a short history on besg
TRANSCRIPT
1
2
THE GENESIS
The city is arguably humankind’s greatest achievement. It enabled natural and human
resources to be concentrated in a defined geographical space, thereby creating
efficiencies in the movement of people, goods, and services and the promise of a better
life.
The city, in any specific context, is shaped by the economic, social, and political conditions
that prevail within that space. South Africa is no exception. However, our cities reflect the
racial divisions that were promoted by the policy of separate development, and which
created inherent inefficiencies and massive socio-economic inequalities based purely on
the colour of a person’s skin. The “grand apartheid” plan, realised in the form of the Group
Areas Act (1950), led to the widespread ethnic cleansing of entire neighbourhoods, with
new, racially classified residential areas separated by “buffer strips” of industry, forestry,
and simple distance. Forced removals were the order of the day, and continued for
decades.
Indigent Africans specifically were subjected to a raft of legislation for three generations
that restricted not only their right of occupation of land but also their movement: The 1911
Native Labour Regulation Act, the 1913 Land Act, the 1923 Natives (Urban Areas) Act, the
1934 Slums Act, the 1951 Prevention of Illegal Squatting Act, the 1952 Urban Areas Act,
the 1952 Blacks (Abolition of Passes and Co-ordination of Documents) Act (otherwise
known as the Pass Law), the 1959 Promotion of Black Self-Government Act, and the 1970
Black Homeland Citizenship Act. Act. They were pushed beyond the periphery of our
cities, out of sight but just far enough that they could provide a pool of cheap labour to
keep the wheels of the apartheid economy well oiled. Those who were “surplus to
requirement” were banished to the “Bantustan” homelands, largely barren cast-offs of land
that did not even have homogenous boundaries.
As the grand apartheid plan cemented, popular resistance was ruthlessly crushed. The
1960 Sharpeville massacre and the 1976 Soweto riots are but two landmarks that remain
imprinted in our global memory of a pariah state that was held together by securocrats in
the police and army. The July 1985 State of Emergency was a watershed moment in an
unsustainable trajectory for the country. While the African National Congress sought to
intensify the armed struggle and economic sanctions from without, the United Democratic
Front (UDF) internally was the first broad opposition platform for decades that had both
mass support and an amorphous ability to frustrate the apartheid regime and render the
townships ungovernable.
The government was rapidly losing its iron grip. It could not keep the lid on popular
resistance. Africans began moving into our towns and cities in search of economic
opportunity, which led to an explosion of informal settlement. On 1 February 1985, the
government announced a moratorium on the relocation of black people living in areas
zoned for whites. In the face of local and international criticism, and the sheer tenacity of
3
communities to resist relocation, sweeping liberalisation of the previous restrictions on the
movement and residence of blacks was promised.
In KwaZulu-Natal there was an added factor to accelerated urbanisation, as the
government sought to use the Inkatha Freedom Party as a surrogate force to undermine
the UDF, and terrorise and kill suspected ANC supporters. Whole communities fled so-
called “black-on-black” violence and sought sanctuary in our urban areas. It was in this
context that the Built Environment Support Group was born.
THE RESISTANCE YEARS: 1983 - 88
The 1980s was a time of hope and expectation, as well as great social stress, as the
apartheid regime began loosening its grip. One of the symptoms of the meltdown was that
people were able to move around more freely. Land invasions became prevalent in the
greater Durban area, where the then-University of Natal’s Durban campus is located. The
broader conflict in KwaZulu-Natal
between the Inkatha Freedom Party
and the African National Congress
affected numerous other urban and
peri-urban areas and caused
massive displacement of individuals,
households, and whole communities.
The provincial capital,
Pietermaritzburg, and surrounding
areas suffered the infamous “7 Day
War” in 1990. Informal settlements
comprising women, children, and
elderly refugees sprung up in
marginal locations across the city. Protest march during the 7 Day War.
People were living in desperate poverty in these turbulent circumstances. They had very
little access to resources to provide for themselves and their dependents. In response to
the human suffering in the many new settlements in and around Durban, the University of
Natal Appropriate Housing Technology Unit (UNATHU) was formed as a volunteer
organisation around 1982. It aimed to assist communities through the provision of
technical support. A site near the squash courts on the Durban Campus was acquired
from the University in order to test appropriate building technology that could be used in
the townships and informal settlements.
Experimental housing was built on the site, testing different materials and new housing
concepts. UNATHU was dissolved in 1992 after vagrants moved into the houses and the
university felt that it could no longer support the project.
4
BESG was established in 1983. It was initially a volunteer organization and, like UNATHU,
the initiative of academics in the Faculty of Architecture and Allied Disciplines at the
University of Natal Durban. Its self-appointed task was to support and defend the rights of
those in poverty living in the urban areas. Its principle aim was to offer advice and support
in matters concerning the built environment to communities who did not have the
resources to obtain such advice themselves. The BESG Charter, adopted on the 12 March
1986, stated:
1. “The Built Environment Support Group will promote and defend the rights of those
living in the townships and other newly-settled areas in and around Durban BESG
also declares itself to be an association of academic staff and students of the
University of Natal
2. “BESG affirms its belief in the value of people and their environment, and declares
its interest in the development of both BESG is concerned with and for the built
environment as it affects individuals and communities who are disadvantaged.
3. “BESG therefore seeks to:
a.) “Offer advice and support in matters concerning the built environment, to individuals
and communities who are unable to recruit the necessary skills and expertise from
their own resources, and who cannot afford to obtain such services on a normal
commercial fee paying basis.
b.) “Promote more general awareness of built environment issues.
4. “BESG will endeavor to work with individuals and organizations and encourage the
development of appropriate resources within the community concerned.
5. “As a condition of its participation, BESG will seek to ensure that potential projects
are based upon genuine need, and that their fulfillment will contribute towards the
general upliftment of the individual or community concerned.
6. “As a further condition of participation, BESG will seek to ensure that the community
organizations with whom it proposes to work have been established through an
acceptable democratic process.”
The beginnings of BESG’s outreach work in communities can be traced back to a
settlement named St. Wendolins near Pinetown, owned by the Mariannhill monastery and
occupied by African residents. The apartheid government planned to rezone this
settlement and declare it an Indian area. This would have resulted in thousands of
residents being evicted from their homes.
A number of academics from the University conducted a study on the effects of the
proposed removals on the community. The fieldwork was carried out by nurses and a
young researcher named Protas Madlala, who later became BESG’s first employee. The
results of this study proved overwhelmingly that the proposed forced removals would
adversely affect the community. It provided the basis for a Supreme Court action on the
community’s behalf, resulting in the government’s plans being overturned.
