'Homeland' Development? Planning in the Ciskei

Michael Ward their own economic strategy and staff the offices, schools, police force, hospitals, etc under their Within South Africa, clearly defined (and admini- control. It is alleged - or hoped - there will be stratively distinct) geographical zones exist for opportunities for individual economic advance- which a centrally organised and separate policy of ment (as well as social development) not hitherto regional development has been devised. These are open to blacks. A policy with similar objectives, referred to as 'homelands'. carried out elsewhere in Africa and not based on any discriminatory political philosophy, would The 'homelands' plan introduced in the late l950s contain certain economic aspects which probably as perhaps the most charàcteristic (and contro- would have been favourably regarded and in so far versial)featureof amorepreciselydefined as the policy is directed towards the promotion of apartheid policy, envisioned the establishment of a economic development and employment and number of essentially tribally based 'independent' employment opportunities for the poor, there is Black states within South Africa. Originally, the little to quarrel with. But as part of the general intention was to settle the majority of the blacks in ideology of apartheid, no aspect of this strategy can the country (comprising some four-fifths of the total be regarded as acceptable. This is because the population) into these separate locations which, in strategy has been evolved within the context of all, make up little more than 15 per cent of the total ultimate objectives which are contrary to the true land area. Apart from the problem that many of the meaning of development. homelands are fragmented (making their admini- stration particularly difficult in a country pre- In any 'homeland' area, the very nature of the serving 'pass laws') most will never possess more development process, quite apart from the rate of than a nominal autonomy and none will receive economic progress, is constrained by the domin- true international recognition of their independent ance of the South African economy - not only in status. market operations but in the utilisation of all factors of production. This all-pervading depen- To many people both within South Africa and out- dency constrains policy options. Thus it renders side, these nominally independent entities do not quite irrelevant any development planning based exist; they are regarded merely as a political on the evaluation and exploitation of regional creation of the ruling regime and a manifestation of physical resources. This process involves invest- national ideology and official philosophy. Any ment in expensive capital intensive projects which, acceptance of their existence would, it is felt, imply by their very nature, restrict employment oppor- the need to accord some recognition to apartheid. tunities.Such projects,in drawing on scarce Thispaper,whilstrecognisingthefactof resources, tend to jeopardise other programmes apartheid (and the widespread implications of such directed towards raising general levels of agri- an approach) in no way condones it. 'It simply tries cultural production and rural living standards. to analyse the socio-economic conditions and Moreover, much of current 'homeland' develop- regionalpolicystrategyimplied bysucha ment accentuates dependence on outside finance philosophy, and questions whether 'homeland' and institutions. This external sovereign power policy can achieve the declared primary, objective makes all the key decisions on behalf of the regional to promote the development of the indigenous authorities, despite the apparent administrative and Africans. political independence of the local ministerial councils. The stated intention of the South African govern- ment's apartheid policy and its associated 'home- Some of the basic problems associated with any land' philosophy is that as non-Europeans establish attempt to implement 'independent' economic and their own residential areas, they will also develop social policies within a 'homeland' area are des- cribed below in relation to the Ciskei. Geographic- Since most development problems are essentially concerned ally, thisis a narrow corridor of land mainly with questions of redistribution and structural change to help comprising the Keiskamma River catchment area. alleviate poverty and pauperisation amongst the least privi- leged, any policy of separate development is, prima facie, This strip lies roughly north-south and is bounded inappropriate. on the south and south-east by the Indian Ocean

