East London’s struggling IDZ, it’s universities and the stagnant city centre are seemingly disconnected, but significant events have happened in recent weeks that link them.
The first was the long awaited announcement by Buffalo City Metro (BCM) that it intends to develop the inner city “sleeper site” which has been dormant for 20 years.
The second was the shocking revelation in the Saturday Dispatch of the “cash crunch at the IDZ”, which signals danger for that initiative and has resulted in the non-payment of officials and suppliers.
The editor of the Dispatch correctly noted last week that the BCM’s new plans for the sleeper site appear to be based on those developed by myself and a team of experts at the Fort Hare Institute of Social and Economic Research in 2012.
The team included several international experts as well as local development experts and city planners. The project was initially funded as part of the University of Fort Hare 2030 Long Range Plan.
We proposed that the site should be used as an innovation-knowledge economy hub, anchored by universities, but including mixed land use, such as retail and housing.
At the time virtually no-one in the province took much notice of our triple helix model and proposal, especially not BCM, which openly refused efforts by the university to come to the assistance of the city.
The municipal manager, Andile Fani, stood at the door of opportunity with a big stick, stating that it would be their way or the highway.
This made it difficult for other entities, such as the Eastern Cape Consultative Council or the Border Chamber of Business or even national Treasury, who were supportive of the proposals, to intervene, because the land belonged to the city.
One of the central parts of the dynamic plan we proposed was the connection of a new university-anchored innovation district or knowledge hub in the city with the IDZ as a production site on the coast.
We spoke of combining the research power of a KDZ (knowledge development zone) with the productive power of an IDZ (industrial development zone) in a single city and then marketing the city as both a knowledge and production hub to attract further university/research and business investment.
Incidentally, after wider consultation, we were convinced that, while the University of Fort Hare would necessarily be an anchor institution in the inner city KDZ, it would be advantageous for the city to appeal to a range of universities and research institutes to get involved in the zone.
These would include Walter Sisulu University, Rhodes University, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University and Unisa – all of which have and had cam puses in the city.
This seemed appropriate given that the city has always been home to multiple universities, none of which are exclusively city campuses.
It should also be noted here that we attempted to present our ideas to the leadership of the IDZ, but they did not give us a hearing – presumably because they felt their current model was rock solid.
This is an assumption we have challenged because “gated communities” never create integrated regional development, not even in China.
In the global context the type of connections we suggested are well recognised and applauded as the prudent route forward in tough global economic times.
In October last year, Jennifer Blanke, the chief economist at the World Economic Forum, released the 2014/15 Global Competitiveness Report. The report says the key to stimulating economic growth under the current global economic conditions rests on three pillars: firstly, the nurturing of talent; secondly, the maintenance of strong institutions; and thirdly, the pursuit of collaboration between partners.
It is the latter which Blanke repeatedly stressed, suggesting that “partnership had become new competition”.
She also stated that, “talent today is as important as capital when it comes to defining a country’s economic competitiveness.” She said that “by getting the public and private sectors working together with academia, this talent can truly flourish and become our economies’ new growth champions.”
Our debate about the future of the region, the city and the universities seems to happen in silos, where we sign memorandums of agreement (MOUs) that mean nothing more than the paper they are written on. They usually mark the end rather than the beginning of a conversation.
Petty politics and narrow self-interest always get the better of progress and there are few who offer the kind of collaborative leadership and vision that will make things better.
In so many spheres, we operate in self-contained fiefdoms, like feudal lords, full of self-importance defending tiny, barren plots of land or places with the determination of Border bulldogs. It is a truly depressing situation which offers the people of the province nothing more than a life of purgatory with little hope of improvement.
So, now we sit at the University of Fort Hare without much of a centenary plan for next year, at least not one that will attract significant new investment, with a city that deliberately sat on its hands and refused to test the viability of dynamic new proposals for the sleeper site and city development, and an IDZ which is now seemingly on the rocks too, or getting there.
And, it is not as though job creation and the productive economy are small issues for the future of the Eastern Cape.
If the Eastern Cape Premier, Phumulo Masualle, and the MEC for planning and finance, Sakhumzi Somyo, want to avoid complete economic disaster in the province – they are going to have to learn how to join the dots and break down the feudal walls.
The future success of Fort Hare, the East London IDZ and the city centre are not a disconnected phenomenon, they are all part of the same thing, which is building a credible, growing and sustainable regional economy.