The University was supportive of BESG’s work within the Faculty of Architecture and Allied
Disciplines, but there were some concerns regarding the political aspects of BESG’s work.
5
Those university departments whose professional views encouraged a more conservative
line in South African politics, such as the Department of Quantity Surveying and Building,
were concerned about the consequences of taking a radical line with regard to human
settlements. According to Prof Rodney Harber this created quite a divisive situation within
the Faculty.
BESG’s work grew and expanded because of its relevance to urban problems being
experienced at that time. It soon needed resources from outside the university. At the
beginning this was difficult, as BESG had no independent track record. However, it soon
proved itself and organisations such as The Rockefeller Foundation, the Ford Foundation,
the Anglo American Chairman’s Fund, and the Kagiso Trust provided BESG with financial
support.
Given the nature of its activities, BESG was subjected to routine scrutiny by the Security
Police, who warned the university about what it considered to be the anti-apartheid
activities of some BESG staff and associates. A police spy was also sent in to the
organisation, but he was soon discovered and kept away from sensitive matters.
BESG also assisted with the preparation of cost estimates relating to houses bombed during the 1985
unrest preceding the State of Emergency. This drew it further into the political limelight.
BESG played an important role in the socio-political dynamics of the period, for example in
Bambhai, where leaders of different parties were using armoured vehicles to access the
township due to the volatile political climate. It facilitated the integration of work teams,
working closely with both ANC and IFP, to build roads and install lighting.
This work was perceived to be
70% social and 30% physical in
terms of its importance. Workers
soon started getting along with
each other, even though they were
members of opposing parties. For
members of BESG it was a
question of promoting transition,
by assisting in the redevelopment
of communities affected by
violence.
House destroyed during violence in Richmond.
There were many personal touches to BESG’s work. One example is the production of a
series of handouts in cartoon style by Rodney Harber titled ‘Bonginkosi Builder’, which
illustrated various aspects and methods of building a low-cost house. Over 350 000 Zulu
copies and 300 English copies were distributed by the Rotary Club.
6
Project work at BESG fell into five main categories:
1. Policy Aid: Aid provided to community organizations in the formulation of policy and
strategies to improve their environment.
2. Community Defence: Assistance provided to communities in their struggle against
actions, which they perceive to be detrimental to their well-being and development.
3. Planning Actions: Technical assistance given to community organizations in the
range of planning issues related to their environment. This included collecting of
planning data such as surveys and interviews as well as physical plans and
proposals.
4. Community Building: Advice and assistance in the preparation of building briefs,
sketch plans and cost estimates for a range of community buildings such as clinics,
schools and halls.
5. Training: The training of
community workers in
built environmental
activities.
The organisation grew in size
as more communities began
calling for assistance. Projects
increased from twenty-eight in
1985 to forty-two in 1986/1987.
It became necessary to employ
full time staff.
Community based settlement planning in progress.
Protas Madlala was the first employee, appointed in August 1986 as Liaison Officer
responsible for liaising with communities, communicating technical advice, and forming
democratic groups in communities. He was subsequently joined by S’bu Ndebele, directly
after his release from Robben Island, Clive Forster was appointed Projects Manager in
January 1987. He determined whether groups calling for assistance fell within the
conditions of the BESG charter, and managed the technical work and related staff and
documentation. Town planning and architectural services were provided by Lulu Gwagwa,
Renėe Rayner, and Georgina Sarkin.
A full-time secretary was appointed in May 1987. An Executive Committee was formed of
Dr Errol Haarhoff (Chair), Ms Jessir Biriss (Treasurer), and Clive Forster. Other office
bearers included Prof. Mike Kahn, Dr. Mike Sutcliffe, and Prof. Dan Smit. Many of these
founding members of BESG are still household names in politics, government, and
development consulting.
During the Marianhill project. BESG provided practical support in the physical and social
upgrading of the area, and moral support to the community leadership when they met with
state officials. This had a ripple effect in other communities in the Southern Pinetown
7
area. From 1987 BESG became involved in a longer-term development project with the St.
Wendolins communities that began in supporting their struggle to secure occupational
rights to land. The leadership in the St. Wendolins area actively assisted in providing
assistance to other communities facing forced removals. BESG extended its technical
support to communities in the broader area, giving advice on alternative planning and
development options.
BESG began focusing on training and education as a means of transferring knowledge
and technical skills to communities in a sustainable way. It would continue providing the
necessary technical advice to communities, while the community itself conducted social
surveys, skills audits, and enumeration studies. BESG was further involved in the
preparation of position papers such as ‘Homelessness in South Africa’.
Toward the end of this period the “Built Environment Action Movement” emerged. Groups
within the movement comprised
young technicians from
disadvantaged backgrounds who
would get together and tender for
government projects. BESG did
not stray away from its built
environment roots and continued
building and advising on the
construction of community centres,
schools, resource centres, clinics,
and halls, amongst other things, as
well as helping communities
affected by political unrest.
In 1987 serious floods devastated Natal. The floods proved how different organisations
could work as an effective collective unit and BESG was well placed to respond, despite its
paucity of resources. During this year BESG also networked with several progressive
development organizations from across South
Africa, with the aim of establishing a national
coordinating body. It was the very early nexus
of what in the mid-1990s was to become the
Urban Sector Network.
During these years tensions such as the UDF-
Inkatha conflict made many communities
suspicious about community projects, and
BESG became more cautious about the
projects it chose to undertake. The difficultly
surrounding community improvement projects
Community celebrating project implementation
8
seemed to be too much for other organisations, and those failures undermined morale and
confidence within the group. The direction that BESG would take in future became of
concern, as it records in the 1987-1988 Annual Report:
“The difficulties involved in engagement suggest two other paths as well. The first is
greater emphasis on policy related thinking and action. As we have suggested, out
development projects are constantly constrained by this policy environment. We need to
spend more time on analyzing this environment, developing alternative policy approaches
and disseminating and acting on this information. The second path is to consider greater
involvement in project implementation. This is obviously a difficult area, not least because
of time and resource constraints.”
GROUNDWORK FOR CHANGE: 1989-93 Ongoing support was provided to communities resisting forced removals in Happy Valley,
St. Wendolins, Swapo, Bottlebrush, and other communities. It came against a backdrop of
continuing ANC-IFP conflict in the townships, particularly around the hostels, and in the
Seven Day War in Pietermaritzburg in 1990. The same year became a major milestone in
the country’s transformation history, with the unbanning of the ANC and the release of
Nelson Mandela.
