1 goals express a need for sustainability principles to be included into policies, planning and decision-making at different levels of scale in the context of both integration and collaboration amongst different actors in different sectors. Finally, progress towards achieving ecological sustainability needs to be monitored, evaluated and reported on. Coupled with its goals, the NSSD 1 also has the following strategic priorities coupled with specific goals, objectives and headline indicators (DEA, 2011):

Strategic priority 1: Enhancing systems for integrated planning and implementation Effective implementation of the NSSD 1 will require an institutional mechanism that enables coordinated planning, monitoring and evaluation of performance and measures progress towards sustainability. Such a mechanism also needs to have a strong focus on ethical behaviour. Ensuring that there is capacity to implement sustainable development is critical across all sectors in South Africa and in particular the public sector. Existing policies, frameworks, plans and strategies therefore need to be realigned and improved to integrate sustainable development-focused considerations (DEA, 2011). As part of this priority, the following goals, objectives and headline indicators have been set: Goals: 

Ensure integration of sustainable development in the national vision and strategic planning processes of government;



Establish a monitoring and evaluation system to facilitate the ongoing assessment of progress towards sustainability;



Ensure effective planning and implementation of sustainable development;



Build capacity to enhance the effectiveness of government agencies to empower communities; and



Enforce normative criteria (values, attitudes and aptitudes) as a suitable base for effective and efficient public service delivery to the public or communities (DEA, 2011).

Objectives:

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Promoting Sustainable development in South Africa: key issues



Enhance effective governance, and institutional structures and mechanisms to achieve sustainable development and meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) and Johannesburg Plan of Implementation (JPOI) goals and targets; and



Strengthen monitoring and reporting for improved environmental performance by government and the private sector (DEA, 2011).

Headline indicators: 

Establish an effective National Committee on Sustainable Development (NCSD);



Number of government entities and private companies that report against sustainability indicators (King III sustainability reporting, Carbon Disclosure Project and Water Disclosure Project); and



Number of community-based capacity building projects (being measuring) (DEA, 2011).

Strategic priority 2: Sustaining our ecosystems and using natural resources efficiently The NSSD 1 states that South Africa’s natural resources are under severe pressure, which poses a threat to the country’s socioeconomic objectives. This degradation is of particular concern given the important role of natural systems in climate change and adaptation, particularly for the most vulnerable communities. If South Africa is to achieve the vision of a sustainable society, the negative trends regarding the state of the country’s natural resources will need to be reversed urgently (DEA, 2011). This can be done by achieving the following strategic goals and objective under Priority 2, and can be measured by the headline indicators that have been set under this priority: Goals: 

Manage the use of all natural resources to ensure their sustainability;



Protect and restore scarce and degraded natural resources;



Prevent the pollution of air, water and land resources so that community and ecosystem health is not adversely affected; and



Avoid the irreversible loss and degradation of biodiversity (marine, terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems) (DEA, 2011).

Objective: 

Value, protect and continually enhance environmental assets and natural resources

Headline indicators: 

Curtail water losses of water distribution systems to an average percentage reduction (saving) [from 30 to 15% by 2014);



Reduction (saving) of demand as determined in the reconciliation strategies for seven large water supply systems by 15%;



Increase the number of Blue Flag beaches (to above 29 beaches);



Rehabilitation of land affected by degradation (3.2 million ha by 2014);



Percentage of coastline with partial protection (from 12 to 14% by 2014);



Percentage of land mass protected (formal and informal) (from 6.1 to 9% by 2014) (DEA, 2011).

Strategic priority 3: Towards a green economy While the South African economy can be considered relatively stable, there are a number of concerns from an ecological sustainability perspective. These include the economy being highly energy intensive and including a significant mining sector; the natural resource base being under severe pressure; the national electricity crisis; and the presence of widespread poverty, unemployment and inequality (DEA, 2011). The implementation of a green economy may be a way of addressing some of these concerns. A green economy implies the decoupling of resource use and environmental impacts from economic growth, substantially increased investment in green 45

Promoting Sustainable development in South Africa: key issues

sectors and enabling policy reforms. In the South African context, a green economy would need to be supported by a practical and implementable action plan that recognises the importance of building on existing best practices, processes, programmes, initiatives and indigenous knowledge in key sectors. The aim of moving towards a green economy would be to shift the country towards a resource-efficient, low-carbon and pro-employment growth path. Government alone would not be able to do so, and would therefore rely heavily on civil society and the private sector to contribute (DEA, 2011). A number of key supportive policies link to the implementation of the green economy. These include the Medium Term Strategic Framework (MTSF) 2009-2014, the Ten-year Innovation Plan, the revised Industrial Policy Action Plan for 2010/11-2012/13 (IPAP 2), the revised Integrated Resources Plan (IRP2) and the New Growth Path (NGP). South Africa is also to develop a National Green Economy Strategy based on inputs from various sectors’ implementation plans. The implementation of such a strategy would require considerable coherence and coordination within government and between social partners (DEA, 2011). Transitioning towards a green economy is linked to the following goals, objective and headline indicators: Goals: 

Provide support to the regulatory framework;



Implement and upscale green economy programmes;



Implement skills development, particularly youth in the green economy sectors/industries;



Use market-based instruments;



Promote innovation, science and technology;



Create investment and finance opportunities and financing instruments;



Create and protect jobs; and



Implement IPAP 2 (DEA, 2011).

Objective: 

A just transition towards a resource-efficient, low- carbon and pro-employment growth path (DEA, 2011).

Headline indicators: 

Progress on the implementation of the nine green economy programmes [impact on social (jobs), economic (industry development) and environmental (ecosystem) benefits by 2014];



Increase percentage (or amount) of financial resources ring-fenced or streamlined and spent for green economy programmes (2010/11 amount – Industrial Development Corporation: R11.7 billion; Development Bank of South Africa: R25 billion; Private: > R100 billion; National Treasury: R800 million);



Number of patents, prototypes and technology demonstrators added to the intellectual property (IP) portfolio annually from funded or co-funded research programmes (five additions to the IP portfolio – patents, patent applications, licences and trademarks – by March 2014); and



Share of GDP of the Environmental Goods and Services (EGS) Sector (3% of GDP by 2014) (DEA, 2011) (DEA, 2011).