Bulletin, 1980, vol. 11 no.4, Institute of Development Studies, Sussex 15 and to the north by the Winterburg and Hogsback be to improve the conditions of the poor. But one of mountain ranges.In the west the countryis the problems limiting any development strategy is hemmed in by the Great Fish River and its the lack of relevant data. Nevertheless, two basic tributary, the Kat. The whole corridor lies due west facts would be generally accepted: first, there is a of the main communications route from East scarcity of resources; second, because of the low London through King Williams Town up to level of development, there are many competing Cathcart and Queenstown. The region has no port, demands on these resources. and no town of any significance. It is estimated that, in 1980, the total population will reach around These issues can be examined through three 475,000, of whom two-thirds will be rural. questions: Most of the urban population lives either in - what is development and who benefits most Mdantsane, a dormitory town serving the industrial from it? centre of East London, or in Zwelitsha, another Development can be viewed as a) the maximisation black township serving the needs of King Williams of (monetary) growth through rapid industrialisa- Town. The area as a whole is isolated and lacks tion; or b) as sharing equally in the process of both technology and investment capital as well as growth (which seems superficially to be somewhat independent access to either. Furthermore, many of more equitable but actually implies growing real the original Xhosa inhabitants have migrated to the disparities); or e) as a policy geared primarily Witwatersrand, Durban and Cape Town areas. towards providing more goods and services th those When strict influx control was introduced, limiting in most need - that is, the redistribution of re- labour movements, many of those remaining sources and public services in favour of the poor. entered into employment contracts in the monetary The problem, of course, is that the first two objec- sector and obtained temporary residential permits tives outlined (and particularly the first because it is to live outside the Ciskei. implicit in current 'homeland' policy) lead to growing inequality and an increasing maldistribu- The internal land settlement pattern in the Ciskei tion of resources. This aggravates an already skew still largely reflects a traditional pastoral subsis- distribution of income and wealth associated with tence economy. In addition, most of the arable pro- the existing imbalance of social and economic duction is destined for own household consump- power; tion. Within the Ciskei there has beenlittle industrialisationandconsequenturbanisation. - what are the objectives of development in a Except where dormitory urban areas have been low income country? specifically created (both by deliberate policy and by automatic default through the operation of the If attention has to be directed towards specific pro- pass laws') people do not live in large densely jects, it is important to be able to exercise some populated areas. The peripheral dormitory towns degree of independent choice. But this is not con- merely serve the needs of neighbouring South ceivable when development is restricted by the type African industrial complexes by providing a cheap of project a donor is prepared to support, by and ready supply of mainly unskilled labour. No budgetary constraints, or by dependence on exter- independent and efficient indigenous commercial nal finance within a rigid institutional framework. agricultural activities have yet been established to This applies not only to the Ciskei but to any poor serve the needs of the local population. dependent territory which relies heavily on external resources and markets. With this lack of commercial manufacturing and agriculture, there has been virtually no internally Thus the development objectives that poor regions generated economic growth. Most regional cash themselves would identify are usually defined in income arises from local labour employed either on terms of poverty alleviation, of better nutrition, a contract basis in the mines or, perhaps more clean water, improved housing conditions, better commonly,inthose manufacturingindustries health and education, etc. These are often at located in the nearby industrial centres.It has variancewithotherdevelopmentobjectives, recently been estimated that 70 per cent of the total starting from different premises, and inheriting 'national income' of the Ciskei is derived from the more from the techniques and methods of planning. wage payments made by border industries to labour They have to do with, for example, land settlement commuters, most of whom cross the 'border' daily. or the development of human (labour) resources and thus reflect means rather than ends. Develop- Itis assumed in this paper that the principal ment objectives need to be defined in terms of objective of any development programme should trying to identify choices and available resources.

16 The internal 'government' must establish a set of Regional models of controlled imbalance aim to objectives which it conceives as being the most im- establishurban growthcentrestoencourage portant for the Ciskei. These objectives should be migration from the rural hinterland for employ- concerned with improving the lot of the poorest 60, ment in the towns. To concentrate, for reasons 70 or 80 per cent of the population. Establishing primarily of cost efficiency (although rarely, in such objectives rather than simply implementing practice, of cost effectiveness or comparative bene- glossy physical planning proposals is necessary fit) economic nodes, social amenities and related because it is only against the definition of the real public services in the towns can serve only to aggra- problems that it is possible to assess whethèr pro- vate existing problems of poverty and income dis- gress is being made. There is nothing here which is tribution. The closely related objective of effecting at variance with a physical development plan; but large savings in the provision of public amenities conflicts will arise if the objectives defined for each and social services can hardly be regarded as a sector and programme reflect the implied objective priority. Taken to its extreme, it would simply that industrialisation is the specific solution (as imply the cutting out of all official services. opposed, for example, to the improvement of basic arable or pastoral farming that would directly The logic of the growth centre approach, with its benefit many small, poor rural landholders); emphasis on promoting dynamic internal economic change, is fundamentally inconsistent. It is in con- - what development model should be used in flict with the necessity to meet the needs of those order to achieve the objectives defined? left behind in the economic growth process. Indeed it may well be that growth centres succeed only Every policy strategy implicitly assumes a model of when they evolve without direct government inter- economic structure and the way a system operates. In many cases, such as in 'homeland' policy, the vention. If an area has failed to develop without model is fairly explicit but it is not one that might outside help or official support then there would be chosen by the local government.2 appear to be little reason for assuming that it will ever succeed as a growth centre as a result of deli- berate government action. There is even less reason Various explanations have been given for low levels for believing - especially in a homeland' context - of savings and local investment - eg a poor resource that there will be desirable 'spread' effects. base, or limited local markets. But the Ciskei is not independent and, particularly because thereis In the case of the Ciskei the almost 'ghost' town of potentially a large local market for consumer Middledrift, with little other merit than being goods, other reasons for the lack of investment must located virtually in the centre of the region, emerges be found. A more profound explanation for the lack clearly (and not unexpectedly) as the primary of any real internal development must lie in struc- regional 'growth point' on the basis of the analytical tural and institutional factors common to the whole 'centralising'techniques of physicalplanning. South African economy and its international rela- Despite incorporating a variety of different physi- tions. Policy solutions which treat the development cal, social, economic and cultural variables, the problems of the Ciskei in isolation seem bound to technical investigatory procedure adopted provides fail - and primarily for the same reasons that gave only a single (although admittedly complex and rise to its creation in the first place. Efforts to solve multifaceted)dimensionofthedevelopment the resource related issues of agricultural and in- problem. The theoretical isolation of the region as a dustrial development on the assumption that such a separate entity must lead to incongruous results, regional economy is an enclosed watertight system such as the identification of growth centres (like will undoubtedly prove inappropriate. More funda- Middledrift)thatbear no relationtosocio- mental core-periphery dynamic relationships must economic reality and are out of phase with the be taken into account. It is not relevant to apply dynamic forces at work.3 Moreover, the use of regional network analysis to try and identify pos- sophisticated statistical techniques such as factor sible growth points as appropriate centres on which analysis and the method of principal components toconcentratethemain developmenteffort. provides no justification for this approach. Indeed, Although the methods and procedures themselves are plausible the basic assumptions on which the D. Page in À National Plan lbr 1/te Ciskei, Ciskei Development application of the techniques rest are clearly mis- Conference May 1978 (Report published by Conference Asso- placed. ciates Pretoria and printed by Cape and Transvaal Printers, Parow, S. Africa) notes '.. . although Middledrift is the local choice for the national industrial centre from the surveys of potential, no development has yet taken place in spite of urgent

