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TOWARDS SUSTAINABLE HUMAN DEVELOPMENT IN THE EASTERN CAPE

Greetings South Africans. The Department of Welfare has ensured that government presents the 2000 State of South Africa's Population Report to South Africa's civil society. Today's seminar is a noble approach that enables us to transcend mere presentation of the 2000 Report but to walk each other through the principles, user instructions and above all the strategic planning and service delivery value of the report.

I therefore welcome the community organisations and associations present here today. With the same heartfelt joy, welcome non-governmental organisations, the religious fraternity, organised labour, the business sector and government and its agencies.

Since 1994 our democratic government has been facing challenges that rebate to creation of proper infrastructure that would enable a decent public service to our people. The report explains such matters and how it can be utilised for development planning.

Policy & Programme Implementation

The Rio Declaration on Environment and Development (Rio de Janeiro 1992) brought environmental issues to the fore in the development arena, and since then integration of environmental issues with social and economic development has been promoted at several prominent international forums and the documents that emanated from them. These documents specifically reflected international recognition of the importance of population issues in sustainable development and the need for:

* Integrating demographic factors into environment impact assessments and other planning and decision-making process;

* Taking measures to eradicate poverty, particularly income-generation and employment strategies directed at the rural poor and those living within or at the edge of tragic ecosystems;

* Utilising demographic data to promote sustainable resource management, especially of fragile ecosystems;

* Modifying unsustainable consumption pattern through economic, legislative and administrative measures in order to promote sustainable resource use and to prevent environmental degradation; and

* Implementing policies to address the ecological implications of future changes in population size concentration and distribution, particularly in fragile ecosystem and urban agglomerations.

Population pressure on the environment has in the past been related to population growth and poverty. We have since learned that integrated approaches and strategies on population, production and (consumption) are more useful.

The report is presented in a way that also contributes to demystify population issues to the general public as well as the development planning community. It talks about the activities of government departments and private sector, in a manner that enhances sustainable human development.

The idea to cast the assessment into the format presented here is not entirely original though. The report is modelled on the practice of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) to annually produce a report on the state of world population. The State of World Population 1999 report of the UNFPA was released to coincide with the world population reaching 6 billion, and drew significant public attention on growth issues. The National Population Unit used this surge in public interest to communicate our own major population concerns to the public. Of particular interest was the fact that our population size has started stabilising, due to two reasons. One is a remarkable decline in fertility rates. The other is the devastating impact of HIV/AIDS on merely adding up total numbers though. The reality of HIV/AIDS is that it particularly kills economically active people - those who are supposed to sustain older and younger generations. The implication is that the real population development concern does not relate to an over-exploitation of resources anymore, but to the fact that our resources will become less able to even sustain a smaller population, because of the inability of the society to "harvest" resources. Dependency ratios are to increase, with proportionally fewer healthy and able working people to support the more vulnerable age groups.

This report operationalises the new paradigm for population and development that was introduced by the Reconstruction and Development Programme and the population policy. It propagates an approach that departs from the population-planning paradigm, to a participatory and responsive approach that searched for what is best for sustainable human development. It is not judgmental, but rather seeks to refine strategies and programmes in a manner that will optimise their outcomes for all South Africans. Ironically, the report illustrates that population trends have overtaken even the recent RDP assertions around population growth, although the paradigm remains as relevant as when conceived.

The next three chapters of the report deal with issues that shape our macro level understanding of population in relation to development. These are population trends related to globalisation, sections are firstly descriptive, and secondly explorative of trends that have development recently. It attempts to de-mystify and de-politicise our misunderstanding of these relationships. It also exposes popular misconceptions, often fuelled by underlying racist assumptions. Each chapter contains recommendations on how to mitigate against real threats posed by current trends. Most importantly, however, it illustrates those aspects of current programmes that would enhance sustainable human development.

The second set of chapters deal more directly with issues associated with the study of population, i.e. fertility, the status of women, sexuality and reproductive health. A description and an explanation of South African fertility trends is then linked to the human rights paradigm within which South African population issues has been cast by our constitution and population policy. Specifically noteworthy is the fact that our fertility trends far higher levels of human (and human rights) development than what has actually been achieved.

The focus of the report on population, poverty and vulnerability, leads us correctly into sustainable development.

International consensus about the current development paradigm agrees on sustainable development and improving quality of life as the two key concepts that drive the conceptualisation of human development. These two concepts are concepts are closely linked; also, both are closely related to environmental concerns. The critical sole meaning of sustainable development consists of three elements.

First - Environmental and economic policies, should be entrenched in the theory and practice of economic policy making

Second - Sustainable development emphasises equity are crucial, namely intergenerational equity. Intergenerational equity or equity between groups of people currently living refers to equal access to productive resources as well as to between current and future generations refers to the conservation of the environment for the sustainable and enjoyment of future generations. Environmental costs and benefits should be fairly distributed between generations.

Thirdly - Sustainable development includes a rich description of human welfare as captured in the key concept of quality of life. The term quality of life implies some notion of what it means to live a meaningful life, or the good life. Quality of life indicates a richer definition of human well being than living standard. The latter term expresses measures of income and material and physical well-being. By contrast, quality of life includes psychological, social, cultural and material gains in human life. Universal aims of human development therefore include access to resources, education, freedom from violence, a decent living standard, employment, guaranteed human rights, health, longevity and political freedom. Development can be assessed as successful only when it improves all these aspects of people's lives.

Geographic Information Systems

The report offers indices that will be packaged and tracked into our GIS for use by all in a user-friendly way. Needs identification and prioritisation is a necessity precisely because no country has unlimited resources for social and economic development. We know that because of our backlogs in services we are worst off.

This approach will analyse service delivery and identify social needs also taking into account the development impact in terms of socio-economic aspects as a determinant.

A systematic prioritisation process will be followed based on a generic classification framework. This classification framework provides for the identification of three basic types of needs. Intervention areas and projects that are discussed below, i.e. catalytic projects, supportive projects and identified need projects:

Catalytic projects: These projects are strategic projects aimed primarily at attaining local economic development. These projects should be functionally focused and will represent the primary marketable development drivers in the study area.

Supportive projects: These projects will play a supporting role for both the catalytic as well as the community basic needs projects. An example in this regard could be upgrading of roads.

Identified need projects: The needs identified by the local community in the study area are as important as any other project and thus also require facilitation.

The system will prioritise projects in terms of their strategic value and economic impact. The identified and prioritised needs and projects will be interpreted for conclusion in an inventory. Once the projects have been priorities, action schedules will be prepared. These will detail implementation phasing for implementation by all relevant key stakeholders and role-players the project will move to the Project Implementation and Measuring of success approach for implementation.

This approach will make use of spatial tools to enable the needs identification and project prioritisation to take place. It will also assist with proposed project position capturing. This module will also make use of the web to display the proposed projects compared to social and economic infrastructure needs, strategic value and economic impact.

Conclusion

The priority programmes of the province namely, rural development, public sector transformation, HIV/AIDS and social safety vets can be adequately addressed if our planning information is real-time and usable. This report must help us in that planning process. We also need to manage this information so that it can stay current and useful.

I encourage all stakeholders and departments to ensure that our database is consolidated and used for planning, monitoring and evaluation of our programmes against poverty and ignorance. I thank you all and wish you a fruitful seminar.

Issued by Office of the Premier, Eastern Cape

17 July 2001