DIALE LODI: SPEAKS ON INTEGRATED DEVELOPMENT AND SPACIAL PLANNING

DIALE LODI

Diale has over 20 years experience in the urban and development planning profession. As a qualified Urban and Regional Planner, Diale works in the areas of Spatial and Collaborative Planning and Governance, Land Use Management and Planning, Geographic Information Systems, Urban Development and Management, Urban Policy Development and Implementation, Integrated Development Planning and Intergovernmental Planning.

Coming from a disadvantaged background, where he was raised by a single parent, his mother, who worked as a domestic worker, Diale became the first to graduate from a University in his family. Diale went further to become one of the first black students to obtain a degree in Town and Regional Planning at the University of Pretoria. In addition, Diale was the first black person to lecture at the Department of Town and Regional Planning at the University of Pretoria. His motivation to study Town and Regional Planning stems from a desire and a vision to improve the quality of lives and living conditions of disadvantaged communities that Diale experienced first hand while he was growing up. Diale believes that Urban Planning is a calling that is deeply rooted on contributing to the improvement of the quality of lives of disadvantaged communities. He says, "The way we plan and design places where our communities live, the spatial location of these communities, the facilities that exists in these communities, contributes a lot to the opportunities that young kids, and women can access in order to lead and successfully pursue their dreams". The diagram (Fig 1) illustrates how the apartheid spatial planning pattern operated in order to separate development by race.

FIGURE 1: The model Apartheid city, showing residential and industrial areas and central business districts (CBD), adapted from Davies (1981).

FIGURE 1: The model Apartheid city, showing residential and industrial areas and central business districts (CBD), adapted from Davies (1981).

Diale started his career in the private sector, where he worked as an assistant town planner in the early 2000s. This is where he fell in love with integrated development planning, popularly known as IDPs. Shortly after, he proceeded to work in the development cooperation sector, after which he joined academia for four years. Since then, he has spent most of his career in the public sector, particularly in provincial and national government. Working in these diversified environments gives him the comparative advantage and agility to combine and use his academic skills, the skills he obtained from the private sector and public sector in order to lead and manage programmes successfully.

In provincial government, Diale worked in the Western Cape, briefly in Kwa-Zulu Natal and Gauteng where he held senior management positions in the areas of integrated development planning and intergovernmental planning, urban management and spatial planning. Nationally, he has worked in the Department of Cooperative Governance where he led the implementation of the Integrated Urban Development Framework (IUDF) and subsequently formed part of the team leading the development and implementation of the District Development Model (DDM). As part of his career, Diale participated in programmes, conferences, and seminars across the country and globally, i.e. Germany, Italy, London, Ethiopia, Tanzania, The Netherlands, Russia, Morocco, Ecuador, etc.

In his career he has collaborated with various partners such as the World Bank, the Swiss Development Cooperation, the United Nations, the Development Bank of Southern Africa, the German Development Cooperation, the South African Planning Institute, and others. He strongly believes that there is value in partnering between government and various stakeholders especially those outside government. One of the key lessons that he has learnt from various engagement with partners outside government, was their willingness and readiness to collaborate and partner. This is perhaps against the popular narrative that the private sector does not want to work with government, it actually does, and is willing to do so. All that government often needs to do is reach out, be clear on what they need, and provide the necessary leadership and support in a way that is not bureaucratic.

One of the highlights of Diale’s career was the four years he spent as a lecturer at the University of Pretoria. As a first black lecturer at the Department of Town and Regional Planning at the University of Pretoria, in his young age, he taught modules in Integrated Development Planning, Development Planning, Participatory Planning, Policy Development and more.

Currently Diale works as a Chief Director in the Gauteng Department of Cooperative Government and Traditional Affairs, where he leads Spatial Planning, Land Use Management, Integrated Development Planning, Geographic Information Systems, and the implementation of the District Development Model in Gauteng.

Diale believes in the power and ability of urban/town planning through various tools at national, provincial and local spheres of government to guide integrated service delivery, integrated human settlements, reduce duplication and wastage of resources but also to created integrated and prosperous communities. While planning remains a scares skill, it is nonetheless a critical skill in the country and in Gauteng that needs to be recognized and afforded its rightful place. Urban planners have a multitude of skills that allows them to be agile, and engage with multidisciplinary teams in the built environment, the economic and social environment. Urban planners are generally equipped with rare skills that enable them to have a holistic perspective and an integrative perspective on a number of development areas. Urban Planning is one of those rare disciplines that also teaches one critical thinking skills, analytical skills, and the ability to see interrelationships and connections between various issues.

As the Executive Manager responsible for the implementation of the Integrated Urban Development Framework (IUDF) at national COGTA, Diale dedicated a lot of effort in ensuring that national government provides the necessary leadership and guidance on how our National Urban Policy, one of the best in the continent (adopted by cabinet in 2016), must be implemented.

One of the founding ethos of the IUDF is the important role of cities to improve the quality of lives of people. Cities are at the centre of the entire government system, if our cities do not function effectively, the implementation of the majority of our programmes may not succeed. Cities are the engine of growth and development, especially the metropolitan municipalities. Every programme that government develops gets implemented within a city space and city spaces are where our communities live. It is where we all live.

During his tenure at national COGTA, Diale made a huge effort to strengthen the implementation of the IUDF in intermediate cities, popularly known as secondary cities, primarily because these cities are experiencing increased population growth and urbanization, which means focussed urban management programmes, support, tools are critical. Historically, a lot of effort has been spent on our large cities, i.e. metropolitan municipalities, which is indeed the correct focus but focusing only on these large cities at the expense of intermediate cities could have a negative impact in the long run. Some of the key programmes implemented during his tenure at national government on this programmes include the Intermediate Cities Support Programme and the Integrated Urban Development Grant.

