years of pro-poor

development

1983-2018

35

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THE RESISTANCE YEARS: 1983-88 The city is arguably humankind’s greatest achievement. It enabled natural and human resources to be

concentrated in a defined geographical space, thereby creating efficiencies in the movement of people,

goods, and services and the promise of a better life. In South Africa our cities reflect the racial divisions that

were promoted by the policy of separate development, and which created inherent inefficiencies and

massive socio-economic inequalities based purely on the colour of a person’s skin. Indigent Africans

specifically were subjected to a raft of legislation for three generations that restricted not only their right of

occupation of land but also their movement. The “grand apartheid” plan, realised in the form of the Group

Areas Act (1950), led to the widespread ethnic cleansing of entire neighbourhoods, with new, racially

classified residential areas separated by “buffer strips” of industry, forestry, and simple distance. Forced

removals were the order of the day, and continued for decades.

As the grand apartheid plan cemented, popular resistance was ruthlessly crushed. The 1960 Sharpeville

massacre and the 1976 Soweto riots are but two landmarks that remain imprinted in our global memory of a

pariah state that was held together by securocrats in the police and army. A shift in the balance of power

began with the July 1985 State of Emergency. While the African National Congress sought to intensify the

armed struggle and economic sanctions from without, the United Democratic Front (UDF) internally was the

first broad opposition platform for decades that had mass support and an amorphous ability to frustrate the

apartheid regime and render the townships ungovernable. The government was rapidly losing its iron grip.

Africans began moving into our towns and cities in search of economic opportunity, which led to an explosion

of informal settlement. In the face of local resistance and international condemnation, and the sheer tenacity

of communities to resist relocation, sweeping liberalisation of the previous restrictions on the movement and

residence of blacks was promised.

In KwaZulu-Natal there was an added factor to accelerated urbanisation, as the government sought to use

the Inkatha Freedom Party as a surrogate force to undermine the progressive forces that organised under

the banner of the United Democratic Front, and attack suspected supporters of the African National

Congress. Whole communities fled so-called “black-on-black” violence, causing massive displacement of

individuals, households, and whole communities who sought sanctuary in our urban areas. It was in this

context that the Built Environment Support Group was born in 1983, by academics from the then-University

of Natal Faculty of Architecture and Allied Disciplines, to protect, support and promote the right of indigent

communities to seek safety, a better life, and a permanent future in our towns and cities.

The beginnings of BESG’s outreach work in communities can be traced back to a settlement named St.

Wendolins near Pinetown, owned by the Mariannhill monastery. The apartheid government planned to

rezone this settlement and declare it an Indian area. This would have resulted in thousands of residents

being evicted from their homes.

A number of academics conducted a study on the effects of the proposed removals on the community. The

fieldwork was carried out by nurses and a young researcher named Protas Madlala. The results of this study

proved overwhelmingly that forced removals would adversely affect the community. It provided the basis for

a Supreme Court action on the community’s behalf, resulting in the government’s plans being overturned.

There were some concerns in the university establishment, from departments whose professional views

encouraged a more conservative line in South African politics, such as the Department of Quantity Surveying

and Building, regarding the political aspects of BESG’s work. BESG was subjected to routine scrutiny by the

Security Police, who warned the university about the anti-apartheid activities of some BESG staff and

associates. A police spy was soon discovered and kept away from sensitive matters. According to

Prof Rodney Harber this created quite a divisive situation within the Faculty.

BESG’s work expanded because of its relevance to urban challenges being experienced at that time. It soon

needed resources from outside the university. It soon proved itself, and organisations such as The

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Rockefeller Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Anglo American Chairman’s Fund, and the Kagiso Trust

provided BESG with financial support.

Project work at BESG fell into five main categories:

1. Policy Aid: Aid provided to community organizations in the formulation of policy and strategies to improve

their environment.

2. Community Defence: Assistance provided to communities in their struggle against actions, which they

perceive to be detrimental to their well-being and development.

3. Planning Actions: Technical assistance given to community organizations in the range of planning issues

related to their environment. This included collecting of planning data such as surveys and interviews as

well as physical plans and proposals.

4. Community Building: Advice and assistance in the preparation of building briefs, sketch plans and cost

estimates for a range of community buildings such as clinics, schools and halls.

5. Training: The training of community workers in built environmental activities.

The organisation grew as more communities called for assistance. It became necessary to employ full time

staff. Protas Madlala was the first employee, appointed in August 1986 as Liaison Officer responsible for

liaising with communities, communicating technical advice, and forming democratic groups in communities.

He was subsequently joined by S’bu Ndebele, directly after his release from Robben Island. Clive Forster

was appointed Projects Manager in January 1987. Town planning and architectural services were provided

by Lulu Gwagwa, Renėe Rayner, and Georgina Sarkin. An Executive Committee was formed of Dr Errol

Haarhoff (Chair), Ms Jessir Biriss (Treasurer), and Clive Forster. Other office bearers included

Prof Mike Kahn, Dr Michael Sutcliffe, and Prof Dan Smit. Many of these founding members of BESG are still

household names in politics, government, and

development consulting.

From 1987 BESG became involved in a longer-term

development project in St. Wendolins. The community

leadership actively assisted other communities facing

forced removals. BESG extended its technical support

to giving advice on alternative planning and

development options, and began focusing on training

and education as a means of transferring knowledge

and technical skills in a sustainable way. Through this

communities were empowered to conduct social

surveys, skills audits, and enumeration studies.

Toward the end of this period the “Built Environment Action Movement” emerged. Groups within the

movement comprised young technicians from disadvantaged backgrounds who would get together and

tender for government projects. BESG continued building and advising on the construction of community

centres, schools, resource centres, clinics, and halls, amongst other things, as well as helping communities

affected by political unrest.

In 1987 serious floods devastated Natal. The floods proved how different organisations could work as an

effective collective unit and BESG was well placed to respond, despite its paucity of resources. During this

year BESG also networked with several progressive development organisations from across South Africa,

with the aim of establishing a national coordinating body. It was the early nexus of what in the mid-1990s

was to become the Urban Sector Network.

During these years tensions arising from the UDF-Inkatha conflict made many communities suspicious about

community projects, and BESG became more cautious about the projects it chose to undertake. The

difficultly surrounding community improvement projects seemed to be too much for other organisations, and

those failures undermined morale and confidence within the group. The direction that BESG would take in

future became of concern, as it records in the 1987-1988 Annual Report:

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“The difficulties involved in engagement suggest two other paths as well. The first is greater emphasis on

policy related thinking and action. As we have suggested, our development projects are constantly

constrained by this policy environment. We need to spend more time on analyzing this environment,

developing alternative policy approaches and disseminating and acting on this information. The second path

is to consider greater involvement in project implementation. This is obviously a difficult area, not least

because of time and resource constraints.”

GROUNDWORK FOR CHANGE: 1989-93 Ongoing support was provided to communities resisting

forced removals in Happy Valley, St. Wendolins, Swapo,

Bottlebrush, and other communities. It came against a

backdrop of continuing ANC-IFP conflict in the townships,

particularly around the hostels. The provincial capital,

Pietermaritzburg, and surrounding areas suffered the

infamous “7 Day War” in 1990. Women, children, and

elderly refugees sought shelter in marginal locations across

the city. The same year became a major milestone in the

country’s transformation history, with the unbanning of the

ANC and the release of Nelson Mandela. Protest march during the 7 day war

The demand to support communities affected by civil violence in and around Pietermaritzburg necessitated

the establishment of a branch office in the city. The Happy Valley informal settlement in Woodlands was

formed largely by women and children fleeing ANC-IFP violence in the Maqongqo (Table Mountain) area

some 20km away. They had occupied a marginal sliver of land between a major public road and a railway

line, and were subject to repeated police harassment at the instigation of the local City Council. It was one of

the first in a series of defence actions to secure the right of indigent communities to live in the city,

particularly in the northern areas, which provided ready opportunities for work-seeking.

