Rural Development
Overview:
Presentation to CAADP Stakeholders
20 October 2011

• It is impossible to know with certainty the many traditions of tenure and land use systems that existed in the southern parts of Africa before the first
European colonials settled in areas of the Western Cape in the seventeenth century. From the earliest encounters between Dutch colonisers and the indigenous Khoi San, threats to traditions of land access and use systems resulted in resistance and struggle.
• The late ANC President O R Tambo, had the following to say on pre-colonial land holding systems in SA: “In African epochs, long before the coming of the colonial masters from their northern climes three or four centuries ago, men and woman moved skillfully and purposefully across the terrain, plucking from the earth its bounty. Trained to utilise a variety of means for their survival, they employed the art of the hunt, the judicious selection of fruits of the wild, the identification of the lushest pastures for their livestock, the cultivation of the most reliable staple foods; the growth of trade, the establishment of collective social structures and a world view, despite the occasional clash of interests between one clan and another, of the practical value of warm relationships and a deep respect for a shared humanity.”
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• Grand Apartheid segregated South Africa into three kinds of social, economic and politico-administrative spaces: the major urban areas, which were a preserve of white people; fertile commercial farming regions and associated small rural towns, also a preserve of white
South Africans; and, barren, economically unviable socalled homelands, reserved for South Africa’s black majority population.
• The result is enduring underdevelopment with its social, economic, and cultural manifestations: poverty, gross income inequality compared to urban areas, chronic unemployment, and cultural backwardness
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• Unequal distribution of assets, skewed distribution of income and employment opportunities amongst citizens, inequality in access to social services, high level of illiteracy and social backwardness.
• Segregated planning approaches and scattered residential and farming settlements without viable economic and social linkages to the more economically active areas of the country.

• Under utilisation and/or unsustainable use of natural resources
• Poor or lack of access to socio-economic infrastructure and services, public amenities and government services
(e.g. industrial parks lying idle especially in the former homeland areas)
• Lack of access to water or lack of water sources for both household and agricultural development
• Low literacy, skills levels and migratory labour practices
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• Decay of the social fabric (child-headed households, crime, family disputes and lack of Ubuntu)
• Death of cultural progress
• Unresolved restitution and land tenure issues
• Townships not formally established thus hindering service provision and development
• Dependence on social grants and other forms of social security
• Unexploited opportunities in agriculture, tourism, mining and manufacturing

• In the former homelands, 61% of households survived on less than the international poverty line of USD2/day, or about R1500 a month for the average household of four.
• Less than 1 in 3 working-age adults in the former
Homeland regions said they had income-earning employment in 2007, compared to just under half of those in the rest of the country.
• In 2008, 58% of farm workers in the formal sector earned under R1000 a month, compared to just 10% of workers in the rest of the formal sector.

 Despite many attempts to deal with these issues, in 2007 statistics indicated that over half the households in former Bantustans relied on social grants or remittances as compared to a quarter of households in the rest of country

Work Done Since 1994
Reconstrucion and
Development
Programme (1994)
Rural Development
Framework (1997)
ISRDP (2001) a) District level based interventions b) Unfunded programme c) Reliant on the coordination of the 3 spheres of government
War on Poverty (2008) a) Household level based interventions (wards) b) Unfunded programme c) Based on a "referal" system to provide better services to households
CRDP (2009) a) Household and ward level based interventions (wards) b) Funded programme c) Based on a referal systems to provide better services to
Households d) Reliant on coordination and joint planning of the 3 pheres of government

Reconstruction and Development Programme
(RDP,1994)
• Aimed to address the socio-economic problems brought about by the consequences of the struggle against Apartheid.
• Set on alleviating poverty and addressing the massive shortfalls in social services across the country.
• Measures to boost the economy such as contained fiscal spending, sustained or lowered taxes, reducing government debt and trade liberalisation with sociallyminded social services provisions and infrastructural projects.

National Rural Development Strategy
(NRDS,1995)
• Became the first plan for rural areas under the
Government of National Unity (GNU).
• Its vision centred on freedom from poverty, employment, diverse agriculture and commercial and service sectors in country towns and greater access by rural people to government support and information.

