Marginalised Areas
4.1 MARGINALISED AREAS PLANNING & PROGRESS
4.2.5 INFORMAL SETTLEMENTS
4.2.5.5 CURRENT INITIATIVES
within the next 12-18 months. Ideally these sites will address encroaching informal settlements on PRASA assets and infrastructure.
g. The City has a good relationship with regional representatives of prasa. There is engagement between ETA and PRASA on technical and strategic planning levels. In the case of informal settlements encroaching on PRASA land we have advised them of our processes regarding upgrading and relocations and the city's prioritisation model.
Table 23 Outcomes of iQhaza Lethu Initiative
Ten settlements have been selected as pilots for the EU funded iQhaza Lethu as indicated above in Table 23 initiative whereby collaborative informal settlement upgrading initiatives:
• Quarry Road;
• Parkington / Thandanani;
• Emaphaleni;
• Progress Place;
• Ntuzuma C;
• Palmiet;
• Uganda;
• Dakota Beach;
• Havelock Road; and
• Bhambayi
Most of the settlements are located within the PIC. During the course of 2019 Havelock Road and Bhambayi were added
Fig 45 Location of Iqhaza Lethu Study
RESILIENT CITY STRATEGY: RESILIENCE BUILDING OPTION (RBO) 1: COLLABORATIVE INFORMAL SETTLEMENT ACTION
Having initially being part of the 100 Resilient Cities initiative, funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, eThekwini has now focussed on developing its RBO initiative which has identified participatory, differentiated and incremental informal settlement upgrading as a core focus for increasing resilience. 8 inter-related outcomes have been developed to achieve this objective.
• eThekwini has a committed team of champions that are supported by co-ordinating institutional structures;
• Consolidated quantitative and qualitative community and municipal-collected data on all informal settlements is accessible to all and updated regularly;
accelerated implementation of municipal-wide, collaborative informal settlement upgrading and partnerships;
• Collaborative monitoring and evaluation are institutionalised;
• Pro-active management of use of land; and
• Improved social, economic and environmental well-being in all informal settlements in eThekwini.
The City’s Resilience Strategy team has secured Council approval for the initiative and is working closely with key departments in realising the outcomes identified above.
NATIONAL TREASURY’S CITY SUPPORT PROGRAMME (CSP): TECHNICAL SUPPORT FOR THE INNOVATIVE UPSCALING AND UPGRADING OF INFORMAL SETTLEMENTS
The CSP in partnership the NUSP and through technical support by the World Bank seeks to support and strengthen the service delivery and management capacity and systems of South African cities. Incremental upgrading of informal settlements forms a significant element of the human settlement’s components of this initiative. The CSP aims to assist Cities to develop and scale-up efforts to upgrade informal settlements in close consultation and partnership with local communities. A framework was developed by the CSP which identified four work streams which included the development of enhanced Programme Management Toolkits and related Programme Support to selected Metros for scaling up incremental upgrading. This work stream commenced in 2017 on the back of a Scoping Study prepared in June 2016. Engagements with eThekwini have already been initiated.
GRASSROOTS APPROACHES TOWARDS SELF-RELIANCE IN SOUTH AFRICA: THE ISULABANTU PROJECT (INFORMAL SETTLEMENTS UPGRADING LED BY THE COMMUNITY
This is in a multidisciplinary partnership with the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban the University College London, uTshani Fund (SDI Alliance) and eThekwini municipality. This project focuses on communities in informal settlements that could be involved in improving their homes and neighbourhoods. The tools and processes needed to ensure a successful upgrade of environmental and construction management are poorly understood, and top- down policies used by central and local government in SA have not been successful to date. If communities can improve their neighbourhoods through “development from within”, improving construction skills and using available materials, then there could be local, regional and national environmental, social and economic benefits.
This research project seeks to explore the underpinning barriers and enabling drivers for communities to upgrade their informal settlements in SA. The central question for this research is: how can participatory approaches be utilised in an environmental and construction management strategy to achieve self-reliance in informal settlements in Durban, SA.
INFRASTRUCTURE IMPROVEMENTS FOR EARLY CHILDHOOD DEVELOPMENT (ECD) CENTRES IN INFORMAL SETTLEMENTS
This initiative in partnership with an NGO seeks to improving access to adequate ECD services for large numbers of vulnerable children within informal settlements in eThekwini. ECD is a national priority, forming part of both National and Provincial strategies aimed at ‘massification’ of ECD services. These strategies include more effectively supporting large numbers of de-facto, under-resourced ECD centres within low-income communities such as informal settlements.
The initiative directly supports the City’s IDP objectives aimed at social upliftment including those of the Informal Settlements Upgrade Programme (ISUP) and Incremental Services Programme (ISP) such as the improvement of social facilities and essential services. It forms part of broader Human Settlement responses such as those embedded in the Outcome 8 Delivery Agreements which aim to rapidly provide informal settlements with
incremental services and thus eradicate backlogs of essential services through incremental services provision as well as full upgrading and low-income housing. Council approval has been secured to augment this initiative over a three-year period with 14 selected ECD centres as pilot sites at Amaoti and Umlazi having been identified for ECD infrastructure improvements and survey for phase 1. Amaoti and Umlazi are two of the five Housing Catalytic Projects approved by NDHS. The target over the three-year period is to survey the bulk of the informal settlements in the Municipality covering a total population of approximately 75,000 households with an estimated number of approximately 480 ECD centres. The available ICDG funding will be sufficient to fund infrastructure improvements at 40 to 50 selected centres (based on costs from the pilot phase).
Currently the unit is implementing green building techniques by bringing together an array of principles, techniques and skills to reduce and ultimately eliminate the impacts of buildings on the environment and human health. This incorporates using renewable resources, passive design techniques, and alternative technology. This also includes construction techniques and materials that can be dismantled rather than be demolished so that relocation of either the informal settlement and the EDC structure can be reassembled as much as possible.
Fig 46 Examples of Mapped ECD Facilities
AMAOTI
The eight pilot sites identified by stakeholders have been technically assessed by PPT and submitted to the
eThekwini Council for funding approval. PPT is currently negotiating with the Municipality to ensure that the current ECD centre sites will, as far as possible, be accommodated within the new town planning layouts proposed as part of the Catalytic programme.
UMLAZI
Similarly, six creches have been identified as part of the pilot stage.
INFORMAL SETTLEMENT INCREMENTAL UPGRADING AND INTEGRATION PARTNERSHIP PROGRAMME (VIA AREA BASED MANAGEMENT (ABM)
The Human Settlements and Area-Based Management Units have partnered with a local NGO, to secure funding application from the European Union to the tune of R17m over three years. A number of pilot initiatives will test and refine a model of working in partnership with communities and organisations, and improving alignment between stakeholders (including municipal and provincial departments) by utilising and expanding precinct-based
programme and precinct levels. The objectives will be to:
• Strengthen centralised, upgrading programme management capacity and systems to co-ordinate and implement the city-wide programme;
• Establish and mobilise area-based upgrading implementation capacity and public space management systems;
• Mobilise underutilised/dormant capacity and develop new capacity within government, civil society, communities and NGOs;
With regard to the implementation of Pilots, the proposal is to incorporate:
• Community engagement, participative planning and capacitation for 4-8 settlements (10-20,000hh); and
• Incremental upgrading implementation for 4-8 settlements (5-20,000hh).
Through pilots, the aim will be to establish replicable co-governance systems, structures and methodologies for rollout.