by Nontlantla Skenjana

Rural development has become the new buzz word in political circles as we move towards elections. Politicians seem to have suddenly realised that after 15 years of democracy, inroads have hardly been made in improving the economic participation of rural households.

This is most evident in the Eastern Cape, where most rural households are headed up by women and which are dependent on social grants. With the current global crisis, many of these households’ men face retrenchment and returning home disillusioned with no money or future job prospects.

From the dawn of democracy, many visible changes have taken place in rural communities such as the electrification, potable water, sanitation and roads that have been delivered courtesy of the RDP, Municipal Infrastructure Grant and the Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP). However, the economic participation of rural communities has been almost non-existent and the migration of families into urban areas is only making things worse.  A number of schools have had to close as they could not achieve the targets set by the Department of Education in the interests of rationalisation.

This has also resulted from the vigorous change in leadership structures of the rural communities, where the introduction of the democratic ward system led to duplicity of roles between ward structures and the traditional authorities. Many conflicts arose because of this leading to social instability as a result of lack of clear lines of authority. This also adversely affected the primary rural economy.

With the current challenges of food shortages, global climatic change and the campaign around sustainable development, it has come to the attention of many that rural communities have a huge role to play. However, in the context of South Africa, it must be understood that, these areas were poorly planned and had very limited support from government structures. However, if one expects the rural communities to provide food for the country, it is necessary to understand that the generation of economic activity depends on how much is invested in the infrastructural requirements.

It has been said that the success of the coming election term will be judged by how many inroads can be made in rural development.

In the 2009/2010 budget, the Minister of Finance has put aside an amount of R 3 billion for rural development. This amount has been allocated to three projects, R 1.8 billion for land and agrarian reform and R 1.2 billion for supporting small scale farmers and women in agriculture.

The question is, is this sufficient or are rural areas once again getting a raw deal?

The concept of sustainable development suggests that, for it to succeed, it must be supported by the integration of various systems including: social systems, governance systems, economic systems and environmental systems. As a participant in the World Sustainable development summit, it is crucial that whatever development takes place in South African rural areas that development should comply with sustainable development principles.

This means that before the actual activities there needs to be structural reforms which become the basis for any economic activities. Post-1994, much of the rural land was left desolate with non-existent agricultural activity and limited crop planting for example, maize. This means that while agricultural land is available it may need to be rehabilitated.

Rural communities have over time tended to believe that they must go to urban areas to look for job opportunities, thanks to the entrenched migrant labour system. Very little agricultural production has been taking place especially in the former so-called homelands. It is therefore common to find that, although people live in rural areas, their groceries are bought in town including vegetables and staples.

This means that when we speak of agrarian reform there should be consideration of the social facilitation component, infrastructural requirements and the requisite personnel. In a previous Issue of the Transformer, it was stated that rural development must be holistic and integrated. This means that rural education, although complying with the National Curriculum Statement, must contribute to making rural communities a better place to live and work.

The Eastern Cape transfers to public entities amount to R 63 million. One of these entities is the Eastern Cape Appropriate Technology Unit (ECATU) which is responsible for government support in rural development and poverty eradication through planning, financing and project implementation. ECATU received only 20% of this budget while the major portion went to the Eastern Cape Socio-Economic Consultative Council (ECSECC) (approx 60%) and the rest to the Eastern Cape Youth Commission. It is understood that some of the work done by ECSECC is for the benefit of rural communities, but the objectives of ECATU are more specific to the work that needs to be done among rural communities. This trend in allocation has continued in the past three years with no significant shift in terms of provincial government transfers.

The Eastern Cape government has three clusters and looking at the budget 2009/10, allocations are as follows: governance (4%), social (81%) and economic development (15%). There is increased expenditure on the social cluster with limited increases in terms of the economic development as one would have expected. The economic development cluster includes the Economic Development and Environmental Affairs, Agriculture, Public Works and Roads and Transport departments. These are the departments that are central to the economic development of the province, specifically looking at set priorities. It can be said that the social cluster is a higher priority but there has to be more engagements if the structural economic landscape of the province is to be changed.

One of the major concerns in the Eastern Cape is that, most of the population is employed by government and in community services. This is a trend that does not support sustainable development. The real growth in the economy must be supported by all growth sectors particularly employment from the private sector.

For the agrarian sector to contribute to real growth; there has to be greater participation of rural farmers in commercial farming and employment creation.  Rural communities make no direct contributions to government except through economic participation where they pay VAT, Fuel Levy, Companies Tax, PAYE, etc. The greater the participation of rural communities in the economic value chain, the more their GDP contribution will be. This needs vigorous government-driven programmes that are people-centred to empower them.

It is necessary to understand that, rural development, although mostly agriculture-dependent, it involves a lot more non-farm activities. Perhaps the budget should not only set aside specific programmes focused on rural development but that rural development should be mainstreamed into each department’s strategic plan as well and given equal consideration as the PGDP. The achievement of rural development and growth in the rural economy will lead to the achievement of PGDP and the Millennium Development Goals (MDG). The proposed budget may be a good start, but it is not enough to address the structural challenges, infrastructure backlogs and capacity issues in rural communities.

The Transformer Vol. 15 No. 2 Apr-May 2009