Rural Development Framework (RDF) 1997
• RDF focused on rural infrastructure, public administration, local government and rural non-farm employment.
• Drew attention to the need for the coordination of rural development.
• This discussion document was not confirmed as the government strategy for rural development.

Integrated Sustainable Rural Development
Strategy (ISRDS)
• The “Integrated and Sustainable Rural Development
Strategy” was designed to realise a vision that would
“attain socially cohesive and stable rural communities with viable institutions, sustainable economies and universal access to social amenities, able to attract and retain skilled and knowledgeable people, who were equipped to contribute to growth and development”.

Integrated Sustainable Rural Development
Programme (ISRDP)
• The ISRDS eventually resulted in the Integrated
Sustainable Rural Development Programme (ISRDP).
• The ISRDP was designed to build socially cohesive and stable rural communities with viable institutions and sustainable economies,
• Offering universal access to social amenities and able to attract and retain skilled and knowledgeable people who could contribute to growth and development.

War on Poverty
• The War on Poverty Programme instituted by the
Presidency in 2008 could be identified as the direct forerunner for the CRDP.
• An Anti-Poverty Inter-Ministerial Committee was constituted to co-ordinate and to integrate service delivery across spheres of government & social partners.
• As per the WOP, all levels of government become responsible for aligning business towards implementing a rural development programme .

Other Interventions
• Strauss Commission (1995)
• Broadening of Access to Agriculture Thrust
(BATAT)
• Rural Services Programmes, e.g. Rural
Transport, Rural Housing, Rural Sanitation,
Rural Education, Rural Health and community policing

Lessons Learnt
 It would appear that Rural policy in South Africa to date has been largely unfocused, and ineffective:
 It is not the product of contemporary, thoughtful, and informed public debate.
 It consists of isolated elements of sectoral policy created without regard to inter-sectoral effects, primarily focusing on short term priorities.
 It is often urban policy that is poorly modified to fit nonurban settings
 It has been created with little or no thought for its implications for rural communities.
 It is also based on the erroneous assumption that there are public institutions that serve the unique needs of rural areas.
 It has so far not presented a long term vision of what rural areas should look like.
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• The new policy direction is linked to the outcomesbased approach and supported by strong evidence emanating from various rural wards.
• The approach emphasises the mobilisation and organising of rural people into functional groups to effectively take charge of their own development.
• The model being utilised to test new approach is the
Comprehensive Rural development Programme.

• Vision of the CRDP:
• “Vibrant, equitable and sustainable rural communities”
• The strategy to achieve this vision is agrarian transformation which refers to the “rapid and fundamental change in the relations of land, livestock, cropping and community.”
• The CRDP proposes an approach that addresses the needs of the person; household; community and space
• It is built on the premise that rural areas in the country have the potential to be developed so as to generate jobs and economic opportunities that can provide an alternative to the urban centres;
• Thus contributing to the reduction in rural-urban migration
• The rural economy can also be organised to support both agricultural and non-agricultural sectors