In 1989, the demand to support communities affected by civil violence in and around
Pietermaritzburg necessitated the establishment of a branch office in the city. The Happy
Valley informal settlement in Woodlands was formed largely by women and children
fleeing ANC-IFP violence in the Maqongqo (Table Mountain) area some 20km away. They
had occupied a marginal sliver of land between a major public road and a railway line, and
were subject to repeated police harassment at the instigation of the local City Council. It
was one of the first in a series of defence actions to secure the right of indigent
communities to live in the city, particularly in the northern areas, which provided ready
opportunities for work-seeking.
Change provides space for innovation. This made it easier for BESG to operate and take
on a new range of work rooted in community participation in development, and extend into
rural communities. It was a time of piloting housing projects. From 1990 BESG provided
technical support to several communities who were able to access “site and service”
projects via the Independent Development Trust. It undertook its first large-scale
infrastructure upgrading project at Piesangs River, Durban North, in 1990: This was
followed by projects in Luganda and Zilweleni, Southern Pinetown, in 1991.
9
These communities were amongst
the first in the country to act as
community-based developers,
pioneering new approaches to
community driven planning and
development, mediated by BESG’s
technical support. In 1992, BESG
launched the Housing Training
Programme, aimed at transferring
skills to community members acting
as housing advisers and domestic
labour contractors.
The rapidly changing political environment meant that past state policy on urban
development was in complete flux. BESG made contributions to the development of
national and local government policy toward the end of this period. At local level,
Pietermaritzburg Co-ordinator Anton Krone participated in the City Council’s Low Income
Settlement Task Team, established to respond to the rapid urban influx of people from
areas affected by chronic poverty and /or civil conflict. It was one of the first initiatives at
local level where there was a genuine attempt to achieve inclusive solutions to the
development challenges facing our cities. Norah Walker, then full-time Director, served on
the National Housing Forum that created the National Housing Subsidy Scheme.
RECONSTRUCTION AND DEVELOPMENT: 1994-99 South Africa held its first free elections in April 1994. The democratisation process provided
rich opportunities for development, growth, and diversification. The incoming ANC
government committed to an ambitious programme to transform the country in its first 5 years of
office – the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP). Among many other pledges, it
committed to building 1 million homes. BESG became a significant player in community-based,
low-income housing and infrastructure development in this period.
The National Housing Subsidy Scheme was adopted as the instrument to address a key pillar of the Freedom Charter to provide “housing for all.” It provided a government grant to enable the poorest of the poor to access services such as water and sanitation, and “assistance toward a basic shelter.” The rationale for this policy was to enable the fiscus to be spread to as many households as possible. Many of the communities whom BESG had defended from the police and bulldozers had
developed a deep mistrust of their local municipalities. They knew that BESG had staff
An informal settlement in Piesangs River, Durban
10
with technical as well as organisational development1 skills, and approached BESG to
assist them in accessing housing subsidy and driving their own development. .
In 1994 the Happy Valley informal settlement in Woodlands, Pietermaritzburg, became the
first in situ upgrading project to be undertaken under the new National Housing Subsidy
Scheme, in association with a community based partner, Ntuthukoville Development Trust.
The project was officially opened by National Housing Minister Sankie Mthembi-
Mahanyele in 1995.
Ntuthukoville was also the location
for a pilot project in “mutual help”
housing delivery. Developed for self-
build projects in Costa Rica, it simply
adapts the contractor-built approach
of training households in co-
operative production teams, which
shortens the pre-construction
training. The trick to quality control
is that no-one knows which house
they will be allocated until the last
roof tile is in place. Ntuthukoville mutual help housing – 42m² owner built
In late 1994 and early 1995 BESG secured housing subsidies for three projects in the
northern areas of Pietermaritzburg – Azalea (later to be renamed Tamboville), Q-Section,
and Thembalihle. The Q-Section community lived in a blue gum plantation that was too
steep to develop, and negotiated to “buy in” to land adjacent to the other two communities.
A city councillor then persuaded the communities that housing was too complex for them
to manage, and promised that their development would be fast-tracked if they asked the
City Council for help.
In similar manner as the government turned to the private sector to deliver the majority of
its 1 million RDP houses, the municipality did not have any experience or capacity and
contracted BESG to manage the development, known as Glenwood 2. It was the largest
public housing project ever undertaken by the city, comprising 1500 households in the first
three phases. Our current Executive Director, Cameron Brisbane, spent 9 years
managing the project, continually unblocking bureaucratic obstacles and navigating issues
of contention between the municipality and resident communities.
In 1996 BESG supported the Southern Pinetown Joint Venture (SPJV) Housing Project. It
was one of the first housing projects approved nationally under the Consolidation Subsidy
1 Referred to by some Non-Governmental Organisations as “Institutional Social Development.”
11
mechanism, for households who had previously received serviced sites from the IDT, and
was driven by a consortium of community-based development organisations (CBDOs).
In the years leading up to and in the early part of the new dispensation, BESG had formed
informal alliances with seven other NGOs located in the main urban centres of the country,
that largely shared common interests in human settlements, governance, and sustainable
livelihoods work. They also shared a common funder in the European Union (EU), which
encouraged like-minded NGOs to establish more formal networks or structures that could
be funded collectively. This gave birth to the Urban Sector Network in 1995. The Network
handled R35m of funding in its 9 years of collective existence. Many of the partners
continue to collaborate on national platforms and projects to this day.
Those heady years were fruitful grounds for experimenting with innovative development
models that had emerged from other countries in the South, as well as alternative models
of tenure to “one house, one plot.” This resulted in several innovative projects:
The Pietermaritzburg Northern Areas Housing Support Centre, which was only of only
two such centres in KZN piloted to assist beneficiaries with free plans and construction
advice and materials supply. Established in 1997, it was an organic model developed
with the resident communities of Glenwood 2, most of whose housing subsidy had
been spent on high quality infrastructure, leaving them with insufficient funds for a
formal house. The aim of the Housing Support Centre was not only to help households
stretch their subsidy to at least an extension, or stabilising an informal wattle and daub
structure against storm damage. It had the secondary aim of building and consolidating
design and construction knowledge within communities, so that they could improve or
extend their house over time as household resources permitted.
The Ubunye Co-operative Housing project, which was the first “transitional” housing
project in KZN province. Redeveloped
from a former working men’s hostel in
the Pietermaritzburg CBD, it was
designed to provide affordable,
secure, short-life housing for transient
persons and families.