2Thus a Marxist approach, for example, would not even have the pleas to initiate development at this point. . .'. The testimony chance to get off the ground. speaks for itself.

17 the concept of the nodal analysis may assume prin- powerful economic centres outside the region ciples that are the antithesis of development objec- which stand to benefit most. tives as commonly recognised. In setting such broad questions, it is possible to What significant economic development that has review agricultural or industrial project proposals taken place within the Ciskei has been almost en- in the context of wider socio-economic develop- tirely with the support of white expertise and ment aims. If the goal is regional self-help, in- capital (mostly of an official nature). Many of these dustrial and agricultural projects will have to be schemes4involvetechnologicallyefficientbut analysed in terms of conventional 'import' substi- capital intensive choices of technique and depend tution policies or 'export' promotion policies. heavily on the continued supply of high level skill inputs as well as on the easy availability of repairs, Import substitution policies may merely imply the servicing and spare parts, ie on supplies of white replacement of imports from neighbouring areas labour and technology and imported goods and through more efficient methods of domestic pro- services. This isparticularly true of the dairy duction. But what about an import displacement farming project which - problably because the bulk strategy? Import displacement arises when a need is of the output is sold in distant urban centres outside identified, and met with a locally produced good5 the region - insists on levels of hygiene and steril- satisfying a similar consumption requirement to isation that are problably superfluous to the needs that met previously by imports. Import displace- of nearby local consumers. This puts the cost of ment probably has more chance in the Ciskei, production, and hence the price, well above the where price, income and product substitution level which most local people can pay. elasticities favour the manufacture of simple pro- ducts with high transport costs. A regional planning approach that seems to make sense is to conduct a general social cost-benefit There is much less opportunity for export promo- appraisal of each type of project proposed. Such an tion, given the fierce competition from industrial- analysis, however, should be dependent not so ised areas in South Africa which have greater access much on criteria of economic efficiency as on the to communications and marketing facilities and broader development aimsestablished.If the possess cheap labour and supporting industrial motivation for production is profit, then conven- structure. Moreover, other 'homeland' areas closer tional techniques (suitably adjusted) would be ap- to the main markets and the neighbouring inde- propriate. But if the objective of production is to pendent African countries can offer far more than meet a perceived need, then there is no place for the Ciskei in this respect. such a methodology. In assessing a self-help pro- gramme intheCiskeiitshould beneces- But a central ambiguity remains. Those evaluating sary first to judge whether dependence will be in- projects must do so in the context of the objectives creased. Do the projects have their own internal of the authority concerned. Is it possible in any real momentum? Or, if outside skills and foreign capital sense to talk about the 'objectives' of the Ciskei are withdrawn, will the project survive with local when the authority will be only the South African resources? Government under a different name? If this is so, we must concern ourselves with the local objectives lt is also important to examine the possible links of the South African Government. If these are to both between project activities and between pro- keep the Ciskei as a labour reserve for white enter- jects and the local economy. Who will benefit from prise outside the area, or to provide a cover for aproject inaregion where thereare few excluding Xhosa from any rights in the Republic, internal inter-industry links? And who is going to then any assessment of projects on the basis benefit from the expenditure generated by the of their contribution to the welfare of the poor will project? As far as existing development projects in be at best irrelevant and at worst a deliberate most 'homeland' areas are concerned, itis the falsification.

Such as the Keiskammahoek migration settlements and Tyefu scheme on the Fish River. and not the normal package of branded goods.

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