Conceptualising the “Township Innovation System” Conceptualising the “Township Innovation System” eKasi and township development programmes eKasi and township development programmes

Geci Karuri-Sebina, PhD Candidate, geci@ieri.org.za Frontiers of research, practice and policy:

International Innovation for Development Symposium26 February 2010, University of Witwatersrand, South Africa

Outline

1. The Township Category

2. SA responses– NDPG and TCSHSS– Some concerns

3. AI & IS: new specs () for old problems?

4. Introducing the investigation

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4

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ExampleTshwane’s local settlements – TCSHSS typology

Settlement level

Internal city level

Overall city level

1. Capital core

2. Metro Activity Nodes

3. Activity spines

4. Development corridors & special activity areas

5. Centrally located med-high income

6. Peripherally located, med-high income

7. Centrally located, low income

8. Peripherally located, low income

9. BNG Site and service

10. Informal settlements

11. Outside urban edge

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SETTLEMENT TYPE Total Pop Hectares

1. Capital core 72270 1517.47

2. Metro Activity Nodes 61435 2151.68

3. Activity spines 139677 7040.06

4. Development corridors & special activity areas

Corridors 228817 30464.26

Specialised land uses 17678 11403.57

Medium income5. Central 133632 8408.78

6. Peripheral 153660 13395.97

Low income7. Central 99934

64%

2578.39

8. Peripheral 311959 10181.62

9. New housing areas 160808 12939.97

10. Informal settlementsWithin urban edge 63770 1336.08

Outside urban edge 252161 16486.48

11. Areas Outside Urban Edge 593552 115470.77

OtherNature areas 5210 13019.16

Other 4656 255.51

Totals 2299219 246649.77

Issues

• Poverty traps• Unemployment higher than SA & city/town averages

(50%, 70%, 80%...)• Increase in urban household incomes lower than

average • Significant local buying power leakage from local

economy• Poorly performing residential property markets• Undiversified & marginal economy • Structural disadvantage• Development investment basic (if any) and minimal• Social unrest

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There has been some policy reference…

• Urban Development Framework (1997)• National Spatial Development Perspective (2003, 2006)• National Framework for Local Economic Development in South

Africa (2006)• Second Economy strategy framework (2009)

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There have been several area-based initiatives over the years…

• Special Integrated Presidential Projects (1994-2004)• Urban Renewal Programme (2001-2011)• Integrated Sustainable Rural Development Programmes

(2001-2011)• Urban Development Zones (2004-2014) • Neighbourhood Development Partnership Programme

(2006-2017)

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But the challenges have persisted…

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NDPGNDPG(muni)(muni)

NDPGNDPG(muni)(muni)

LeveragedLeveragedInvestments Investments

(Private & Public)(Private & Public)

LeveragedLeveragedInvestments Investments

(Private & Public)(Private & Public)

PhysicalPhysicalImprovementsImprovements

PhysicalPhysicalImprovementsImprovements QOLQOL

Township-focusedTownship-focusedArea-based Dev Area-based Dev

& Long-range strat& Long-range strat

Township-focusedTownship-focusedArea-based Dev Area-based Dev

& Long-range strat& Long-range strat

Economic Activity

Economic Activity

1. Fund

2. Attract

3. Stimulate 5. Coordinate / Deliver

7. E

nabl

e

10. Improve

4. Deliver

8. Stimulate

9. Improve

6. Attract

Viable & sustainable

neighbourhoods

Viable & sustainable

neighbourhoods

11. Contribute

Neighbourhood Development Partnership Grant Conceptual Framework

NDPNDPNDPNDP

• Fun

d• M

anag

e• S

uppo

rt

R10 billion, 10 years, 57 municipalities, 90 programmes, 260 townships

NDPG Strategic Objectives: • To attract private sector investment• To consolidate and co-ordinate quality public sector

spending• To provide institutional & development capacity• To direct capital investment into projects• To promote knowledge, best practice, innovation &

advocacy

Support & Develop Local Economies

Regional or rural catchment area

Township or metropolitan catchment area

Neighbourhood catchment area

Node

Funding components

NDPG projects are fairly generic…

• Public parks & recreational spaces• Public transport facilities – bus, taxi stops, ranks &

pedestrian links• Trading facilities & infrastructure for lease/development

as commercial premises (retail & services)• Township restructuring & development projects towards

nodal concentration of investment & community activities• Refurbishment, upgrading, extension & conversion of

any public facility that will lead to private sector investment

• Etc…• (+Lucrative consultancies! 10% of R10bn)

