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Economies of Regions Learning NetworkMeeting

New directions for governance in Joburg-implications for regional economic

planning?

Day 221 June 2012

Stephen NarsooCity of Johannesburg

stephenn@joburg.org.za

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Gauteng city-region

Now 11.2 million people

2058 22 million people

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Locating this work

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Gauteng city-region background

2003 Gauteng Intergovernmental Forum meeting

2004 Gauteng EXCO adopts a formal resolution

2004 Premiers Coordinating Forum meeting of the 23 May

2005 Conceptual documents developed

2007 GCR Roadmap and Implementation Plan

2008 Politically went through hiatus but…

Post 2008 Establishment of Gauteng City Region Observatory and Gauteng Academy

2011 OECD Territorial Review

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Institutional Approaches to city-regions

Metropolitan Reform New Regionalism Public Choice

New Regionalism

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GCR three strategic optionsFigure taken from: Three Strategic Options for Implementing GCR (Taken from GCR founding documents produced for the Office of the Premier 2006)

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2nd wave of GCR metropolitan reforms• Born out of crisis and not out of vision• About poor performance and less about regional cooperation• Change two tier system of local government, keep locals do

away with districts• Rumors of creating a Province of Metros• Re-demarcation recent inclusion of rural municipality into

Tshwane• Technocrats argue no empirical basis for these decisions• Amalgamation of smaller local into metros improve capacity

challenges?• How will province of bigger metro’s stand up against Gauteng

province?• Conflicts over new regionalism approach and 2nd wave of

metropolitan reforms?

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New directions for governance

“Activities to build support for the concept and implementation of the city-region at all levels of

government, through building a spatial coalition and strategic networks between stakeholders. Particular attention will need to be paid when constructing the

coalition to ensure that it is not dominated solely by the ‘voices of the powerful’. Participatory processes are

essential in building a robust strategy and action plans. The active citizenry of Gauteng are a critical resource

in the development of the city-region, not only as beneficiaries but also as a source of solutions to many

of the challenges that will emerge.”

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New directions for governance

Jim Ellsworth when writing ‘Justice Stewardship: The Modern Sustainability Challenge highlights “Our traditional governance system was designed to serve society during the Industrial Age

and continues to be guided by its original underlying assumptions, which support a linear problem solving process

with distinct and separate roles for different players in mutually exclusive disciplines or sectors: The expert advises, the official decides, the sectors compete and the public picks up the costs

and lives with the outcomes”

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New directions for governanceEmpowered Participatory Governance (EPG) Model

Practical Orientation Bottom Up Participation Deliberative SolutionGeneration

EPG

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Participatory Institutionalization of JoburgStages Participatory Entity Role

Stage 1: Basic Ward council Representative democracy Deepen civic education Raise basic needs issues Mass mobilization Monitor urban management eg:

building inspections etc

Stage 2: Intermediary Neighbourhood Council

Building capacity for neighbourhood planning through community economic development plans

Develop neighbourhood budgets for plans

Monitor and evaluate progress and performance against plans

Deliberate on regional planning issues

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Stage 3: Regional Regional Neighbourhood Council Association (RNCA)

Elevate neighbourhood citizen issues to regional GCR forumsBuilding technical capacity to engage on regional issuesInform functional technical plans and lobby for citizen agendaPromote civil society organization around regional planning

Participatory Institutionalization of Joburg