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Links Between a Poverty Fighting Present & a Sustainable Future
Children run across pot-holed streets while taxis hoot at them. Four in 10 people live in shacks, with the rest in small brick homes. Unemployment afflicts four in 10 adults. Polluted water runs through Ivory Park. Hunger is not acute, but it is apparent. Life is hard and the environment, one would think, is a distant concern in a community where thinking about the next meal is a much more immediate concern. In this context, was born a brave experiment in finding the nexus between sustainable development and poverty eradication. This is a key challenge of the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD): protecting the future of the earth and its inhabitants while ensuring that its present becomes much better for those like the people of Ivory Park. “We realised that we had to focus on local economic development and not on the environment,” says EcoCity managing trustee Annie Sugrue.
Born in the early Nineties of community struggles against a waste dump, the initiative is a partnership between the City of Johannesburg and an NGO, the EcoCity Trust. Other partnerships have since developed between the original public/private partnership and various levels of government, the community and activists. “However,” says Sugrue, “the most important partnership is the one between the NGO and the local government. This allows for easy mainstreaming and political support, but the NGO keeps the programme close to the people and the community.” An R11-million grant from the Danish government got the dream going and since then the newer partnerships have been attracted to its vision. Most of these are now local supporters as this is a government driven programme. The City of Johannesburg is fully behind the initiative and national government, through its various programmes, has supported the concept at a very practical level. Although not a donor-driven programme, partnerships have emerged at a smaller scale with the private sector through the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), as well as with grants from Swiss business through the Swiss South African Cooperation. International agencies have provided some seed funding for smaller businesses, like the UNDP Life programme and the Canada Fund for Local Initiatives. The list of partners is long as evidenced at the beginning of this document programme, and every partner is valued. EcoCity takes the form of several innovative projects which all interlink with the long-term goal of creating a self-sufficient and ecologically friendly community. In the short-term, all projects run on the principles of poverty alleviation and job creation. Food security was the paramount challenge and one of the first initiatives was the establishment of six co-ops to grow and sell organic vegetables. Planning posed a second challenge and has seen the installation of environmentally sound water, transport, energy and sanitation pilot management schemes. An EcoVillage showcases better ways of building, managing water and energy and planning development. Transport needs have given rise to the successful Shova Lula bicycle co-operative, which encourages cycling as an alternative way of getting around while making a living from the increased use of cycles. And the Iteke waste recycling co-operative is a path-blazer in wastemanagement. Much of the waste generated in Ivory Park and the surrounding suburbs of Midrand is recyclable and therefore has value. Iteke has created 40 full-time, green jobs and heightened awareness of the need to recycle. The waste recycling scheme operates through a system of buy-back centres to which residents take products for recyling. Simply through their involvement in going to the Buy-Back centre, individuals and groups have a heightened awareness of the environment and of keeping their area clean.
The gains have been small in material terms. No more than 100 jobs have been created, but the philosophical changes are significant. People have received skills and training which many are using to establish decent livelihoods; there is a palpable sense of “let's do it for ourselves” in Ivory Park whereas government is struggling with huge expectations in other parts of the country. Long-term environmental successes are dependent on the economic, social and environmental security of the person, the home and community. Self-reliance, capacity-building, green transformation, equity and public participation are also key principles of the initiative through which EcoCity has been able to orient urban planning and investment towards sustainable development. Key to its future success, says Sugrue, is the full transfer of the initiative to the community in the medium-term. A low skills level is slowly being overturned through training received in the network of co-operatives. Such skills transfer includes administration, computer training and basic financial management. And the core of residents involved with, and who have taken stakes in, various initiatives is growing. “Success is not about profits,” says Sugrue, adding that it must also be tallied by the levels of commitment the community has shown. “And, ultimately, it must be measured by a decent quality of life.” What EcoCity has demonstrated to community members and to politicians is that it is possible to create economic benefits while making a contribution to a more sustainable community. Since the focus is on poverty alleviation through respect for environmental principles, it is able to generate greater community support. Trying to measure EcoCity's success in five, 10 or even 20 years would be unfair. Ultimately, the vision is so big and involves so many mindset, policy and philosophical changes in the way we think about sustainable development, that a fair assessment can only be made in 50 years — the horizon that its architects and owners have set. |