These complementary interventions sought to ensure that, amongst others, intermediate cities develop long-term infrastructure plans, popularly known as the Capital Expenditure Frameworks (CEFs), with an overarching aim of inculcating a culture and ethos of long term planning in intermediate cities. Knowledge exchange programmes also became a critical feature of the work done with ICMs on the implementation of the IUDF, with the aim of unearthing good practises between the cities, underpinned by the ethos of building on what works as opposed to focusing mostly on problems and challenges. Some of the strategic partners that Diale worked with in this programme included the Swiss Development Cooperation, the German Development Cooperation, the World Bank, and ICLEI. During his departure from national COGTA, work was underway to mainstream Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to support the IUDF in intermediate cities.

The knowledge exchange platform that was created through the intermediate city support programme was special. Local intermediate cities were twinned with cities of a similar characteristic in Germany. Municipal officials were allowed to travel between two countries to exchange knowledge and share good practices with one another. Knowledge products were developed that could be used to reach a wider network of intermediate cities and allow them to learn from this exchange. This is another classical example of some of the successes that are possible through a partnership arrangement.

Diale leads a team that is currently working on the review of the Gauteng Spatial Development Framework (GSDF). This is a project that is critical in providing spatial direction in the Gauteng City Region. All provinces are required to develop, implement and review the Provincial Spatial Development Framework, herein referred to as the Gauteng Spatial Development Framework (GSDF) in terms of the Spatial Planning and Land Use Management Act, Act 16 of 2013. Amongst others, the GSDF aims to coordinate, integrate and align provincial plans with policies of national government, provincial government and municipalities. The GSDF provides a long term spatial vision of the province. When completed, the GSDF, has the power to guide and coordinate programmes and projects of provincial sector departments in order to ensure spatial integration and transformation, which is a critical outcome that will address the legacy of spatial apartheid planning. The implementation of the GSDF is critical because it also ensures that government coordinates their projects and programmes in a manner that saves costs and ensures integration and focuses on targeted areas. In Gauteng, we are using the GSDF to guide where provincial sector departments must prioritize their programmes and projects in order to maximise impact, create spatial transformation and integration and unlock economic development.

As part of the process to review the GSDF, we work closely with local municipalities, parastatals, strategic national departments and other critical stakeholders. We anticipate that the reviewed GSDF will be concluded after June this year. As part of this process, communities and organizations in the province will be afforded an opportunity to provide comments to the draft reviewed GSDF before it is adopted by our provincial cabinet.

The other important provincial government programme that Diale is currently leading is the District Development Model (DDM). The DDM was introduced by the President in his Budget Speech of 2019. It was further adopted by Cabinet in August 2019 and Gauteng adopted the DDM in June 2020.

While working at national DCOG, Diale got the rare opportunity to work closely on the conceptualization, piloting, and the early stages of the roll out of this programme. As part of this core team he was instrumental in mobilizing the participation of the United Nations in the DDM in the three pilot sites. While it is still in its infancy, if implemented according to its noble intentions, the DDM has great potential to improve how the entire system of government works.

The DDM carries forward previous government programmes, policies and plans such as the IUDF, municipal IDPs and others. It amplifies and fast tracks their intent and impact. The DDM is premised on the ethos of a whole of government approach, which is founded on the principle of cooperative governance and joined-up governance that is in-turn embedded in the Constitution of South Africa, building a social compact emphasized in the IUDF and the whole of society approach which is also emphasized in the IUDF.

The distinguishing feature of the DDM is long term planning expressed through the One Plans, wherein all 52 district spaces develop these One Plans. The other critical feature of the DDM is the emphasis on spatial referencing and budgeting with the overall intention of ensuring that all spheres of government locate their projects in spaces where they are implemented and these projects are also costed and communicated with communities.

In Gauteng, intergovernmental teams have been set up to lead and guide the development of the DDM One Plans in all five regions. These One Plans were prepared through a collaborative process that is guided by six pillars focusing on people development, economic repositioning, integrated service provisioning, spatial restructuring and environmental sustainability, infrastructure engineering and governance. In addition, we have embarked on a process to spatially reference all the sector departmental projects that are currently being implemented in each of the five regions. We are introducing a dashboard, through a Geographic Information System in order to track the implementation of these projects. We have also started a process to mobilize strategic partners in the development cooperation sector, and research institutions and community development organizations to support the implementation of the DDM in the province.

As a relatively young senior manager who has worked in the public sector for over 10 years, I have learnt that there are senior managers in government who are dedicated, committed and determined to ensure that government programmes succeed. I have met and worked with such inspirational managers. The challenges are that one hardly gets to hear about the great work that they are doing and their amazing work ethic. Similarly, I have had a great privilege to work with Ministers who are diligent, committed and eager to get things done and improve the quality of lives of our people. These experiences and encounters, have left a positive impact in my life and career. On the other hand, I have learnt that sometimes government does tend to lack the understanding of the importance of the resources that are often required to get programmes and projects off the ground. Over time, I have learnt that, while dedication will be given to conceptualizing programmes and projects, the same level of dedication diminishes when resources must be dedicated to the implementation of these programmes. Lastly, there is also often a challenge in sustaining programmes, in other words, the majority of programmes that government often introduces change too soon, before real impact and proper implementation can be measured.

It is certain that urban planning and urban planners have a critical role to play in the development of South Africa, that this is a profession that needs to be more and better recognized., and that Government has over time introduced legislation, policies, programmes and plans that have the ability to ensure integrated and sustainable delivery of services.

In order for these to succeed it is critical to sustain the implementation trajectory, form partnerships with the private sector, and boost the capacity of the government by attracting and retaining best skills available in the market.