Change provides space for innovation. It was a time of piloting

housing projects – different forms of tenure, infrastructure,

housing products, and delivery processes. BESG provided

technical support to several communities who were able to

access “site and service” projects via the Independent

Development Trust. It undertook its first large-scale

infrastructure upgrading project at Piesangs River, Durban

North, in 1990. This was followed by projects in Luganda and

Zilweleni, Southern Pinetown, in 1991.

These communities were amongst the first in the country to act

as community-based developers, pioneering new approaches

to community driven planning and development, mediated by

BESG’s technical support. In 1992, BESG launched the

Housing Training Programme, aimed at transferring skills to

community members acting as housing advisers and domestic

labour contractors.

The rapidly changing political environment meant that past

state policy on urban development was in complete flux. BESG

made contributions to the development of national and local

government policy toward the end of this period. At local level, Pietermaritzburg Co-ordinator Anton Krone

participated in the City Council’s Low Income Settlement Task Team, established to respond to the rapid

urban influx of people from areas affected by chronic poverty and/or civil conflict. It was one of the first

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initiatives at local level where there was a genuine attempt to achieve inclusive solutions to the development

challenges facing our cities. Norah Walker, then full-time Director, served on the National Housing Forum

that created the National Housing Subsidy Scheme.

RECONSTRUCTION AND DEVELOPMENT: 1994-99

South Africa held its first free elections in April 1994. The democratisation process provided rich

opportunities for development, growth, and diversification. The incoming ANC government committed to an

ambitious programme to transform the country in its first 5 years of office – the Reconstruction and

Development Programme (RDP). Among many other pledges, it committed to building 1 million homes.

BESG became a significant player in community-based, low-income housing and infrastructure development

during this period.

The National Housing Subsidy Scheme was adopted as the instrument to address a key pillar of the

Freedom Charter to provide “housing for all.” It provided a government grant to enable the poorest of the

poor to access services such as water and sanitation, and “assistance toward a basic shelter.” The rationale

for this policy was to enable the fiscus to be spread to as many households as possible.

Many of the communities whom BESG had defended from the police and bulldozers had developed a deep

mistrust of their local municipalities. They knew that BESG had staff with technical as well as organisational

development1 skills, and approached BESG to assist them in accessing housing subsidies and driving their

own development. In 1994 the Happy Valley informal settlement in Woodlands, Pietermaritzburg, became

the first in situ upgrading project to be undertaken under the new National Housing Subsidy Scheme, in

association with a community based partner, Ntuthukoville Development Trust. The project was officially

opened by National Housing Minister Sankie Mthembi-Mahanyele in 1995.

Ntuthukoville was also the location for a

pilot project in “mutual help” housing

delivery. Developed for self-build projects

in Costa Rica, it simply adapts the

contractor-built approach of training

households in co-operative production

teams, which shortens the pre-construction

training. The trick to quality control is that

no-one knows which house they will be

allocated until the last roof tile is in place.

In late 1994 and early 1995 BESG secured

housing subsidies for three projects in the

northern areas of Pietermaritzburg –

Azalea (later to be renamed Tamboville), Q-Section, and Thembalihle. The Q-Section community lived in a

nearby blue gum plantation that was too steep to develop, and negotiated to relocate to land adjacent to the

other two communities. A city councillor then persuaded the communities that housing was too complex for

them to manage, and promised that their development would be fast-tracked if they asked the City Council

for help.

In similar manner as the government turned to the private sector to deliver the majority of its 1 million RDP

houses, the municipality did not have any experience or capacity and contracted BESG to manage the

development, known as Glenwood 2. It was the largest public housing project ever undertaken by the city,

1 Referred to by some Non-Governmental Organisations as “Institutional Social Development.”

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comprising 1500 households in the first three phases. Our current Executive Director, Cameron Brisbane,

spent 9 years managing the project, continually unblocking bureaucratic obstacles and navigating issues of

contention between the municipality and resident communities.

In 1996 BESG supported the Southern Pinetown Joint Venture (SPJV) Housing Project. It was one of the

first housing projects approved nationally under the Consolidation Subsidy mechanism, for households who

had previously received serviced sites from the IDT, and was driven by a consortium of community-based

development organisations (CBDOs).

In the years leading up to and in the early part of the new dispensation, BESG had formed informal alliances

with seven other NGOs located in the main urban centres of the country that largely shared common

interests in human settlements, governance, and sustainable livelihoods work. They also shared a common

funder in the European Union (EU), which encouraged like-minded NGOs to establish more formal networks

or structures that could be funded collectively. This gave birth to the Urban Sector Network in 1995. The

Network handled R35m of funding in its 9 years of collective existence. Many of the partners continue to

collaborate on national platforms and projects to this day.

Those heady years were fruitful grounds for experimenting with innovative development models that had

emerged from other countries in the South, as well as alternative models of tenure to “one house, one plot.”

This resulted in several innovative projects:

• The Pietermaritzburg Northern Areas Housing Support Centre, which was only of only two such centres in

KZN piloted to assist beneficiaries with free plans and construction advice and materials supply. Established

in 1997, it was an organic model developed with the resident communities of Glenwood 2, most of whose

housing subsidy had been spent on high quality infrastructure, leaving them with insufficient funds for a

formal house. The aim of the Housing Support Centre was to help households stretch their subsidy to at

least an extension, or stabilising an informal wattle and daub structure against storm damage. It had the

secondary aim of building and consolidating design and construction knowledge within communities, so that

they could improve or extend their houses over time as resources permitted.

• The Ubunye Co-operative Housing project, which was the first “transitional” housing project in KZN province.

Redeveloped from a former working men’s hostel in the Pietermaritzburg CBD, it was designed to provide

affordable, secure, short-life housing for transient persons and families earning R800-R1,500 per month.

• The Community Based Maintenance (CBM) programme, which

provided a street cleaning, grass cutting, refuse collection, roads

maintenance, and environmental education services to 4600

households in Msunduzi, when the municipality did not have the

resources to extend conventional maintenance and refuse collection

services to newly developed areas in the city. The project was case-

studied by the then-Department of

Provincial and Local Government as a

model for alternative municipal

service delivery, and won awards

from the Impumelelo Innovations

Trust, the Green Trust, and the

World Bank Development

Marketplace.

• The Shayamoya social (rental) housing project, comprising 320 walk-

up flats in Cato Manor, was an attempt to move away from the “one

house, one plot” mindset and experiment with medium density rental

housing. It started on site in 1999 and was opened by National Housing

Minister Sankie Mthembi-Mahanyele and Provincial Housing Minister

Dumisani Makhaye in 2002.

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BESG not only acted as a development resource organisation for communities. It used a combination of

hard coalface work and research to advocate changes in enabling policy, where existing policy was found

wanting or was “missing the target.” It has been, and remains, a contentious area of work. Our knowledge,

services, and ability to innovate are highly rated and valued by, among others, policy makers in government.

