Methods of achieving integration in development ...

IDPR, 25 (3) 2003

P. S. ROBINSON, A. L. BROWN, A. E. TODES AND F. KITCHIN

Methods of achieving integration in development planning Early experiences from South African municipalities The paper evaluates the e€ ectiveness of ®ve methods used by municipalities to enhance integration in the context of integrated development planning in South Africa: conceptualisation of the planning and development process within a Local Agenda 21 (LA 21) process; complex issue identi®cation and causal analysis as a basis for formulating strategies and projects; spatial frameworks to guide investment and development; linking of planning to implementation through strategic budgeting and prioritisation; and coordination of the activities of service providers, who provide the main sources of funding and implementation. The paper argues that these approaches should be seen as mutually supporting, and highlights the importance of a strong strategic development framework in achieving integrated development. While several of these methods can be used to enhance integration within a municipality, vertical integration with national and provincial departments remains problematic. Although service provider forums represent a method to achieve better vertical integration, they require stronger support at provincial and national levels.

In conformity with international trends away from ad hoc and hierarchical planning approaches, South Africa’s democratically elected national government has recently introduced integrated planning as the underlying basis of all future development planning. This has been particularly important for local government, the level seen as crucial for e€ ective delivery of services required in the P. S. Robinson is Professor, A. E. Todes is Associate Professor, and F. Kitchin is a researcher, all in the School of Architecture, Planning and Housing, University of Natal, Durban, South Africa. A. L. Brown is Professor in the School of Environmental Planning, Gri th University, Brisbane, Australia. Paper submitted February 2003; paper accepted June 2003.

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reconstruction and development of the new South Africa. The main mechanism for achieving integrated planning and delivery at local government level has taken the form of the Integrated Development Plan (IDP). As Harrison (2001, 190) argues, the move towards IDPs is consistent with international trends and practices where `there does seem to be consensus that integrated planning processes lead . . . to more sustainable and e€ ective outcomes than project-based approaches with ad hoc interventions’. As will be discussed below, legislation de®nes the key aspects and core components that must be present in IDPs, and guidance is available on their preparation. However, integrated development planning presents opportunities for, and indeed requires, the use of a variety of methods to achieve integration throughout the planning and development management process. The purpose of this paper is to present and discuss several such methods that have been used in recently completed IDPs in selected local and district municipalities within the KwaZulu-Natal Province (KZN) of South Africa. Our examples are drawn from municipalities that are predominantly rural, have high levels of poverty, and have large populations dependent on a combination of subsistence agriculture, migrant remittances and grants. Our data consist principally of seven case studies and the authors’ knowledge of other examples of good practice. We have chosen not to review the details of planning within each of the municipalities but, instead, to distill from these and review ®ve broad methods, each of which needs to be explicitly developed to achieve integration in the planning process. Our view is that the planning literature too rarely carries examination of methodological responses that practitioners have embraced at the municipal level to attempt to achieve the objectives of planning legislation, particularly in a context of radical changes in both governance and planning requirements. Although some of these methodological approaches are speci®c to the South African context, and some are approaches adopted from elsewhere, we believe an analysis of them will have relevance to planning elsewhere. Di€ erent aspects of integration were emphasised in the seven municipalities studied. These are listed in Table 1. This paper selects ®ve methods that were adopted in these municipalities to enhance integration in IDPs: . . . . .

conceptualisation of the process within an LA 21 philosophy; issue identi®cation and cross-sector formulation of issues and strategies; explicit use of a spatial development framework; strategic budget allocation and prioritisation; forum to align service providers.

In many respects, the application of these methods in South Africa is a work in progress, experimental even, and we provide commentary on the strengths and weaknesses of the methods in terms of potential to achieve `integration’ in a development planning context. Of course, we are not able to assess them yet in terms of the really important outcomeÐachieving integration in development. In this paper, we use `integration’ in a number of quite complementary senses.

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Table 1 Municipalities studied Area

Type of municipality

Methods of integration discussed

Ezinqoleni

local

issue identi®cation and causal analysis; prioritisation methods

Richmond

local

spatial development framework

Ugu

district

conceptualisation within LA 21 philosophy; issue identi®cation and causal analysis; prioritisation methods

Umzumbe

local

spatial development framework

Uthukela

district

strategic budget allocation; prioritisation

uThungulu

district

strategic budget allocation; prioritisation

Zululand

district

issue identi®cation and causal analysis; prioritisation model; forum for service providers

.

.

.

. . .

A key concern of integrated development planning is to move beyond fragmented projects that do not link to one another, and that do little to address causal issues. Integration, in this sense, refers to the development of plans, programmes and projects that are mutually reinforcing and that combine to address the real strategic issues in an area. This may be called the strategic framework dimension of integration. Achievement of this in practice will require good internal linkages and consistencies within a plan, well-coordinated actions within a local authority, and between local government plans and the actions of other spheres of government. This is often referred to as vertical integration, while horizontal integration refers to coordination between various line function agencies. In another sense, integrated development also refers to understanding cross-cutting issues, such as environment, gender, poverty, etc., which inform the social, economic, biophysical and spatial dimensions of development problems. These cross-cutting issues are fundamental in formulating strategies, programmes and projects. Similarly, spatial integration emphasises networks and linkages between places and areas, the respective role that each plays in the space economy, and relative investment needs. In another sense, integrated development involves explicit attention to the links between planning and implementation. A sixth dimension of integration involves achievement of a sense of consensus among role players about the issues to be addressed, the strategies and priorities.

