It’s the end of the world as we know it

Not a few people around the world are preparing themselves for the year 2012: for that is when, according to the ancient Mayan calendar, the world will cease to exist.

So fixated on this date are media, the government, business and citizens alike that one may be forgiven for forgetting to plan beyond that momentous occasion.

However, I have it on good authority that business will continue once the project to end all projects has come to an end. It’s just that it won’t be business as usual.

On 17 September, Minister of Human Settlements Tokyo Sexwale addressed a select audience at the Vineyard Hotel in Newlands, Cape Town, on the 10th anniversary of the think-tank known as the Isandla Institute. The topic was “the politics of space”.

There he revealed, with understated gravity, what would appear to amount to a revolution in government thinking.

In a reversal of previous government strategy, Sexwale emphasised the need to move beyond a short-term approach to development characterised by unwieldy state projects all too often characterised crisis management to a long-term plan in which ‘the space of politics’ is reduced.

His goal: that South Africa should be no longer a developing but a developed country with a developed economy by 2099.

Speaking of the “grotesque urbanisation” in a framework of rural unemployment, farm evictions and failed RDP housing projects, he hinted at future human settlement strategy with the trenchant words: “We are going to have to borrow.”
Good news for project managers!

Responding to Sexwale’s speech, Edgar Pieterse called for an end to the politicized dichotomy between urban and rural development. Using the mixed-use rural landscape of Franschhoek as an example, he suggested that focus should be placed on various developmental landscapes inserted into the global economy in different ways.

Furthermore, Pieterse urged, the low-carbon economy debate must start now.

Urbanisation must be linked with a large-scale transition to a low-carbon economy.

What will ‘developed nation’ actually mean in 2099? What forms of consultation need to take place between the government and its people? Exactly how can the happiness of a population be measured?

Brazil and India were two examples Pieterse gave of countries where active state investment in social technologies enabled citizens to become engaged in economic development outside of a party-political framework. A community representative from Joe Slovo in Cape Town approved heartily of this sentiment.

Andrew Boraine, CEO of the Cape Town Partnership, expressed his gratification at the change in government attitude signalled by Sexwale’s remarks, commenting that development should be fuelled by urban design: that urban densification marked by such things as appropriate transport infrastructure is clearly the way forward.

More consultation, more and different projects, all converging on the same goal: a developed South Africa that meets the aspirations of all South Africans. Never has there been a more exciting time to be a project manager.

(If you’re worrying that there won’t be any projects to manage past 2012, be reassured: the idea of apocalypse is a popular misconception based on a misreading of the ancient Mayan calendar.)

Enjoy this second issue of The Project Manager.

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