COMPREHENSIVE RURAL DEVELOPMENT
PROGRAMME
Phase I
Phase II
Phase III
• Meeting basic human needs.
(shelter, water, sanitation, food, electricity, etc.).
• Infrastructure development (social, economic, ICT and other enabling infrastructure).
• Enterprise development.
• Small, medium and micro industries
(agri-processing, village markets, finance/credit facilities).
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• The Draft Land Reform Green Paper and the Draft Land
Tenure Security Bill (LTSB) referred to these human settlements as Agri-villages
– However, it is clear that this is only one of many possible variants of sustainable human settlements
• Other forms being considered:
– SMART Villages (Sustainable, managed assets, resources and technology);
– Agri-parks
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• The proposal is to establish new forms of rural settlements, and transform, or improve some of the existing ones, under the rubric Sustainable Rural
Communities (SRM)
• The United Nations (UN) ascribes effectiveness of
“sustainability” to the following conditions:
– Socio-cultural development: health, education, recreation
– Economic development
– Environmental development
– Institutional/ political
– Morality and aesthetic relational values
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• Revitalisation of Small Rural Towns
– Vital for rural-urban networking and linkages;
– Active player and contributor to regional economies; and
– Integrated planning
• CRDP Costed Norms and Standards
– Will help to establish efficiency and effectiveness in planning as well as equitable resource allocation
– Quantification of backlogs
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National Rural Youth Service Corps
• Rural youth based skills development and job creation programme.
• Emphasis is on character building, community service, discipline and artisan skills.
• Youth provided with skills related to needs of rural communities identified through household profiling.
• Current priorities are construction, disaster management and records management.
• A total of 7 956 youth have been enrolled into the programme.
• Construction training of 6 000 youth will began in July
2011.
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• Rural Development Agency
– Rationalisation of existing entities with experience in rural development
– Coordination; resource mobilisation; monitoring and evaluation
• Funding Institutions to Support CRDP eg Construction Bank (support local contractor development
•
Councils of Stakeholders
– stakeholder participation model has been developed with the CoS functioning as the planning, implementation and monitoring body established to support social cohesion and development, effectively introducing a “parliament at village level”.
•
Land Rights Management Board
– Dealt with in the Land Reform Policy document
• CPA’s and Trusts
– Review process underway
• Communal Land Tenure System
– Dealt with separately under land Reform
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• Social mobilisation, community and household profiling;
• Council of Stakeholders: planning and monitoring body; (inclusion of community in development processes)
• CRDP Management System; (cooperative governance; inclusion of private sector and community; local leadership)
• Rural Development Agency (Rural
Development Framework Bill)

• There are 4227 municipal wards in the country;
• The areas of the country have been overlayed to identify the rural space within which government needs to operate; the following criteria have been utilised: ISRDP nodes; homeland areas; farming areas; distressed and vulnerable rural municipalities and COGTA class 4 municipalities
• 68.2 % of the national wards are rural
• This results in a targeted space of 2920 wards with a population of 25,705,625
• This equates to 57.3% of SA population
• 16.6% are demarcated within the metropolitan areas;

ISRDP
NODES
WAR ON
POVERTY / PIMD
CRDP
ROLLOUT
57 MUNICS
IN DISTRESS
64 VULNERABLE
MUNICIPALITIES
COGTA MUNICIPAL
CLASSES (4)
POPULATION
DENSITY
Factors Overlayed to determine Rural Space

Areas where rural communities are located.
(Source: Census: 2001 / MBD 2009)
Classification
Urban
Rural
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32

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160 CRDP focus areas in relation to the old homeland areas Lebowa
Venda
Ciskei
Transkei

Densely and Sparsely populated rural areas
Old Home land Areas
(densely populated)
Sparsely populated rural areas

• Started with the poorest 160 wards in the country
• 160 wards in most instances overlap the 21 districts selected by Cabinet Lekgotla
• Finalising priority projects with 22 District municipalities (following Lekgotla decision)
• Profiled to date approximately 50 000 households in the country (57 wards)
• Status quo reports completed on 65 wards
• Infrastructure development: approx 30 wards
• Narysec programme implemented: 7956 rural youth

• New Economic Growth Path, 2010: providing further impetus to the vision for a transformed rural sector. Job creation has been set as a country priority to address the challenges of unemployment, poverty and slow economic growth and six priority areas to job creation were fixed: infrastructure development, agriculture, mining, manufacturing, the “green economy”, and tourism
.
• Industrial Policy Action Plan (IPAP2), 2010 expand production in value-added sectors with high employment and growth multipliers that compete in export markets as well as in the domestic market against imports

• Rural development is a transversal function and cannot be executed successfully without the collaboration amongst a variety of social partners and the participation of communities;
• Through social mobilisation and organising of rural people into functional groups communities can effectively take charge of their own development.

‘Tears are very close to my eyes,’ says Bhonco, son of
Ximiya. ‘Not for pain…no… I do not cry because of pain. I cry only because of beautiful things.’ ...
The day rural people would ‘cry only because of beautiful things’ is the day and moment when we would be satisfied that, indeed, the ANC government would have delivered on the promise of ‘A Better Life
For All!’