However, events can sometimes take an unexpected turn. In 1999 we undertook a national research project

entitled “Toward the Right to Adequate Housing,” which found conclusions, and made recommendations for

addressing the challenges, of poorly located, under-sized, and badly built “RDP” housing with no vision that

people need to live in communities with access to work, schools, health facilities, transport…it is the vision of

“integrated human settlements” that children were so able to express in an art competition we ran in

conjunction with the research project, but which still evades us in practice.

The government knew about many of the shortcomings that had arisen in the rush to build a million homes,

and introduced National Norms and Standards for subsidised housing.

The new regulations prescribed a minimum house size of 30m² and

provision for basic infrastructure (standpipe, on-site sanitation,

gravel/graded roads) which could be “topped up” by a municipality at

its own discretion and cost.

BESG’s findings resonated with the shift in government policy, but the

funding intermediary for the project had commissioned a public

relations company to secure media coverage for the work it was

financing. A headline in a weekend newspaper appeared above a

story on BESG’s research, declaring, “Government housing delivery a

failure” – hardly the language of academics. It took two years and the

personal intervention of the Director of the Urban Sector Network to

thaw the entire network’s relations with the Director-General of the

Department of Housing as a result of that one article. Two years after

that, much of the vision in the Right to Adequate Housing became

official policy in the form of Minister Lindiwe Sisulu’s “Breaking New

Ground.” Such is the nature of advocating on behalf of those who

have no voice.

THE CONSOLIDATION YEARS: 2000-04

BESG continued to consolidate its housing support work during this period. However, a major paradigm shift

was forced on the organisation with the promulgation of the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA) 1999

and the Municipal Systems Act (MSA) 2000. The latter gave the mandate for development to local

government, the tier of government “closest to the people.” It put local municipalities into a driving seat for

which they were poorly equipped. As the former Minister of the RDP, Jay Naidoo, reflected after the event,

government administration was not designed to innovate, but to regulate. It also inadvertently removed the

space for communities to be in their own driving seat.

While BESG continued work on the Glenwood 2, Southern Pinetown consolidation, Shayamoya, and other

housing projects, the tide was turning as far as entry into new projects was concerned. BESG’s reputation

for technical and social innovation was well recognised, and documented in a research project by the

National Department of Housing on People’s Housing Process methodology in practice around the country.

But the advent of the PFMA, which was slow to impact due to the long lead time for housing projects, denied

communities the space to apply to be their own developer – a role which was taken over by local

municipalities in theory, but in practice is outsourced by the provincial department to Implementing Agents,

mostly engineering and construction companies.

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Application based development prior to the PFMA. Public procurement places local municipalities in the

Communities contract with the state via an NGO centre of development, even though most do not

that acts as a Support Organisation have the institutional capacity to fulfil that role

The communities of Woodstock and Peter Hey informal settlements in Pietermaritzburg had been relocated

en masse to Glenwood 2 in terms of a High Court eviction order sought by the Ratepayers’ Association in

the upmarket Indian suburb of Mountain Rise in 1997. The communities were moved onto pegged sites in

the areas known as North East Sector 2, which became Phase 4 of Glenwood 2. The Development

Committee found their way to BESG via the neighbouring communities, whose leadership had participated in

monthly project management meetings at the municipality’s offices since shortly after the development

commenced.

In the same year, the Pietermaritzburg office was approached by the Peace Valley 2 informal settlement in

Plessislaer, to assist them is securing housing subsidy for an in situ upgrading of the area. Both

communities selected to work with BESG to help them develop their areas under a national policy known as

the People’s Housing Process (PHP). It has its roots in a philosophy shared by many progressive and

grassroots organisations internationally, built on sharing good practice: “No development for us without us.”

BESG, and several other affiliates of the Urban Sector Network, used PHP as a tool for skills development

and the physical development of a new generation of semi-formal settlements, through community training,

development and empowerment. We provided the social facilitation, technical, financial, and administrative

means for poor communities to be involved in the upgrading of their areas, and decisions that affect them

materially and often permanently. This was completely in line with national housing policy:

“In May 1998 government approved policy to support people’s initiatives: National Housing Policy:

Supporting the People’s Housing process. This policy and programme encourages and supports individuals

and communities in their efforts to fulfil their own housing needs and who wish to enhance the subsidies

they receive from government by assisting them in accessing land, services and technical assistance in a

way that leads to the empowerment of communities and the transfer of skills. This housing delivery

approach is reliant on subsidies from government and technical, financial, logistical and administrative

assistance from NGOs and support organisations2.”

However, prevailing practice was for PHP to be reduced to a materials supply process, in a paradigm where

households who had earnings in excess of R1,500 per month were either expected to contribute R2,479 to

top up their housing subsidy or contribute sweat equity – and build their own. In the early days the housing

policy was to provide secure tenure, municipal services determined by the municipality, and “the balance

(what became known as the “change”) toward a rudimentary starter home.”

2 Progress report to UN Habitat Istanbul +5: “ The South African Housing Policy: operationalizing the right to adequate

housing” pg4

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The North East Sector 2 (NES2) Development

Committee, which had facilitated the peaceful mass

relocation to Glenwood 2 on the promise of

development in 1997, was forced onto the back foot.

The ANC caucus on the Pietermaritzburg-Msunduzi

Transitional Local Council was concerned about the

amount of finance that had been put into the

previous phases of Glenwood 2, at the expense of

what it saw as higher development priorities in the

Edendale Valley. It had already caused phase 3 of

Glenwood 2 – the Thembalihle upgrade – to be

delayed by nearly two years over a fight for

resources for bulk services.

Glenwood 2—the Thembalihle upgrade

In 2001, the municipality commissioned a study into whether it would be cheaper to relocate the NES2

community and avoid having to co-finance an upgrade of the area. BESG was commissioned to undertake

the study, the findings of which were that Glenwood 2 as a whole was inherently expensive in terms of the

national norms and standards for housing subsidy, but that the community was strongly resistant to being

relocated a second time in 4 years.

The Peace Valley 2 (PV2) community was initially told that the area they occupied could not be developed

for housing as it was an industrial area. In 2000, the provincial administration, which owned the bulk of land

underlying the settlement, stated in writing that it had no objection to the land being rezoned “special

residential.” Both communities – NES2 and PV2 – were ready for development. Both projects had been

prioritized in the municipality’s Integrated Development Plan (IDP). The communities had opted to work with

BESG utilising the People’s Housing Process, in order to extract value from their housing subsidy.

But by the time they were ready for development, the MSA and PFMA had come into effect. Both projects

were put out to open tender by the municipality. Against competition from the private sector, BESG won

both proposal calls in 2001 and 2002 respectively. Bureaucratic obstructions were encountered immediately.

A company competing for the NES2 contract attempted to block BESG’s appointment, citing that its non-

profit status meant that it did not qualify to tender under BEE regulations, as it had no shareholders. The

complaint was dismissed, however, NES2 was then starved of funding for bulk and connector services, as a

result of which it took two years for BESG’s

appointment as Implementing Agent to be

confirmed.

The PV2 project was subject to continual changes in

town planning design. The community had been

settled over a period of over 15 years. Many

households had relatively large plots and a

significant minority had formal structures that cost

more than the value of a government subsidy. In

spite of this, the municipality tried to force its own

norms and standards for low income housing that

were designed for “greenfield” projects on vacant

land. By 2004, BESG had resolved the myriad

The Peace Valley 2 settlement was a remarkable feat of bureaucratic challenges and secured conditional

“people planning” which was both orderly and efficient approval for both projects.

