Time to focus, Danish Environmental Protection Agency

South African – Danish Environmental Co-operation

Time to focus

After five years of policy work, experiments and opinion formation, Danced’s assistance in South Africa is now moving into a phase of implementation. There is a need to make ideas more tangible

South Africa’s efforts to improve the environment are extremely challenging at a time when huge resources are needed to rectify the imbalances left by apartheid.

Seen in this context, the Danish contribution of 500-million rand over seven years is small. The driving force for a better environment has been South Africa’s own desire to reach international standards after many years in isolation. Danced has offered Danish know-how when it was relevant and of possible benefit to the process.

According to most of the South Africans interviewed for this book, Danced’s support seems to have made a difference on four issues: The environmental debate has been strengthened and the public involved in the process. Danced has contributed to coherence in the struggle against pollution. Officials and grassroots activists have received education and support. And Danish funds have made it possible to experiment in areas where tight budgets might otherwise not have allowed it. A brief summary of some of the experiences:

Open debate: South Africa’s new, democratic constitution is a major break with the authoritarian past. The constitution now demands that everybody is given a chance to be heard before parliament passes new legislation. This is quite a undertaking given that 12 million people can’t read and write. But Danish funds have in a number of instances supported public participation, making it possible for at least the most active and directly affected parties to get heard.

The national waste management strategy is a good example. Some of the participants in this process credit Danced for the fact that representatives ranging from industry to the non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and labour unions were able to formulate the actual documents in co-operation with officials and the minister responsible for the strategy. The NGO representative at the negotiations, Jenny Hall, finds that the process helped to remind the bureaucrats of the real world: "We got a total solution rather than just a technical solution," she says.

Coherence: Danced got a rare chance to support a coherent environmental strategy as South Africa started afresh after the transition to democracy in 1994. Outdated policies were abandoned, old legislation revised, and the entire bureaucracy re-organized. Danish support has in some instances made it possible to close possible gaps and thus help to ensure that the process was covered from strategy documents on ministerial desks to the dirty realities on the ground.

Lessons learnt have been shared. The Department of Environment and Tourism is utilizing experience from Danced-funded waste projects in Soweto. The Danced-supported NGOs have been chosen so that they work in the same fields that Danced is supporting at government level.

"Danced has a far more strategic approach than other organizations," says Victor Munnik, who has received support for an environmental magazine aimed at enhancing public debate.

Another veteran on the South African NGO scene, Bobby Peek, has also noticed Danced’s attempts to create coherence: "Danced wants projects to interlink. That is a very important concept which needs to be nurtured," he says.

Dressed to rule: Danced’s most important support of change during its first five years in South Africa is also the least visible. The results are stored in the minds of the many people who have attended courses, been supported in their daily work for the environment, or received valuable inputs before making difficult decisions.

The support to the rebuilt environmental departments in the Gauteng and Mpumalanga provinces is a good example. Young and relatively inexperienced officials were supported by Danish consultants before visiting major industries with an often unpopuar message: in the new South Africa you can no longer pollute as you wish. "We were given courage by international consultants who had tried it all before," says Dee Fischer of the environmental department in Gauteng province.

Funds for experiments: South Africa’s budgets have been very tight since 1994. Re-organizing the apartheid system has been costly and support from donors such as Denmark has in many instances offered the only chance of doing more than the most necessary.

"Our luck is that the money from Danced gives us a chance to experiment," says Les Venter, one of the many officials working with complicated waste problems in the sprawling townships of Soweto outside Johannesburg.

In another corner of Soweto, Lee Boyd remarks that the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry is able to utilize the success of a Danced-funded project which has mobilized the local community. "Other donors are now ready to become involved in new projects. They can see it’s worth it when communities are taking part," she says.

Critics of Danced’s programme accuse it of losing focus here and there in the attempt to cover everything. In some instances the programme is not just wide, but too wide in its ambition to support all levels in the process from overall strategies to minor pilot projects.

Danced has also paid a high price for experience in projects that became focused on development rather than environmental assistance, in which most of the Danced consultants have their expertise. This will invariably happen in poorer areas of South Africa where solving environmental problems is intricately connected to basic development.

Time to show how

The desire to experiment has also meant that tangible results of Danced’s programme are few in some areas. A number of people interviewed for this book see an urgent need to practise the many words in strategies written by South Africa with help from Danced and other donors.

Danced itself has acknowledged the need for concrete steps on the way forward. Major items on the programme for the years to come will be pilot projects that Danced will try to get elevated to a status of national demonstration projects by the responsible ministries. Lessons learnt can then be marketed countrywide. The demonstration projects will be backed by support of the involved ministries. A third component will be financial support for the acquisition of Danish technology when relevant.

The nation’s first wind farm is a good example. South Africa’s huge coal mines and cheap electricity have so far put alternative energy on a back burner while Eskom, the national electricity producer, seems more interested in developing a new nuclear reactor then promoting solar power and wind energy.

A group of business people with a passion for the environment has meanwhile taken it upon itself to build a wind farm outside the village of Darling, north of Cape Town. The ambition is to get the five windmills connected to the national electricity grid through an agreement in terms of which Eskom promises to buy electricity from the mills when winds are strong, and deliver power in return in calm weather.

Danced has supported the decision by Phumzile Mlambo-Ncguka, South Africa’s Minister of Energy and Minerals, to make the wind farm a national demonstration project. In August 2000, the minister and a number of officials visited Denmark to witness the Danish experience with alternative energy. This has since been followed up by direct support to the ministry.

Denmark will in other words help South Africa to ensure that the huge investment in modern legislation and environmental administration leads to real improvements on the ground. An important component will be support to environmental departments in provinces and local municipalities which have had a lot of responsibilities delegated to them but often lack the expertise to handle intricate problems.

South Africa has acknowledged that education is an important and hitherto sometimes disregarded component of development, environmental as well as otherwise. Support to environmental training and education from primary school right through to university level will be another important part of Danced’s efforts in South Africa in the years to come.