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8 years and R2m later…

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No indications about grassroots potential, no steering committee, community studies not completed, no “for people” programmes referred, no critical institutional analysis despite the experience of the initiative itself…

• “economic development normatively seeks to improve the quality of living of a country’s population. Its scope therefore includes the process and policies by which a country improves the economic, political, and social well-being of its people. In the main however, economic development refers to social and technological progress. It implies a change in the way goods and services are produced, not merely an increase in production achieved using the same old, inappropriate methods of production on a wider scale”

Maharajh, Sall, Karuri-Sebina (2010)

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• “In essentialist terms, we could say that the social economy at the neighbourhood level contains those agents and their neighbourhood networks that are involved in local production, allocation and domestic activity in which ethical principles of (re)distribution, reciprocity and sustainability determine their social organisation.

• In holistic terms, the social economy receives a more realist institutional content, including the historical trajectories of economic functions, modes of social organisation, local institutions with multiscalar linkages and rules of collective action, which are partly the outcome of social and political struggle…

• The institutions that have grown up with these activities and their modes of social organisation are part-and-parcel of the holistic definition of the neighbourhood social economy, developed as a typology of variants around a context-proof analytical pattern. Ethical principles are no longer the deus ex machina for urban renaissance, but are part of the local development history.”

Moulaert, Frank & Nussbaumer, Jacques (2005)

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What about…

• “Cutting the red tape” – Batho Pele principles• Obstacles to growing local entrepreneurs / small business • Unique local assets / capacities:

– Unique Language: nurture in indigenous context (e.g. in GP many township residents speak 4-10 languages; any potential here or draw the capacity into university linguistic labs and consulting firms’ repertoires?

– Hairdressing: support industry where it is rife, or formalise into malls where we pay more for less quality

– Repairs and recycling: only reliant on an inconvenient and sometimes mal-incentivised formal industry closes shop rather than

– Endogenous merits: social capital, cultural variety, different modes of production and consumption, efficiencies of informality

• Figuring out how to increase impact – or at least getting more money in the hands of the poor than in the hands of those who we hope will include the poor?

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More fundamentally…• Do these interventions have a chance of transforming townships into a

“developed” state within the foreseeable future? Within the next 50 years?

• How can the programmes realist-ically (beyond being merely idealistic or empiricist) engage with the complexity of contexts + asymmetries + actors + linkages +++ ?

• What relevant knowledge can be brought to bear in concrete ways?

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“TIS”Components, Interrelations, Boundaries, …

“TIS”Components, Interrelations, Boundaries, …

Body of Knowledge

Human-scale Development / Wellbeing

Programme /Intervention

Paradigm

Learning

Eviden

ce

Analysis

, Theo

ry

Needs / OpportunitiesImpact“TIS”

Components, Interrelations, Boundaries, …“TIS”

Components, Interrelations, Boundaries, …

Body of Knowledge

Human-scale Development / Wellbeing

Programme /Intervention

Paradigm

Learning

Eviden

ce

Analysis

, Theo

ry

Needs / OpportunitiesImpact

M4P?

• Making markets work for the poor

• Making markets out of the poor

• “Transforming markets into something that has any hope in hell of ever seriously improving the condition of the poor” (TM4P)

• Team “for the poor”? (TM4P)

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(by the way…)

• Not a question of private- versus public –led socioeconomic development

• Both public and private have a role to play• Both can be inefficient and ineffective

– Corruption is a partnership activity!