Strategic priority 4: Building sustainable communities Human settlements can be labelled sustainable if they meet the different needs of their residents, including housing, basic services, community facilities, transport and livelihood or job opportunities, while at the same time being sensitive to the surrounding ecosystems and natural resources. South Africa has unfortunately been characterised by substantial problems regarding housing and service delivery. These include houses being built at the expense of quality and durability, and a lack of installation of eco-technologies (e.g. solar water heaters etc.) as a result of the limited housing subsidy made available by the government. In addition, a lack of long-term planning has meant that there is insufficient infrastructure in many areas (for

46

Promoting Sustainable development in South Africa: key issues

examples wastewater treatment works) to meet the needs of a rapidly growing urban population. Insufficient attention has also been paid to considering environmental constraints and opportunities of specific locations (DEA, 2011). The NSSD 1 lists the following goals, objectives and headline indicators under Strategic priority 4: Goals: 

Enhance spatial planning to promote social cohesion and integration between communities as well as between communities and the natural environment;



Ensure universal access to basic and community services;



Improve the quality of housing and other structures to optimise resource efficiency (energy, water, building materials etc.);



Promote self-sufficiency, food security and equitable access to natural resources that support livelihoods; and



Improve equity, security and social cohesion (DEA, 2011).

Objectives: 

Create community awareness, participation and work together to protect their environment through changing the attitudes and behaviour in consuming resources sustainably and responsibly; and



Develop and support quality housing projects/programmes including building community self-sufficient farming strategies, indigenous knowledge, the sustainable production of herbs and traditional medicine, and businesses to secure societal equity and cohesion (DEA, 2011).

Headline indicators: 

Percentage of households with access to water (92 to 100%), sanitation (69 to 100%), refuse removal (64 to 75%) and electricity (81 to 92%) by 2014;



Upgrading of 400 000 households in well-located informal settlements with access to basic services and secure tenure (approximately 2700 informal settlements are in good locations; i.e. located close to metropolitan areas and basic services, have high densities, and, in 2008, housed approximately 1.2 million households);



Increase in the South African Human Development Index (HDI) (2010 HDI: 0.597); and



Gini coefficient (reduce income inequality (2008: 0.66) (DEA, 2011).

Strategic priority 5: Responding effectively to climate change Climate change poses a considerable threat to global sustainable development with expected adverse effects on food and water security, economic activity, human health, physical infrastructure and natural resources. Addressing climate change by mitigating greenhouse gas emissions and building resilient communities will make a major contribution to achieving a sustainable society. Such mitigation and adaptation will need to include ecosystem-based solutions given the major role that terrestrial and marine ecosystems play in the carbon cycle. The protection of natural habitats is particular important because the poorest people, who depend directly on natural systems, are also those that are most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change (DEA, 2011). In November 2011 the South African government approved the National Climate Change Response white paper, which represents the government’s vision for an effective response to climate change and a long-term, just transition to a climateresilient and low-carbon economy and society. Coupled with the white paper, the development and implementation of an effective climate change response strategy is also of the utmost important for South Africa (DEA, 2011). The NSSD lists the following goals, objectives and headline indicators under Strategic priority 5: Goals: 47

Promoting Sustainable development in South Africa: key issues



Decrease greenhouse gas emissions to levels required by science/in line with Cabinet approved targets – with particular emphasis on the energy sector, which accounts for over 70% of South Africa’s emissions;



Reduce dependency on fossil fuels and enhance security of electricity supply;



Build resilience to climate change in communities; and



Ensure that ecosystem resilience is not disrupted (DEA, 2011).

Objectives: 

A fair contribution to the global effort to achieve the stabilisation of greenhouse gas



concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that prevents dangerous anthropogenic



interference with the climate system;



Effectively adapt to and manage unavoidable and potential damaging climate change impacts through interventions that build and sustain South Africa’s social, economic and environmental resilience and emergency response capacity;



Develop various adaptation strategies with climate sensitive sectors;



Assist various key sectors to develop and implement climate change adaptation plans; and



Strengthen key sectors such as water, agriculture, health etc. to be more resilient and also have the ability to adapt to climate variability and change (DEA, 2011).

Headline indicators: 

Greenhouse gas emissions (metric ton Co2 equivalent) (34% reduction below a business-as-usual baseline by 2020 and 42% by 2025);



Percentage of power generation that is renewable (10000 GWh by 2014); and



Climate change adaptation plans developed (12 sectors by 2012 – biodiversity, forestry, water, coastal management, agriculture, health, tourism, land and rural development, fisheries, human settlements, business/insurance).

In essence, these strategic priorities and objectives elaborate on the NSSD 1 goals in a number of ways. Firstly, they allude to the need for effective governance, institutional structures and mechanisms to bring about sustainable development through integrated planning and implementation. Secondly, they introduce an additional element by focusing on moving towards a green economy which is to take the form of a transition towards a resource-efficient, low-carbon and pro-employment growth path. Thirdly, Strategic priority 4 calls for building sustainable communities by creating awareness among communities around sustainable practices, working towards changing attitudes and behaviour and introducing and implementing projects and programmes that promote sustainable development. Fourthly, Strategic priority 5 with its focus on responding effectively to climate change under its objectives mentions South Africa’s responsibility towards global climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts as well as the need to manage unavoidable climate change impacts by strengthening the country’s environmental resilience and emergency response capacity. The NSSD 1 also lists a substantial number of interventions and indicators in order to give effect to the strategic priorities and objectives that it lists (DEA, 2011). For more detail refer to the NSSD 1 document. Evaluation and feedback is also listed as a key activity to implement the NSSD 1, with particular attention to: planning, implementation, monitoring, evaluation and reporting (DEA, 2011).

4. Institutional arrangements for the management of the NSSD 1 The institutional arrangements that were developed to support the implementation of the NSSD 1 are underpinned by the following requirements: ensuring simplicity without compromising effectiveness, making use of and creating linkages with existing frameworks and mechanisms to avoid the proliferation of structures, learning from international practice and ensuring high-level support for the NSSD 1.

