Presentation to the Board of the American Planning Association
By SAPI President, Yusuf Patel, 13 April 2013
President of the American Planning Association, Mitchell Silver
APA Board members
It can be immensely fulfilling and synergistic when networks of planners engaged in a common cause reach out across far away lands.
The address by your CEO, Paul Farmer, at the Planning Africa conference in Durban last year was extremely well received. His message about the value of planning ought to inspire Planners globally to step up efforts in building community resilience across our diverse nations and varying circumstances.
Today, as a representative of the South African Planning Institute (SAPI) which also serves as the secretariat for the African Planning Association, I would like to thank the Board of the American Planning Association for your gracious invitation and opportunity to reciprocate greetings and thoughts from African planners on the occasion of your Board meeting preceding the 105th American National Planning Conference.
I do not speak with any mandate from African planners in general but do believe that it is important to leave you with a few messages. There are four issues I would like to cover. First of all, there is the common task that we have of placing Planning at the centre of community life and at the centre of city governance and national policies. Secondly, I would like to share the outcomes of research undertaken towards publication of the first ever African Planning Report. Thirdly, I would like to inform you about the progress we are making in South Africa. Finally, there are some ideas to discuss further regarding joint initiatives between our organizations.
With regard to the first matter, the current global context is one of unprecedented economic crisis, environmental stress, and degradation of good governance across public and private sectors.
Under these conditions communities are facing increasing pressures and require the inspiration, tools and support that Planners ought to be providing in building a wholistic resilience focused on sustainable development. We should be talking globally as planners about the role we can play and how we can support resilience and community development. The spaces and places we help facilitate are crucial to integrated life experience which requires us to operate and coordinate at all scales including regional, local, neighborhood; and across multidisciplinary fields including economic, social, spatial, environmental.
Planning for the public good has to be reinvigorated globally through a widespread campaign led by Planners and the American Planning Association can play an important role in this regard. The Association already does important work in promoting the value of planning and the planning profession globally. The capacity and size of your Association with its 40000 members is a staggering number for many smaller countries to contemplate. It does serve as a benchmark and inspiration to build the required ratio of urban and community planning capability. In this current global context there is plenty that your Association has to offer by way of experience and tools for mainstreaming city planning and community development.
There are exciting times ahead for Planning in Africa as the continent is growing and advancing at a rapid pace with more and more countries adopting institutional reform processes. African planners are also consolidating their continental networks through the African Planning Association which now has 26 participating countries. The Association commissioned a research report recently.
The findings indicate an incredible amount of good practice and innovation that is taking place across the continent. This includes some examples such as the sustainable cities project in Nigeria, community peer review in Ghana, community-student studio project in Malawi, declaration of special planning areas in Uganda, urban and township renewal projects in South Africa, coping with Rapid urbanisation project in Lesotho, and a state of the art modern digital cadastre in the island state of Mauritius.
Enormous challenges remain. The draft report states that: “Africa is experiencing significant economic growth and associated demographic changes, including rising urbanisation without the requisite infrastructure, spatial and settlement planning. The proportion of urban residents living in informal settlements is higher in Africa, as a region, than any other part of the world (UNDP, 2012). Inhabitants of informal settlements often have inadequate access to basic utility services, lack of security of tenure, and experience precarious environmental, health and slum conditions.
The current economic growth and urbanisation in Africa should be guided by appropriate planning and land use management at continental, regional, national, sub-national, and local scales. This is to ensure that the existing and new towns, cities and rural areas across the continent are functional and effective in terms of meeting the basic needs of all its inhabitants; and to ensure that economic and social growth are inclusive. Key questions considered by this African Planning Report include the following: what role is planning playing at this juncture; what is the capacity across the continent for forward development, spatial planning and land use management; and how effective is planning?”
The report concludes that Planning capacity in terms of Planning Education, Number of Professional and Technical Planners, and Continuing Professional Development has to receive top priority. Many countries on the continent have very low ratios of planners to population size. For example, Burkina Faso has 14 accredited planners for a population of 14 million. Ghana has 160 planners for a population of 25 million. Zambia has 60 planners for 13,5 million people. Nigeria and South Africa have the highest number of planners, 2333 and 1690 respectively, but even this is not near enough to deal with the scale of development required.
In South Africa, integrated development planning has been pioneered in many ways partly as a Local Agenda 21 instrument and linked to the new local government system that was formally introduced in 2000. Now Planning is becoming a major priority across government. A National Planning Commission was established and has developed a National Development Plan with strong focus on sustainable human settlements. This issue remains a fundamental change priority as we continue to be plagued by the impact of apartheid spatial planning.
As a professional body the South African Planning Institute (SAPI) is trying to play its role with the limited resources available. Our vision is that of sustainable spatial development in South Africa and across the Continent. The elements of this vision include:
– Effective macro-organization of space and land use.
– Inclusive economic growth and sustainable ecology
– Safe and healthy communities.
– Harmonious integration of communities across race and class.
– Inspiring places – places that people are proud to live in
We have three mission directed strategies to realize this vision:
– Be a voice for good planning in society
– Mobilize communities to drive improvement of local living spaces
– Build capacity of the profession and grow planning skills
SAPI is already undertaking a number of actions in this regard:
1. We celebrate world town planning Day each year with various activities in each of our regions. These events are aimed at building awareness about planning and the role of planners
2. We participate in policy making processes and make submissions into government processes including engagement with the National Planning Commission.
3. We launched the Know your block campaign to encourage South Africans to walk their neighborhoods again, break down the walls and open up the streets. This campaign is aimed at involving communities in learning about planning.
4. We delivered another world class Planning Africa event that really puts the planning fraternity in the spotlight and on the map. We hope to do the next one with ISOCARP as we bid to host their annual conference in South Africa next year.
5. We engage with key stakeholders including the planning regulatory body, SACPLAN, and municipalities to promote and implement professionalisation of Planning.
6. We provide information and encourage students and young planners through student awards and knowledge sharing opportunities. We are creating an employment portal for young planners to promote their skills and experience to prospective employers.
7. We have undertaken a successful series of practical skills master classes across all nine provinces where over 250 planners have been trained over the past two years. This programme is going to be upscaled over the next two years with partnerships that are been discussed with various stakeholders.
8. We are building various international linkages and knowledge platforms.
In closing I would like to get to the fourth point that deals with potential joint programmes between our organizations. There are three specific areas for collaboration that I would like to invite your Board to explore with us:
1. Strengthening the role and status of planning especially in developing countries through a global planning campaign utilizing various existing platforms;
2. Growing planning skills and capacity in Africa; and
3. Organizational strengthening of the African Planning Association and SAPI as professional bodies.
I trust that we will be able to grow relations and find the energy and time to explore these areas of collaboration.
Thank you again for this interaction opportunity and I look forward to your national conference.