However, the lesson learnt from these prevarications was that the new public procurement regime was

antipathetic to communities having any real say in development. While the new procurement regime

provided for several contracting strategies, the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Housing exclusively uses one

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called “turnkey contracting.” In simple terms it means, “We’ll give you development rights and you call us

when you are ready to handover the keys.” None of the three procurement strategies was aligned to PHP.

Turnkey contracting relieved local municipalities of any real responsibility for development – the precise

intention of the MSA -- and transferred it to “Implementing Agents.” In theory it meant that government could

turn over projects faster using the production efficiencies of service providers who are profit-driven, and who

have capital reserves to carry both operational costs and manage development risk. The requirement for a

“social compact,” to commit municipalities and beneficiary communities to a common objective, largely

became a compliance exercise, and it was not uncommon to find IAs using “copy and paste” and forgetting

to change the name of the beneficiary community from their last job.

In this paradigm, communities were no longer seen as partners in development but rather a “social risk” that

had to be mitigated – along with land-legal challenges, access to bulk services, geotechnical, and

environmental considerations. BESG was no longer a support organisation to communities but rather a

service provider to a local municipality whose agenda was frequently at odds with communities and who, at

least in the Msunduzi context, did more to frustrate than facilitate development in the city.

At the same time, BESG was deeply involved in government support work. Our Durban office was engaged

in township housing work in Fredville, near Cato Ridge, and contracting to eThekwini (Greater Durban)

Municipality to undertake Area Based Planning, which was a tool to integrate development planning based

on a hierarchy of development needs across spatial boundaries. In Msunduzi, BESG was contracted by the

municipality to undertake a community-based mapping exercise of land ownership and tenancy across three

wards of Edendale township that had been in private ownership prior to the 1913 Natives Land Act, as a

precursor to the Greater Edendale Land Reform Programme. Also in 2004, BESG was sub-contracted by the

Durban University of Technology to run a course in housing development and management for provincial

and local government officials over a three year period.

In the tradition of reflective learning, BESG refocused its housing work that relieving shelter poverty in

isolation of other forms of deprivation was not the answer to creating sustainable human settlements. As the

research project “Toward the Right to Adequate Housing” had shown, housing had the potential to entrench

poverty further: RDP townships on the periphery of cities left people without access to jobs, health, and

educational facilities – to which they then had to pay to travel. Households became liable for rates, service

charges, and maintenance, which they could ill afford.

HIV and AIDS were reaching epidemic proportions and the combination of health vulnerability, poverty, and

the effects of inadequate housing were exacerbating community and household health problems. Moreover,

KwaZulu-Natal, which had the highest incidence of HIV and AIDS in the country, saw an explosion in child

headed households.

BESG’s response was to adopt a sustainable livelihoods framework as a strategic tool in development

planning and implementation, and developing community resilience to both day-to-day challenges and

shocks, such as the loss of a breadwinner. This resulted in several new strands of work:

1. BESG assisted in the formation of food gardening groups to work on land that could not be utilised for

housing due to it being too steep or a floodplain.

2. Over a dozen housing stokvels (savings clubs) were established to enable people to extend their starter

homes incrementally; and other poverty alleviation initiatives.

3. We responded to the incidence of child-headed households, and subsequently other vulnerable children, by

pioneering work in “special needs” housing – supported housing for vulnerable groups who do not qualify

under the standard rules of the national housing subsidy programmes, but who nonetheless qualify for

shelter assistance under Sections 26 and 28(1) of the Constitution. The initiative was built on the back of the

KZN Department of Housing’s 2000 “Policy for housing and AIDS.”

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Imperfect as the enabling policy was, in 2004 BESG launched the

first special needs housing project, securing housing subsidies for

the redevelopment of the Mildred Ward Centre in Woodlands, when

Pietermaritzburg Children’s Homes consolidated its three residential

operations on one site. It was also a leading member of the

Msunduzi AIDS Partnership from 2001 until its demise in 2005, as a

result of a restructuring of key personnel at City Hall. The

partnership was recognised by AMICAALL -- Alliance of Mayors and

Municipal Leaders on HIV/AIDS in Africa -- as a model for

collaboration between government and civil society in addressing

one of the biggest challenges threatening the health and social

fabric of the city and indeed the country.

In the interim the staff complement had grown as a consequence of

the rapid growth of its work in low-income housing projects, but its

exposure to projects that were becoming bogged down in

bureaucracy and incapacity at local government level was starting

to bleed the organization. From 2002 to 2004 BESG suffered the loss of substantial capacity and intellectual

memory within the organization through natural attrition. By late 2004 half of the remaining operational staff

in Durban was being deployed to help manage projects in Pietermaritzburg, commuting daily in company

time and vehicles. It was an unsustainable situation.

CRISIS AND TURN-AROUND: 2005-09

By May 2005, BESG faced a liquidity crisis. Planned income was not forthcoming, and the Board was forced

to enter into consultations with staff around retrenchments. That resulted in the closure of the Durban office

five months later, followed by a labour dispute that nearly resulted in the complete closure of the

organisation. Thanks to an aggressive debt collection exercise and the generosity of a key donor, BESG

was able to consolidate its remaining staff and operations in Pietermaritzburg, and begin a process of

healing and rebuilding. With fewer resources than it had enjoyed in past years, a small staff determinedly

worked to redevelop the organisation and increase its visibility both in local communities and in the broader

stakeholder environment.

BESG’s work around vulnerability, HIV/AIDS, and human settlements received its first dedicated funding in

2006, through its long-standing participation in the Children in Distress (CINDI) Network. The Child Advocacy

Project was a joint project between CINDI, BESG, Lawyers for Human Rights, and the Pietermaritzburg

Child and Family Welfare Association. The Child Advocacy Project encompassed a combination of

interventions that was best realised in partnerships rather than trying to be a jack-of-all-trades. It led to

several new strands of work:

1. Underpinned by a research study of unregistered child-care facilities3 and in conjunction with partners from

the social development sector, BESG developed a set of models to provide alternatives to institutional care

for orphaned and vulnerable children. The first demonstration project, of transitional housing for children

awaiting placement in foster care, was developed for Pietermaritzburg Child Welfare in 2006.

2. We developed a programme of tenure security training, focusing on the importance of having a will, in

association with Lawyers for Human Rights. It had become official government policy that beneficiaries of

housing subsidy projects should take out a will when they applied for their subsidy. However, there was no

incentive for Implementing Agents to do the work, no compliance monitoring, and much traditional resistance

3 “No Place Like Home” (BESG 2007)

11

to the idea, as a result of which women and children were too frequently left without protection when a

household head died.

3. In recognition of the poverty that continued to afflict communities, BESG developed a livelihood security

programme to help enhance the resourcefulness and resilience of vulnerable households to address

everyday needs and challenges and also withstand

shocks such as storm damage or the loss of a

breadwinner. It used a holistic approach to

strengthening the resilience of vulnerable

households through training and support in food

gardening, nutrition training, water management,

erosion control, access to free basic services, and

health and safety in the home. For the poorest of

the poor, it was what Housing Minister Lindiwe

Sisulu embraced in the 1994 Breaking New Ground

strategy – to move away from RDP housing

delivery and toward building “sustainable human

settlements.”

