The Karoo dorp of Beaufort West is a curious mix. It is the birthplace of heart surgeon Christiaan Barnard and has a museum in his honour. It is the place where anti-apartheid activists downed a helicopter in the 1980s and is currently a pit stop for long-distance buses, trucks and taxis.
It is also the hub of the Central Karoo, one of the 13 rural development areas proclaimed by President Thabo Mbeki under the Integrated Sustainable Rural Development Programme (ISRDP) in February 2001.
Allocations from provincial and municipal coffers — in cooperation with councils that have identified needs of their communities — are driving development, from infrastructure to skills training. The aim is to ensure that these communities, which are often isolated, develop their own sustainable economies and strong local government structures over the next 10 years.
There are four ISRDP areas in the Eastern Cape, five in KwaZulu-Natal, two cutting across the boundary between Mpumalanga and Limpopo, one on the Northern Cape and North West border and one in the Free State. To date, the government has invested R5,9-billion in these projects, predominantly in infrastructure.
In the Central Karoo — a semi-arid, sparsely populated stretch of some 38 000km2 covering Beaufort West, Laingsburg, Prince Albert and Murraysburg municipalities — development is often not easy to spot.
A non-descript provincial administration board marks the Beaufort West multi-purpose centre, an ISRDP anchor project. After some delays, it is scheduled to be officially opened this Saturday. The centre will house the municipal offices, a home affairs department and a meeting hall in which regular council meetings will be held with the aim of bringing government to residents.
The programme has brought stormwater drains to Leeu-Gamka, a handful of ramshackle houses centred around a railway junction and a police station along the N1. In Prince Albert, the night-soil buckets are no longer in use, following the extension of piped sewerage.
It is estimated that in the Central Karoo area the number of residents with access to basic services has grown by 80% since the programme began. There are tarred bus routes in each town to connect schools, police stations and sport fields. Streets have lighting. Roads and sports grounds are being upgraded.
By January 2004, a total of R53,3-million had been spent on 29 ISRDP projects in the Central Karoo area.
Unemployment stands at an estimated 60% among the around 60 000 Central Karoo residents, the majority of whom live in Beaufort West. Most families depend on social grants; approximately R2-million is paid out every month.
“If it wasn’t for this programme, we would have been a ghost town,” said Ralph Links, ISRPD coordinator.
So far, ISRDP projects have created 1 765 jobs in the region, the majority of them temporary. One spin-off is the emergence of eight economically viable small construction businesses.
But the lack of jobs remains a major issue: job seekers queue at mayor Truman Prince’s office daily.
“We are looking at sustainable job opportunities and I think we can do that as we move towards social upliftment and tourism,” said provincial minister of local government Cobus Dowry.
Tourism features largely, with talk of marketing the area as the gateway to the Western Cape and Cape Town. But other tourism-related ISRDP projects are struggling. Most tourists rushing along the N1 miss the KwaMandlenkosi township tourism route, which features an arts and crafts centre.
Despite this, the Central Karoo development node is in the lead for having establishing crucial ISRDP structures. There are regular coordination and planning meetings between the mayors and the district council mayor. Each municipality has its own ISRDP official. Regular meetings with senior provincial and national officials are held. There is a “nodal delivery team” which consults with provincial officials on projects, rather than imposing ideas on them. And the ISRDP is a standing item for all provincial cabinet discussions.
This level of cooperation between all spheres of government and the full commitment of officials is considered a major breakthrough, as these are the sorts of issues which have repeatedly been identified as a challenge for the rural development programme and the eight urban renewal programmes country-wide.