The citizens of South Africa can expect to soon see a drastic drop in incidents of corruption; an improved look of inner-city environments; a reduction of informal settlements; a drop in environmental degradation; economically thriving urban environs; improved public transport systems and public safety.

These are some of the key highlights of the commitments that will be implemented in terms of the day-to-day activities by role players - not only at government level but also at non-government level - who are involved in urban development planning.

The undertakings were adopted at the conclusion of what has been widely hailed “a successful engagement” session of the Brics Forum on addressing challenges around urbanisation and forging cooperation among member cities and municipalities, which has been held in Durban from Tuesday until today, Thursday.

The 2nd Brics Urbanisation Forum and the 3rd Friendship Cities and Local Government Cooperation Forum took place back-to-back at the International Convention Centre, and were jointly hosted by national Cooperative Governance Minister Lechesa Tsenoli, KwaZulu-Natal Premier Senzo Mchunu, KZN Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs MEC Nomusa Dube-Ncube and eThekwini Metro Mayor James Nxumalo.

Minister Tsenoli singled out corruption as a possible stumbling block against any noble intentions by all involved.

He said: “We must fight against corruption; let us rub it out of our systems.”
As a provincial host, MEC Dube-Ncube said: “As KwaZulu-Natal, we deem this engagement to be a very successful one, since key commitments have been made, which will clearly result in creating improved urban neighbourhoods and draw much needed investment for real economic growth.”

“As KZN, we are committed to working even much closer with our counterparts in the Brics formation, so that we can share our experiences and also learn from their best practices and ensure that we address challenges relating to urbanisation and create better living as well as business conditions. We will work with our own municipalities and ascertain that there are tangible working agreements between them and municipalities from the Brics member countries.

There is much we can learn from Brazil, India, China and Russia on urbanisation, since some of them have significantly high levels of urbanisation. We can resultantly be in a position to address challenges of our own. But there is also much more that we are going to be sharing amongst ourselves as our economies grow in leaps and bounds to the level of the first world economies,” said Dube-Ncube.

She emphasised, however, that the focus this time around on urbanization did not suggest that there were no ongoing programmes to develop and strengthen rural living conditions and economic development in rural environments.

“Processes to accommodate the urbanization phenomenon are actually going in tandem with our multi-million rand programmes aimed at developing the rural economy. There is a realistic linkage between these two economies and we cannot afford to not strike a balance in their development,” she said.

The declarations of the conference are as follows:

• To coordinate efforts and learn from best practices and technologies that can make a meaningful difference to our societies.
   
• Recognise the growing role that stakeholders such as government, inter-city organizations, private sector, business associations and civil society organizations play as starting points for the exchange of ideas and experiences on urban challenges and solutions, and as actors in international relations, and ability to launch cooperative projects for innovative urban policy-making.
   
• Further the debates within cities and other levels of government on the key levers to build productive and sustainable cities and towns within socially and economically inclusive urban spaces.
   
• Share knowledge and experiences to support household survival strategies and sustainable development.
   
• Deepen our understanding of how urban-rural interdependencies manifest in our respective spaces.
   

In support of the above, we will:

• Share knowledge and experiences in methods and tools for promoting social inclusion such as participative planning and budgeting, and selecting the locally most appropriate tools and levers for participatory democracy;
   
• Continually strive to strengthen the role of civil society, Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and other stakeholders to improve accountability and participatory mechanisms;
   
• Mitigate activities that degrade the environment and have implications on sustainable human settlements;
   
• Continually strive to further develop and upgrade governance systems with more effective legal instruments and institutional frameworks; and
   
• Continually strive to strengthen measures to fight corruption and promote transparency and accountability.
   
• Share our experiences, our policy intentions, our lessons from practice, and extend dialogue between our cities to further shared goals of building productive and sustainable urban economies.
   
• Develop linkages and cooperate with other BRICS work streams such as the BRICS Think Tank Councils and BRICS Academic Forum for shared learning in areas of urban development, inclusive growth, environmental management and protection.
   
• Deepen our understanding of rural-urban linkages as they manifest in our respective countries, and share knowledge and approaches as they have been applied in that rural and urban areas are economically, socially and environmentally interdependent and that cities and towns are engines of growth contributing to the development of both rural and urban human settlements.
   
• Strategise and share experiences on approaches for the targeted development of vulnerable areas such as ‘mining’ towns, declining inner city areas, and areas of environmental degradation.
   
• Share experiences on approaches to local economic development, prioritising the provision of expanded social and economic urban infrastructure developing integrated transportation networks, including transit-oriented development, mobility planning, and creating a high quality of life for urban citizens and an urban environment that attracts and retains skilled individuals as a draw for businesses looking to invest.
   
• Exchange approaches to integrated spatial planning that address public safety and security, accessible housing, efficient public transportation, and improved access to public services and socio-economic facilities.
   
• Explore ways of planning, financing and delivering urban infrastructure in an integrated, socially inclusive and environmentally sustainable manner.
   
• Build (China) collaborative links between each level of government and the (India) people of the BRICS countries, academia and business to assist in understanding urbanisatation dynamics (SA) and shaping new urban forms, through engagement and liaison with the various BRICS structures, such as the BRICS Business Council, and the BRICS Think-Tanks Council.
   
• Develop mechanisms for peer to peer partnerships, comparative studies, evidence-based policy-making and networking amongst BRICS member states and their research institutions (India) to promote more successful urban development policy and practice.