Putting a floodplain to productive use

The Livelihood and Tenure Security Programme was significant not only for its content, but also its

methodology. It marked a break away from “training workshops” that were intended purely to disseminate

information on the workings of local government, the various housing policies and programmes, and so forth.

It was replaced by a concept of “participatory learning,” which combined training with development facilitation

practice that had been the driving force for innovation in our housing. While BESG provided the context and

initial content, participants were encouraged to be players as well as learners.

This contributed to a process of continually enriching our training material, based on participants’ life

experiences. When you have access to few resources, you either give up in despair or wait for government

handouts, or you learn how to make optimal use of what is available to you. It was the beginning of what

became a cornerstone of both our housing and governance work over the next 5 years – building the notion

of self-reliance and active citizenship.

BESG’s involvement in the Child Advocacy Project led to new collaborations in its own housing work. In

July 2006, one Howard Mkhize walked into BESG’s office with a summons to appear in court on behalf of

1200 families who had been living on private land in Mkondeni, an industrial estate on the edge of

Pietermaritzburg. The landowners had been served with an environmental health notice and responded by

making an application for the eviction of the entire community. An eviction order was granted, without the

community having alternative land on which to settle. BESG’s new-found partnership with Lawyers for

Human Rights led to the latter arranging pro bono legal representation to take the matter to the Supreme

Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein in 2009. The Supreme Court overturned the eviction order and joined

Msunduzi Municipality to the action, which was referred back to the Pietermaritzburg High Court. .

There was an unintended side-effect of this legal process. The original trial judge, Achmat Jappie, in

addition to granting an eviction order, had directed that no building or building repairs could be carried out in

the settlement. In conjunction with the community leadership, BESG had secured funding from SELAVIP, a

South-South solidarity organisation based in Chile, to repair 40 of the most dilapidated shacks where the

occupants were too old or infirm to address their own housing needs. The project could not go ahead

without BESG and Mkondeni Sacca being held in contempt of court.

A successful appeal was made to SELAVIP to allow the funds to be transferred for the same purpose to the

North East Sector 2 housing project. It provided a much-needed boost to that community, which was being

destabilized by the continuous delays on the part of Msunduzi Municipality in securing environmental

authorisation to proceed with development. True to the spirit of communities driving their own decisions, the

NES2 Development Committee asked that we focus on building a one room block house for the most

12

destitute, rather than repairs. They also mobilised a clean-up campaign to rid the area of accumulated waste.

This period saw BESG achieve an important

balance in its core programmes of:

• Building sustainable human settlements, and

• Promoting good governance.

The programmes are inter-linked by the premise

that service delivery to the poor can best be realised

by the demonstration of innovative solutions to

development needs – both human and physical –

and government embracing the challenges of

development in a transparent and participatory

manner.

BESG maintained a low profile in advocacy-based

research, partly undertaken in-house and partly

outsourced. Two important studies were undertaken Volunteers from FNB Insurance Brokers at the North East

in 2006 and 2007 respectively: Sector 2 SELAVIP “Build-a-thon”

• Blockages to PHP projects in KwaZulu-Natal, commissioned by the People’s Housing Partnership Trust, an

arm of the National Department of Housing.

• The right of access to free basic services in Msunduzi Municipality, in a study titled “Seen but not heard.”

BESG also returned to the national policy arena in this period. In 2007, it joined the Transitional and Special

Needs Housing Forum, a broad cross-sectoral grouping of government and NGOs involved in providing or

supporting non-standard housing interventions for vulnerable groups. The Forum was hosted by the Social

Housing Foundation (SHF), another arm of the National Department. Sadly and without sound reason, the

special needs agenda was dropped when in 2009 the SHF was wound up and re-established as the Social

Housing Regulatory Authority.

The second area for national collaboration was in the rewriting of the national PHP policy. A group

comprising former USN partners, the Utshani Fund, and several other development practitioners, were

aggrieved that PHP had been corrupted by private companies into a labour- and materials-supply process,

without any consideration to community empowerment and sustainability. Over 2007, the group drafted an

alternative vision and policy framework, titled “Community Driven Housing Initiatives” or CoDHI. It initially

received a frosty response from the Minister’s Special Adviser, who had a single agenda of ”numbers,

numbers, numbers” (of housing units). There was a

perception that PHP was too slow – in spite of a

wealth of research that demonstrated the

inextricable linkage between community

empowerment and the elusive target of “building

sustainable human settlements.”

Nevertheless, a Chief Director was assigned to work

with the originators of the draft CoDHI policy

document. It was adopted in its entirety by

MinMEC4 in August 2008, with only a change of title:

MECs wanted to retain the notion of a housing

programme “for the people”, and re-branded the

new policy the “Enhanced People’s Housing

Process (EPHP).” Following its adoption, several

4 The Committee of provincial Housing MEC’s chaired by the National Minister.

13

members of the group, including the current Executive Director of BESG, were co-opted by the National

Department onto the EPHP National Reference Group, to help in guiding the roll-out of the policy. Ironically

a change in Minister, a re-branding of the Department from “Housing” to “Human Settlements,” and a

reduction in departmental budget, caused the slow death of civil society participation in the Reference Group

over the ensuing years, and a failure of many provinces, including KZN, to implement the policy in spite of an

initial target to ring-fence 15% of the national budget for EPHP projects.

In January 2009, in preparation for its long-awaited housing projects being unblocked, BESG established a

separate non-profit trading company, BESG Development Services. The primary objective was to protect our

donor funding from adverse development risk. BESG had emerged from the ashes of its near-collapse 4

years earlier on a steady, planned growth trajectory.

A NEW MATURITY: 2010-14

While many NGOs were beginning to feel the effects of the global recession, and flight of donor funding from

South Africa to needier countries, BESG managed to weather the storm -- at least for the next four years.

This pays testament to the value and relevance of its work in post-apartheid transformation. Internally, the

organisation had reached a new maturity. The days when the boundaries between the Board of Directors

and staff were blurred, and decisions were made on grounds that were not always in the best interests of the

organisation, was well and truly a thing of the past. The Board was professionalised and active in its

oversight role. BESG’s programme work continued to evolve in an ever-changing political and social

landscape.

BESG continued with its tradition of policy and research

advocacy work. In 2010 the organisation was

commissioned by the Centre for Municipal Research and

Advice (CMRA) to undertake a benchmarking exercise to

inform an AIDS intervention strategy for several local

municipalities. In 2011 the National Department of Human

Settlements commissioned the production of a paper

entitled “From beneficiaries to citizens: Meaningful

communication with and participation of the poor in human

settlement development”. AIDS benchmarking project for the CMRA

Aligned to BESG’s vision of strengthening livelihood security was enabling vulnerable households and

communities to build resilience to the devastating impact of climate change, with alternating but

unpredictable patterns of severe storms and drought. In 2010 we secured funding from the National Lottery

Distribution Trust Fund (NLDTF) to support a climate change adaptation project in rural communities across

four midlands municipalities -- Msunduzi, Richmond, Impendle and Mpofana – that are most affected by

severe weather patterns. The project was titled ‘Greener

Pastures,’ to reflect our natural escapism to think, when

faced with challenges, that the grass is always greener on

the other side of the hill.