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Promoting Sustainable development in South Africa: key issues

Planning, implementation, monitoring, evaluation and reporting According to the NSSD 1, the approach that is used for planning, implementation, monitoring, evaluation and reporting on progress towards the achievement of sustainability targets needs to be aligned with the government-wide monitoring and evaluation systems that already exist. Such an alignment will ensure that sustainable development becomes an integral part of the work of government and that the performance against targets can be accounted for, for example by means of the Auditor General’s accounting process (DEA, 2011). The Ministry of Water and Environmental Affairs, through DEA, will be the coordinating focal point and will cooperate with relevant spheres of government, the private sector, NGOs and civil society. DEA also planned to establish and oversee the National Committee on Sustainable Development (NCSD) with the aim of operating at multiple levels, through horizontal and vertical coordination13, and through different structures of engagement to work together with government departments, civil society, the private sector, academia, independent reviewers and other stakeholders. The function of the NCSD would be to ensure that the goals of the NSSD 1 and the Action Plan are implemented by effectively coordinating work on sustainable development. DEA, in collaboration with relevant sector departments and stakeholders, also planned to promote the implementation of the NSSD 1 through the harmonised planning and execution of programmes (DEA, 2011). DEA (2011) sees the three key aspects of strategic management as planning, implementation and monitoring and evaluation, and reporting. Institutions that would take responsibility for planning would be the National Planning Commission (NPC), government clusters, government departments, private sector organisations and NGOs. Strategic plans would be expected to include and enforce implementation, monitoring, evaluation and reporting. The various parties that are responsible for the implementation of the NSSD 1 would be expected to report on their performance against sustainability indicators as part of the normal reporting process, while research institutions would focus on gathering and analysing data that relates to the NSSD 1. The idea of aligning planning, implementation, monitoring, evaluation and reporting mechanisms for sustainable development with existing government approaches and mechanisms sounds promising in that it would prevent both duplication and the placing of additional administrative burdens on government departments. However, a problem is the fact that the NCSD, which was supposed to have a core oversight and coordinating function as far as the implementation of the NSSD 1 was concerned, was never established (DEA, 2013).

Planning for sustainable development According to DEA (2011), the plan is for sustainable development to be integrated into the national planning system and existing planning frameworks that are binding on government departments and other organs of state at all levels. The most high-level of these frameworks is the National Development Plan (NDP), which covers a longer period of time and therefore also addresses the need for intergenerational sustainability targets. The plan was for the NCSD to cooperate with DEA and the NPC in order to ensure that sustainable development would be incorporated into the short- and long-term vision of existing government processes. A particularly important government policy document is the five-year Medium Term Strategic Framework (MTSF). Including sustainable development indicators and targets in the MTSF would ensure that sustainable development would feature at the centre of government planning, and would ensure that performance against sustainability targets would regularly be tracked and reported on (DEA, 2011). The NPC will provide a long-term vision for the country, while the Monitoring and Evaluation Committee of the Presidency will play a key role in the monitoring process (DEA, 2011).

13

The main vehicles for horizontal coordination at a national level would be the Forum of South African Heads of Departments (FOSAD) and the cluster system, in particular the Cluster for International Cooperation, Trade and Security, Social Protection and Community Development, the Human Development Cluster, the Economic Sectors and Employment Cluster, and the Infrastructure Development Cluster. The Director-General of the Department of Environmental Affairs would be a member of the FOSAD clusters that would carry through the work of the NCSD. Other formal and ad hoc sector-specific coordinating structures, such as the Committee for Environmental Coordination (CEC) of the Environmental Sector, would also be used in accordance with the National Environmental Management Act on cooperative governance. Vertical coordination with provinces would be take place through meetings of MINTHEC (Ministerial Technical Committee) and MINMEC (Ministers and Executive Committee). Performance against sustainability targets would be included in discussions that take place during these forums. Coordination with local government would be facilitated through the South African Local Government Association (SALGA) and the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA) (DEA, 2011).

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Promoting Sustainable development in South Africa: key issues

Government’s medium-term planning: According to the NSSD 1, the five-year strategic plans that are developed by national and provincial departments should be informed by the NDP, the MTSF, the National State of the National Address (SoNA), the Provincial Growth and Development Strategy (PGDS) and the State of the Province addresses (SoPA). These five-year plans should include sustainability indicators and targets as core indicators agreed to by each of the government sectors. In addition, municipal Integrated Development Plans (IDPs) should also include sustainability indicators (DEA, 2011). Annual planning: In terms of this level of planning, national and provincial departments have to include sustainable development indicators and targets in their annual performance plans (APPs), while municipalities need to include them in their annual service delivery budget implementation plans (SDBIP), which are linked to their IDPs (DEA, 2011). Spatial planning: South Africa’s overarching spatial planning framework is represented by the National Spatial Development Perspective (NSDP). Spatial plans must be included in the PGDSs of provinces and the IDPs of municipalities, all of which need to be aligned with the national perspective. In this way, it is possible to ensure that sustainability principles are also included and reflected in spatial planning (DEA, 2011).

Implementation of sustainable development The implementation of sustainable development action will be decentralised through the strategic plans of all spheres of government, public entities, civil society, organised labour and business (DEA, 2011).

