Synopsis on Planact’sProjects and Interventions

  1. Delayed permanent solutions? Incremental approach to water provision a necessaryintervention

Spring Valley Informal Settlement in eMalahleni Local Municipality

Post-apartheid South Africa witnessesa violation of its Constitutional mandate as low-income communities such as Spring Valley remain marginalised by the existing development processes, in particular, provision of basic services. Planact works closely with Spring Valley, a community situated in Emalahleni Municipality, Mpumalanga Province, which lacked adequate watersupply, thus, deprived of its constitutional rightof access to clean water. SpringValley communitycollects water from an unprotected spring,subjecting the residents to sharing the same source with animals such as cows, goats, dogs and others. As a result of drinking contaminated water from the unprotected spring,some residents suffered from illnesses such as cholera and other waterborne diseases.

To advance social justice, Planact provided trainingon municipal processes - Integrated Development Plan and Municipal Budgeting and facilitated participatory processes between the community and the local council. The community represented by the developmentcommittee engaged the municipality and demanded provision of services in the area.The community expressed its discontent concerning the poor and uncoordinated delivery of water organised by the municipality. During the financial year 2014/2015, Springvalley development committee further mobilised the communityto deliver petitions to the District Municipality requesting for permanent solutions to address the lack of basic services in the area.This was done through various approaches including submitting letters to the Mayor’s Officeevery month for five months. Below are some of the achievements realised with the support of Planact in Springvalley;

  • NkangalaDistrict Municipality agreed to provide measures to alleviate water shortage. The measures included installation of a bore hole, construction of a reservoir and bulk water pipe in the area. However, these measures did not benefit the communityfor a long period because the borehole generator was small, thus, could not effectively pump water from the reservoir into the pipes. Ultimately, the generator was stolen and some community members were alleged to have been involved in the theft. A process to provide a generator with a bigger capacity and security is underway. In the meantime water is delivered in trucks to the community.
  • A social audit exercise has been initiated to ensure effective delivery of water to the community using water trucks after Planact received a number of complaints from the community regarding water delivery.
  • The social audit exercise is conducted by Planact together with the ten trained community members. The aim is get all the information pertaining to the water delivery contracts between the local council and the contractors. No documents have been acquired from the Emalahleni Local Municipality yet.
  1. The future for Small Informal Settlements in South Africa

EnkaniniInformal Settlement in Govan Mbeki Local Municipality

Over the years Planact has noted that informal settlements that have a low number of households in Gauteng and Mpumalanga Provinceslack the capacity and sometimes resources to engage the municipalities. This in turn exacerbates their marginalisation in provision of basic services and often become victims of relocation or eviction. There is therefore a violation of the residents’ fundamental right to housing. In spite of the fact that access to housing is a universal right, smallinformal settlements in mainly small municipalities such as the one in Govan Mbeki Local Municipality, called EnkaniniInformal Settlement, are often subjected to unnecessary relocation or eviction. Enkanini communityhad been threatened with the same phenomenon of relocation by Govan Mbeki Local Municipality. Realising this, Planact has developed an informal settlement upgrading model that can be applied to upgrading informal settlements with small numbers of households between 50 to 300 households. This ensures that households in such settlements will maintain the social networks they would have created to enable the households hold on to the little safety nets regarding building and sustaining their livelihoods. The model follows a participatory process in all aspects of designing the physical layout and submitting to the respective local municipalities.

Achievements

  • The informal settlement upgrading model for small numbers, has resulted in the Municipal Council of Govan Mbeki reversing its decision to relocate Enkanini informal settlement and it has made a commitment to upgradethe informal settlement in-situ.
  • The Planact informal settlement upgrading model has been welcomed by the Municipality of Govan Mbeki for the Leadra informal settlement. The municipality has given the consent to Planact to prepare layout plans and indicated that they will need similarassistance in upgrading other similar small settlements within the municipality in future. Planact is therefore currently documenting the upgrading model.
  • The community of Enkanini is participating in designing the physical layout plans of the area and in this way are able to make decisions regarding components of infrastructure that they would like to have in the area. The layout plan therefore will be people-centred rather than a mere autocratic plan irrelevant to the needs of the community.
  1. Community Development – What Planact Has Learnt over the Years

Understanding Power Relations

During the years of involvement in community development, Planact has learnt that all projects areunderpinned to some extent by power contests. There is a tendency by development agencies to rush to implement projects without investigating the power dynamics emanating from existence of different political parties in an area. The oversight often resultsin a failure to prepare strategies to address these counterproductive political contests. Planact recognises that almost all communities’ basic needs are inextricably linked to power relations existing in the communities. In the case of South Africa, municipalities are often engaged in contestations with the communities over service provision. Sometimes councillors are also seen as being anti-development and as such unable to advance the interest of residents of low income communities. Similarly, skewed development projects in favour of middle and high income classes are also underpinned by power relations.

  • Through working in Spring Valley and Thembelihle communities, Planact has learnt that practitioners and development agencies need to prioritise the issue of addressing power relations in communities because they impede project implementation and other development processes.
  • The responses of the Spring Valley community to the lack of basic services in the area, has taught Planactthat low income communities are not just statistics and passive actors. Instead they are capable of responding to circumstances that affect them and sometimes in a way that is antagonistic to normal expectations. Illustratively and contrary to the violence normally experienced in other communities demanding for service provision, Springvalley community has demonstrated an understanding of municipal processes, after Planact’s intervention. In turn the community engaged the government structure through the formal constitutionalinstitutions and procedures such as writing letters to the local Municipality and peacefully delivering petitions to the District Municipality.
  • The existence of different political parties in an area and the intent to retain power and authority by community committees results in intra-communal conflicts.This is exemplified by the succession conflict which recently ensued in Themebelihlecommunity, Gauteng Province, involving the outgoing and new committee. Planact’s training on leadership and conflict resolution skills have been helpful in addressing such conflicts. In this particularinstance, Planact successfully mediated the parties involved and got the development process back on track.

In essence, by understanding the importance of power relations in a community and who has authority and access to resources in a community, non-governmental organisations can save time, resources and also sometime speed up the development process in low- income communities. Undoubtedly, to a larger extent, the effectiveness of any organisation’s interventions in communitiesdepends on cooperation of the community and the local political context.

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