Phenyo Mokgothu
North-West University (NWU) academic in the subject group Developmental Studies, Gaopalelwe Mpolokeng says the success of the government’s District Development Model (DDM) lies in cooperation.
Approved by the South African cabinet on 21 August 2019, the DDM is a government approach to improve integrated planning and service delivery across the three spheres of government, with district and metropolitan spaces as focal points of government and private sector investment.
Recently, President Ramaphosa visited the Ngaka Modiri Molema district as part of a series of DDM-led Presidential Izimbizos to meet and engage with South Africans.
According to Gaopalelwe, the vision of the DDM is to accelerate, align and integrate service delivery.
“This vision seems unequivocally developmental. The model seeks to foster seamless development and service delivery through integrated governance – with a specific focus on coordinated budgeting by means of involving all the three spheres of the South African government.”
“The United Nations on the one hand has set a New Urban Agenda (NUA) 2030. The NUA commits to the provision of basic services for all by means of equal access in cleaner and safer cities.
“In the same vain, South Africa have earlier, in response to its urban spatial transformation agenda, set an Integrated Urban Development Framework (IUDF) with similar cross-cutting issues of rural-urban interdependency, urban safety and climate change,’’ adds Gaopalelwe.
He says the two policy frameworks seek to prepare for sustainable urbanisation that will promote urban-rural linkages.
“Looking at the DDM, the 52 districts and metropolitan municipalities as governance and administrative entities indeed include both rural and urban local municipalities.
Therefore, the DDM, if it is necessary, should be able to meet the objects of both the IUDF and NUA, without duplicating or substituting the latter.”
However, Gaopalelwe says there are factors that could pose a serious threat to the DDM, for example government inaction.
“Although government made a commitment to gazet the DDM by 21 March 2021 and develop and adopt 52 district and metropolitan municipalities ‘One Plans’ by March 2022, a year later this has still not been done.
“Furthermore, the World Bank (WB) and International Monetary Fund (IMF) debts are also a cause for concern. In July 2020 South Africa received R70 billion from the IMF – at 1,1% interest and payable in five years – with the additional condition of reducing the budget deficit - to aid the country’s social and economic response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
“The WB also granted South Africa a loan of R11,4 billion in January 2022, with the same conditions as the IMF. This contradicts the spirit and letter of a developmental South Africa,” he adds.