Monitoring, evaluation and reporting for sustainable development According to DEA (2011), the key to effective monitoring, evaluation and reporting is the establishment of baselines for all sustainability indictors. The performance against such indicators would be monitored through quarterly non-financial reports. Such reports would have to be linked to programme outputs or the strategic objectives featured in the APPs of government departments, municipalities and public entities. The NCSD would take an active part in the review of departmental strategic plans and APPs and would periodically analyse annual reports to keep track of the country’s overall progress towards achieving sustainability targets (DEA, 2011). In addition, performance against sustainability targets should be audited by the Auditor General. In order to make this possible, a special function responsible for the monitoring of sustainability outputs would need to be established within the Auditor General’s office. Oversight bodies, such as Parliament, provincial legislatures and municipal councils would then need to hold the executive accountable for delivery against sustainability indicators and targets (DEA, 2011). In terms of reporting, the NSSD 1 planned for Statistics South Africa (StatsSA) to track and report on sustainability indicators. The South African Environment Outlook (SAEO) report, the provincial and municipal State of the Environment Reports and other similar reports would also serve as important sources of information. The plan was for the NCSD to take responsibility for distilling information from these reports, for verifying their accuracy and validity and for producing annual reports for presentation to Parliament and the United Nations (UN). Furthermore, the NCSD would become a member of the National Statistics System. The private sector would be encouraged to report on sustainable development through incorporating sustainability into the King Code for Corporate Governance, including the triple bottom-line reporting requirement of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE). Industry organisations could also be required to produce annual reports on the contribution of various sectors to sustainable development (DEA, 2011). The NSSD 1 also envisages a key role for civil society in the monitoring of the government’s as well as the private sector’s performance towards the achievement of sustainability targets. This role could be performed through the establishment of a civil society or NGO forum and other multi-stakeholder consultative forums. In addition, the NCSD would commission regular external evaluations on South Africa’s performance regarding the achievement of sustainability. The NCSD would also convene periodic multi-stakeholder sustainable development review conferences to ensure that there is learning and adaptation on sustainable development (DEA, 2011). Sustainability would also be included in the periodic development of indicator reports and five-year reviews conducted by the Presidency. In addition, the NCSD would commission periodic spending reviews because financial commitments and spending could be a good indicator of the commitment to the implementation of sustainable development (DEA, 2011).

The role of government in sustainable development The Ministry of Water and Environmental Affairs and specifically DEA (through dedicated internal units) is the coordinating focal point for sustainable development both nationally and internationally (DEA, 2011).

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Promoting Sustainable development in South Africa: key issues

National arrangement DEA has established a national focal point unit that coordinates the country’s implementation of the national sustainability vision and multilateral agreements (MEAs). The aim of this unit is to work with the NCSD, government departments, civil society, organised labour and business to ensure that effective planning and implementation regarding sustainable development takes place throughout all spheres of government, public entities and the private sector. At the same time, this unit will promote capacity-building to enable government agencies to empower communities when it comes to sustainability (DEA, 2011).

International arrangement Furthermore, DEA has established an international focal point unit to coordinate the country’s participation in multi-lateral agreements (MEAs). This unit has to ensure that international policy decisions and activities are tailored to support and implement sustainable development at the national level. The unit is envisaged to work with the NCSD, government departments, civil society, organised labour and business to ensure participation within the United Nations systems on sustainable development issues (DEA, 2011).

The role of the private sector in sustainable development According to DEA (2011), the private sector has an important contribution to make to the achievement of sustainable development objectives and targets. It will need to partner with government and civil society in order to be able to do so. Industry bodies are therefore to be invited to participate in the consultative forum that will be established to further the implementation of the NSSD 1. The private sector, via industry bodies, will also be encouraged to do the following: 

Identify sustainable development goals and actions that are relevant to their sectors;



Agree on sectoral sustainability indicators and targets in line with those contained in the national strategy;



Discuss and agree on monitoring and reporting mechanisms for sustainable development (This might entail a requirement that companies submit annual progress reports on their activities and progress towards contributing to sustainability targets);



Submit annual industry sector sustainable development progress reports to the NCSD; and



Contribute to funding sustainable development in partnership with government and donors to support projects and initiatives aimed at supporting sustainable development (DEA, 2011).

The role of civil society in sustainable development South African civil society, as represented by NGOs, community-based organisations (CBOs) and labour, has an important role to play in promoting sustainable development. This is also usually the sector that tends to be the most negatively affected by unsustainable development practices (DEA, 2011). Civil society will be represented in the consultative forum and will have the following roles: 

Identify, design and implement community-based sustainable development projects;



Participate in research on sustainable development; and



Serve as a watchdog, tracking the performance of government and the private sector against sustainability targets (This role will also include lobbying and advocacy for sustainable development) (DEA, 2011).

Science and technology In order to achieve sustainable development priorities, targeted science and technology interventions are needed and strategic partnerships needs to be developed with other government departments, industry, research institutions and communities. Such interventions can include high potential research and development (R&D) – led industrial development programmes, technology support programmes for industry, the introduction of new approaches to government service delivery and planning, strengthening science-based policy development and decision-making, demonstrating technology-led opportunities for creating sustainable jobs and wealth creation, and strengthening the contribution of technology in sustainable human settlements (DEA, 2011). The key socio-economic strategic objectives in terms of these priorities include:  51

Technology for poverty reduction;

Promoting Sustainable development in South Africa: key issues



Science and technology capability for sustainable development and a green economy;



Promoting growth in public and private sector investments in science and technology, and R&D; and



Supporting the development of new industries in advanced manufacturing, chemicals, advanced metals and information and communication technologies (ICTs) (DEA, 2011).

Financing of sustainable development It is planned that sustainable development will gradually become an integral part of the private sector and government’s planning and spending, and that the financing of sustainable development-related initiatives will therefore be sourced from the private sector as well as the government by means of the national budgeting process (DEA, 2011). In addition to this, DEA will investigate other funding mechanisms from the private sector, donors and funds from the economy, for instance, public-private partnerships. National Treasury is also investigating market- based instruments and environmental fiscal reforms that could potentially serve as a further source of sustainable development financing (DEA, 2011).