While we can recognise these di€ erent senses of integration, we would point out that practitioners are unlikely to have similarly dissected the term in the way we have. Their use of the term `integration’ in the methods looked at

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below probably consists of di€ erent sub-sets (but never de®ned) of these many senses. The paper begins by providing a synopsis of integrated development planning in South Africa, and then proceeds to an overview of the ®ve methods of enhancing integration. It considers some of the more generic problems with attempting to achieve integration in IDPs, and concludes with some thoughts on how these methods could be used to improve practice in integrated development planning, not only in South Africa, but also in other countries where this approach to development is in vogue.

The new context for planning and managing development in South Africa APPROACH TO INTEGRATION IN PLANNING

Prior to the election of the ®rst democratic government in South Africa in 1994, planning in South Africa was controlled, hierarchical, overly bureaucratic, and fragmented. In 1994, work began to develop a system of integrated development planning that would provide a coordinated approach to planning and development from all spheres of government. Integrated development planning was de®ned as: A participatory approach to integrate economic, sectoral, spatial, social, institutional, environmental and ®scal strategies in order to support the optimal allocation of scarce resources between sectors and geographical areas and across the population in a manner that provides sustainable growth, equity and the empowerment of the poor and marginalised. (FEDP, 1995, Volume I, cited in Harrison, 2001, 185) This approach heralded a major break with the past, and emphasised planning which was to be `integrated, multifaceted, participatory and long-term’ (FEDP, 1995, Volume II). The introduction of a statutory IDP was an attempt to be both `more comprehensive and more strategic in promoting local development’ (Harrison, 2001, 187). Proponents of this approach, and the relevant legislation, view local government as forming the basis for service delivery and economic development. For the ®rst time the IDP required that budgets be linked to the vision and objectives of the municipality, therefore emphasising ®nancial management and prioritisation of expenditure. While the concept of integrated development planning is not new, and most planners tried to apply the concepts in various projects and plans in the past, this usually failed as the institutional structure to take authority for it, and to implement it, was lacking. The new legislation provides not only for the integration of rural and urban areas, but makes IDPs the centre of municipal planning. The new approach in fact represents a shift from integrated planning to integrated development management. To understand IDPs, it is important to understand the context in which they operate. This includes both the governmental and the planning contexts.

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GOVERNMENTAL CONTEXT

The local government elections in December 2000 heralded the beginning of the ®rst truly democratic local governments, and were based on the newly demarcated municipal boundaries. These included many areas not previously part of local government, in order to ensure a more equitable distribution of resources between better resourced, generally white areas, and poorer, more rural and generally black areas. For the ®rst time there was wall-to-wall local government across the country. The rationalised municipal system reduced the number of municipalities from 843 to 284: six metropolitan areas, 47 district municipalities and 231 local municipalities. Each local municipality, apart from the metropolitan areas, forms part of a district municipality, with each district municipality therefore consisting of about six or seven local municipalities. However, the district municipality does not have legal powers over the local municipality. Government is o cially a three-tier systemÐnational, provincial (for each of the nine provinces) and local. The relationship between local and district municipalities is only now being ®nalised and, in some (but not all) cases, the district municipality does appear to act as a fourth tier of government. The relationship between the local and the district takes a number of di€ erent forms, depending on speci®c circumstances. For example, an examination of one of the district municipalities shows that this role `has changed from one of a regional council with direct responsibility for rural areas, to a district council, operating alongside local municipalities. The model of governance is a cooperative rather than a hierarchical one’ (Todes, 2002a, 10). The district council operates more as a coordinator between local and provincial and national governments. The district municipality has the responsibility for integrated development planning for the whole district, including a framework for IDPs for all local municipalities. The district municipality ensures that `there is a joint district strategy, that the IDPs within the municipality are aligned with each other, and with the district IDP. District municipalities also have responsibility for supporting the planning of local municipalities with limited capacity’ (Todes, 2002a, 14). PLANNING CONTEXT

The 1998 White Paper on Local Government saw integrated development planning as essential for developmental local government. It proposed that IDPs need to: . . . .

align scarce resources around agreed policy objectives and programmes; ensure integration between sectors within local government; enable alignment between national, provincial and local government; ensure transparent interaction between municipalities and residents, making local government accountable.

In terms of the legislation, all municipalities are now required to prepare an IDP to guide their generation and utilisation of resources for a ®ve-year period. There are several key aspects of this approach to development planning:

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. .

. .

there must be substantial community and public participation in the preparation of IDPs; senior political and administrative o cials are now accountable for the preparation of the IDPs, and their performance is assessed on the basis of the success or failure of this in a performance management system on which their employment contracts are based; there must be alignment of IDPs with other levels of government and service providers, and with budgets at all levels of government; local economic development must be emphasised by the municipality.

