Challenging urban health: towards an improved local government response to migration, informal settlements, and HIV in Johannesburg, South Africa

AbstractGlobally, policymakers often describe informal settlements and slums in terms of health problems. In this paper we trace the way housing and planning have been linked to health concerns in the history of South Africa and we assess post-apartheid literature on the topic. We note that researchers continue to rely on a biomedical understanding of the relationship between housing, planning and health although, we argue, the links between them are tenuous. We propose the capabilities approach as a way to understand this relationship. Reframing the relationship between housing, planning and health within the capabilities approach may improve the current understanding of this link.AimThis paper discusses the historical links between housing, planning and health in South Africa, assesses post-apartheid policy, and reviews post-apartheid literature on the relationship between housing, planning and health.Results and conclusionsWe find it is assumed that the link between housing, planning and health is a biomedical concern and not a social concern. We argue that scholars thinking about this relationship should consider the opportunities embedded in the capabilities approach to understand health outside the biomedical frame.

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Tourism promotion as a local government response to poverty: Ingwe Municipality, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

Africa Insight ◽

10.4314/ai.v35i4.22463 ◽

2006 ◽

Vol 35 (4) ◽

Author(s):

S Gardyne ◽

TR Hill ◽

EL Nel

Keyword(s):

South Africa ◽

Local Government ◽

Government Response ◽

Tourism Promotion ◽

Kwazulu Natal

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Community-focused greywater management in two informal settlements in South Africa

Water Science & Technology ◽

10.2166/wst.2009.294 ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 59 (12) ◽

pp. 2341-2350 ◽

Cited By ~ 10

Author(s):

N. P. Armitage ◽

K. Winter ◽

A. Spiegel ◽

E. Kruger

Keyword(s):

South Africa ◽

Local Government ◽

Capital Investment ◽

Potable Water ◽

Informal Settlements ◽

National Government ◽

Poor People ◽

Government Officials ◽

Self Help ◽

Formal Services

South Africa is struggling to provide services to the millions of poor people migrating to the major centres and living in informal settlements (shanty towns). Whilst the local authorities are generally able to provide potable water from the municipal network to communal taps scattered around the settlements, there is usually inadequate provision of sanitation and little or no provision for the drainage of either stormwater or greywater. This paper describes an investigation into ways of engaging with community structures in the settlements with a view to encouraging “self-help” solutions to greywater management requiring minimal capital investment as an interim “crisis” solution until such time that local and national government is able to provide formal services to everyone. The work was carried out in three settlements encompassing a range of different conditions. Only two are described here. It has become clear that the management of greywater has a low priority amongst the residents of informal settlements. The lack of effective political structures and the breakdown in communication with Ward Councillors and local government officials have contributed to the lack of progress. As the project progressed it became evident that greywater cannot be considered separately from stormwater, sanitation and refuse removal.

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The Legal Status of Local Government in South Africa under the New Constitutional Dispensation

Southern African Public Law ◽

10.25159/2522-6800/2952 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 33 (2) ◽

Author(s):

Mbuzeni Mathenjwa

Keyword(s):

South Africa ◽

Local Government ◽

Legal Status ◽

Case Law ◽

The Status ◽

History Of ◽

The Republic ◽

First Time

The history of local government in South Africa dates back to a time during the formation of the Union of South Africa in 1910. With regard to the status of local government, the Union of South Africa Act placed local government under the jurisdiction of the provinces. The status of local government was not changed by the formation of the Republic of South Africa in 1961 because local government was placed under the further jurisdiction of the provinces. Local government was enshrined in the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa arguably for the first time in 1993. Under the interim Constitution local government was rendered autonomous and empowered to regulate its affairs. Local government was further enshrined in the final Constitution of 1996, which commenced on 4 February 1997. The Constitution refers to local government together with the national and provincial governments as spheres of government which are distinctive, interdependent and interrelated. This article discusses the autonomy of local government under the 1996 Constitution. This it does by analysing case law on the evolution of the status of local government. The discussion on the powers and functions of local government explains the scheme by which government powers are allocated, where the 1996 Constitution distributes powers to the different spheres of government. Finally, a conclusion is drawn on the legal status of local government within the new constitutional dispensation.

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Water security at local government level in South Africa: a qualitative interview-based analysis

The Lancet Planetary Health ◽

10.1016/s2542-5196(18)30102-5 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 2 ◽

pp. S17 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Richard Meissner ◽

Nikki Funke ◽

Karen Nortje ◽

Inga Jacobs-Mata ◽

Elliot Moyo ◽

...