The Community Based
Maintenance (CBM) programme,
which provided a street cleaning,
grass cutting, refuse collection,
Politicians do their bit to promote CBM
12
roads maintenance, and environmental
education services to 4600 households in
Msunduzi, when the municipality did not have
the resources to extend conventional
maintenance and refuse collection services to
newly developed areas in the city. The project
was case-studied by the then-Department of
Provincial and Local Government as a model
for alternative municipal service delivery, and
won awards from the Impumelelo Innovations
Trust, the Green Trust, and the World Bank
Development Marketplace.
The Shayamoya social (rental) housing project,
comprising 320 walk-up flats in Cato Manor,
was an attempt to move away from the “one
house, one plot” mindset and experiment with
medium density rental housing. It was opened by National Housing Minister Sankie
Mthembi-Mahanyele and Provincial Housing Minister Dumisani Makhaye in 2002.
BESG not only acted as a development resource organisation for communities. It used its
development work to disseminate pro-poor development practice, and undertook research
to advocate changes in enabling policy, where existing policy was found wanting or was
“missing the target.” It is a contentious area of work. Our knowledge, services, and ability
to innovate solutions to development and service delivery challenges are highly rated and
valued. However, when our research and documentation of good practice appears to be
overtly or indirectly critical of government, in the interests of securing basic socio-
economic rights, our work is frequently the subject of hostility.
An example of this was a 2000
national research study entitled
“Toward the Right to Adequate
Housing,” which captured
graphically the consequences
of poorly located, under-sized,
and badly built “RDP” housing.
The government knew about
many of the shortcomings that
had arisen in the rush to build a
million homes, and introduced
national norms and standards
for subsidised “RDP”
A community workshop on the Right to Adequate Housing
13
housing at the same time the study was being undertaken. It regulated a minimum house
size of 30 m² and a maximum quantum of subsidy that could be spent on infrastructure
(services). While most of BESG’s findings resonated with the shift in government policy,
the funding intermediary for the study had commissioned a public relations company to
secure headlines for the work it was financing. One such headline in a weekend
newspaper declared, “Government housing delivery a failure” and prominently featured
BESG’s research. It took two years and the personal intervention of the Director of the
Urban Sector Network to thaw the entire network’s relations with the Director-General of
the Department of Housing as a result of that one article. Two years after that, much of
the vision in the Right to Adequate Housing became official policy in the form of Minister
Lindiwe Sisulu’s “Breaking New Ground.” Such is the nature of advocating on behalf of
those who have no voice.
THE CONSOLIDATION YEARS: 1999 – 2004
BESG continued to consolidate its housing support work in this period. However, a major
paradigm shift was forced on the organisation with the promulgation of the Public Finance
Management Act (PFMA) 1999 and the Municipal Systems Act (MSA) 2000. The latter
gave the mandate for development to local government, the tier of government “closest to
the people.” It put local municipalities into a driving seat for which they were poorly
equipped. As the former Minister of the RDP, Jay Naidoo, reflected after the event,
government administration was not designed to innovate but to regulate. While BESG
continued work on the Glenwood 2, Southern Pinetown consolidation, Shayamoya, and
other housing projects, the tide was turning as far as entry into new projects was
concerned.
The communities of Woodstock and Peter Hey informal settlements in Pietermaritzburg
had been relocated en masse to
Glenwood 2 in terms of a High Court
eviction order sought by the
Ratepayers’ Association in the
upmarket Indian suburb of Mountain
Rise in 1997. The communities were
moved onto pegged sites in the areas
known as North East Sector 2, which
became Phase 4 of Glenwood 2. The
Development Committee found their
way to BESG via the neighbouring
communities, whose leadership had
participated in monthly project
Application based development prior to the PFMA.
14
management meetings at the municipality’s offices since shortly after the development
commenced.
In the same year, the Pietermaritzburg office of BESG was approached by the Peace
Valley 2 informal settlement in Plessislaer, to assist them is securing housing subsidy for
an in situ upgrading of the area. Both communities selected to work with BESG to help
them develop their areas under a
national policy known as the People’s
Housing Process (PHP).
Contrary to official policy, which reduced
the concept to a materials supply
process for households undertaking
self-build housing, BESG and other
affiliates of the Urban Sector Network
had used PHP as a tool for community
development and empowerment. The
PFMA and MSA unintentionally but
effectively closed down that space. No waiting for the government for residents of
Peace Valley 2
The North East Sector 2 (NES2) Development Committee, which had facilitated the
peaceful mass relocation to Glenwood 2 on the promise of development in 1997, was
forced onto its back feet. The ANC caucus on the Pietermaritzburg-Msunduzi Transitional
Local Council was concerned about the amount of co-financing that had been put into the
previous phases of Glenwood 2, at the expense of what it saw as higher development
priorities in the Edendale Valley. It had already caused phase 3 of Glenwood 2 – the
Thembalihle upgrade – to be delayed by nearly two years over a fight for resources for
bulk services.
In 2001, Council commissioned a study into whether it would be cheaper to relocate the
NES2 community and avoid having to co-finance an upgrade of the area. BESG was
commissioned to undertake the study, the findings of which were that Glenwood 2 as a
whole was inherently expensive in terms of the national norms and standards for housing
subsidy, but that the community was strongly resistant to be relocated a second time.
The Peace Valley 2 (PV2) community was initially told that the area they occupied could
not be developed for housing as it was an industrial area. In 2000, the provincial
administration, which owned the bulk of land underlying the settlement, stated in writing
that it had no objection to the land being rezoned “special residential.”
Both communities – NES2 and PV2 – were ready for development. Both projects had been
prioritized in the municipality’s Integrated Development Plan (IDP). The communities had
opted to work with BESG utilising the People’s Housing Process, in order to extract value
15
from their housing subsidy. However, by the time they were ready for development, the
MSA and PFMA had come into effect. Both projects were put out to open tender by the
municipality.
Against competition from the private sector, BESG won both proposal calls in 2001 and
2002 respectively. Bureaucratic obstructions were encountered immediately. A company
competing for the NES2 contract attempted to block BESG’s appointment, citing that its
non-profit status meant that it did not qualify to tender under Black Economic
Empowerment regulations, as it had no shareholders. NES2 was then starved of funding
for bulk and connector services, as a result of which it took two years for BESG’s
appointment as Implementing Agent to be confirmed.
The PV2 project was subject to continual changes in town planning design. The
community had been settled over a period of over 15 years. Many households had
relatively large plots and a significant minority had formal structures that cost more than
the value of a government subsidy. In spite of this, the municipality tried to force its own
norms and standards for low income housing that were designed for “greenfield” projects
on vacant land. By 2004, BESG had resolved the myriad bureaucratic challenges and
secured conditional approval for both projects.