This means that, for the ®rst time in South Africa’s history, IDPs hold the potential of being a key component in a system of intergovernmental development planning and budgeting, by providing a window on the prioritised needs of communities at grassroots level. In this sense they potentially provide a very useful and structured way of interacting with other spheres of government and with other municipalities. In addition, they provide a wealth of information on the development potentials, constraints and proposals in all the municipalities of the country, which can be utilised to great e€ ect in planning in the two other spheres of government. (MDB, 2002) Properly conceived and implemented, IDPs should enable the prioritisation of community needs and issues, e€ ective delivery through the alignment of projects to budgets at each level of government, and between di€ erent levels of government and service providers, and more e cient and accountable operations through the implementation of the performance-based management system. IDPs consist of a number of core components. These include: . . . .

.

analysis, which provides an assessment of the existing level of development, including identi®cation of communities with no access to basic services; development strategies, which incorporate the municipality’s vision, the council’s development priorities and objectives, and the council’s development strategies; projects to give e€ ect to the development strategies and priorities (only projects linked to the IDP will be funded from municipal sources); integration, which includes a spatial development framework, an integrated ®nancial plan (both capital and operational budget), other integrated sector programmes, a disaster management plan and key performance indicators and performance targets; approval (Robinson and Odendaal, 2002).

In order to assist municipalities to prepare their IDPs, a number of di€ erent measures have been introduced. Apart from training and provincial government support, these include the development of a set of Guide Packs by the Department of Provincial and Local Government which provide a guide to the purpose and nature of IDPs; suggestions on how to draw up an IDP and the

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steps that can be undertaken at each phase of the process; useful types of institutional organisation; approaches to ensure public participation; incorporation of cross-cutting issues; and the implementation of plans. Given the basic context in which IDPs operate, the following section will consider several di€ erent methods for integration that have been adopted by a selection of local and district municipalities in KZN.

Overview of each of the ®ve methods for enhancing integration If integrated development is to be achieved, more attention needs to be given to methods designed explicitly to improve levels of integration in all facets of the planning and development management process. Five key aspects have been selected, in each of which the case studies provided useful methods that have been employed in practice. These are: . . . . .

conceptualisation of the entire planning and development process; identi®cation of priority issues, which forms the basis for subsequent strategies and projects; formulation of a spatial framework to guide investment and other development initiatives; linking of planning to implementation through budgets and prioritisation; coordinating the activities of service providers, who provide the main sources of funding and are the major implementation agents.

CONCEPTUALISATION OF THE PROCESS WITHIN AN LA 21 PHILOSOPHY

Although several municipalities mentioned the importance of sustainability in their plans, the adoption of sustainability and environmental issues as an underlying foundation of the entire process seems to be unique to Ugu district municipality. In this case, the principles of the Local Agenda 21 process (LA 21)1 constituted the foundation of the planning process, and formed the conceptual basis of the IDP, rather than an additional extra or overarching theme. This sustainability framework `stresses that the developmental task of the IDP is to change the direction of local development towards sustainability so that poverty and social justice can be genuinely addressed while the economic base of the district is strengthened’ (Ugu District Municipality, 2002, 2). The sustainability framework is directed to all aspects of the IDP including gender equity, conservation, poverty, agriculture, tourism and economic development, infrastructure development, social services, health and water, and ®nancial and 1 Local Agenda 21 is an environmental initiative in which many municipalities are participating to achieve sustainable development in their local areas. It emphasises the need for integrating environment and development and focuses on adequate shelter, sustainable energy consumption, settlement planning and management and institutional roles of capacity building. LA 21 required municipalities to develop long-term strategic action plans to address priority sustainable development concerns. Like the IDP process, the emphasis is strongly on participation.

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institutional development. Sustainability formed one of the prioritisation criteria, and projects were to be assessed in these terms (Todes, 2002a). The development of an IDP with a strong conceptual basis, such as the sustainability framework developed by Ugu, seems to have been particularly useful in facilitating integration. In Ugu, these ideas were taken through all aspects of the plan, from analysis, through strategies, to programmes and projects. The approach adopted is a highly integrated one, with careful consideration of inter-linkages between economic, social and ecological issues, and the various causal aspects of the issues identi®ed. It can thus be considered a systemic approach. The focus of sustainability thinking here is less on the `green agenda’ issues than on questions related to poverty, and the linkages between poverty, environmental considerations and development processes. (Todes, 2002a, 29) The danger of a strong conceptual base to a plan is that it becomes driven more by planners’ ideas than by a participatory process. In the case of Ugu, the use of sustainability concepts was initially driven by the planners, but it was linked to questions of local signi®cance, and extensively discussed in participatory processes using methods such as photography to make ideas locally meaningful. ISSUE IDENTIFICATION AND CAUSAL ANALYSIS

In conceptualising their IDPs, most municipalities conducted some kind of analysis of the issues and problems facing the area, in the context of their vision. Several municipalities attempted to move away from a sectoral approach to identifying issues by focusing on understanding development problems and solutions in an integrated way. This was supported by the IDP Guide Packs, which encouraged municipalities to undertake a causal analysis and to consider cross-cutting dimensions such as gender, poverty, economic development, environment, institutional and spatial issues in this way. In Ezinqoleni, for example, each priority issue was identi®ed and linked to other issues, sectors, and dimensions, with the causes and e€ ects of each being assessed. This is similar to the approach adopted by Ugu, where issue analysis focused on understanding the development issues in a complex way, through interrogating inter-linked issues, and through causal analysis. These methods assisted the municipalities to establish a realistic list of projects, representing the priorities of the area, rather than an unattainable wish-list. In Zululand, the causal linkages between issues was expressed as follows: In order to address the critical, dual problem of poverty and HIV/AIDS, the municipality needs to facilitate delivery of basic services and strengthen the local economy. This can be achieved most e€ ectively by locating development projects according to the spatial framework and by managing the use of land and the natural environment so as to unlock its economic potential for the people of Zululand. The municipality needs to build capacity among its councillors and o cials in order to lead and manage these development