Greener Pastures focused on developing knowledge, skills

and resilience to combat storm damage, and promote water,

food, and energy security. It uses a wide range of street

theatre, participatory learning, and demonstration projects in

food gardening and tree planting. In its 3 year lifespan the

project reached 68 schools and 31 CBOS, with a total of

2,350 participants. In 2014 the project won a Mail &

Guardian Greening the Future award for social innovation.

14

Following the 2006 local government elections, a wave of service delivery protests had broken out that

continued to escalate. In 2009 the Department of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs launched

an ambitious Local Government Turn-Around Strategy. It emphasised the need for enhanced capacity to

improve service delivery and, among a myriad recommendations, the need for “improved public participation

and communication including effective complaint management and feedback systems.” However, it was thin

on how to ensure the implementation of measures that were explicitly written into Chapter 4 of the Municipal

Systems Act:

Municipalities have a legislative obligation to budget for both citizen education and public participation in key

activities, including the formulation of their Integrated Development Plan and budget, KPIs for senior

managers, performance management, and strategic decisions related to service delivery. It is an obligation

that is largely given to tick-box compliance. There were no systems in place to ensure that Ward Councillors

committed to holding quarterly community meetings as prescribed in their Code of Conduct. All too

frequently in our Good Governance training we had heard complaints that IDP izimbizo were stage-

managed, and that communities never saw their Ward Councillor once elections had passed.

In response to these challenges, BESG re-branded its governance programme in 2010 as the “Deepening

Democracy Project.” It evolved over the next three years into a dominant programme with multiple donor

funding aimed at local government

transformation. The project moved into high

gear, with the launch of a Strategic Partnership

with uMgungundlovu District Municipality

(uMDM) in 2010. The launch was held at a Civic

Reception in the presence of French

Ambassador to South Africa, Jacques Lapouge,

amid much hype over the pending contest

between the two countries at the FIFA Football

World Cup. The partnership saw the uMDM

ramp up public participation in its affairs, and

create space for local government officials to be

exposed to best international practice in

participatory development and budgeting.

The partnership aimed to build civil society capacity and active citizen participation in developmental

decision-making processes, and promote civil society engagement with local government. In three years

104 Community Based Organisations participated in our local governance training programme. uMDM gave

over its Council Chamber every three months to host the CBOs in Inter-Governmental Relations (IGR)

meetings, so that their issues could be addressed at all three tiers of government. Regrettably a lack of

political will and administrative capacity, as well as poor resource alignment, caused the broader partnership

to dissolve in 2014, although we continued to collaborate over funding opportunities and the District IDP

Representative Forum.

While the uMDM partnership was in full bloom, Msunduzi Municipality, which had for years acted as the

“second seat of power” in the District, went under a Section 139(1) administration order in March 2010 in the

face of near bankruptcy. For the next two years, Msunduzi

was ruled with a rod of iron. This caused huge public

disaffection and produced little in the way of a turn-around

in service delivery. Against this hostile environment,

BESG persuaded Administrator Johan Mettler to address a

landmark gathering in January 2011 in the form of the

Msunduzi Stakeholder Forum. 350 delegates from

communities, ratepayers’ associations, faith based groups,

and the business sector attended the gathering to receive

a progress report from the Administration team and debate

how the municipality could improve citizen engagement

15

going forward. Undertakings were made to work more closely with civil society, and indeed to embrace civil

society as an asset in the rebuilding of the city’s socio-political fabric. Acting Mayor Mike Tarr closed

proceedings by making a simple appeal to the floor: “We need your help.”

The initiative created by the Forum was short-lived. Local government elections were approaching. There

was a consolidation of power within the regional executive of the governing party, and a huge backlash from

some ANC members and alliance partner COSATU to what was widely perceived as an attempt to reinstate

the very politicians who were responsible for the city’s collapse. The incoming administration was openly

hostile to the idea of being helped.

Another casualty of the 2011 local government elections was the Mkondeni Sacca community. After the

Supreme Court of Appeal set aside the judgement ordering their mass eviction and a ban on any building or

repairs, BESG secured a further SELAVIP grant to return to the area with a programme of emergency

housing relief. It did not give much respite to the community, which still faced the threat of eviction. In

February 2011, a high-powered ANC delegation visited the area to assess whether it would merit having its

own voting station. The visit resulted in Finance MEC Ina

Cronje, wearing her hat as “political champion of the

district,” driving a rapid intervention to provide emergency

services and a long-term resettlement plan for the

community. The intervention was stillborn. The

community continues to this day to share two standpipes

between 1200 households and has no sanitation or refuse

collection service. Mayor Tarr requested our assistance

with a long term plan to acquire the underlying land, only to

be frustrated that his officials advised the land was worth 5

times more than the official municipal valuation and too

expensive for low income housing.

In the meantime, in a classic case of one hand not

knowing what the other is doing, the municipality’s legal

counsel had undertaken to the High Court to relocate the

families to an infamous RDP township called France,

commencing in July 2011 and due for completion in

January 2012. The relocation never happened. The new

Municipal Manager, who took up post after the provincial

intervention was withdrawn in January 2012, reverted to

court with a plan to expropriate the land underlying the

community. In 2014 the Department of Human

Settlements provided R71m to begin a process of

acquiring the underlying land. Mkondeni Sacca – 2 standpipes for 1200 families

Meanwhile the communities of North East Sector 2 and Peace Valley 2 had been waiting over 15 years for

development. The development of NES2 was finally granted environmental authorisation in March 2012.

However, in May 2011, a major corruption scandal broke out over the awarding by KZN Human Settlements

of a R2.1bn rural housing contract in Vulindlela, outside Pietermaritzburg, to a politically well-connected

developer, Dezzo Housing. The Department approved funding under the Enhanced People’s Housing

Process in order to facilitate the IA, Dezzo Housing, not having to go through an open tender process which

had been cancelled twice in a short space of time. Resident communities did not rejoice at the pending

development but marched in protest that Amakhosi were in the pocket of the Implementing Agent, after they

were suddenly seen driving around in brand new 4x4 double cabs. BESG, who had been undertaking

Housing Consumer Education in the area, was one of a series of complainants to the Public Protector. By

June 2012 the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) had been appointed to undertake a forensic investigation into

the project. Officials in the Department of Human Settlements, both nationally and provincially, closed ranks

in the wake of the scandal. For two years Vulindlela was showcased as a model PHP project, while KZN

Human Settlements denied the right of communities to choose the same procurement route.

16

Meanwhile BESG Development Services, which had taken transfer of the housing development portfolio,

was being tacitly frustrated in its attempt to bring NES2 into implementation. In November 2011, a friendly

official had undertaken another act of whistle blowing, and intimated that a plan was afoot to pay off BESG

for the work it had done on both NES2 and PV2 and appoint an alternative service provider. There was a

not-so hidden agenda to drive BESG out of development work in retribution for its opposition to the

Vulindlela contract. In May 2012 we lodged a complaint of prejudicial conduct with MEC for Human

Settlements and Public Works, Ravi Pillay. A tripartite meeting at the MEC’s office in June exposed collusion

between senior provincial and municipal officials, to find technical reasons to disqualify BESG from

undertaking the projects it had won at open tender. The MEC found in our favour. The decision, however,

did not pave the way for a smooth relationship and, as events subsequently unfolded, Msunduzi officials did

everything in their power to obstruct and derail the projects for as long as they were under BESG

management.