However, the lesson learnt form these prevarications was that the new public procurement
regime was antipathetic, if not hostile, to community-driven development. While the new
procurement regime provided for several contracting strategies, the KwaZulu-Natal
Department of Housing was fixated on one called “turnkey contracting.” In simple terms it
means, “We’ll give you development rights and you call us when you are ready to
handover the keys.”
This relieved local municipalities of any real responsibility for development – the precise
intention of the MSA -- and transferred it to “Implementing Agents.” In theory it meant that
government could turn over projects faster using the production efficiencies of service
providers who are profit-driven, and who
have capital reserves to carry both
operational costs and manage
development risk.
In this paradigm, communities were no
longer seen as partners in development
but rather a “social risk” that had to be
mitigated – along with land-legal
challenges, access to bulk services,
geotechnical and other variables. BESG
was no longer a support organisation to
communities but rather a
Public procurement model – the state calls the
shots and the community is marginalised.
16
THE EARLY YEARS
Community leaders debatedevelopment options Women in construction circa 1995
RDP Minister Jay Naidoo visits Ntuthukoville. Labour based construction Piesangs River
Out with the old, in with the new Getting down to the basics
17
THE LATER YEARS
Housing training for government officials, 2006 SELAVIP house North East Sector 2, 2008
Deepening Democracy Project, 2011 Tackling climate change, 2012
18
service provider to a local municipality whose agenda was frequently at odds with indigent
communities and who, at least in the Msunduzi context, did more to frustrate that facilitate
development in the city.
At the same time, staff from the Durban office were engaged in township housing work in
Fredville, near Cato Ridge, and contracting to eThekwini (Greater Durban) Municipality to
undertake Area Based Planning, which was a tool to integrate development planning
based on a hierarchy of development needs across spatial boundaries. In Msunduzi,
BESG was contracted by the municipality to undertake a community-based mapping
exercise of land ownership and tenancy across three wards of Edendale township that had
been in private ownership prior to the 1913 Natives Land Act, as a precursor to the
Greater Edendale Land Reform Programme. Also in 2004, BESG was sub-contracted by
the Durban University of Technology to run a course in housing development and
management for provincial and local government officials over a three year period.
In the tradition of reflective learning, BESG refocused its housing work that relieving
shelter poverty in isolation of other forms of deprivation was not the answer to creating
sustainable human settlements. As the research project “Toward the Right to Adequate
Housing” had shown, housing had the potential to further entrench poverty: RDP
townships on the periphery of cities left people without access to jobs, health, and
educational facilities – to which they then had to pay to travel. Households became liable
for rates, service charges, and maintenance, which they could ill afford.
HIV and AIDS were reaching epidemic proportions and the combination of health
vulnerability, poverty, and the effects of inadequate housing were exacerbating community
and household health problems. Moreover, KwaZulu-Natal, which had the highest
incidence of HIV and AIDS in the country, saw an explosion in child headed households.
BESG’s response was to adopt a sustainable livelihoods framework as a strategic tool in
development planning and implementation, and developing community resilience to both
day-to-day challenges and shocks, such as the loss of a breadwinner. This resulted in
several new strands of work:
1. BESG assisted in the
formation of food
gardening groups on land
that could not be utilised
for housing; housing
stokvels (savings clubs) to
enable people to extend
their starter homes
incrementally; and other
19
poverty alleviation initiatives.
2. BESG responded to the incidence of child-headed households, and subsequently other
vulnerable children, by pioneering work in “special needs” housing – supported housing
for vulnerable groups who do not qualify under the standard rules of the national
housing subsidy programmes, but who nonetheless qualify for shelter assistance under
Sections 26 and 28(1) of the Constitution. The initiative was built of the back of the
KZN Department of Housing’s 2000 “Policy for housing and AIDS.”
Imperfect as the enabling policy was, in 2004 BESG launched the first special needs
housing project, securing housing subsidies for the redevelopment of the Mildred Ward
Centre in Woodlands, when Pietermaritzburg Children’s Homes consolidated its three
residential operations on one site. It was also a leading member of the Msunduzi AIDS
Partnership from 2001 until its demise in 2005, and wrote up the partnership as a model
for collaboration between government and civil society in addressing one of the biggest
challenges threatening the health and social fabric of the city and indeed the province.
While BESG continued to enjoy an excellent professional reputation over this period, there
were signs of tension within the organisation. In 2000 BESG had employed its first
Executive Director from outside the existing staff establishment, from a consulting
background. It was an unhappy marriage, built on an agenda that tried to blend internal
transformation with corporatisation. In the process an expectation of great changes had
been raised and dashed, as the staff without exception lost confidence in the
organisation’s leadership.
Organisational change was undoubtedly necessary. There had appeared to be a glass
ceiling where Africans, with some notable exceptions, were restricted to positions of
administration and community work, while technical and management posts were largely
held by whites and Indians. That simply reflected the history of race and educational
opportunity that prevailed in the country. The challenge was to redress the inequalities of
the past while still being able to deliver on commitments to funders and communities.
Two task teams were established to manage BESG through this turbulent time: A
Management Team, which saw a return to the type of collective decision making that
marked BESG’s nascent years, and a Transformation Team. In 2002 a new Executive
Director took up post who fuelled huge expectations and spectacularly failed to deliver.
After he engineered a proposal to retrench all staff and make everyone apply for new jobs,
staff revolted and compiled a dossier of allegations that was submitted to the Board of
Directors. The Executive Director disappeared without trace after losing a constructive
dismissal claim at the CCMA.
In the interim the organisation had become overstaffed. The staff complement had grown
as a consequence of the rapid growth of its work in low-income housing projects, but its
exposure to projects that were becoming bogged down in bureaucracy and incapacity at
20
local government level was starting to bleed the organization. From 2002 to 2004 BESG
suffered the loss of substantial capacity and intellectual memory within the organization
through natural attrition. By late 2004 half of the remaining operational staff in Durban was
being deployed to help manage projects in Pietermaritzburg, commuting daily in company
time and vehicles. It was an unsustainable situation.
CRISIS AND TURN-AROUND: 2005-2009
By May 2005, BESG faced a combination of a liquidity and institutional crisis. Planned
income was not forthcoming, and the Board was forced to enter into consultations with
staff around retrenchments. That resulted in the closure of the Durban office five months
later, followed by a labour dispute that nearly resulted in the complete closure of the
organisation. Thanks to the generosity of a key donor, BESG was able to consolidate its
remaining staff and operations in Pietermaritzburg, and begin a process of healing and
rebuilding. With fewer resources than it had enjoyed in past years, a small staff
determinedly worked to redevelop the organisation and increase its visibility both in local
communities and in the broader stakeholder environment.