Keyword(s):

South Africa ◽

Local Government ◽

Water Security ◽

Qualitative Interview ◽

Local Government Level ◽

Government Level

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The Conditions for after Work: Financialization and Informalization in Posttransition South Africa

PMLA ◽

10.1632/pmla.2012.127.4.782 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 127 (4) ◽

pp. 782-799 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Anne-Maria Makhulu

Keyword(s):

South Africa ◽

Informal Settlements ◽

Global South ◽

First Century ◽

Informal Employment ◽

Shop Floor ◽

Two Factors ◽

Informal Economies ◽

Forms Of Life ◽

Modes Of Life

This essay situates the problem of twenty-first-century work in the global South—specifically, in South Africa—to challenge northern theories of the crisis of work. Addressing the break between Fordism and post-Fordism peculiar to the postcolonial context, it argues that new regimes of work should be understood in relation both to longer histories of colonial resistance to proletarianization (to the racisms of the shop floor) and to colonial Fordisms, as well as to the way these two factors inform the current expansion of informal employment. What practices and forms of life emerge from the precarity of informal economies and informal settlements? How are precarious modes of life connected to and informed by the steady dematerialization of the economy through financialization?

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Local government response to the impacts of climate change: a review of climate change strategies in Pekalongan, Central Java, Indonesia

IOP Conference Series Earth and Environmental Science ◽

10.1088/1755-1315/724/1/012088 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 724 (1) ◽

pp. 012088

Author(s):

A Handayani

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Local Government ◽

Change Strategies ◽

Government Response ◽

Central Java ◽

Impacts Of Climate Change

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The community strike: From precarity to militant organizing

International Journal of Comparative Sociology ◽

10.1177/0020715218810769 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 61 (2-3) ◽

pp. 159-177

Author(s):

Marcel Paret

Keyword(s):

South Africa ◽

Working Class ◽

Public Space ◽

Public Services ◽

Informal Settlements ◽

The State ◽

A Site ◽

Collective Actor

How do insecure layers of the working class resist when they lack access to power and organization at the workplace? The community strike represents one possible approach. Whereas traditional workplace strikes target employers and exercise power by withholding labor, community strikes focus on the sphere of reproduction, target the state, and build power through moral appeals and disruptions of public space. Drawing on ethnography and interviews in the impoverished Black townships and informal settlements around Johannesburg, I illustrate this approach by examining widespread local protests in South Africa. Insecurely employed and unemployed residents implemented community strikes by demanding public services, barricading roads and destroying property, and boycotting activities such as work and school. Within these local revolts, community represented both a site of struggle and a collective actor. While community strikes enabled economically insecure groups to mobilize and make demands, they also confronted significant limits, including tensions between protesters and workers.

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Community-Centred Infrastructure Design Process for Resilience Building in South African Informal Settlements: The “Genius of Space” Solid Waste and Greywater Infrastructure Project

Case Studies in the Environment ◽

10.1525/cse.2017.000729 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 2 (1) ◽

pp. 1-10

Author(s):

Lauren Hermanus ◽

Sean Andrew

Keyword(s):

South Africa ◽

Local Governments ◽

Informal Settlements ◽

Interdisciplinary Approach ◽

Urban Environments ◽

Sub Saharan Africa ◽

Wastewater Management ◽

Western Cape ◽

Water And Sanitation ◽

Public And Private Sector

Due to a lack of adequate water and sanitation infrastructure, growing, unplanned urban settlements in South Africa and elsewhere have been linked to pollution of critical river systems. The same dynamics undermine local resilience, understood as the capacity to adapt and develop in response to changes, persistent social and ecological risks, and disasters. Water and sanitation challenges undermine resilience by causing and compounding risks to individuals, and to household and community health and livelihoods, in a complex context in which communities and local governments have limited capacity and resources to respond appropriately. Household and community resilience in informal settlements is drawing increasing policy focus, given the persistence of these kinds of neighbourhoods in cities and towns in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Africa, in particular. This case considers whether bottom-up responses that combine public and private sector resources, including community participation, and use an interdisciplinary approach can support the production of novel resilience-fostering solutions. This article presents an analysis of the case of Genius of Space waste and wastewater management infrastructure in the Western Cape, South Africa. While the process has been imperfect and slow to show results, this analysis reflects on the gains, lessons and potential for replication that this work has produced. The Genius of Space approach adds to a growing area of practice-based experimentation focussed on incrementalism and adaptive development practices in urban environments, particularly in developing countries.

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