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Halala Awards - an overview

The finalists for the awards include hard-nosed, risk-taking property developers, die-hard social activists, social entrepreneurs who have started food gardens in corners of city parks, and a police captain who has started a burgeoning soccer club that keeps 200 inner-city kids off the streets. They all mingle comfortably, exchanging e-mail addresses and war stories.

They do so because they recognise that their respective ventures need each other — property development in the inner city will not succeed in a devastated environment devoid of basic public services; communities will not cohere without decent shelter, children cannot find recreation in blighted parks populated by drug dealers.
In their own diverse ways all of these citizens contribute to the success of the projects of the others, and, in the process, build communities. In a city notoriously associated with crime, with urban blight, with social conflict, here we have a clear instance of social capital in action. Halala!
The policy wonk in me was struck by another unique aspect of the event. This was the presence of a number of city officials, including several councillors and naturally, staff members of the JDA. They too mingled easily with their fellow Joburgers, confident of their productive relationship with each other. And so they should.
The day opened with a presentation of the JDA's activities in the inner city prepared by two sets of independent consultants. It should be compulsory reading for every local and national government official. The JDA is a municipal entity that invests in the built environment of Johannesburg. It acts as a catalyst for regeneration by investing public funds in the creation of infrastructure.
While, in line with mayoral committee priorities, it has focused on the development of the inner city, its interventions increasingly extend into disadvantaged township areas as well. It's also the agency that has put in place the physical infrastructure for the Bus Rapid Transit system.
Between 2001 and last year, the JDA invested about Rl.lbn in 10 inner city projects in areas including Yeoville, Berea, Hillbrow, Braamfontein, Newtown and the Greater Ellis Park precinct.
Its investments include the building of transport and other basic infrastructure as well as public environment upgrades including paving, street lighting, parks and public art.
The consultants estimate that the JDA's investment in the inner city has catalysed private sector property purchases totalling between R14bn and RI7bn and refurbishments costing R8bn-10bn.
A survey of private sector investors in the inner city rates urban renewal interventions as far and away the most important driver of private sector investment, significantly higher than financial incentives.
They rate poor service delivery — that is, the possibility that water, electricity and other basic services will not be delivered to their newly built projects ¬ - as the key constraint to investment, with crime a distant second.
This interplay between public sector and private sector investment did not occur "naturally". It happened because, in identifying investment activities, the JDA consults closely with the businesses and communities in the areas in which it has invested.
This partly occurs through formal mechanisms such as the City Improvement Districts, and at times in less formal consultations. But the key is that the JDA has recognised that if the private sector is to invest, then it is necessary for the immediate community be given the opportunity to identify the public inputs that it requires.
Compare this with national government and national business associations. The president has never met with Business Leadership SA, the organisation representing SA's largest corporations. He has recently met for the first time with Business Unity SA, the most broadly representative organisation of South African business.
Our recent industrial policy document demonstrates no evidence of consultation with business in any shape or form.
It often appears that the most energetic exchanges between national government and business concern rigged tender awards, dubious black economic empowerment deals and meetings with subsidy-seeking lobbies. But until government recognises that a competitive nation requires competitive businesses, which in turn requires a government willing to engage openly and closely with business, all its elevated councils, commissions and policy documents will continue running into the sand.
Central government and local governments elsewhere should look carefully at what is going on under their very noses. They just might learn something.
- Lewis is a professor at the Gordon Institute of Business Science and a director of the JDA.