BESG’s work around vulnerability, HIV/AIDS, and human settlements received its first
dedicated funding in 2006, through its long-standing participation in the Children in
Distress (CINDI) Network. The Child Advocacy Project was a joint project between CINDI,
BESG, Lawyers for Human Rights, and the Pietermaritzburg Child and Family Welfare
Association. The Child Advocacy Project encompassed a combination of interventions
that was best realised in partnerships rather than trying to be a jack-of-all-trades. It led to
several new strands of work:
1. Underpinned by a research study of unregistered
child-care facilities2 and in conjunction with
partners from the social development sector,
BESG developed a set of models to provide
alternatives to institutional care for orphaned and
vulnerable children. The first demonstration
project, of transitional housing for children
awaiting placement in foster care, was
developed for Pietermaritzburg Child Welfare in
2006.
2. It developed a programme of tenure security
training, focusing on the importance of having a
will, in association with Lawyers for Human
Rights. It had become official government policy
2 “No Place Like Home” (BESG 2007)
21
that beneficiaries of housing subsidy projects should take out a will when they
applied for their subsidy. However, there was no incentive for Implementing Agents
to do the work, no compliance monitoring, and much traditional resistance to the
idea, as a result of which women and children were too frequently left without
protection when a household head died.
3. In recognition of the poverty that continued to afflict communities, BESG developed
a livelihood security programme to help
enhance the resourcefulness and resilience of
vulnerable households to address everyday
needs and challenges and also withstand
shocks such as storm damage or the loss of a
breadwinner. It used a holistic approach to
strengthening the resilience of vulnerable
households through training and support in
food gardening, nutrition training, water
management, erosion control, access to free
basic services, and health and safety in the
home. For the poorest of the poor, it was what
Housing Minister Lindiwe Sisulu embraced in
the 1994 Breaking New Ground strategy – to
move away from RDP housing delivery and
toward building “sustainable human
settlements.”
The Livelihood and Tenure Security
Programme was significant not only for its content, but also its methodology. It marked a
break away from “training workshops” that were intended purely to disseminate information
on the workings of local government, the various housing policies and programmes, and
so forth. It was replaced by a concept of “participatory learning,” which combined training
with development facilitation practice that had been the driving force for innovation in our
housing. While BESG provided the context and initial content, participants were
encouraged to be players as well as learners.
This contributed to a process of continually enriching our training material, based on
participants’ life experiences. When you have access to few resources, you either give up
in despair or wait for government handouts, or you learn how to make optimal use of what
is available to you. It was the beginning of what became a cornerstone of both our
housing and governance work over the next 5 years – building the notion of self-reliance
and active citizenship.
BESG’s involvement in the Child Advocacy Project led to new collaborations in its own
housing work. In July 2006, one Howard Mkhize walked into BESG’s office with a
summons to appear in court on behalf of 1000 families who had been living on private land
22
in Mkondeni, an industrial estate on the edge of Pietermaritzburg. The landowners had
been served with an environmental health notice and responded by making an application
for the eviction of the entire community. An eviction order was granted, without the
community having alternative land on which to settle. BESG’s new-found partnership with
Lawyers for Human Rights led to the latter arranging pro bono legal representation to take
the matter to the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein in 2009. The Supreme Court
overturned the eviction order and joined Msunduzi Municipality to the action, which was
referred back to the Pietermaritzburg High Court. .
There was an unintended side-effect of this legal process. The original trial judge, in
addition to granting an eviction order, had directed that no building or building repairs
could be carried out in the settlement. In conjunction with the community leadership,
BESG had secured funding from SELAVIP, a South-South solidarity organisation based in
Chile, to repair 40 of the most dilapidated shacks where the occupants were too old or
infirm to address their own housing
needs. The project could not go ahead
without BESG and Mkondeni Sacca
being held in contempt of court.
An appeal was made to SELAVIP to
allow the funds to be transferred for the
same purpose to the North East Sector
2 housing project. It provided a much-
needed boost to that community, which
was being destabilized by the
continuous delays on the part of
Msunduzi Municipality in securing
environmental authorization to proceed
with development.
Volunteers from FNB Insurance Brokers at the
SELAVIP “Build-a-thon”
This period saw BESG achieve an important balance in its core programmes of:
Building sustainable human settlements, and;
Promoting good governance.
The programmes are inter-linked by the premise that service delivery to the poor can best
be realised by the demonstration of innovative solutions to development needs – both
human and physical – and government embracing the challenges of development in a
transparent and participatory manner.
In response to the wave of service delivery protests that directly followed the 2006 local
government elections, BESG re-branded its governance programme the “Deepening
Democracy Project.” What started as a small training programme, to enable communities
to understand the workings of developmental local Government, evolved over the next
23
three years into a dominant programme with multiple donor funding aimed at local
government transformation.
Strengthening of local government is based
on the premise that it is the closest sphere of
government to the people, and is therefore
most readily able to identify, prioritise and
implement programmes and projects to
address local development needs. The
project was given added impetus in 2008 by
the deliberations of a group of eminent
persons across South African Society, who
produced the Dinokeng Scenarios3, and in
2009 in the adoption of the government’s
National Turn-around Strategy for Local
Government.
BESG maintained a low profile in advocacy-
based research, partly undertaken in-house
and partly outsourced. Two important
studies were undertaken in 2006 and 2007
respectively:
Community theatre was one method of building
capacity to engage with local government.
Blockages to PHP projects in KwaZulu-Natal, commissioned by the People’s Housing
Partnership Trust, an arm of the National Department of Housing.
The right of access to free basic services in Msunduzi Municipality, in a study titled
“Seen but not heard.”
BESG also returned to the national policy arena in this period. In 2007, it joined the
Transitional and Special Needs Housing Forum, a broad cross-sectoral grouping of
government and NGOs involved in providing or supporting non-standard housing
interventions for vulnerable groups. The Forum was hosted by the Social Housing
Foundation (SHF), another arm of the National Department. Sadly and without sound
reason, the special needs agenda was dropped when in 2009 the SHF was wound up and
re-established as the Social Housing Regulatory Authority.
The second area for national collaboration was in the rewriting of the national PHP policy.
A group comprising former USN partners, the Utshani Fund, and several other
development practitioners, were aggrieved that PHP had been corrupted by private
3 www.dinokeng.org.za
24
companies into a labour- and materials- supply process, without any consideration to
community empowerment and sustainability. Over 2007, the group drafted an alternative
vision and policy framework, titled “Community Driven Housing Initiatives.”
