It is estimated that about 27% of the water which Rand Water sells to municipalities leaks away. Water Alternatives. It is an important victory that almost every school in South Africa has some access to water and electricity supply! “These multilateral development banks have let it be known that they have R140-billion to invest in infrastructure in South Africa this calendar year, but they need bankable projects,” said Dr Kgosientso Ramokgopa, head of the Investment and Infrastructure Office in the Presidency, following the Tuynhuys gathering. The South African Institution of Civil Engineering's 2017 Infrastructure Report Card scored national roads a " B " (fit for the future), paved metropolitan roads a " C " … Infrastructure funding is largely provided by South Africa’s national government. L Geere, L., Hunter PR, Jagals, P. (2015). Chola L. Michalow, J. Tugendaft A., Hofman, K. (2015). Several schools in Central South Africa are affected by the national infrastructure backlog that is estimated by the National Department of Basic Education at more than R1 billion. 5. Since 1994, South Africa has achieved major reductions in water backlog with consequent improvement in access to water infrastructure delivery. The Accelerated Schools Infrastructure Development Initiative (ASIDI) is one the programmes introduced by government to address this backlog. To ensure an increase of access to services for South Africans, public infrastructure programmes are being implemented. 15: 394. For a province that is battling a huge school infrastructure backlog, severe storms that caused damage at more than 50 schools have dealt the Eastern Cape a … Rural areas may comprise one or more of the following: tribal (or traditional or communal) areas, commercial farms and informal settlements [11]. Time spent fetching water and fuel reduces the time that can be devoted to generating livelihoods or in remunerated work [9]. The thick line in the box-plot represents the 3.9 median value (50th percentile of the distribution). Water SA Vol. Funding models for financing water infrastructure in South Africa: Framework and critical analysis of alternatives. Removing advertising from your browsing experience is one of them - we don't just block ads, we redesign our pages to look smarter and load faster. South Africa is facing many challenges to improve infrastructure for economic development and and municipal service delivery. Reviving this country’s ailing economy has become the hallmark of the Ramaphosa presidency. Rating agency Moody’s projects economic growth of 0.7% for 2020, a paltry figure that will inevitably lead to higher levels of unemployment and greater social inequality. Africa’s Infrastructure Backlog. This raises the question whether the economy is strong enough to sustain national infrastructure demands and necessary delivery. There is no limit to the projects that need financing, but for the time being the focus will be on SA’s network industries – water, energy, ports and rail, roads and internet connectivity. Nhlanhla Mnisi says since 1994, SA has achieved major reductions in backlogs, https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/19901SDG6_SR2018_web_3.pdf, https://www.wsp.org/sites/wsp/files/publications/CSO-SouthAfrica.pdf, https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/drinking-water, https://www.un-ihe.org/stories/why-fetching-water-considered-%E2%80%98woman%E2%80%99s-job%E2%80%99, https://yourstory.com/2016/08/water-cisis-unicef, https://undg.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Interim-Draft-Operational-Guide-on-LNOB-for-UNCTs.pdf, Moral Laws (II): Sex Work – The arguments. The problem is the state does not have the funds, nor the means to do so. Domestic water carrying and its implications for health: a review and mixed methods pilot study in Limpopo Province, South Africa. 8. 1. It was an impressive turnout – about 200 people attended. That has not happened in the longest of times. Despite major overall national improvement, water backlog remains relatively high in predominantly rural provinces. “This is a picture I’m determined we should correct immediately,” he said. World Health Organization (2019) https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/drinking-water). https://yourstory.com/2016/08/water-cisis-unicef. 39 No. 2. National water infrastructure delivery inequalities subject vulnerable individuals and communities to unimproved and contaminated sources of drinking water. Geere J.&Cortobius, M (2017). “We saw key players in the finance sector coming together under one roof to ensure the government can meet its economic goals.”. It is groundbreaking to have all of these funding agencies and government and ourselves in one room. “This meeting was unprecedented,” he added. In addition to provincial disparities in infrastructure delivery, the data reveal a further dimension. This led to an increased focus on economic infrastructure from the … UNESCO-IHE (2019). Please sign in or register to enable this feature. However the speed, quality and efficiency of many of these projects, however, has not matched the level of investment, due to project planning at all levels, including for long-term maintenance, proving to be inadequate. Within this context South Africa suffers from a disparate distribution of infrastructure ranging from established and maintained urban and industrial areas such as Gauteng through tothe challenges prevailing in the Eastern Cape. These include Eastern Cape (EC), KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), Limpopo (LP), Mpumalanga (MP) and the North West (NW) (Table 1). City Power takes on infrastructure backlog one street light at a time Liesl Frankson | Feb 7, 2018 In an effort to combat the R19 billion infrastructure backlog City Power is conducting numerous street light installation and maintenance projects throughout the City. Who Carries the Weight of Water? 