BESG Development Services won its first substantial contract in 2011, not in its traditional area of housing

but in a contract with the Department of Economic Development and Tourism. It developed and rolled out a

business development programme for 17 co-operatives involved in school feeding schemes in Ladysmith/

Newcastle/ Dundee and surrounding areas. The contract ensured the trading entity was a going concern,

and a vital source of income generation for the parent company. BESG continues to undertake minor

consulting contracts, and in 2012 won a tender to run a Water Consumer Education programme in non-

payment “hotspots” across uMgungundlovu District.

One of the by-products of the Msunduzi Stakeholder Forum was a call for more public information on the

city’s housing programme. The Acting Head of the Human Settlements Unit, Radha Gounden, welcomed an

offer that we raise funds to host a housing summit, saying that he had plans but no budget to host such an

event. The Msunduzi Housing Summit was held on United Nations World Habitat Day, 1 October 2012. The

summit was opened by the Chair of the Economic Development Portfolio Committee, Councillor Eunice

Majola. The objectives of the Summit were to:

• Facilitate information exchange about the main fiscal instruments and programmes that have replaced

the old one-size-fits-all “housing subsidy.”

• Enable Ward Committee and CBO members to identify

common issues.

• Enable participants to engage with officials on specific

development needs.

• Give officials the opportunity to present planned projects

and those which are currently being implemented.

Delegates were encouraged to continue to engage with the

municipality after the Summit through community meetings that

Ward Councillors should be holding every three months, and

IDP and budget consultation meetings. The summit was a

resounding success in information exchange and learning, as

one delegate Councillor wrote: “Just a note to say thanks for a

well thought and well informed Housing Summit. It was very

professional. Today many of us as members of the community

and Councillors have received more answers than in the entire

1½ years (while the city was under administration).”

Another landmark change happened in 2012 in response to the adoption of ministerial performance

agreements signed with the Presidency in 2010. In recognition of the long housing backlog, the performance

agreement for human settlements known as Outcome 8 committed the Department, inter alia, to provide

secure tenure and basic services to 400,000 households by 2014. Urban development think tank Isandla

Institute recognised the rich body of knowledge and skills within the NGO sector to work deeply with resident

17

communities, and hosted two capacity building workshops which brought together NGOs, social movements,

and a special purpose vehicle established by the Department, the National Upgrading Support Programme

(NUSP). The roll-out of the Upgrading of Informal Settlements Programme (UISP) did not go according to

plan. A host of 170 service providers tendered for work to undertake rapid assessments in some 45 priority

settlements around the country, but were largely found wanting in their methodology and use of “cut and

paste.”

By the time the 2014 national and provincial government elections took place, the UISP had hardly taken off.

In its 2015-19 business plan the Department simply moved the target, to provide tenure and basic services

to 750,000 households by 2019. It also committed to rectify the transfer of ownership to 900,000 households

who did not have title deeds to their properties. This is a massive undertaking given the number of informal

sales and rentals that occur in newly established townships.

2014 heralded the biggest meltdown in BESG since its near-liquidation in 2006, which speaks to the

vulnerability of NGOs which are largely dependent on donor income. Of three major funders we lost two in

the space of 6 months. The NLDTF, which funded the Greener Pastures project, is not a relationship funder

and expressly disallows re-grants. The Ford Foundation, which underwrote the larger part of our governance

work, changed its country strategy from supporting developmental governance to human rights, and

redirected its funding from several members of the Good Governance Learning Network to a largely new

generation of NGOs whose sole object was to take the government through the courts for service delivery

failures. Half our staffing complement of 14 had to be sacrificed and we had to begin funding our operating

deficit from reserves accumulated from the 2012 DEDT school feeding scheme co-operatives contract.

The North East Sector 2 housing project, which would be the first unblocked project to generate income and

replace the loss of donor funding, was still being frustrated by municipal officials. Directly after the MEC had

given us his blessing to continue work in August 2012, officials from the Msunduzi Human Settlements Unit

declared the area was too densely settled to be upgraded. We asked for the opportunity to demonstrate that

it could be done. We completed a risk assessment in October 2012 and a community facilitation programme

and full business plan for Stage 1 (planning and engineering design) by March 2013. All of this work is done

at risk. In November 2013 the KZN Department of Human Settlements approved the project. The next step

was for province, the municipality, and BESG Development Services to pass resolutions authorising the

signing of a tripartite agreement. In February 2014 the municipal official responsible for driving the process

called our Executive Director and intimated that the Deputy Municipal Manager for Economic Development

was demanding an internal investigation into the circumstances that led to our appointment. It took until

August 2014 for us to be notified that full Council had authorised the Municipal Manager to sign the

agreement, and May 2015 for the agreement finally to be concluded by all parties.

THE DIVERSIFICATION YEARS 2015-18

Diversification is a key to be a going concern, but it was equally a challenge with a reduced staffing

complement and skills set. Nevertheless a balance between our traditional donor-funded community support

work and fee income from the North East Sector 2 and Peace Valley 2 housing projects would have been

sufficient to stabilise BESG while new sources of income were sourced.

That appeared a reality when a consortium proposal under uMgungundlovu District Municipality, for a project

on climate change adaptation, was approved in early 2015 by the Global Adaptation Fund via the South

African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI). BESG’s component, “Climate proofing human settlements,”

aimed to provide support to communities in rural areas who are routinely affected by storm damage, through

a combination of sustainable livelihood training and physical measures to strengthen their informal dwellings

and better manage stormwater. However, SANBI appointed two corporate consultants who failed BESG on

a due diligence exercise. This created a serious fissure in the partnership as SANBI declined to allow BESG

to sub-contract under uMDM, where it was an approved service provider, and they decided to “test the

market” and put our component out to tender.

18

Meanwhile we were busy in North East Sector 2,

securing an extension to the environmental

authorisation for the development due to the long delays

in starting, working with a new Project Steering

Committee, and undertaking a deep facilitation

programme using a system of community block

representatives to work with groups of between 15 and

20 households. In response to the municipality’s

concern that the area was too densely settled, 23

families whose houses were encroaching the road

reserves volunteered to part-demolish in order that

development could proceed for the greater good. We

completed Stage 1 by November 2015.

In January 2016 our Executive Director was summoned to the office of the Deputy Municipal Manager who

accused BESG of forcing people to demolish their homes. No consideration was given to the leaders of the

Project Steering Committee who were present and who stated that the demolition plan was adopted by the

community and the affected families as they had waited 18 years for the development to start.

It was the start of a concerted process to derail the project. Province tried to assist by offering funds for 50

houses to be built on a greenfield section adjoining the settlement. It was a contentious proposal that the

community rejected. Families had built their own houses and built up social capital over the years and did

not want to move. Furthermore the municipality had offered the vacant sites to families living in neighbouring

Tamboville 10 years prior and it had been invaded the prior year, as soon as word was out that development

was due to commence. It was invaded again, but on this occasion municipal security failed to act and up to

the time of this publication going to print the land remains occupied.

The municipality created multiple challenges and delays over engineering standards, funds for bulk and

connector services, and complete confusion over whether existing structures were to be retained, on the

direct instruction of the Deputy Municipal Manager, or demolished in line with the KZN “Slums Clearance”

strategy. For 8 months municipal officials refused to engage on these issues. Our Board resolved to

suspend work on Stages 2 and 3 until there was a clear way forward. Finally, in August 2016, the Acting

Head of Msunduzi’s Human Settlements Unit declared that they had accepted our “resignation” and were

proceeding to tender for the appointment of an alternative Implementing Agent. Province initially objected

but then capitulated to Msunduzi’s unilateral action, citing a breakdown of relationship when the council

official accused BESG of “undermining the municipality for many years” and refused to discuss his position

further.