It initially received a frosty response from the Minister’s Special Adviser, who had a single
agenda of ”numbers, numbers, numbers” (of housing units). There was a perception that
PHP was too slow – in spite of a wealth of research that demonstrated the inextricable
linkage between community empowerment and the elusive target of “building sustainable
human settlements.”
The draft policy was adopted in its entirety by MinMEC4 in August 2008, with only a
change of title – Ministers wanted to retain the notion of a housing programme “for the
people”, and re-branded the new policy the “Enhanced People’s Housing Process
(EPHP).” Following its adoption, several members of the group, including the current
Executive Director of BESG, were co-opted by the National Department onto the EPHP
National Reference Group, to
help in guiding the roll-out of the
policy. Ironically a change in
Minister, a re-branding of the
Department from “Housing” to
“Human Settlements,” and a
reduction in departmental budget,
caused the slow death of civil
society participation in the
Reference Group over the
ensuing years, and a failure of
many provinces, including KZN,
to implement the policy. Communities doing it for themselves: Ntuthukoville in 1995.
In January 2008, in preparation for its long-awaited housing projects being unblocked,
BESG established a separate trading company, BESG Development Services. The
primary objective was to contain development risk and ring-fence our donor funding from
any hostile raiding, although in 2010 it was promoted expressly to generate income from
consulting work in order to replace the anticipated exodus of donor funding.
By 2009, BESG had emerged from the ashes of its near-collapse 4 years earlier on a
steady, planned growth trajectory and a new cutting edge to its core programmes.
4 The Committee of provincial Housing MEC’s chaired by the National Minister.
25
A NEW MATURITY: 2010 AND BEYOND
While many NGOs were beginning to feel the effects of the global recession and flight of
donor funding from South Africa, BESG managed to weather to storm at least for the next
four years. This pays testament to the value and relevance of its work in post-apartheid
transformation in an ever-changing political and social landscape. Internally, the
organisation had reached a new maturity. The days when the boundaries between the
Board of Directors and staff were blurred, and decisions were made on grounds that were
not always in the best interests of the organisation, was well and truly a thing of the past.
The Board was professionalised and active in its oversight role.
The Deepening Democracy Project moved into high gear, with the launch of a Strategic
Partnership with uMgungundlovu District Municipality (UMDM) in 2010. The launch was
held at a Civic Reception in
the presence of French
Ambassador to South Africa,
Jacques Lapouge, amid much
hype over the pending contest
between the two countries at
the FIFA Football World Cup.
The partnership saw the
UMDM ramp up public
participation in its affairs, and
create space for local
government officials to be
exposed to best international
practice in participatory
development and budgeting.
The French Ambassador with UMDM and BESG leadership
at the launch of the Deepening Democracy Partnership
The partnership is aimed at building civil society capacity and active citizen participation in
developmental decision-making processes, and promoting civil society engagement with
local government. Regrettably a lack of political will and administrative capacity, as well as
poor development planning and resource alignment, continue to be impediments to
effective engagement.
The Project renewed emphasis on citizen empowerment as a means of realising
sustainable development. Paradoxically, as a nation, we face a self-defeating
development paradigm fuelled by alternating cycles of national and provincial, and then
local, government elections, characterised by vague promises such as “a better life for all,”
while the incidence of service delivery protests continues at an exponential rate.
While the UMDM partnership was in full bloom, Msunduzi Municipality, which had for years
acted as the “second seat of power” in the District, went under provincial administration in
26
March 2010 in the face of near bankruptcy. For the next two years, Msunduzi was ruled
with a rod of iron, causing huge public disaffection and producing little in the way of a turn-
around. In spite of this hostile environment, BESG pulled off a landmark gathering in
January 2011 in the form of the Msunduzi Stakeholder Forum. Undertakings were made
to work more closely with civil society, and indeed to embrace civil society as an asset in
the rebuilding of the city’s socio-political fabric.
The initiative created by the Forum was short-lived. Local government elections were
approaching. There was a consolidation of power within the region executive of the
governing party, and a huge backlash from ANC members and alliance partner COSATU
to what was widely perceived as an attempt to reinstate the very politicians who were held
responsible for the city’s collapse.
Another casualty of the 2011 local government elections was the Mkondeni Sacca
community. In the previous year, BESG had secured further SELAVIP grant to return to
the area with a programme of emergency housing relief. It did not give much respite to the
community, which still faced the threat of eviction. In February 2011, a high-powered ANC
delegation visited the area to assess whether it would merit having its own voting station.
The visit resulted in Finance MEC Ina Cronje, wearing her hat as “political champion of the
district,” driving a rapid intervention to provide emergency services and a long-term
resettlement plan for the community. The intervention was stillborn. The community
continues to this day to share one standpipe between 1056 households and has no
sanitation or refuse collection service.
In the meantime, in a classic case of one hand not knowing what the other is doing, the
municipality’s legal counsel had undertaken to the High Court to relocate the families to a
notoriously poorly located RDP township called France, commencing in July 2011 and due
for completion in January 2012. The relocation never happened. The new Municipal
Manger, who took up post after the provincial intervention was withdrawn in January 2012,
reverted to court with a plan to expropriate the land underlying the community. As the
record of BESG’s journey nears closure, it would appear in this instance that the
community’s distressing tale will have a happy ending.
Not so for the communities of North East Sector 2 and Peace Valley 2, who have been
waiting over 15 years for development. The development of NES2 was finally granted
environmental authorisation in March 2012. However, in May 2011, a major corruption
scandal broke out over the awarding by KZN Human Settlements of a R2.1bn rural
housing contract in Vulindlela, outside Pietermaritzburg, to a politically well-connected
developer without a tender process having been followed. BESG, who had been
undertaking Housing Consumer Education in the area, was one of a series of
complainants to the Office of the Public Protector. Officials in the Department of Human
Settlements, both nationally and provincially, closed ranks in the wake of the scandal.
BESG Development Services, which had taken transfer of the housing development
portfolio, was being tacitly frustrated in its attempt to bring NES2 into implementation, in
27
November 2011, a friendly official intimated that province wanted to pay off BESG for the
work it had done on both projects and appoint an alternative service provider. There was
a not-so hidden agenda to drive BESG out of development work in the province in
retribution for its opposition to the Vulindlela contract. There were several casualties in
province as a consequence of the contract award and investigation by the Public
Protector, and in August 2012, an appeal to the incoming MEC for Human Settlements led
to the trading entity’s reinstatement as Implementing Agent on both the NES2 and PV2
projects.
