Build it and they will come: Lessons from the Slovo Park informal settlement

How did we get here? The answer lies, in part, with policy implementation shortcomings – a situation which the Minister of Human Settlement’s prioritisation appeared to address in her budget speech on 22 July. 

Minister Lindiwe Sisulu identified incremental upgrading of informal settlements as the first of several priorities for the department during Covid-19. In fact, R2.4-billion of her budget has been allocated to provincial governments and R2.2-billion to metropolitan municipalities to improve basic services and living conditions for residents in informal settlements. 

The Upgrading of Informal Settlements Programme (UISP) is a potentially progressive, yet underutilised, policy instrument. The UISP says informal settlements must be upgraded in situ (where they are), with minimal disruption to social and livelihood networks, and full community participation. It sets out how national, provincial and local government should work together. The policy supports municipalities to ensure that informal settlement residents enjoy security of tenure and basic services as a first step.

Slovo Park, in Johannesburg’s southern area, is an informal settlement that has suffered appalling neglect for 20 years. Only recently has this begun to shift, offering important insights for what constrains use of the programme and what is required to implement it.  

In 2014, the Slovo Park Community Development Forum (SPCDF) approached the Gauteng local division to oppose the City’s plan to relocate residents 11 kilometres away from the settlement. The SPCDF requested the court to compel the City to apply for funds from the Gauteng Department of Human Settlements, and implement the UISP, contained in the National Housing Code (2009).

In April 2016, the Gauteng High Court ordered the City of Johannesburg to upgrade the Slovo Park informal settlement through the UISP. The Melani judgment confirms that the UISP is binding on municipalities and that local government’s failure or refusal to apply the policy is unlawful. It also confirms that the UISP applies to all informal settlements across South Africa, and that relocation of residents must be a last resort. 

2020 marks four years since Slovo Park informal settlement’s legal victory. The Socio-Economic Rights Institute of South Africa (SERI) launches “Some Gains At Last”, a second edition of the Slovo Park Community Practice Note, on 30 July, continuing Slovo Park’s story since receiving the judgment. 

The first edition, “Slovo Park: Twenty Years of Broken Promises”, summarised key events in the settlement’s history from 1991-2014, and detailed community-led engagements with government officials and politicians over 20 years that ultimately led to the collective decision to litigate against the City of Johannesburg in 2014. 

“Some Gains at Last” details the groundbreaking High Court judgment in 2016, and documents the concrete gains in Slovo Park informal settlement since then. 

The first gain is the establishment of a multi-stakeholder task team solely dedicated to Slovo Park’s development. The team comprises national, provincial and City human settlements officials; the SPCDF, SERI, and built environment practitioners from the Centre for Urbanism and Built Environment Studies (CUBES), as well as 1:1 Agency of Engagement. 

The purpose of the task team is to improve community participation in the government’s implementation of the UISP in the settlement. 

The second gain is the municipal installation of electricity in 2018. Since Slovo Park’s establishment in 1991, there had been no formal access to power in the settlement. More than 10,000 residents relied on candles, wood fires, paraffin lamps and illegal connections to factories in neighbouring Nancefield. 

Before the electrification of the settlement, an average of four deaths from shack fires were reported to the SPCDF every year. Since electrification two years ago, no shack fire-related deaths have been reported to the leadership forum.

The third and most recent gain is the City’s submission for funding to the provincial department of human settlements in 2019. This is significant because it ring-fences resources for the City to apply a participatory approach to upgrading Slovo Park in the long term. 

The nature and consistency of municipal leadership, and in particular the approach officials adopt, directly impacts on the progress or regression of informal settlement upgrading and the quality of policy implementation.