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initiatives. These tasks need to be undertaken using the best practices available. (Zululand District Municipality, 2002, 70) This integrated statement of the issues provided the foundation for the formulation of strategies in a mutually reinforcing way. Photographs were used to good e€ ect at several stages of the IDP process by Ugu and Ezinqoleni, to assist in drawing attention to issues, and to enable engagement with both communities and stakeholders around sustainability issues. This proved to be very bene®cial particularly with less literate communities, and in demonstrating the cross-sectoral underpinnings of issues. One photograph could be used to deal with a number of issues, and to encourage related `causal’ and correlated connections in community meetings and representative forums (Todes, 2002a). Using photographs made the links between di€ erent issues, and between inland and coastal areas, much easier for participants to visualise and address. This method also proved very e€ ective in communicating LA 21 principles. Planners were able to extend the environmentally focused issues in the photographs to include more pertinent local issues such as the sustainability of roads and buildings. They could thus integrate sustainability and development issues. As the planning process progresses, more photographs can be used, and this can be done through the eyes of the participants themselves, thereby building understanding and consensus at local levels. However, it is important to ensure that the process does not become directed through the selective use of certain photographs. SPATIAL DEVELOPMENT FRAMEWORKS

Spatial plans are among the best-established methods of attempting to achieve integration. Essentially the argument is that gaining agreement on the location of future development, including infrastructure and services, can assist in achieving coordination and synergies between various government departments and agencies. While there has been considerable criticism of the rigid plans of the past, and their weak understanding of social, economic and institutional dynamics (e.g. Gore, 1984), there has been a resurgence in interest internationally in the value of indicative spatial frameworks to support and guide development (Harrison and Todes, 2001; Healey et al, 1997). In the context of IDPs, spatial development frameworks potentially serve important purposes in providing a public forum in which decisions over the location of public sector investment in infrastructure and services can be debated, and in improving coordination through gaining agreement with service providers over where their development is prioritised. Perhaps because of the tendency for some of the earlier IDPs to be more like structure plans than development plans, there has been something of a reaction against spatial planning in the process. As Harrison (2002) notes in a recent evaluation of IDPs, the importance of spatial planning has been marginalised. The Guide Packs are relatively weak in this regard. Nevertheless, some IDPs in KZN are using spatial frameworks as important methods of integration and

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decision making. For example, the Ezinqoleni and Zululand municipalities developed spatial frameworks early in the process, at the time that the analysis was being done. In both cases, the spatial framework was seen as a way of engaging with communities and delivery agencies about which areas should be prioritised for service provision. The intention was to avoid situations where such decisions were made on either an ad hoc basis, or on the basis of political power. Discussions centred on where public investments in infrastructure and services should be focused ®rst, in order to maximise public bene®t. Hence the spatial framework identi®ed various nodes, routes and areas for high-, mediumand low-priority investment. Although this resulted in uncomfortable decisions for some participants, they could accept it in terms of the overall logic. These spatial frameworks were returned to at various stages of the process. uMzumbe’s spatial development framework (SDF) addresses issues that had been derived from a complex analysis, similar to that of Zululand. Poor access and isolation were tackled directly, as these were seen as barriers to economic and social development. It places emphasis on networks and linkages, and develops a spatial awareness; it is linked to the information system and local governance; and it provides a framework for a land use management system that can be linked to environmental issues. In this way the SDF became the strategic framework for area based management. In the case of Richmond, the SDF was also a central determinant of the IDP. However, in order to counter a tendency observed in other plans for the SDF to merely re¯ect the status quo, rather than to move development forward, the SDF provided the basis for a fairly interventionist approach. After analysing the area spatially and identifying where development should not occur, a plan was formulated to allow existing settlements to grow together through intervention, with a new service centre serving several lower order centres. STRATEGIC BUDGET ALLOCATION AND PRIORITISATION MODELS

As indicated earlier, one respect in which IDPs represent a dramatic departure from past planning legislation and practices is in their required linking of planning and budgetary procedures. This seeks to ensure the ®nancial sustainability of plans, to bring about stronger commitment to planning from various government departments and service providers, and to draw up a realistic list of priority projects as opposed to a wish list (a di culty identi®ed by many municipalities). The essence of the problem is the need to shift from strategic to operational levels. Whereas `. . . the IDPs are formulated in a manner that re¯ects cross-sector thinking and integration at all stages, implementation of projects is undertaken by line-function service providers, whose tendency is to operate in a compartmentalized way’ (Robinson, 2002b, 5). Although institutional restructuring is occurring in some municipalities as a way of moving beyond the departmental `silos’, it remains common within municipalities, and is still dominant in provincial and national government. In order for the planning process to be truly integrated, it is important that the selection of projects is directed by the priority issues and associated strategies, and at the same time by the funding available from di€ erent service providers.