Professor Leslie Bank is the director of the Fort Hare Institute of Social and Economic Research
Wield collaboration and grow a credible economy
The first was the long awaited announcement by Buffalo City Metro (BCM) that it intends to develop the inner city “sleeper site” which has been dormant for 20 years.
The second was the shocking revelation in the Saturday Dispatch of the “cash crunch at the IDZ”, which signals danger for that initiative and has resulted in the non-payment of officials and suppliers.
The editor of the Dispatch correctly noted last week that the BCM’s new plans for the sleeper site appear to be based on those developed by myself and a team of experts at the Fort Hare Institute of Social and Economic Research in 2012.
The team included several international experts as well as local development experts and city planners. The project was initially funded as part of the University of Fort Hare 2030 Long Range Plan.
We proposed that the site should be used as an innovation-knowledge economy hub, anchored by universities, but including mixed land use, such as retail and housing.
At the time virtually no-one in the province took much notice of our triple helix model and proposal, especially not BCM, which openly refused efforts by the university to come to the assistance of the city.
The municipal manager, Andile Fani, stood at the door of opportunity with a big stick, stating that it would be their way or the highway.
This made it difficult for other entities, such as the Eastern Cape Consultative Council or the Border Chamber of Business or even national Treasury, who were supportive of the proposals, to intervene, because the land belonged to the city.
One of the central parts of the dynamic plan we proposed was the connection of a new university-anchored innovation district or knowledge hub in the city with the IDZ as a production site on the coast.
We spoke of combining the research power of a KDZ (knowledge development zone) with the productive power of an IDZ (industrial development zone) in a single city and then marketing the city as both a knowledge and production hub to attract further university/research and business investment.
Incidentally, after wider consultation, we were convinced that, while the University of Fort Hare would necessarily be an anchor institution in the inner city KDZ, it would be advantageous for the city to appeal to a range of universities and research institutes to get involved in the zone.
These would include Walter Sisulu University, Rhodes University, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University and Unisa – all of which have and had cam puses in the city.
This seemed appropriate given that the city has always been home to multiple universities, none of which are exclusively city campuses.
It should also be noted here that we attempted to present our ideas to the leadership of the IDZ, but they did not give us a hearing – presumably because they felt their current model was rock solid.
This is an assumption we have challenged because “gated communities” never create integrated regional development, not even in China.
In the global context the type of connections we suggested are well recognised and applauded as the prudent route forward in tough global economic times.
In October last year, Jennifer Blanke, the chief economist at the World Economic Forum, released the 2014/15 Global Competitiveness Report. The report says the key to stimulating economic growth under the current global economic conditions rests on three pillars: firstly, the nurturing of talent; secondly, the maintenance of strong institutions; and thirdly, the pursuit of collaboration between partners.
It is the latter which Blanke repeatedly stressed, suggesting that “partnership had become new competition”.
She also stated that, “talent today is as important as capital when it comes to defining a country’s economic competitiveness.” She said that “by getting the public and private sectors working together with academia, this talent can truly flourish and become our economies’ new growth champions.”
Our debate about the future of the region, the city and the universities seems to happen in silos, where we sign memorandums of agreement (MOUs) that mean nothing more than the paper they are written on. They usually mark the end rather than the beginning of a conversation.
Petty politics and narrow self-interest always get the better of progress and there are few who offer the kind of collaborative leadership and vision that will make things better.
In so many spheres, we operate in self-contained fiefdoms, like feudal lords, full of self-importance defending tiny, barren plots of land or places with the determination of Border bulldogs. It is a truly depressing situation which offers the people of the province nothing more than a life of purgatory with little hope of improvement.
So, now we sit at the University of Fort Hare without much of a centenary plan for next year, at least not one that will attract significant new investment, with a city that deliberately sat on its hands and refused to test the viability of dynamic new proposals for the sleeper site and city development, and an IDZ which is now seemingly on the rocks too, or getting there.
And, it is not as though job creation and the productive economy are small issues for the future of the Eastern Cape.
If the Eastern Cape Premier, Phumulo Masualle, and the MEC for planning and finance, Sakhumzi Somyo, want to avoid complete economic disaster in the province – they are going to have to learn how to join the dots and break down the feudal walls.
The future success of Fort Hare, the East London IDZ and the city centre are not a disconnected phenomenon, they are all part of the same thing, which is building a credible, growing and sustainable regional economy.
Professor Leslie Bank is the director of the Fort Hare Institute of Social and Economic Research
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