5. Concluding remarks DEA (2011) argues that South Africa needs to urgently move towards sustainability, particularly because of the negative impacts of climate change, the financial recession, job losses and the degradation of the country’s natural resources. At the same time as working towards achieving the country’s social objectives, it imperative to do so at the same time as ensuring the protection and conservation of the country’s natural resources. In order to successfully effect this move, both the National Framework for Sustainable Development and the NSSD 1 need to be implemented through the cooperation of all of the country’s sectors. Here it is particularly important to work towards the five strategic priorities that are set out in the NSSD 1. In brief, the NSSD 1 as the country’s road map towards sustainable development presents what the government understands sustainable development to mean. Firstly, this is captured in the document’s vision, which clearly emphasises elements of sustainability, economic prosperity and the importance of meeting the population’s human needs, while at the same time focusing on the sustainable management of the country’s ecological resources. Secondly, the government’s understanding of sustainable development is captured in the presentation of the systems approach to sustainability. According to this approach, the ecosystem, socio-political system and economic system are embedded within each other (and therefore dependent on each other) and held together by a governance system within the context of a legitimate regulatory framework (DEA, 2011). This approach therefore suggests that equal importance be accorded to each of these three distinct but interrelated systems. Thirdly, there are three key elements that make up the government’s understanding of sustainable development. These are moving the country towards more sustainable practices, changing people’s values and behaviour and restructuring the governance system to include sustainability. The NSSD 1’s action plan subsequently sets out a number of goals and strategic objectives that need to be met in order for South Africa to move towards successfully implementing sustainable development. These are covered in some level of detail, although DEA (2011) also makes it clear that the NSSD 1 is to be interpreted as a high-level document that still needs to be translated into sector-specific implementation plans and operational policies. Having summarised and reflected on the content and purpose of the NSSD 1, I will now compare it elements of the NFSD, the NDP and the NGP that focus specifically on sustainable development. The aim of this analysis will particularly be to focus on the similarities and differences between these four policy frameworks. In conclusion, I will reflect on what sets the NSSD 1 apart from these other frameworks

National Framework for Sustainable Development 1. Short summary The National Framework for Sustainable Development (NFSD) presents South Africa’s national vision for sustainable development and indicates strategic interventions to enable South Africa to move forward towards a more sustainable direction. It also contains a national vision, principles and areas for strategic intervention that were to guide the development of the NSSD 1 (DEA, 2008). The NFSD aims to identify key short-, medium- and long-term challenges to the country’s sustainable development efforts and also presents key strategic focus areas for intervention. Furthermore, it provides the basis for a long-term process of integrating sustainability into South Africa’s development discourse and illustrates the country’s commitment to sustainable developmentfocused principles agreed on at international fora (DEA, 2008). 52

Promoting Sustainable development in South Africa: key issues

DEA’s aim was for the NFSD to be used by all social partners and organs of state at different levels to progressively work on their policies and decision-making systems with the view of establishing a coherent and mutually consistent national system that aims to promote and achieve sustainable development. This was to be achieved through the development of the NSSD 1 and particularly the acceptance of a coherent set of sustainable development indicators, and investing in capacity building, research and development, as well as information technology (DEA, 2008).

2. Comparison to the NSSD 1 Similarities In terms of similarities, the NSSD 1 can be seen to build on the NFSD in that the NFSD provides the initial policy framework from which the NSSD 1 was developed. The NFSD is therefore more of a strategic scene setter that does not yet include concrete steps and suggestions for moving the country towards the successful implementation of sustainable development. The NSSD 1 then takes the NFSD a step further by populating the five strategic priorities with specific goals, objectives, headline indicators and interventions in order to provide more concrete suggestions towards implementation.

Differences The NFSD lists five strategic priority areas for action and intervention or pathways to sustainable development that are necessary for the country to achieve its desired state of sustainable development. They are: 

Enhancing systems for integrated planning and implementation;



Sustaining our ecosystems and using natural resources efficiently;



Economic development via investing in sustainable infrastructure;



Creating sustainable human settlements; and



Responding appropriately to emerging human development, economic and environmental challenges.

These priority areas have changed somewhat with the development of the NSSD 1. In the latter they read as follows: 

Enhancing systems for integrated planning and implementation;



Sustaining our ecosystems and using natural resources efficiently;



Towards a Green Economy ;



Building sustainable communities; and



Responding effectively to climate change.

The difference in content between the policies’ priority areas particularly comes in with Priority Area 3 (Towards a Green Economy) and Priority Area 5 (Responding effectively to climate change). This change in focus can partly be attributed to new policy developments between 2008 and the introduction of the NSSD 1 in 2011. As briefly discussed above, the South African government’s focus on a green economy can be linked to decoupling economic growth from resource use and environmental impacts, investing substantially more in in green sectors and introducing enabling policy reforms. The ultimate aim of moving the country towards a green economy would be to introduce a resource-efficient, low-carbon and pro-employment growth path (DEA, 2011). A second key difference between the two sets of priority areas is the focus in the NSSD 1 on responding effectively to climate change. The NSSD 1 focuses in particular on the need to address climate change through mitigating greenhouse gas emissions and building resilient communities, while, importantly, protecting the country’s natural ecosystems. The South African government’s current answer to addressing the challenges presented by climate change is the National Climate Change Response white paper (RSA, 2011). This policy represents the government’s vision of a long-term, just transition to a climate-resilient and low-carbon economy and society. Coupled with the white paper, the development and implementation of an effective climate change response strategy is also of the utmost important for South Africa (DEA, 2011).

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Promoting Sustainable development in South Africa: key issues

The priority areas as captured in the NSSD 1 can therefore be interpreted as building on those contained in the NFSD. In the two cases where they differ substantially, it is most likely because of policy developments that have taken place since the development of the NFSD in 2008. In conclusion, the NFSD focuses on the three-phased road map that needs to be followed to move South Africa towards sustainable development. Phase I is described as the NFSD itself, Phase II is about preparing and planning for action through the formalisation of an institutional framework for sustainable development, the development of an action plan (the NSSD 1) and the mobilisation of the necessary resources and Phase III is about roll-out, implementation, monitoring and review (DEA, 2008). Much of this road map is contained in the NSSD 1, as summarised and discussed in the NSSD 1 section above (DEA, 2008). As part of its parting comments, the NFSD talks about the need for South Africans to develop and share a common vision when it comes to meeting sustainable development-related objectives and targets. Such a common understanding will clarify that sustainable development is the key mechanism for building capacity and governance to achieve human development in the country, based on both sustainable production and consumption systems (DEA, 2008). This will require all sectors in the country taking part in the social contract to implement both the NFSD and the NSSD 1, which follows on the NFSD. In particular, the country’s executive should include sustainability in its decisions regarding resources allocation and policy allocation. Although sustainability is a cross-cutting topic, the focus should remain on the identified five priority areas for strategic intervention, and these should be integrated in existing policies, plans and programmes (DEA, 2008).

