Sustainable communities in Nelson Mandela Bay Metro
Since the Brundtland commission released its definition of sustainable development, the world has become aware of its own vulnerability in the face of limited natural resources and every increasing pollution of land, water and the atmosphere. Urban populations have increased to the point that now more people live in urban areas than in rural areas and this trend is becoming an established pattern.
The South African government is taking measures to address these challenges through, amongst other activities, the preparation of the National Framework for Sustainable Development (NFSD), a requirement for all nations as a result of the ongoing work of the Commission for Sustainable Development (CSD) of the United Nations and directly because of commitments made in the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation (JPOI) at WSSD. This document, the NFSD, is the responsibility of the National Department of Environment Affairs and Tourism (DEAT) and it currently going though a public participation process; it also needs to be tested at a practical level to give effect to the intentions set out in the strategy.
This is where local government can play an important and vital role: taking the strategies developed by national government and implementing them. What is exciting is that some local governments have already taken up this challenge and have tested out ideas that are fully in line with the NFSD. One of these municipalities is the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality (NMBM), which has developed an urban planning system that complements the integrated, holistic systems approach that the NFSD implicitly promotes. The ongoing research of this small Eastern Cape metropolitan council should provide ample fodder for DEAT to assess its strategy against practical action and thus build on both policy and programmes to provide guidance for other cities and towns in South Africa. The Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan council is literally a trail blazer for a new development paradigm.
Contents:
(Draft) National Framework for Sustainable Development:
Vision: South African aspires to be a sustainable economically prosperous and self reliant nation state that safe guards its democracy by seeing to the fundamental human needs of its people, by managing its limited ecological resources responsibly for current and future generations, and by advancing the efficiency of integrated planning and governance through collaboration nationally, regionally and globally.
The value and impact of the NFSD is suggested as:
To inform improve and guide cross-sectoral policy implementation and integration
To consolidate monitoring and evaluation processes
To inform decision making capacity for spatial development
To inform longer term decision making to improve interaction between government and society
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