Foreword by the Premier Ms. H. Jenkins
In accordance with the Provincial Growth and Development Strategy Guidelines, the Northern Cape Province has an important role to play in contextualising national imperatives and grounding them within realities and specificities of each province. The Northern Cape Provincial Growth and Development Strategy (PGDS) was developed in 2004 and launched in 2005. The strategy identified key interventions that were aimed at transforming the socioeconomic conditions of the Province. Progress has been made in addressing some of the most pressing development challenges through the implementation of the PGDS 2005.
It is, however, very important that we are mindful of current and planned developments on an international, national and local level. Hence, we embarked on the process of reviewing the PGDS 2005. The Provincial Government acknowledges the critical role of the PGDS to guide and coordinate the allocation of national, provincial and local resources and private sector investment to achieve sustainable development outcomes.
The reviewed PGDS makes provision for new government priorities which includes, amongst others, the following:
• The impact of the global economic crisis that started in 2008 on the back of the sub-prime mortgage crisis in the USA. The impact of this was felt in South Africa in 2009/10 with job losses exceeding 1.25 million over the period;
• The outcomes-based approach that is aimed at ensuring that people are
accountable for what they undertook to do;
• The new growth path, which identifies job drivers and sectors for job creation. As a province we are targeting to create 80 000 jobs by 2020;
• The environment;
• Alternative energy;
• Comprehensive Rural Development Programme (CRDP), focused on enabling rural
people to take control of their destiny, thereby dealing effectively with rural poverty through optimal use and management of natural resources;
• The 10 point plan aimed at improving health profile of the province; and
• The war on poverty: its overall aim is to raise the profile of anti-poverty activities
across the province in order to target more poor people in the shortest possible time and create the greatest impact.
Other aspects that have been improved on include monitoring and evaluation, improving infrastructure for economic growth and development, financing the PGDS and institutional arrangements. The province is in the process of developing a Provincial Spatial Development Framework (PSDF). The PSDF, coupled with the reviewed PGDS, will ensure sustainable economic growth and development and increased spatial equity of that growth and development. However, the reviewed PGDS does give guidance on how best we can utilize the existing space to implement the NCPGDS. Consultations with the private sector, organised labour and the general public were extensively conducted during the review process. It is thus critical for these strategic partnerships to be strengthened in implementing the reviewed NCPGDS.