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This, in turn, requires that the budgets of local and district municipalities are aligned, and are linked (in terms of timing etc.) to provincial budgets and those of other service providers. Unless projects are included in a municipality’s IDP and its associated budget, funds from service providers cannot be expended. The IDP therefore plays an important role in guiding broad spending directions, and in ensuring more e cient use of limited resources. In this way, the municipal budget should give e€ ect to both the vertical and horizontal senses of integration. According to several municipalities, the Guide Packs provided little guidance on this aspect, or on ®nancial management in general. A fundamental question that underpins the preparation of an annual work programme (or the set of projects to be implemented in the forthcoming year) is that of prioritisation. While ideally prioritisation should ¯ow easily from the strategic development framework, this is often broad, so that choices still need to be made within its parameters. In all the cases studied, the needs of the municipalities exceeded the resources available. This situation necessitated some form of prioritisation in order to identify the most important sectors or programmes (and within these, speci®c projects), to identify the places or areas in which investment should be concentrated ®rst, and to identify projects or activities which logically needed to precede others. Municipalities adopted di€ erent methods for arriving at their priorities. The Zululand district municipality (ZDM) focused on the link between planning and implementation. It devised the Dalisu (meaning `make a plan’) model as a spatial development support system to achieve integrated and coordinated regional development. The model was used to identify the most needy places in terms of the overall development priorities, and generate `what if’ scenarios for service delivery and development. Later the ZDM developed another model to prioritise the IDP projects that were to be funded from its internal sources. This approach to prioritisation was based on the notion that in order to assign a priority to any project, a decision had to be taken in regard to three questions: . . .

How does the sector in which the project belongs rate in relation to other sectors (e.g. is land reform more or less important to the municipality than water supply)? How do the criteria normally used for project prioritisation (developmental, operational, emergency) rate relative to one another? How does a particular project rate against these criteria?

The model was structured around three matrices, each of which enabled the users (the technical planners in the ®rst instance, and later the elected councillors) to insert a set of weightings in response to these questions. The model then sorted and ranked the projects. An over-ride mechanism was available and could be used in the case of a particular political need, or if a project needed to be implemented in tandem with another. The model was also linked to the ZDM’s programme management system, which enabled users to determine how many of the ranked projects could be undertaken according to di€ erent funding and resource scenarios (Robinson, 2002a, 62).

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This model was used in the Zululand District IDP to prioritise a set of 42 projects, from all sectors including `hard’ and `soft’ projects. The modelling process had value for the technical team in sensitising them to di€ erences between their and the councillors’ priorities (with regard to sectors as well as criteria). The councillors, for example, rated electricity far lower than did the technical team. It also had value for the councillors in making them aware of trade-o€ s between sectors and projects. In addition it introduced debate about the value of projects which had a widespread geographical impact (such as the black topping of a strategic section of the main road network) as opposed to projects with a localised impact. This process also proved to be educational for politicians, who now had a basis on which to understand and explain to their constituents how development projects were prioritised. In this way the prioritisation process contributed to building consensus about implementation priorities. A weakness of this type of model is that it concentrates too much attention on individual projects and tends to ignore links between projects and the opportunity to develop synergies. Other municipalities used the strategic framework as a basis for prioritising between projects. For example, in Ugu, each project was rated in terms of speci®c criteria linked to the strategic framework. Similarly, in Ezinqoleni each project was assessed against the objectives and strategies that councillors had agreed on. In Ugu, before any project prioritisation took place, an alignment workshop was held to align the district and local projects in terms of district objectives, strategies and frameworks and to check alignment with the policies and activities of service providers. This resulted in project summary sheets being drawn up, showing issue, strategy, objective and projects. These included indicators for success, responsible agencies, costs and ®nancial sources. Projects were then scored by the representative forum, and then later by all councillors using the following criteria: spatial alignment (link to the spatial framework), sustainability (social, economic, ecological), trigger for development and job creation. This focused decisions on the principles and issues, and avoided competition between politicians ®ghting for projects in their own areas (Todes, 2002a). uThukela broke down each project according to the budgetary impact on all levels of government and each service provider, in order to assist with integration and with overall planning. It identi®ed critical priorities facing the area, and then assessed each of its initial 400 projects against these, in order to arrive at a prioritised list of projects. Its approach in identifying and ranking projects was to unpack the project by identifying the responsible agent at each of its stages, and the stage at which each authority would need to become involved. It was then able to calculate the impact of each project on each service provider, and thus to project the impact of the entire IDP on each service provider. The service providers could then see the budget implications of every project, and of the entire IDP. uThungulu also used strategic budget allocation as the key method of integration of the IDP, shifting emphasis from integrated planning to integrated development management. Not only did this ensure integration by institutional alignment through institutional restructuring by aligning everything in the IDP

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to the portfolio committees of Council, including the team of consultants, but it also focused on integrating planning and budgeting. One way in which the participation and commitment of o cials and councillors was ensured was by producing the budget very early in the planning process. After producing a draft spatial framework on to which local municipalities could link, the uThungulu district municipality identi®ed the functions of the district as being divided into core functions, non-core functions, additional functions, cross-cutting functions and special projects. An intense exercise was then conducted to tie the budget to the functions. In this way the strategic budget allocation became a management tool, and was used to inform local municipalities as to the intentions of the district municipality. Once the strategic allocation for a function had been arrived at, the actual projects were considered. As the district municipality did not actually implement the projects, it informed its constituent local municipalities as to the funds available for certain projects. The local municipalities were then responsible for design and implementation. The outcome of this approach was a short IDP (of only ®ve pages) whereby municipal managers could manage the entire district. SERVICE PROVIDERS’ FORUMS

