South African – Danish Environmental Co-operation
A mountain of challenges
Danced’s programme in South Africa is designed to follow a plan from lofty ideals on the desks of ministers to the dirty realities in the townships, all in a country marked by its complex history
When school is over for the day, 15-year old Daniel Lesupi climbs Goudkoppies on the edge of Soweto outside Johannesburg. Formerly a mine dump, built from the detritus of gold digging and the creation of the wealth of the nation, Goudkoppies is now home to one of the largest garbage dumps in South Africa. To Daniel and hundreds of others, the hill has remained a gold mine. Some are collecting waste for recycling, others eat directly from the leftovers of others.
The battle for the best garbage is tough. The most courageous scavengers scale the stinking deliveries just as the trucks dump them. In one continuous motion, the garbage flows from the hatch and under the wave of people who have a few minutes to comb the load for anything of value. The slow ones must jump to avoid being crushed by the bulldozers flattening the top of the ever-growing hill.
Daniel’s speciality is cans that he sells for recycling in Soweto. On a good day he can make 10 rands in three hours. On a bad day it takes five.
"It’s tough at home. We often don’t have any food," says Daniel.
Apartheid made one man’s waste into a small boy’s gold. And since Danced’s first consultants landed in Johannesburg in 1994, they have constantly been confronted by the enormous dilemmas created by this gap.
Most of the country’s environmental challenges demand solutions based on an intricate understanding of the nation’s political and historical baggage. Many of Danced’s projects have run into unexpected reactions when they attempted to change the state of affairs.
Goudkoppies is instructive in this regard. When the local environmental authorities asked a consultant to analyze the waste for a feasibility study on organized recycling, he was chased away with a gun. The self-appointed owners of Goudkoppies’ wealth wouldn’t let him anywhere near their gold.
A wide, wide context
Any attempt to improve South Africa’s environment demands an understanding of a wide context. Danced got a unique chance to learn by being ready for action less than a year after Nelson Mandela came into power in 1994.
The environmental authorities were still busy revising policies to make environmentalism mean more than being kind to endangered animals. In ministries and departments, politicians and officials were writing new legislation and passing it into law.
To cope with this huge challenge, South Africa welcomed assistance from Danced and other international donors. This led to the South Africans and Danes influencing one another. Danced helped define environmental policies while South Africa’s own priorities were clearly reflected in Danced’s programme, finalized in 1998. The assistance for the seven years from 1995 to 2002 will total almost R500 million.
The programme contains four main themes:
 | Urban environmental management; |
| Industrial pollution; |
| Sustainable energy; and |
| Bio-diversity and sustainable use of natural resources. |
These were chosen as areas in which Denmark could offer expertise not available in South Africa. But Danced was also guided by a desire to offer support in fields which appeared under funded by the government and other donors. Sustainable energy is a good example of both these criteria.
From top to bottom
By being part of the process from the outset, Danced achieved coherence in its programme. After initially giving support to policy frameworks and the involved ministries and departments, Danced would follow up with projects in the field. Here again, waste management is a good example of the support rendered at four levels.
The grand plan: Danced’s consultants helped writing the National Waste Management Strategy and an action plan meant to clean out in all corners of the country (see "Visions with a price", page 42). This strategy was a first for South Africa and extremely ambitious, as it attempted to address two sets of outdated thinking in one go. Apartheid had spent huge amounts cleaning formerly white suburbs while the townships were allowed to deteriorate. The imbalance had to be addressed without lowering standards. The other challenge was to minimize the total amount of waste. The old South Africa was almost exclusively concerned about disposing of waste and pollution. With new policies, South Africa is now trying to minimize the waste at a much earlier stage. Cleaner technology in industry (see "With stick and support", page 56) and increased recycling are two of these strategies.
More control: This grand plan can only be implemented with enough resources to control it. This is mainly the responsibility of South Africa’s nine provinces. Danced thus chose to support the environmental departments in two provinces: Gauteng, in which are situated the industrial and political powerhouses of Johannesburg and Pretoria, and the more rural Mpumalanga (see "Dressed to rule", page 65). Industry had to get used to efficient control. And often young officials in rapidly expanding environmental departments needed education and self-confidence to enforce the new policies.