3. Concluding remarks In brief, there are no substantial differences between the NFSD and the NSSD 1 as the one is a logical continuation of the other. Whereas the NFSD sets the scene or provides a framework for the implementation of sustainable development in South Africa, the NSSD 1 was developed as a follow-up instrument to the NFSD that provides a more concrete set of ‘steps’ to facilitate and enable the implementation of sustainable development in the South African context.

New Growth Path 1. Short summary The New Growth Path (NGP) represents the government’s vision of focusing on jobs and decent work at the core of its economic policy. The target is for five million new jobs to be created by 2020. This would mean employment for over half of all workingage South Africans and would cause unemployment to decrease from 25% to around 15%. The NGP furthermore sets out the key job drivers and priority areas that the government will focus on over the next few years in order to achieve this goal. It envisages strong, sustained and inclusive economic growth as well as the rebuilding of the productive sectors of the economy. It is anticipated that most of the projected new jobs would come from the private sector (EDD, 2011). The job drivers that have been identified are: 1.

Substantial public investment in infrastructure ;

2.

Targeting more labour-absorbing activities across agricultural and mining value chains as well as manufacturing and services (all of which are seen as main economic sectors);

3.

Taking advantage of new opportunities in the knowledge and green economies;

4.

Leveraging social capital in the social economy and the public services; and

5.

Fostering rural development and regional integration (EDD, 2011).

The vision expressed in the NGP also calls for joint commitments by all South Africans to forge a common vision and work towards the goals set in this policy. This can be achieved through the meeting of the targets that have been set for national, provincial and local governments to make employment a central focus of their activities. Two important variables affecting the target of achieving five million new jobs are the relationship between the rate of growth in employment terms (which needs to be between 0.5 and 0.8%) and the rate of gross domestic product (GDP) growth, which needs to between 4% and 7% per year (EDD, 2011).

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Promoting Sustainable development in South Africa: key issues

2. Comparison to the NSSD 1 Similarities The NGP appears to contain certain elements of the NSSD 1’s vision. These include the focus on South Africa as a sustainable, economically prosperous and self-reliant nation, as well as a strong emphasis on efficient and effective integrated planning and governance by means of national, regional and global collaboration. In terms of the systems approach set out in the NSSD 1, the NGP can be said to focus mostly on economic sustainability (as opposed to social and ecological sustainability), and to a lesser extent on social and ecological sustainability. The governance system is important for both the NGP and the NSSD 1 (EDD, 2011). Both policy documents rely on being mainstreamed into various sector departments’ policies and plans for successful implementation. This becomes evident in the NGP’s call for the state to coordinate its efforts around key, core efforts, rather than dispersing them across a number of efforts. The ultimate aim must be the sustained expansion of economic opportunities for South Africans (EDD, 20110. Here are some examples of how similarities between the NGP and NSSD 1 come to the fore when taking a closer look at the NGP. 1.

In line with economic sustainability, the NGP focuses on maximising the creation of decent work opportunities (EDD, 2011). The emphasis on “decent” suggests work opportunities of a more long-term and sustainable nature. In addition, the NGP lists job (number of quality of jobs created), growth (rate, labour intensity and composition of economic growth), equity (lower income inequality and poverty) and environmental outcomes as its main indicators of success (EDD, 2011). The NGP’s focus on environmental outcomes can also be seen to be linked to the ecological sustainability element that features so strongly in the NSSD 1 (DEA, 2011).

2.

The NGP focuses on addressing the income inequalities that characterise South African society. In addition to aiming to create decent work (reflecting the NSSD 1’s emphasis on economic sustainability), the NGP also focuses on skills enhancement, small enterprise development, wage and productivity gain-sharing policies, addressing the excessive pay gap between top and bottom, progressive taxation and support for the social wage, meaning public services targeted primarily at low-income households (EDD, 2011). These different elements can be interpreted to reflect a combination of economic and social sustainability.

3.

A further element of social sustainability also comes in with the NGP’s (EDD, 2011) call for an effective social dialogue that helps to establish a broad consensus on long-run policy goals and a vision for the country. This necessitates continuous and deep engagement with stakeholders from policy, planning and implementation spheres at the national, sectoral and local levels.

4.

Social sustainability also takes the form of basic and secondary education and investment in health. The NGP sees these measures as critical success factors for an employment-rich strategy (EDD, 2011).

In terms of the individual job drivers identified by the NGP, the following points are of interest when keeping in mind the former’s alignment with the NSSD 1:

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1.

In terms of infrastructure development, the call is for this to be economically and socially sustainable, for example, by means of investment in skills development and measures to strengthen local procurement of inputs. In terms of “green” measures, the NGP calls for 33% of new energy generation coming from renewable energy sources, which will require the development of new industries. A greater emphasis on rail transport may also take some of the pressure off the country’s roads and reduce the country’s carbon footprint (EDD, 2011.

2.

In terms of the main economic sectors, the NGP mostly seems to focus on economic and social sustainability with a strong emphasis on agriculture, mining, manufacturing and tourism. When it comes to agriculture, the NGP looks at restructuring land reform to give greater support to smallholder schemes than what is given at present. The emphasis on mining relates to accelerating the exploitation of the country’s mineral resources and refocusing the country’s beneficiation strategy. A third focus area is on manufacturing and the development of more knowledge intensive industries (as linked to the Industrial Policy Action Plan 2). The final component of this job driver relates to strengthening measures to expand tourism infrastructure and services (EDD, 2011).

Promoting Sustainable development in South Africa: key issues

3.