• Both need to be seriously exploring ways to be more efficient and effective

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How we frame questions…

231st GRA-WORLD BANK WORKSHOP ON INNOVATION SYSTEMS AT THE COMMUNITY LEVEL“Touching the Hearts of the People”Kuala Lumpur, 6-8 February 2006

What are the major constraints for innovation processes at community level?How can agents help communities to overcome these constraints?

Appreciative alternative?

Problem Solving Appreciative Enquiry“Felt Needs” Identification of problems

Analysis of Causes

Action Planning (Treatment)

Basic Assumption:An organisation is a problem to be solved

Appreciating and Valuing the best of “What Is”

Envisioning “What Might Be”

Dialoguing “What Should Be”

Basic Assumption:An organisation is a mystery to be embraced

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“In its broadest focus, [Appreciative Inquiry] involves systematic discovery of what gives “life” to a living system when it is most alive, most effective, and most constructively capable in economic, ecological, and human terms. AI involves, in a central way, the art and practice of asking questions that strengthen a system’s capacity to apprehend, anticipate, and heighten positive potential”

Cooperrider and Whitney

IS – a systemic view• “the system of innovation is constituted by elements and relationships which

interact in the production, diffusion and use of new, and economically useful, knowledge”

Lundvall, 1992

OECD

Is a Township Innovation System “TIS” category useful for…

1. Describing the township socio-economy in new, holistic terms – recognising a unique typology and valorising its endogenous potential?

2. Evolving concrete measurement approaches for classifying and assessing the state and performance of township economies in context?

3. Creating new understandings / knowledge of township socio-economy which could contribute to the improvement of the design, implementation, or assessment of policies and programmes aimed at township development (e.g. the NDPG)?

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1. Describing TIS

• Eerste Fabrieke Node, Mamelodi• Interpreting the endogenous innovation system

using AI techniques• Mixed-method:

– Participant observation– Interviews– Small surveys (cluster innovation)– Meta-evaluation– Secondary data

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2. Measuring TIS

• Established systems for innovation system measurement and their systemic indicators :– Focus on formal (registered) enterprises– Tend to seek out artifacts that are codified in order to

assess innovativity in a formal context– Are essentialist, being context-neutral and embedded

within a particular orthodoxy about socio-economic development

• Identify / explore relevant measurement parameters

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3. Compare to improve understanding - from

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NDPG

TIS

3. Compare to improve understanding - to

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TIS

NDPG

Summary: TIS Study

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Stage Description1. DESCRIBE Explore the application of IS theory to township in a descriptive,

appreciative exercise. Can a TIS be characterised meaningfully?Output:a)“What is” – Top-down viewb)“What might be” – Bottom-up view

2. MEASURE Determine a means for assessing the performance of the TIS. What are relevant indicators and methods for measurement?Output:a)Practical measures of both views

3. EVALUATE Test how the TIS framework (as a “bottom-up” view) compares with the prevailing (“top-down”) view. Are the two perspectives compatible from a developmental perspective? Output:a)Analytical framework

4. LEARN Derive any lessons or knowledgeable actions about township development from the findings.Output:a)“What can be” – pragmatic recommendations

• Traditional views of urban development often assume, consciously or unconsciously, that actual processes of urban change are either natural evolutionary or inevitable outcomes of theoretically imagined processes. This of course often leads to an unreal portrayal of processes of urban development.

• The neo-liberal urban development discourse is a case in point: it abstracts away from the actual development trajectories of each specific urban case and tends to overlook the fact that development is deeply historical, place-specific and embedded within specific and concrete institutional settings. It also confuses ‘discourse’ with theory and theory with reality, taking its ‘explanatory’ factors of economic growth and progress as actual

descriptors of the way urban economies and societies develop.Moulaert, 2007

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Contact Details Geci Karuri-SebinaTel: 072 148 1132geci@ieri.org.za geci.karuri-sebina@treasury.gov.za