Dirty hands: Following the support at departmental desks, Danced has dispatched consultants to areas where pollution and waste really hurt. Various projects have tried to find efficient ways to clean up townships where waste problems are closely connected to history (see "Waste watchers", page 46, and "Guts from the gutters", page 51). In industry, the recipe for an improved environment is cleaner technology. Large companies in the fish, metal finishing and textile industries have been targeted with programmes teaching them to limit their consumption of resources (see "With stick and support", page 56).
Support to the grass roots: In Denmark, much environmental awareness and subsequent legislation are a result of pressure from grass root organizations. Any administration need someone to keep it on its toes. For this reason Danced has chosen to supplement its support of "official" South Africa with money to non-governmental organizations, the NGOs (see "All in the neighbourhood", page 30, and see "Dilemmas in print", page 60). Since 1994, NGOs have mostly had a tough time in South Africa. Many of their best activists took jobs in the public sector and elsewhere after the fall of apartheid, and many donors chose to re-direct their funding to the government. But some of the NGOs are now getting their funding back as donors realise the need for watch dogs.
None of this is easy. The grand plans have often been tough to execute as the economy hasn’t grown as well as expected. The transition from apartheid still creates political turbulence and constant, often frustrating, adjustments of priorities. The administration is hit by an enormous turnover of staff as the supply of skilled black people is still smaller than the demand.
Not all of Danced’s projects have worked as planned. Part of the reason for this has been a deliberate decision to support experiments that explore new methods through pilot and demonstration projects. One example is the support of teachers in environmental learning at a time when the education system is going through turbulent changes (see "Learning for life", page 69).
Environment and development
Much of South Africa’s environmental debate since 1994 has centred around the appropriate balance between conservation – most noticeably in the national parks – and the battle against pollution. Environmentalists often distinguish between "green" conservation projects and "brown" projects targeting pollution. On a more philosophical level, it’s a question of whether to see nature or man as the prime focus of efforts to improve the environment.
Prior to 1994, South Africa’s focus was on conservation. Since then, the battle against pollution and for improved living conditions for the population has received more attention. Danced has funded both schools of thought. Support of South Africa’s implementation of the so-called Washington convention’s protection of endangered animals and plants is a classic green project while the strategy for waste management is mainly implemented through brown projects.
Some of the most interesting Danced-funded projects try to bridge the two ways of thinking. One example is so-called social ecology in national parks. The nature reserves were for decades fighting off their indigenous neighbours who had been forcibly removed to make space for wild animals. The social ecology project is attempting to involve the neighbours in the running of the parks. The main aim is to create enough sympathy for the parks to secure their future. But an added benefit of the project is development in local communities (see "Breaking down the fences", page 36).
Status for Danced support
Urban environmental management: More than 50 per cent of South Africa’s population live in urban environments, and migration from poor rural communities to the cities is expected to increase by five percent annually. As most economic growth will also happen in the cities, there is a strong need for a double effort for the environment: sins of the past must be rectified, damage from further growth must be prevented.
South Africa’s cities are living – and sometimes dying – testimonies of a past when very few resources were spent in poor neighbourhoods. They are often burdened by overpopulation and waste. Many industrial areas were placed as far as possible from areas reserved for whites which often meant in the backyards of the homes of the black majority.
The Department of Housing’s Urban Development Framework from 1997 speaks of urban settlements which will be "environmentally sustainable, marked by a balance between quality-built environment and open space".
The municipalities have been encouraged to establish local Agenda 21 programmes to further the visions of the United Nations summit on the environment in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. Sustainable use of resources, environmental education in schools and sensitive planning are examples of this agenda.
Despite all this, South Africa has no overall strategy for urban environmental management. This has made it difficult for Danced to carry out its ambition of supporting an entire sector from the highest political circles right through to projects in the field. The support for urban environmental management has mainly targeted projects in which local authorities and NGOs work to improve the environment in the black townships.