In the interim, BESG Development Services had won its first substantial contract in 2011
with the Department of Economic Development and Tourism. It developed and rolled out a
business development programme for 17 co-operatives involved in school feeding
schemes in Ladysmith/Newcastle/Dundee and surrounding areas. The contract ensured
the trading entity was a going concern, and a vital source of income generation for the
parent company. BESG continues to undertake minor consulting contracts, and in 2012
won a tender to run a Water Consumer Education programme in non-payment “hotspots”
across uMgungundlovu District.
BESG’s community housing support work continues to be financed almost exclusively
through Misereor, the German arm of the Catholic Church. Mindful of the increasing
service delivery backlogs, and the frustration that boiled over into routine protests, BESG
aimed to not only provide direct support to communities. It also aimed to impart
knowledge and basic development skills to other NGOs who encountered housing issues
in the course of their work, and to members of two dominant social movements in the form
of the Federation of the Urban and Rural Poor (Fed-UP) and shackdwellers’ movement
Abahlali baseMjondolo. The housing support programme now has several distinct
components:
1. Livelihood and Tenure Security Training, originally developed under the 2006 Child
Advocacy Project but considerably enhanced through participatory learning
processes.
2. Housing Consumer Education, for beneficiaries involved at any stage of a land
access, infrastructure, and/or housing project.
3. Housing Literacy Training for community and NGO activists.
4. Housing support interventions, for communities seeking access to participate in the
housing delivery process or seeking redress when they suffer administrative
injustice in the course of housing delivery.
This new focus has been driven
largely by the number of community
based organisations (CBOs) who wish
to engage in solutions to their
development needs, but are faced with
an indifferent bureaucracy at both the
local and provincial level, often lacking
28
in both skills and enthusiasm. The one area of disappointment has been low take-up by
the social movements – one of whom is in a delivery partnership with the National
AIDS benchmarking project for the CMRA
Department that is only concerned with counting completed housing units, and the other is
in constant conflict with the state.
BESG continued with its tradition of policy and research advocacy work. In 2010 the
organisation was commissioned by the Centre for Municipal Research and Advice (CMRA)
to undertake a benchmarking exercise to inform an AIDS intervention strategy for several
local municipalities. In 2011 the National Department of Human Settlements
commissioned the production of a paper entitled “From beneficiaries to citizens:
Meaningful communication with and participation of the poor in human settlement
development”.
Aligned to BESG’s vision of livelihood
security was the devastating impact of
climate change on vulnerable communities.
In 2010 it secured funding from the National
Lottery Distribution Trust Fund (NLDTF) to
support a climate change adaptation project
in rural communities across four midlands
municipalities -- Msunduzi, Richmond,
Impendle and Mpofana – most affected by
severe weather patterns (both drought and
flooding). The project, titled ‘Greener
Pastures,’ focuses on developing knowledge, skills and resilience to combat the storm
damage, and promote water, food, and energy security. It uses a wide range of street
theatre, participatory learning, and demonstration projects in food gardening and township
and schools tree planting programmes.
On United Nations World Habitat Day, 1 October
2012, BESG hosted a landmark event in the
Msunduzi Housing Summit. It was the first time in
the city’s post-apartheid history that a broad cross-
section of government and civil society stakeholders
had come together to share knowledge and learn
how to engage with the various infrastructure and
housing instruments available to resource the city’s
development needs.
As an extension of the Deepening Democracy
Project, BESG launched a pilot project in
Community Based Planning, titled “Leliyilungelo
Elakho” (This is your Right) in June 2013. The
29
project is jointly funded by the Foundation for Human Rights and Hivos, and aims to
promote
Msunduzi housing summit
constitutional rights for vulnerable and marginalised groups relating to access to housing,
water, food security, and basic service delivery.
BESG’s commitment to national networking, as a means of knowledge sharing and
platform building, continued to grow in this period. It joined the LandFirst Network,
designed to promote NGO collaboration in breaking the shackles of insufficient supply of
land and slow land release for development.
In light of its extensive experience in urban management and settlement work, BESG
participated in:
The Right to the City Dialogue series co-hosted by the Isandla Institute and the
Community Organisations Resource Centre (CORC), and;
The Informal Settlements Upgrading technical workshops on the role of
intermediary organisation in informal settlement upgrading projects co-hosted by
National Upgrading Support Programme (NUSP) of the National Department and
the Isandla Institute.
Undoubtedly the most active and sustained national network to which BESG is affiliated is
the Good Governance Learning Network (GGLN). It contributes regularly to the Network’s
annual publication the State of Local Government, and its online periodical, GGLN News.
WHEREIN LIES THE FUTURE?
As we close these chapters in BESG’s history, it is critical to continue looking forward with
the vision, fearlessness, and tenacity that have seen the organisation survive and remain
relevant through 30 years of the country’s history. The most immediate challenge is to ride
the wave of the global funding crisis that began afflicting the NGO sector in 2010, and will
undoubtedly be felt deeply in BESG from 2014, as two of its three major funders are
expected to redirect their energies elsewhere.
The ability to generate its own income through BESG Development Services was a well-
timed move. However, its niche work in community-driven development continues to be
frustrated by a procurement regime that is at best antipathetic and at worst hostile to
genuine partnership. The deepening schism between government and civil society is an
equally significant challenge to BESG’s future position in the development landscape.
It is too uncertain a time to speculate on the shape of these challenges post-the 2014
national and provincial elections. BESG has, however, managed to assimilate and adapt
to multiple challenges locally, provincially, and nationally, and continues to offer specialist
30
urban services which are scarce and much sought after. In its 30 years of existence BESG
has moved from being an academically driven organisation to being a practical
implementer with a sound research base. Its activities have contributed to the reshaping of
the urban policy landscape in South Africa, as well as to the practical arena of housing
delivery and various facets of community development. It is now a stable, dynamic, and
well-structured NGO that makes a significant contribution in the fields of housing,
empowerment, development, and the resolution of national urban problems.
In future BESG will continue to build on its unique heritage. In celebrating our 30th
anniversary, our Board of Directors and staff resolved to renew the organisation’s vision
and mission – the values that form its very essence:
Written by Khalil Goga and Cameron Brisbane, with contributions from Brian Bassett and
Ignatius Matanyaire. Edited by Cameron Brisbane. BESG operates a “Copy-left” policy.
Material from this and other BESG publications may be used strictly for non-profit
purposes and subject to BESG being credited as the source. BESG 2013.
HOW TO CONTACT US:
31
Built Environment Support Group (BESG)
371 Jabu Ndlovu Street
Pietermaritzburg 3201/
P.O. Box 1369
Pietermaritzburg 3200
Tel. +27- 33- 394 4980
Fax +27- 33- 394 4979
www.besg.co.za
BESG is grateful to CPW Printers for its generous contribution
toward the production of this anniversary publication.
32