During the mid-1990s a development institution began to take shape in KwaZulu-Natal which promised to be of considerable signi®cance for integrated development planning throughout South Africa. The establishment of a Service Providers’ forum (SPF), initially at provincial level and later in the regions and districts, represented a breakthrough in translating the principles of integrated development into a workable form. (Robinson, 2002b, 1) The aim of the SPF was to improve coordination among the major service providers and to ®nd synergies by working cooperatively. These were nonstatutory arrangements intended to promote coordination in the delivery of services in the KZN regions (later called districts). By the time the integrated development planning process was fully underway in 2001, the district SPFs had all experienced teething problems, some weathering these better than others. Many had degenerated into little more than `talk-shops’ characterised by inconsistent attendance (Robinson, 2002b, 4). However, the Zululand district provides an example of a concerted e€ ort to revitalise the SPF as an instrument for coordination and alignment during the preparation of its IDP. In response to a strong drive by the municipal sta€ , the SPF meetings during 2001 and 2002 were well attended by relatively senior sta€ from up to 36 di€ erent service providers that were active in Zululand district. Following an assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the earlier experiences of the SPF, the terms of reference were revised to meet IDP requirements and the service providers organised into sector groupings, namely physical infrastructure (water, sanitation, electricity, transport and roads, telecommunications, housing), economic (agriculture, tourism, LED, mining), social (health, education, welfare, police, labour, heritage, documentation and

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information, poverty, gender and HIV/AIDS), land and environment (nature conservation, development planning, land reform) and institutional (funding agencies, training and capacity building). These sector committees were to meet more frequently to generate the information required for the district and local municipal IDPs. Each service provider was given a detailed list of the information to be provided for the analysis, strategies and projects phases of the IDP preparation. This was supplemented by district-wide data-sets that had been generated by the ZDM (e.g. up-to-date population distribution for all settlements in the Zululand district; 20-year population projections based on commonly agreed assumptions; the main elements of the district spatial development framework). The expectation was that with clear direction and a common set of parameters, the service providers would each produce the requisite information for their organisation that would, in turn, become the basis for the IDP and for closer alignment between themselves. In the event the results were disappointing, with less than half able to provide adequate input for the analysis phase and fewer still for the strategies and projects phases. Analysis revealed that it was only those service providers with better internal capacity and previous experience in medium-term planning that were able to engage usefully (Robinson, 2002b). Thus in spite of considerable e€ ort by the district municipality to support and shepherd the SPF, the contribution to improved integration was less than anticipated. Although the Municipal Systems Act had created an institutional environment that was conducive to improved integration among service providers and of their investments with those of the municipalities, achievement of the intended levels of alignment has not yet occurred to any extent. The SPF may be an imperfect institution, but it is the best there is to date and should not be discarded at this early stage. The achievements to date may be small (though some, such as improved mutual understanding and networking, tend to be invisible) but these have been made in the face of a changing socio-political and institutional environment. It was only from 2001 onwards that this environment stabilized after completion of the municipal demarcation and the introduction of the IDP process. Further work is required to ®nd ways to bolster the internal capacity of service providers which are weak (so as to bring most to an equivalent operational level); to work out appropriate roles for all service providers to play in the IDP process (such as pilot projects within districts to deliver a cluster of inter-related projects at a selected place); and to ®nd e€ ective institutional con®gurations, particularly at district level, to cohere their vital contribution to integrated development. (Robinson, 2002b, 18)

Re¯ections on the e€ ectiveness of these methods How do these methods perform in terms of the six dimensions of integration presented in the introduction? The ®rst dimension relates to a strategic

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framework in which plans, programmes and projects are mutually reinforcing and combine to address the real strategic issues in an area. Rauch (2002) and Harrison (2002) highlight the importance of a strategic focus to achieving integration within integrated development planning. Both comment that this remains a weakness of current IDPs, with Rauch (2002) arguing that only a quarter of current IDPs contain a strategic framework. Todes (2002b) suggests that the current Guide Packs do not go far enough in calling for a coherent overall strategy. However, the signi®cance of a strategic focus was evident in all the cases studied. In one case, the strategic focus was greatly enhanced by the use of a strong conceptual base to the plan, and `the strategic directions and guidelines developed in the strategies and project phases were integrated into a set of programmes, and checked to ensure that they were consistent with legislative requirements, with Ugu’s strategic objectives, and with priorities and issues expressed by communities’ (Todes, 2002a, 25). Assessing Ugu’s IDP, Todes (2002a) concludes that it has been successful in achieving integration, and has moved from the fragmented and piecemeal approach of the past, which led to the construction of inappropriate and poorly used facilities. It did this primarily through developing a strong strategic framework and a complex analysis of issues. The approach to the IDP has not only resulted in integrated planning, but work is beginning within the municipality to develop a more integrated institutional framework in which delivery occurs. There is now a consensus on the key issues, the municipal manager’s o ce has been strengthened, and training programmes are occurring to ensure that sustainability principles are taken through in all aspects of work. The second dimension is vertical and horizontal integration. A perennial problem, which has not been solved in the current round of IDPs, is weak participation of sector or line function departments, and their lack of commitment to the process. In reality, while much is expected of local government, it is the least resourced sphere of government, with only 15 per cent of national budgets. While IDPs are intended to guide the work of parastatals, provincial and national government in local areas, local government has little muscle to force compliance with its plans. A major problem in achieving integrated development and service delivery is the role played by service providers. In many cases they have not adapted to the new planning process, while their boundaries are not yet fully aligned with those of the municipality. At present there is very little use of the internet as a way of disseminating information and improving communicationÐfar more could be done in this regard. The limits of current systems of vertical integration are recognised by national government, and various methods are being explored to improve linkages (Harrison, 2002). Problems in achieving vertical integration undermine attempts to achieve integration on the ground. Thus for example, one municipality’s ®ve-year action plan included projects way beyond the capacity of local budgets. If not all of these projects are implemented, or projects are chosen by service providers according to their own criteria, then development on the ground may not be as