Peace Valley 2 suffered a similar fate. The project had been subject of a protracted Environmental Impact

Assessment from 2008 to 2013. In January 2014, changes in the National Environmental Management Act

removed the need for an assessment and BESG was given the green light to update the Project Description

(pre-feasibility study). The project was unable to proceed because the municipality had, since going to

tender on 2001, failed to apply to Province for the transfer of the bulk of the underlying state land. The issue

was raised in half a dozen progress reports and a presentation to the Economic Development Portfolio

Committee through 2014 and 2015.

In April 2015, we eventually enlisted the help of the Housing Development Agency, a special purpose vehicle

established by the National Department to unlock state land for housing development. Much as they were

willing, the municipality refused to make a formal written request for assistance and by October we were

forced to abandon work again after carrying work at risk intermittently over a period of 12 years since we

secured conditional approval. As we go to print, the matter is now in court after the municipality reneged on

a written offer to pay us for the work done on the project.

BESG undertook two micro-projects with funding from the Foundation for Human Rights (FHR) over the early

part of this period: In 2015, we worked with 15 communities across uMgungundlovu District to develop and

facilitate written submissions on their development needs. Many of their submissions have been

19

incorporated in their local municipalities’ IDP, and it gave weight to the empowerment of communities

through knowledge transfer when the IDP imbizo process had failed to recognise them for years.

In 2016, the FHR funded a Community Mapping project in Siyathuthuka Phase 1, Richmond. A Livelihood Security programme undertaken in the area in 2012 had identified that the community was living in housing with failed foundations, cracked walls, insecure roofs, and areas with outflows of raw sewage. Province had sent inspectors from the National Home Builder’s Registration Council into the area, resulting in funds being approved for a rectification project. The initiative failed and officials were unwilling to engage with us or the community which was by that stage visibly angry. In May 2015 Minister Lindiwe Sisulu announced the closure of the rectification programme in her budget speech.

“Amarightza 2015” – IDP training

We trained 15 unemployed youth to undertake a door to

door survey of the extent of the problems. In a

community report back meeting in January 2017, the

community demanded that we lodge a complaint with the

Public Protector. Before we could do that we had to

exhaust all administrative channels for seeking redress.

The initiative was lost temporarily in June when Ward

Councillor Sifiso Mkhize was gunned down in a political

killing. Nevertheless the Provincial Department of

Human Settlements facilitated a meeting to receive our

report and recommendations, which were to undertake a

pilot in situ repair and rehabilitation project which would

be far less expensive and invasive than the former rectification programme. They requested that Richmond

Municipality write to them formally requesting assistance from the Department. After 14 months, the letter

was still not forthcoming due to instability in the municipality, and it did take an appeal to the Public Protector

to elicit the required response.

In February 2016, faced with a static donor market and contracts that were not generating their anticipated

income, BESG took the decision to sell its office at 371 Jabu Ndlovu Street. The initial motivation was to

raise working capital to support the North East Sector 2 development, but as events rapidly soured we were

forced into a distress sale in August 2016. In the same month we relocated to rented office space at

331 Bulwer Street.

This was a turnaround moment in more ways than changing location. In June 2016 the Board approved a

restructuring and succession plan for our Executive Director which realigned the staff complement to our

operational needs. This was completed in May 2017 with the appointment of Melusi Nxele as Manager:

Operations & Programmes. We also strengthened our internal governance after two resignations and the

passing of our Deputy Chair, Brian Bassett, in April. In August 2017 the Board was given a fresh injection of

blood with the arrival of four new directors with diverse backgrounds in housing, research, public policy,

monitoring and evaluation, and enterprise development.

Two positive developments toward diversification of our work occurred in this period:

In 2016 we secured the first funding for our governance work in 3 years through a national consortium

project, Accounting for Basic Services. It was the first collaboration in 12 years between 3 former members

of the Urban Sector Network and Isandla Institute, who are all members of the Good Governance Learning

Network. The project was funded by the European Union Delegation to South Africa, whose mission is to

20

support the roll-out of the National Development Plan,

and the Heinrich Böll Foundation. It involved intensive

work with two communities in Mpolweni, uMshwathi,

to secure free basic services, and KwaNxamalala,

Msunduzi, to secure employment on a R6m roads

construction project, through municipal budget

submissions and performance monitoring. These are

cornerstones of the provisions for public participation

in the Municipal Systems Act. The project began

winding down in July 2018

In October 2017 a joint venture between BESG

Development Services and Swelihle Agricultural and

Environmental Group, a by-product of the UKZN

Faculty of Agriculture, won a tender for R2.8m with uMgungundlovu District Municipality to undertake work

on the Umgeni Resilience Project. This was the same Climate Proofing of Human Settlements component

that SANBI had insisted be put out to tender – we had won back the right to implement our intellectual

property.

We remain committed to providing technical services to vulnerable social groups, and to that end packaged

two special needs housing projects, to renovate the Khayalethu Shelters for street children on behalf of

Youth for Christ KZN, and redevelop the Sunset Overnight Shelters for street homeless adults for Project

Gateway. While historically we have carried out Housing Consumer Education in an impartial manner,

giving communities full choice in the options they choose, we have to counter the lack of choice provided by

the state when it precludes genuine community participation from processes that directly affect them.

Our forced withdrawal from state-driven housing implementation has caused a period of deep reflection by

the Board and staff collectively. Much as our mission committed us to work collaboratively with government

and communities, we are living in an environment where factionalism within the governing party, corruption,

struggles for control of key positions, and political killings have undermined the confidence and trust of many

communities in government.

They have also closed down space for independent civic organisation. In June 2017 we entered into a

Memorandum of Understanding to provide training and technical support to two social movements and their

members – the Landless People’s Movement, who support farm dwellers on land restitution and land reform

projects, and shack dwellers’ movement Abahlali baseMjondolo, which has over 50,000 members living in

informal settlements, of which the largest concentration is in eThekwini. Tragically an emerging relationship

between the 2016 administration of eThekwini Municipality and Abahlali has been destroyed by ongoing

shack demolitions, the murder of a 17 year old protester, several politically motivated murders of Abahlali

leaders, and open war talk by senior politicians.

There have been many other instances where communities feel alienated from the state by the lack of space

for engagement. One community member, whose RDP house has failed, summed up the situation when

asked why they do not ask their absentee Councillor to a meeting to address their problems: “People are

scared, they are being killed.”

In this toxic environment, BESG has followed in the path of the internal resistance in the last days of

apartheid when progressive leaders were either in exile or in prison. We have called on the churches. An

emerging partnership now exists between BESG, three social movements, and a faith based movement with

a mission of social justice, the KZN Christian Council. Such alliances will undoubtedly be labelled “counter-

revolutionary” by some elements within the governing party. However, they are simply a response to the

state’s failure to implement its own legislation that enshrines participatory democracy, and international

protocols such as the New Urban Agenda, adopted by members of United Nations Habitat in October 2016,

which acknowledges the natural forces of urbanisation and the reality of informality in our towns and cities.

331 Bulwer Street,

Pietermaritzburg 3201

P.O. Box 1369,

Pietermaritzburg 3200

Tel: +27 33 394 4980:

Fax: +27 33 394 4979

Email: info@besg.co.za

www.besg.co.za