Multi-level integrated planning and greening of public infrastructure in South Africa

Abstract

The South African government has named the transition towards a greener economy one of its priorities. Meanwhile it has developed a new multilevel integrated planning process, and announced a massive public infrastructure investment plan. The converging point of these three dynamics should be the integration of green infrastructure principles into the different plans as the foundation of the green transition. This paper uses a policy integration analytical framework to assess whether this convergence is in fact taking shape. It analyses the level of integration of green infrastructure principles into the different plans and suggests options to move the green infrastructure agenda forward.

Keywords::

• environmental policy integration
• green economy
• infrastructure
• integrated planning
• South Africa

Acknowledgements

This paper has drawn extensively from my involvement in the green economy and green infrastructure work developed by the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) in Pretoria, where I was seconded for two years. I would like to thank the French Development Agency for financing this position, and the DBSA for allowing me to be involved in this exciting work. Thanks also to Saguna Gordhan, David Jarvis, and two anonymous referees for their useful comments.

Notes

^1. In this paper, all macroeconomic data comes from Stats SA unless otherwise mentioned: http://www.statssa.gov.za/keyindicators/keyindicators.asp

^2. Definitions of the green economy and its related concepts abound (Green Growth Knowledge Platform, 2013). Any attempt to clarify these concepts would be beyond the scope of this paper.

^3. For information on social and economic infrastructure backlogs, progress made since 1994 and needs, see recent reports of the Development Bank of Southern Africa (Development Bank of Southern Africa, 2012a, 2012b).

^4. Converted into US$ using 11.4 as the dollar/rand exchange rate, it amounts to US$ 280 billion over the coming years, i.e. close to the 2011 estimated GDP for the country.

^5. For more details on the Green Fund: http://www.sagreenfund.org.za/Pages/default.aspx

^6. The many sectoral plans designed by the different national or local departments are not analysed here, as they should have theoretically been taken into account at all levels when the different integrated plans were developed.

^7. Since then, at the ANC policy conference of December 2012, Cyril Ramaphosa was elected Deputy President of the ANC. At the same conference, the ANC endorsed the National Development Plan. After the Presidential election of May 2014, he became Deputy President in the new cabinet.

^8. A 900-page document gathering all the projects clustered under the 18 SIPs was compiled, according to several public officials, but is not publicly available. This raises concerns about the transparency of the infrastructure planning process.

^9. Note that because of the size of municipalities, both in terms of area and population, they can be viewed as versions of regional planning (Todes, 2004).

^10. Conditional grants represent about half of the total fiscal transfer from national government to municipalities, with the other half being the local government equitable share. The MIG is the largest conditional grant, especially for poor municipalities where it can represent far more than half of the conditional grants they receive.

^11. For more details, see respectively http://isca.org.au/is-rating-scheme/is-overview/is-rating-tool and http://www.sustainableinfrastructure.org/rating/index.cfm

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Thierry Giordano

Thierry Giordano is a senior researcher at the CIRAD agricultural research centre in Montpellier. His research examines the role of infrastructure and planning in the management of sustainability transitions.