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integrated as intended. The strategic budgeting approach provides an alternative in linking the plan tightly to locally funded budgets, but does not necessarily give guidance to service providers. Methods to enhance the cross-cutting sense of integration were best demonstrated by the conceptualisation of some IDPs within an LA 21 philosophy, and by complex issue analysis that focused attention on causal linkages. This paper has not considered the way in which speci®c cross-cutting issues, such as economic development, are incorporated in the various plans. However, it should be noted that many plans re¯ect a weak understanding of local economies, and consequently develop poorly based local economic development programmes. In their assessment of municipal IDPs, the Municipal Demarcation Board found that `local economic development proposals were in many instances simply an agglomeration of projects rather than a sound economic recovery strategy which is what most of them require. Therefore, in the absence of such plans, economic themes that are in vogue, such as tourism and hydroponics become the mainstay of the economic documents’ (MDB, 2002, 9). Clearly, IDPs need to include a strong economic development component, and spatial development frameworks ought to contain a better understanding of economic dynamics. Spatial integration was fairly widely achieved in the IDPs studied, with examples of ways in which an SDF could be used to provide location criteria for service providers and for area based management. However, it remains to be seen whether these plans will be used by service providers to coordinate their activities and thereby improve horizontal integration. Weak linkages between planning and implementation have negated many attempts at achieving integrated development. In a study of IDPs in other municipalities, the Municipal Demarcation Board reported on the absence of a clear picture of the institutional requirements for implementation, and noted that `very few municipalities have identi®ed how their organisations are going to implement the projects identi®ed in the IDPs’. The `break in the link between project funding and implementation is likely to delay developments in municipalities when it is realized that the crucial need to manage development has not been adequately addressed’ (MDB, 2002, 9). Methods discussed above go some way to avoid this problem. For example, the strategic budget allocation approach ensures that the funds are available ®rst, and identi®es responsibility for development and implementation. One of the problems of the strategic budget allocation approach is that planners are usually poorly trained in strategic budgeting and this requires attention. The prioritisation approach and the service providers’ forum also hold the promise of forging more e€ ective links between plans and their implementation. A potential limitation of both prioritisation models and strategic budgeting is that they weaken the e€ ect of participatory processes by concentrating decision making in the hands of councillors, who in turn tend to revert to project-byproject decisions, thus negating strategic planning. These methods are most usefully used in a context where a strong strategic framework has been developed. As Rauch (2002) argues, strategic objectives should be the primary

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driver for fund allocation. These methods are perhaps most useful in dealing with projects of a similar type, once overall strategic priorities have been agreed on. In regard to consensus building, all of the integrative methods discussed in this paper have been used by respective municipalities to establish a common ground and a sense of unity of purpose among di€ erent stakeholders. Before drawing some conclusions, a cautionary note is needed on the limits of integration. Integration is not necessarily a holy grail in its own right. It is quite possible for a plan to be integrated, but not developmental in other respects, for instance, not based on popular participation, or promoting unsustainable development, or failing to address cross-cutting issues. The nature of integration, and the level at which integration occurred, varied, with some municipalities concentrating on integration at project level, while others were more concerned with integrating goals and strategies across the area, and aligning them to the common vision. Representatives of the municipalities studied in this paper felt that integration was often overemphasised in an institutional sense, yet overlooked at the primary point of rolling out projects in an integrated manner. This needs to be a strategic objective. It seems important that integrated `delivery’ and integrated `strategies’ should to be conceptually distinguished.

