Home The EcoCity Concept City of Johannesburg The EcoVillage The Co-operatives Youth Environmental Co-operatives Iteke Waste Recycling Co-operative Shova Lula Cycle Co-operative EcoBanking EcoBuilders Community Ownership Energy Co-operative EcoVillage: a vision of the future The Trustees Acknowledgements	City of Johannesburg Johannesburg mayor Amos Masondo calls EcoCity a unique example of sustainable development. And the city also recognises that what the project provides is a way forward. “EcoCity is located in one of 89 informal settlements in the city,” he says. “It has wider implications for the rest of the city.” EcoCity, with its partnership approach, offers a way for the mayor to replicate the manner in which it merges green and brown imperatives in a time when public resources are limited, but needs seem infinite. Green issues refer to ecologically friendly ways of living, while brown issues describe the economic elements which underpin wellbeing, including economic development and job creation. The two sets of issues are often presented as mutually exclusive, while EcoCity shows this needn't always be the case. “It's pioneered among the poorest of the poor,” explains the mayor, who has been a regular visitor to Ivory Park, the community in which the project is based. Johannesburg is a core supporter of EcoCity and gives the project office space — making concrete the private partnership between the NGO sector, community and the council. The city’s support gives the EcoCity project the political weight necessary to draw in support from provincial and national spheres of government. Because EcoCity is an NGO, it also maintains links with the community. What EcoCity provided the city with, says Masondo, was a commitment and idea that was homegrown and which the administration could support. Such co-responsibility is essential for any successful development plan. “Government as government alone would never be able to do this. Government working alone can never address the great needs of our people,” says the mayor. The Johannesburg EcoCity programme is located within the Department of Development Planning, Transport and Environment. This is an excellent place within which to house such a programme as it cuts across all aspects of development. “The concept of the EcoCity looks at development in a different way, a way that allows us to address both economic growth and ecological sustainability at the same time,” says Flora Mokgohloa, the Director of Environment in the Department. In particular she is pleased with the way the programme promotes women when jobs are created and the focus on the youth is of paramount importance to the City. But EcoCity has not only assisted the council in charting the way for a new development paradigm: “The City has taken on board all the EcoCity ideas and concepts in its policy development, for instance in the City’s Sustainable Development Strategy,” says Mokgohloa. The big challenge facing the council is how to roll out the programme in other areas of the City. With so many development imperatives and so many disadvantaged areas, the task is enormous. The council is looking at the Integrated Development Planning Process (IDP) as one of the best tools to do this. “Ensuring that the programme is integrated within the objectives of the IDP will be the best way to ensure that sustainable development is carried through the council and its strategies and actions,” says Mokgohloa.