Realising nodal development through development implementation agencies : the case of the Johannesburg development agency
Date
2017
Authors
Paulsen-Woods, Imaan
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Abstract
Nationally and locally in South Africa, at present, service delivery issues dominate the public sector. Furthermore, the coordination efforts between different spheres of government and departments within government are not agile and robust enough to manage the bureaucracy and red tape that exists, to be optimally efficient in the delivery of services.
The types of interventions or project initiatives that are required to alleviate delivery issues and poor inter-governmental coordination, currently in South Africa, are complex and multi-dimensional. Interventions, such as nodal developments could be viewed as a way of responding to specific problems in a specific location, or a form of urban development that concentrates a range of public and private resources within a specified area. Nodal development/projects assume a variety of institutional forms and are used as a means to address complex development problems in developed and developing countries alike.
The desire to identify the best institutional arrangements to address the complexity of larger projects has been a huge undertaking for local governments for the past few decades. Hence, the potential effectiveness of using development implementation agencies to implement complex and multi-levelled projects has become a prominent topic in urban development recently.
Literature suggests that development implementation agencies (DIAs), as one institutional form, may have potential in realising nodal development. DIAs can be seen as a complementary way to achieve the objectives of its parent municipality, rather than a replacement of the parent municipality’s abilities. The DIAs offer useful skills for collaboration between multiple entities, a sense of financial prudence and accountability (as necessitated in terms of their terms of reference) and they have the ability to generate context-specific solutions as opposed to merely replicating what is deemed global best practice. The need for DIAs in South Africa is supported by government itself, with the existence of various other development agencies, such as the Housing Development Agency (HDA).
This research investigates the institutional arrangements of development implementation agencies and how these arrangements could facilitate the more effective delivery of nodal development on behalf of government. It focuses on the way in which a DIA has undertaken nodal development initiatives in Johannesburg. It uses exploratory research methods, interviews of selected respondents and analysis of various secondary data sources. The Johannesburg Development Agency (JDA), has been chosen as the case study for this research. It was established by the City of Johannesburg (CoJ) to activate and to support area-based economic development initiatives across Johannesburg. The JDA as a case study, seeks to provide insights into local practices of DIAs and their potential effectiveness in delivering a range of services to the public, in a climate where accountability, inclusivity and collaboration are increasingly of concern to the state.
This research report, also investigates the DIA’s specific institutional structures and processes. It also examines the relationship between the public sector and the DIA, the features of the DIA, and the emerging lessons for institutional forms that are able to deliver improved service delivery and nodal development.
Description
A research report proposal submitted to the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment, University of the Witwatersrand, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Development Planning.
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Citation
Paulsen-Woods, Imaan, (2018) Realising nodal development through development implementation agencies: the case of the Johannesburg Development Agency, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, https://hdl.handle.net/10539/24607.