Conclusions The introduction of legislated integrated development planning has heralded a new era for South African planning. For the ®rst time there is a genuine directed attempt to bring service providers and local municipalities together to facilitate delivery and development. However, the implementation of these plans is in its very early stages, and it is too early to see to what extent they will be successful in enhancing delivery and integration of projects on the ground. There are still critical problem areas that need to be addressed, particularly the unresolved question of vertical integration. There are also questions as to whether integrated development planning, as currently conceived, calls for, and assumes, far greater capacity and resources than are likely to be available even in the medium termÐand in this sense whether it is really appropriate to the context. Notwithstanding these problems, several authors conclude that it is beginning to result in a shift in priorities, and a move towards a more integrated approach to development (Harrison, 2002; Todes, 2002b; Rauch, 2002). Our paper has highlighted some of the methods that have been used within the context of integrated planning. It has pointed to the signi®cance of a strategic approach and a strong conceptual basis as being important in achieving an integrated plan. In this regard, sustainable development is a potentially important underlying foundation of integrated development planning. It can be seen as a concept which involves a balance between community development, economic and environmental/ecological ®elds. The vision is thus the advance of the whole development sphere. The development of complex issue analysis, which considers the causal

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underpinnings and develops solutions to address causes, is also a very useful way of developing an integrated understanding of development problems, and deriving appropriate solutions. It is, however, crucial that these analyses, the conceptual base and strategic focus of the plan, are based on engagement with communities and real community needs: they cannot simply be imposed by planners. Other elements of the methods discussed in this paper are also of use, provided they are integrally linked to a broader strategic framework. These include the use of a spatial framework that is cognisant of economic and social dynamics, and that is indicative rather than prescriptive. Similarly, a `strategically compiled budget’, based on the development of a strategy, `unpacked’ into projects, is also of potential signi®cance. The prioritisation of these projects needs to re¯ect the municipality’s strategic focus as well as consensus among role players as to where and into what type of projects investment is to be directed. There are many contingent factors that a€ ect the delivery of identi®ed priorities (for example, funding from other government departments), and it is therefore essential to integrated and e€ ective planning and delivery that these be aligned in terms of budget cycles and overall planning. In this regard, an e€ ective service providers’ forum could play a signi®cant institutional role in ensuring that implementation occurs and does so in a more integrated way than at presentÐprovided that it is more strongly supported by departments and agencies at provincial and national levels. All of these approaches depend on the use of appropriate methods of achieving community participation and stakeholder engagement. A key element is the generation of a su cient consensus within and outside of bureaucracies regarding the direction of development. The classic problem of `plans for planners’ needs to be avoided. REFERENCES EZINQOLENI MUNCIPALITY (2002), Ezinqoleni Municipality Integrated Development Plan, unpublished report. GORE, C. (1984), Regions in Question, London, Methuen. FEDP (FORUM FOR EFFECTIVE PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT) (1995), Documentation, Volumes I and II. HARRISON, P. (2001), `The genealogy of South Africa’s Integrated Development Plan’, Third World Planning Review, 23, 175±92. HARRISON, P. (2002), Towards integrated inter-governmental planning in South Africa: the IDP as a building block, report to the Department of Provincial and Local Government and Municipal Demarcation Board. HARRISON, P., and TODES, A. (2001), `The use of spatial frameworks in regional development in South Africa’, Regional Studies, 35, 65±85.

HEALEY, P., KHAKHEE, A., MOTTE, A. and NEEDHAM, B. (eds) (1997), Making Strategic Spatial Plans: Innovation in Europe, London, UCL Press. MDB (MUNICIPAL DEMARCATION BOARD) (2002), The Integrated Development Planning Process, unpublished report. RAUCH, T. (2002), Principles of Integrated Development Planning and Assessment of the Process 2001±2, report to the Department of Provincial and Local Government and GTZ. RICHMOND LOCAL MUNICIPALITY (2002), Richmond Integrated Development Plan, unpublished report. ROBINSON, P. S. (2002a), `Strategic Planning methods in urban and regional development’, unpublished manuscript. ROBINSON, P. S. (2002b), `The Service Providers ForumÐa vital institution for inte-

INTEGRATION IN DEVELOPMENT PLANNING grated development’, Town and Regional Planning, 46 (forthcoming). ROBINSON, P. S. and ODENDAAL, N. (2002), `Planning practice in South Africa’, ISoCaRPÐInternational manual of planning practiceÐ2002, The Hague, ISoCaRP. TODES, A. (2002a), Governance and Sustainability: An Assessment of the Ugu District Integrated Development Plan, report to the United Nations Development Programme in Local Pathway to Sustainable Development in South Africa, presented at the World Summit on Sustainable Development. TODES, A. (2002b), IDP Assessment Report KwaZulu-Natal: Ezinqoleni, Ugu and Hibiscus Coast Municipalities, report to the Department of Provincial and Local Government and GTZ.

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UGU DISTRICT MUNICIPALITY (2002), Ugu Integrated Development Plan: An Overview, unpublished report. UMZUMBE MUNICIPALITY AND THE PLANNING INITIATIVE TEAM (2002), uMzumbe Integrated Development Plan, unpublished report. UTHUKELA MUNICIPALITY (2002), uThukela Integrated Development Plan, unpublished report. UTHUNGULU MUNCIPALITY (2002), uThungulu Integrated Development Plan, unpublished report. ZULULAND DISTRICT MUNICIPALITY (2002), Zululand Integrated Development Plan, unpublished report.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This paper grew out of case studies of IDP preparation in the following municipalities: Ezonqoleni, Richmond, Ugu, uMzumbe, uThekela, uThungulu, Zululand. The contributions by all participants in a workshop held in Durban in September 2002 is gratefully acknowledged. The workshop formed part of an IDP Education Australia institutional links programme funded by AusAID. The assistance of David Monson is acknowledged.

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