The co-operation with local authorities in Midrand, half-way between Pretoria and Johannesburg, on a "Green City Vision", and an urban environment project in South Africa’s largest cluster of townships in the area called the Southwestern Townships (Soweto) are examples of projects involving local authorities (see "Waste watchers", page 56). The co-operation with NGOs has included sustainable energy and environment-friendly housing for the poor and lobbying for a cleaner environment (see "Progress through patience", page 73).
Industrial pollution: This theme includes industrial pollution as well as domestic waste. As mentioned earlier, the efforts made here are a good example of Danced’s attempt to follow a problem from planning to solution.
In the early 1990s, South Africa still believed in nature’s ability to deliver never-ending resources and absorb any pollution; all very similar to the school of thought that right up to the 1980s made Europe and the USA build taller chimneys in a futile attempt to combat emissions. Inside industries, apartheid’s lack of respect for the black work force often led to a horrific working environment.
Danced’s support is hailed as a major contribution to a process which secured a maximum of public participation in the writing of South Africa’s national waste management strategy. Since then, South Africa and Danced have moved on to pilot and demonstration projects, at times severely hampered by lack of money. In early 2001, industry was complaining that the necessary laws were not yet passed, including emission standards. It was therefore still impossible for many industries industry to determine which new equipment would be needed.
Sustainable energy: South Africa has some of the lowest electricity prices in the world due to its plentiful coal mines. A politically-motivated decision to keep long-distance haulage affordable has kept the prices of diesel and petrol comparatively low. This has all contributed to place South Africa in the top 10 energy-consuming countries of the world, measured as energy consumption relative to GNP.
Cheap oil and electricity have not exactly encouraged research and experiments in alternative energy, even though South Africa is blessed with wind, water and sun in abundance. Danced has pointed to success stories in Denmark where more than 10 percent of all electricity now comes from windmills. Denmark has promised to support a wind farm north of Cape Town which has been awarded status as a national demonstration project.
The Department of Energy and Minerals has however mainly considered alternative energy as a possibility for communities outside the national electricity grid. Some rural communities have therefore refused to buy into ideas of alternative energy, fearing that these would keep them off the grid forever and deny them development.
Bio-diversity and sustainable use of natural resources: South Africa has impressive natural resources, but also a definite need to protect them more vigorously. Danced has supported in three fields:
Biological diversity: South Africa has a variety of plants and animals seldom found elsewhere. Some of the oldest national parks in the world have large programmes for protection of endangered animals. But until recently there was no national policy aimed at protecting this biological diversity. As an example, the international convention prohibiting trade in endangered animals and plants was left in the hands of the provinces, which tackled the issue with varying enthusiasm.
Danced has supported the Department of Environment and Tourism’s work on a new national policy to protect bio-diversity. This has been followed up by projects in the field which have, among other issues, addressed the trade in endangered animals.
Forests: Danced has at various levels supported the conservation of South Africa’s few remaining natural forests. In 1995, a former deputy director from the Danish directorate of forests and nature helped write the national strategy which, again supported by Danced, was developed into new legislation. On the ground Danced has supported a project in which residents in the Bushbuckridge area plant trees and help protect existing forests. The idea is to involve the local population in the running of the forests rather than to regard them as enemies of conservation, which has often been the norm.
The lessons learnt will now be used in a new project in the Dukuduku forest in KwaZulu-Natal Province where a confrontation between residents and conservation is taking place.
Water: Despite regular floods in some parts of the country, water supply and access to clean water has become a major issue in South Africa. This was again emphazised in late 2000 when a cholera epidemic broke out, spread by contaminated water used for drinking. Danced has supported the efforts to protect water resources and curb pollution in the townships, both as a national strategy and at a practical level in all nine provinces (see "Guts from the gutters", page 51). Danced is further involved in three of a total of 17 new water management authorities, responsible for protection of water resources in as many major catchment areas in South Africa.