1. The roads sector has been facing many funding and skills challenges which have all contributed to the backlog. There is a backlog of sufficient planned new bulk water infrastructure projects in South Africa which could potentially provide increased opportunities for engineering consultants, such as AECOM, to become involved in more infrastructure development, says AECOM water business line director Werner Comrie. In South Africa, infrastructure investment together with the use of public land and public buildings is a critical lever to achieve spatial and economic justice by connecting our people, integrating our communities and bringing people closer to work opportunities. “This is the beginning of a process. For South Africa to overcome the current national water infrastructure backlog, it is imperative that infrastructure investment and delivery outpace current and projected national population growth. Where infrastructure is not maintained it has a huge impact on the ordinary lives of people – water is an example.”. 12. 9. They were there to talk about infrastructure and, more specifically, how to intensify infrastructure investment in South Africa. For instance, the cost to eradicate South Africa’s road maintenance backlog alone has more than doubled to R416-billion since 2013. Table 1: Inherited and recently achieved water infrastructure backlog - population. Source: Regional data for households (April 2019). The current national water infrastructure backlog is 13.01% (Figure.2). Bio Med. Agenda 2030 on Sustainable Development, adopted by UN member states in September 2015. For instance, highly urbanised provinces such as Gauteng (GP) and the Western Cape (WC) have over the past 25 years managed to reduce the water infrastructure backlog to less than 2% of the population. Pretoria - The Department of Human Settlements wants R26 million over the next three years to address the country's backlog in water and waste water treatment works infrastructure. National Treasury has outlined how R7 billion will be removed from allocations like local government and municipal infrastructure grants among others as the President Cyril Ramaphosa administration seeks to reduce national debt.. Priority will also be given to agri-projects as well as those involving human settlement. So it was that on Tuesday President Cyril Ramaphosa brought together a high powered group that included the heads of SA’s four big banks, the heads of multilateral development banks like the World Bank and International Finance Corporation, and DFIs like the German Development Bank and the African Development Bank Group at Tuynhuys, the Cape Town office of the Presidency. The R8.2 billion public-private programme aims to eradicate the 496 mud schools in the country, provide water and sanitation to 1 257 schools and electricity to 878 schools by March 2016. Access to water infrastructure is defined as the provision of tapped water. But in South Africa, estimates indicate that the cost of building, upgrading, rehabilitating and expanding the required water, transport, power and township infrastructure approaches and even exceeds R473 billion. It is therefore necessary that national water infrastructure investments and policies be directed towards prioritising rural provinces and areas to avoid geospatial disparities in infrastructure delivery. The box contains observations between the 25th and the 75th percentile and the whiskers (lines) above and below the box, indicate the 90th and 10th percentiles. Parastatal companies also undertake infrastructure development in some sectors, while other initiatives include the government’s Expanded Public Works Programme, and public-private partnerships. Women around the world spend collective 200 million hours a day collecting water [8]. Water infrastructure delivery also varies across provinces. The overall housing backlog is currently in excess of 550,000 across the Western Cape, with more than 300,000 of these in the City of Cape Town. There was a need for greater economic infrastructure investment, while still continuing to address apartheid-era backlogs in housing and social infrastructure. Countries like South Africa have little choice but to consider innovative approaches to ensure that they eliminate their water infrastructure backlogs (Ruiters [10]). Water infrastructure delivery also varies across provinces. electricity and telecommunications infrastructure. Conversely, failure to embrace the principle will only widen present disparities and lead to greater inequality. why is fetching water considered a ‘woman’s job’? Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula has revealed that South Africa has a backlog of 320,000 driving licence, with demand growing by 90,000 each month. The State of Municipal Infrastructure In South Africa and its Operation and Maintenance Page 6. Report number: P0302. Further analysis reveals major provincial water backlog variability. A rural area is an area that is not classified as urban. The challenge for South Africa is to elevate the infrastructure discussion to the level of an integrated ESI perspective. https://www.un-ihe.org/stories/why-fetching-water-considered-%E2%80%98woman%E2%80%99s-job%E2%80%99. However, a rural-urban divide persists. UNICEF (2016). Of this 27%, 17% constitutes leaks in municipal water systems, and … This is … Towns near Fukushima are now being plagued by hordes of rampaging radioactive wild boars. 6. 4. Statistics South Africa (2019). South Africa is peering over the edge of a fiscal cliff with no easy way down. However, as the 2019 National Education Infrastructure Management System (NEIMS) report shows, this access is unreliable. Speaking to ENCA, Mbalula said this backlog … These include a reduction of R336 million from the school infrastructure backlog grants, R240 million from the National Health Insurance fund and R273 million … The concept entails physical availability of the infrastructure without consideration of the quality or the reliability of the service. Thus, infrastructure provision for rural provinces like of EC, KZN, LP, MP and NW is observed to be lower than that of highly urbanised provinces like GP and WC provinces (Figure 3). Infrastructure plays andimportant role in the social and economic development of communities. South Africa is peering over the edge of a fiscal cliff with no easy way down. Fetching Water in Rural and Urban Areas and the Implications for Water Security. UN (2019). Select which newsletters you'd like to receive, Kgosientso Ramokgopa (Photo: Flickr/Open Government Partnership). 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