Conclusion of three-year Future Cities South Africa Programme

Author: Cara Hartley - PDG Director and Senior Consultant

In 2019, PDG entered into a consortium led by PwC UK to implement the South African component of the Global Future Cities Programme. This was a 3-year, UK-funded programme of technical assistance. In South Africa the programme supported Johannesburg, Cape Town, and eThekwini.

Mere months into the three-year programme, COVID-19 struck. The consortium was able to adapt its programming to address the emergent needs of these cities. Given our multidisciplinary skill offering, nearly all members of the PDG team were drawn into these COVID response projects, as well as the core projects – focusing on data and evidence use; transport; spatial development – to a greater or lesser extent.

The experience was very valuable. Many of us had the satisfaction of supporting the cities in significant ways, with clear benefit to citizens in the short or longer term. We also encountered challenges and faced dynamics that deepened our insight into the developmental context in South African cities. These included internal institutional dynamics, as well as successive shocks from COVID-19, the unrest of July 2021 and the floods in eThekwini, and changes to UK foreign policy and expenditure. PDG’s purpose is to support decision-making in the public interest; and we certainly learned, with our diverse consortium partners and city stakeholders, more about how to do this effectively in the current South African urban context. I had the privilege of stepping into the role of Monitoring, Reporting and Evaluation lead from November 2020 onwards, which was a step change in the strategic nature of my work, prompting me to learn about complexity-aware monitoring and confront some of my own strengths and weaknesses as a M&E practitioner. It also vastly expanded my professional network.

In November 2022, the programme concluded with a closure event at the British High Commission in Pretoria. It was great to celebrate and reflect with such a broad range of stakeholders – political, diplomatic, city officials, urban residents themselves, national and intergovernmental organisations, civil society, academia – and of course the consortium colleagues with whom we worked so closely over the three years. Learning briefs and other resources were launched which we hope will be of benefit to other cities and development assistance programmes. A new iteration of the programme, now bilateralised, was announced and will commence in 2023.

For more information about PDG’s contribution to the Future Cities South Africa programme, refer to our team’s CVs on our website.