Sandton Convention Centre
20 November 2007
Thank you very much for choosing Gauteng to host this very important conference. Gauteng has the highest number of cities in the country and, given its strong position in the economy, it provides a good lesson on what happens to cities when there is rapid urbanisation, huge population growth, unemployment, poverty and underdevelopment.
Considering that Gauteng is going to continue to grow for the next ten years and that these challenges will persist, we have decided on an integrated, high-level plan to coordinate our efforts and effectively address our development challenges. This plan has become a guide for the provincial and local governments in developing Gauteng as a globally competitive city region.
In developing our city region strategy we have been guided by our own understanding that to take full advantage of Gauteng's unique position, as South Africa's most urbanised area, we had to pool resources between the provincial government and local government to create the most powerful economic block on the continent, promoting Gauteng as a home for investment, tourism and business in general. In this way we will be able to meet our national objectives of reducing poverty, unemployment and underdevelopment by 2014.
We have also been influenced by our understanding that throughout the world the emergence of globalisation has resulted in significant changes to the organisation of economic and politics, particularly at the level of cities.
As nation states are being transformed by global forces there has been a rise of large city regions. These have emerged as global forces and have transformed the traditional nation state. City-regions are increasingly becoming important actors in national and international political and economic arenas and have become regional motors of the global economy.
We have also understood that city regions do not happen on their own. They are influenced by processes of territorial and political amalgamation at a local scale. These processes often operate in a manner that entails much effort in building collective action, identifying some functional dependence, building political competence, as well as eliminating fragmentation for mutual benefit and advantage to face challenges of globalisation at the local level.
Their economies consist of "intricate networks of specialised but complementary forms of economic activity, together with large, multifaceted local labour markets", characterised by strong agglomeration effects.
Therefore we have defined our development path, based on current and future global and domestic conditions, with a focus on the critical things that need to be done to enable us to reach our goals and fulfil the aspirations of our people.
A closer look at other city regions identified the reality that, like Gauteng, global city regions in other countries play a significant role in their national economies. Common key features of successful city regions in other parts of the world include:
The Gauteng city region has the potential to fare well in most of these areas but needs to strengthen inter-governmental planning and integration, address the key infrastructural requirements to sustain and improve economic growth in the next few decades and strengthen structures for consultation and engagement with stakeholders.
City regions have significant benefits for economic development. These include:
Our common vision and purpose that is that in order to succeed we needed to cooperate internally; compete externally; that all stakeholders needed to think regionally and that we needed a balance between economic efficiency, equity and environment. With this in mind, we have anchored our approach on four broad themes, namely improved coordination, identification of flagship projects / high level initiatives - including better links with institutions of higher education institution and FIFA 2010 World Cup legacy project - the embedding of the concept and continuous measurement of our progress through monitoring, evaluation and benchmarking.
It is inevitable that the implementation of any city region strategy will be challenges. In our case these have been around the institutionalisation of the concept, building relevant human technical capacity, and the development and setting in motion a long term plan.
To address them we have developed a road map comprising of eleven strategic pathways that identify programmatic activities on which to build a Gauteng City-Region over the next mid-term expenditure framework period. The road map is being implemented through the institutions and resources of both the provincial and local government.
The pathways address a range of issues such, growing and managing a GCR knowledge based economy; how to advance the positioning of Gauteng (including regionally) as an economically active and sustainable city region; integrated planning, implementation and coordination and how to deal with matters related to social development, inclusion and cohesion.
Following a study which we undertook to explore models that foster cooperation and collaboration between government, higher education institutions, industry we have decided to establish the Gauteng Urban Observatory. The observatory, which will set a research and development agenda for the Gauteng City Region, will become operation in March 2008 with Wits and the University of Johannesburg as its anchor institutions.
To advance the positioning of Gauteng as an economically active and sustainable city region, we are finalising a study to build an understanding of the content and 'footprint' of the city-region's economy is being finalised with a view to building more effective economic linkages with other SA cities, SADC and the African continent as a whole.
To ensure relatively even development so as to prevent inequality between the urban core and periphery, as well as marginalisation of the poor, we have adopted a social development strategy and we are jointly implementing major infrastructure development projects in the 20 Priority Townships to stimulate development in these areas.
To improve coordination, collective decision making and resource sharing across departments and municipalities we have undertaken a review of the allocation of powers and functions within the current constitutional dispensation. This will allow us to decide which level of government or department is appropriately situated to carry out certain functions.
We have also commenced work to determine and consolidate the means to realise a metropolitan system of across Gauteng. In this regard we have agreed on sisterhood arrangements between metros and regional municipalities to improve service and strengthen our system of government. The arrangements will be between Tshwane and Metsweding, Johannesburg and the West Rand, Ekurhuleni and Sedibeng.
We aim to utilise specific global events hosted in Gauteng, such as the FIFA World Cup in 2010 and the international Soccer Exhibition which starts in the province next week, to position the city region within the global arena as a preferred destination for investment, tourism and enhance our global competitiveness.
However, in taking this a step further, we need to ensure that we have an efficient public transport system, that we deal with traffic congestion, that we reduce crime, that we improve social and economic infrastructure, that we improve the quality of our health and education systems and lift our skills levels and that we accelerate the empowerment of women and the youth.
In addressing these priorities we are on the one hand fulfilling the promises we made to our people and responding positively to the concerns of the electorate, while at the same time promoting our province as a destination for investment, tourism, competitive sports and other major events.
This creates the possibility of a virtuous circle, in which we improve the conditions of our people and attract investment, which in turns creates more quality jobs and further improves the incomes of our people, which in turn attract more investment and so on.
You have asked me to reflect on whether city regions can exist in Africa. The answer is definitely. For instance Nairobi in East Africa and Accra in West Africa are examples of city regions in Africa.
Considering the size of the Gauteng economy and trade relation with other African countries, the Gauteng city region is poised to be of benefit to other city regions in the continent both as a benchmark and a strategic partner.
Exports from Gauteng to the rest of Africa grew from around R7.4 billion in 1995 to R38.2 billion in 2006. The majority of these exports went to the SADC region which received 71.6% of Gauteng exported commodities to Africa in 2006.
Gauteng is also likely to benefit immensely from developing strategic partnerships with other city regions in the continent. Major city regions in Africa have immense natural resources at their disposal, long-standing capacity to manage the dualism of formal and informal economies thriving side by side, and cohabitation of modern and traditional systems in a manner that draws from the best of both worlds.
In the context of globalization, the Gauteng global city region provides an institutional space and mechanism for the African continent to establish its own coherent spatial framework similar to European Spatial Development Perspective, to benefit from this interconnected economy. In this way it can contribute towards the realisation of the objectives of the New African Partnership for Development (Nepad) to:
Central to the GCR perspective as well as NEPAD, is the challenge to manage the modern day knowledge-based economies; social cohesion and inclusion; and well capacitated state institutions and civil society. The Gauteng City Region, SA and the continent all stand to benefit from the province's active implementation of some aspects of the NEPAD agenda.
Thank you.