The job driver focusing on seizing the potential of new economies is perhaps most closely linked to the NSSD 1. The NGP states that it is targeting 300 000 additional jobs by 2020 to green the economy. These would be made up of 80 000 jobs in manufacturing and the remainder in construction, operations and the maintenance of new environmentally friendly infrastructure. Additional jobs could be created by expanding existing public employment schemes to protect the environment and biofuel production. In addition, the NGP targets 100 000 new jobs by 2020 in knowledge-intensive sectors such as information and communications technology (ICT), higher education, healthcare, mining-related technologies, pharmaceuticals and biotechnology (EDD, 2011).

4.

The job driver focusing on the social economy is linked to the NSSD 1’s emphasis on social sustainability. Here the NGP refers to the various not-for-profit organisations that form a part of this part of the economy, including cooperatives, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and stokvels. If it grew closer to international norms, the social economy could produce 260 000 new employment opportunities. In addition, the public sector has the potential to generate 100 000 in health, education and policing by 2020, as well as substantial opportunities through public employment schemes (EDD, 2011).

5.

The NGP’s final job driver looks at spatial development, and is again predominantly linked to the principle of social sustainability in NSSD 1 terms. According to the NGP (EDD, 2011), the government plans on stepping up its efforts to provide public infrastructure and housing rural areas in order to lower the costs of economic activity and foster sustainable communities. Rural development programmes could improve the livelihoods of around 500 000 households and stimulate employment in other sectors. The spatial development jobs driver also has a regional development dimension as increased exports to SADC could generate 150 000 additional direct jobs by 2020 (EDD, 2011).

Differences The key difference between the NGP and the NSSD 1 is that the former first and foremost emphasises economic sustainability, with its key aim being the creation of decent and sustainable jobs in the context of a growing South African economy. Environmental and social sustainability also feature as part of the NGP (as illustrated above), though not quite as strongly. Although both the NGP and NSSD 1 can be classified as high-level strategic policy documents, the NGP possibly has more political clout than the NSSD 1 because of its strong focus on economic sustainability linked to economic growth. This argument can be made because of the high rate of unemployment in South Africa and the government’s resultant strong job creation drive, and in particular its focus on decent and sustainable jobs as opposed to semi-permanent employment. By contrast, the NSSD 1’s primary emphasis is on environmental sustainability and greening the South African economy, which may have resulted in it being perceived as a more peripheral policy instrument.

National Development Plan14 1. Short summary The National Development Plan (NDP) has the aim of eliminating poverty and reducing inequality by 2030. This is to be achieved through the following activities: drawing on the energies of its people, growing an inclusive economy, building capabilities, enhancing the capacity of the state and promoting both leadership and partnerships throughout society. The rationale given for the NDP initiative is that South Africa remains a very unequal society with too much poverty and unemployment and too few opportunities for the country’s young people. In order to address these challenges, political emancipation needs to be translated into economic well-being, which can be achieved if the economy grows faster and in ways that benefit all South Africans. Particular areas of focus of the NDP are creating opportunities for young people as well as addressing the problem of gender inequality (NPC, 2011).

14

Due to length of NDP (444 pages) I consulted the document’s executive summary.

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Promoting Sustainable development in South Africa: key issues

The NDP needs to represent a multi-dimensional framework with mutually supporting and simultaneous progress in different areas. The plan’s main aim of addressing poverty and inequality will necessitate a combination of achievements, in particular increasing employment, raising incomes through productivity growth, as well as the introduction of a social wage and good quality public services. It is felt that the solutions developed to address the different challenges discussed in the plan need to be is closely linked and that a combination of leadership, an active citizenry and effective government is needed to help drive development (NPC, 2011). The NDP focuses on the critical capabilities that are needed to transform South African economy and society. In particular, the plan lists priority areas that need to be acted on with some urgency: 1.

Uniting all South Africans around a common programme to achieve prosperity and equity.

2.

Promoting active citizenry to strengthen development, democracy and accountability.

3.

Bringing about faster economic growth, higher investment and greater labour absorption.

4.

Focusing on key capabilities of people and the state.

5.

Building a capable and developmental state.

6.

Encouraging strong leadership throughout society to work together to solve problems (NPC, 2011).

2. Comparison to the NSSD 1 Similarities The NDP’s definitely reflects the NSSD 1’s focus on economic sustainability with its focus on the need for a sustainable increase in employment that will require a faster-growing economy, achieving higher rates of investment and competitiveness, greater levels of cooperation between business, labour, communities and government, and expanding levels of production and exports (NPC, 2011). Here are some more examples of how the concept of economic sustainability features in the NDP: 

The NDP focuses on South Africa’s position and opportunities within the greater global context. It states that the country can benefit from the rapid growth that has been taking place in developing countries and that has been leading to an increased demand for commodities and expanding consumer markets. These opportunities will need to be managed carefully, however, because of the presence of greater international competition in terms of manufacturing and certain information technologyenabled services. One way of capitalising on these opportunities in the long term would be through improving the skills base and increasing competitiveness to enable the economy to diversify (NPC, 2011).



Furthermore, the NDP focuses on the need for South Africa to make use of its knowledge and innovative products to compete internationally. This also includes leveraging science and technology (S&T) to address some of the country’s biggest challenges, for example in education and health. This would require greater investment in research and development (R&D), better use of existing resources, and enhanced cooperation between public S&T institutions and the private sector (NPC, 2011).

There is also a focus on social sustainability in the NDP (NPC, 2011). Here follow a few illustrative examples: 

The NDP focuses on the need for social cohesion in order to anchor the strategy. Here it is important to simultaneously reduce poverty and inequality, and deracialise ownership and control of the economy. The one development cannot take place without the other (NPC, 2011).



The NDP also draws extensively on the notions of enhanced capabilities and an active citizenry. The plan envisages South Africa to become a developmental state that builds on the capabilities of people to improve their own lives. While South African citizens have the right to expect certain basic services from the government and should be able to hold leaders accountable for their actions, they also have responsibilities towards other citizens, which include mutual respect, tolerance and abiding by the country’s laws. At the same time, South Africa’s leaders need to promote social cohesion and work together to resolve the country’s problems. In order for the NDP to ultimately work, a complex interplay of actors and actions is required, and progress in one area is almost always dependent on progress in other areas (NPC, 2011).

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Promoting Sustainable development in South Africa: key issues



The NDP focuses strongly on the role of the youth in achieving the objectives it sets out. It recognises that the youth bears the brunt of unemployment in the country, but that at the same time it has a potentially substantial role to play in helping to achieve economic and social growth and stability for South Africa (NPC, 2011).

Importantly, also, a list of critical actions shows what the government needs to achieve in terms of economic, social and ecological sustainability when trying to implement the NDP: 1. A social compact to reduce poverty and inequality, and raise employment and investment. 2. A strategy to address poverty and its impacts by broadening access to employment, strengthening the social wage, improving public transport and raising rural incomes. 3. Steps by the state to professionalise the public service, strengthen accountability, improve coordination and prosecute corruption. 4. Boost private investment in labour-intensive areas, competitiveness and exports, with adjustments to lower the risk of hiring younger workers. 5. An education accountability chain, with lines of responsibility from state to classroom. 6. Phase in national health insurance, with a focus on upgrading public health facilities, producing more health professionals and reducing the relative cost of private health care. 7. Public infrastructure investment at 10 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), financed through tariffs, public-private partnerships, taxes and loans and focused on transport, energy and water. 8. Interventions to ensure environmental sustainability and resilience to future shocks. 9. New spatial norms and standards – densifying cities, improving transport, locating jobs where people live, upgrading informal settlements and fixing housing market gaps. 10. Reduce crime by strengthening criminal justice and improving community environments (NGP, 2011). It is interesting that only one of these critical actions (Number 8) focuses on ecological sustainability (the main focus of the NSSD 1), with the others definitely having a much stronger economic and social sustainability focus. In terms of the more detailed discussion of the action that speaks to the need for environmental sustainability and resilience to future shocks, the NDP states that changes are needed to protect the environment while simultaneously continuing to exploit the country’s mineral deposits. Taking further advantage of South Africa’s rich mineral deposits should contribute to raising living standards, skills and infrastructure in a sustainable manner. In addition, South Africa needs to protect the natural environment so that subsequent generations are at least left with an endowment of equal value. People and the economy’s resilience to climate change also need to be enhanced, while greenhouse gas emissions should be reduced and energy efficiency should be improved (NPC, 2011). The NDP subsequently proposes three measures to protect the country’s natural resources:

1.

2. 3.

An environmental management framework should be put together with the requirement that developments with serious environmental or social impacts should be offset by support for improvements in related areas; A target should be set for the amount of land and oceans that should be placed under protection; A set of indicators should be developed for natural resources, accompanied by the publication of annual reports on the health of identified resources to inform policy (NPC, 2011).

The NDP also argues that it should be possible to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from electricity production, while still growing the minerals and mineral processing sectors. In this regard the plan suggests implementing the 2010 Integrated Resource Plan (procuring at least 20 000MW of electricity from renewables) to reduce carbon emissions from the electricity industry from 0.9kg per kilowatt-hour to 0.6kg per kilowatt-hour. The plan furthermore suggests improving the energy efficiency of mining and mineral processing by 15% in 2030. The NDP also argues that complementary fiscal reforms are needed to broaden the price on carbon in order to encourage economy-wide efficiency and investment in greener technologies (NPC, 2011).

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Promoting Sustainable development in South Africa: key issues

Finally, the NDP argues that there needs to be a quick and efficient policy response to protect the natural environment and mitigate the negative impacts of climate change. Over the long-term, realistic, bold strategies and global partnerships will be required to enable South Africa to transition to a low-carbon economy, without harming either jobs or the country’s competitiveness (NPC, 2011).

Differences In terms of differences between the NDP and the NSSD 1, it appears that ecological sustainability does not receive nearly as much attention in the NDP as it does in the NSSD 1. Instead, the focus in the NDP seems to be much more on economic and social sustainability, and it could be argued that these focus areas do not necessarily seem to be underpinned by a sufficiently strong ecological sustainability agenda (e.g. the need for economic development in the country to be first and foremost conducted in an environmentally sustainable manner in order to ensure that future generations can benefit from both kinds of sustainability). In addition, it can be argued that the parts of the NDP that speak to ecological sustainability are not nearly as well developed as those in the NSSD 1. The bottom line always seems to be that development needs to go ahead at all costs, but with some environmental protection. The NDP also implies that while environmental protection is important, it should be handled with care so as not to put a damper on jobs or the country’s level of competitiveness vis-à-vis other developing countries or in the international arena.

Reflections on the four strategy documents In summary, the NSSD 1 places a particularly strong emphasis on the importance of achieving ecological sustainability in the context of sustainable development, while simultaneously acknowledging the need to achieve the country’s social and economic development objectives. It can therefore be argued that this document represents somewhat of an advocacy instrument to punt the importance of the environment when planning South Africa’s developmental path. The NSSD 1 builds on the NFSD in that it takes it a step further by introducing suggested actions that are necessary to practically roll out sustainable development within the country’s different sectors and sectoral policies. The NSSD 1 and NFSD can therefore be interpreted as a set of policy documents emanating from the environmental sector that champion the environment as possibly the most important of the three pillars of sustainable development as it is also the most vulnerable. By contrast, the NGP and NDP focus much more on economic and social sustainability with a particularly strong emphasis between them on job creation, economic growth, poverty reduction and addressing social inequities. While there is some emphasis on ecological sustainability in these documents, as well as an acknowledgement that this is important, the main emphasis always seems to go back to development at all costs. The environment needs to be protected, but only in a manner that does not hamper the state’s developmental aims and objectives. The NGP and NDP, due to their emphasis on job creation and economic development, can also be interpreted as having more political clout than the NSSD 1. In the context of the other strategic documents examined here, the NSSD 1 can therefore be interpreted as unique in that it, importantly, gives a powerful voice to ecological sustainability that should be taken very seriously and should not be neglected when promoting economic and social sustainability. It now remains to be seen, as DEA embarks on a process of investigating the future of the NSSD 1, how this policy is viewed by managers and stakeholders within and external to DEA, and how this will impact its future.

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Promoting Sustainable development in South Africa: key issues

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