It is encouraging to see that efforts to improve the quality of life for residents are finally receiving recognition, says James Nxumalo.
Durban - Durban has clinched yet another accolade to add to its growing list of honours and has been named the top South African city with the highest quality of life in the international Mercer survey.
Last week, Durban was once again awarded a feather in its cap, but this time around for its climate change mitigation and adaptation initiatives.
Our city will join the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group (C40), an invitation-only global network of cities committed to tackling climate change and increasing urban resilience.
Durban joins with Innovator City status, a membership category for cities that have shown clear leadership in environmental and climate change work.
It is encouraging to see that our efforts to improve the quality of life for residents are finally receiving the international recognition they deserve and our city is benchmarked against the best in the world.
Last year, Durban was named one of the New7Wonders cities, and earlier this year it made it to seventh position on the New York Times’ list of 52 must-visit cities in the world.
Those who had a hint of doubt that Durban was a world-class city can now rest assured.
The Mercer’s survey ranked Durban 85th, Cape Town 91st and Johannesburg came in at 94th place.
The Mercer 2015 Quality of Living survey also found Durban to be one of the nine cities internationally emerging as important hubs, competing with traditional global business centres.
The annual quality of living index serves to help multinational companies in fairly compensating staff when placing them on international assignments. Employee incentives include a quality-of-living allowance and a mobility premium.
Mercer’s Quality of Living reports provides valuable information and hardship premium recommendations for more than 440 cities in the world – the ranking covers 230 of these cities.
The leadership in eThekwini Municipality has made great strides in recent years to provide for our 3.5 million residents living in the city in terms of aesthetics and infrastructure.
Our city’s higher ranking in the survey is mainly because of our service delivery efforts, including our high-quality housing, plentiful recreational offerings and readily available consumer goods.
Critics may say that the report is surprising and not indicative of the reality. But interestingly, the majority of the negative comments about Durban’s performance does not actually relate to the Mercer’s indicators.
The survey analysed living conditions according to 39 factors that are grouped in 10 categories.
Durban’s latest accolade, however, is in keeping with eThekwini Municipality’s Integrated Development Plan and our vision of being Africa’s most “caring and liveable city” by 2030 where all citizens live in harmony.
The release of the report came a week after Durban’s bid to host the 2022 Commonwealth Games was lodged in London. The Games are projected to create nearly 12 000 jobs and provide an estimated R20 billion boost to South Africa’s economy.
The host city for the 2022 Commonwealth Games will be announced in September.
In this survey, European cities dominated the top ranking this year, along with major cities in Australia and New Zealand.
Vienna has the best quality of living overall, according to the survey, followed by Zurich, Auckland and Munich in second, third and fourth places respectively.
Ranking 230th, Baghdad was the lowest-ranking city on the list.
The report noted that Durban would have ranked much higher up, were it not for the crime problems that kept it from reaching the top 50.
The city has introduced counter-measures such as increased visible policing, and the use of closed-circuit television (CCTV) to reduce crime.
We have also embarked on a crime mapping process based on data received from local police stations.
The data will assist us in identifying crime hot spots and ensure that there is CCTV coverage in those areas.
The 10 factors Mercer used to determine a city’s ranking were its:
* Political and social environment.
* Economic environment.
* Socio-cultural environment.
* Medical and health considerations.
* School and education.
* Public services and transportation.
* Recreation.
* Consumer goods.
* Housing.
* Natural environment.
According to the survey, Durban’s higher ranking was mainly as a result of our high-quality housing, plentiful recreational offerings and good consumer goods availability.
Over the past 20 years, eThekwini has built more than 180 000 houses for almost half a million poor and unemployed citizens living in sprawling informal settlements. We have sought new methods of fast-tracking housing delivery, such as a densification strategy and the use of new housing technology.
From a quality of life perspective and in line with our vision of being the most caring city, we have provided interim services such as water and electricity to informal settlements and aim to rapidly up-scale the delivery of these interim services.
The R25 billion mixed-use human settlements project, referred to as Cornubia, will accommodate many more of our residents who still require affordable housing. The project will also promote the integration of different communities located close to economic opportunities.
Furthermore, we have made tremendous contributions towards the provision of infrastructure.
The municipality aims to implement an effective, efficient, sustainable and safe public transport system. In this regard an Integrated Rapid Public Transport Network (IRPTN) has been developed for the city. The multibillion-rand IRPTN plan indicates the ultimate “wall to wall” plan for public transport by 2025.
This will lead to ensuring equity of access for all, reduce the impact of transport on the environment, promote a liveable city, provide a service that is acceptable to car users and have a positive impact on the city’s economy.
Growing the local economy and creating employment opportunities remain our core business strategy. Ethekwini accounts for 65 percent of the provincial Gross Domestic Product and is considered as the main driver of growth in the province.
Our city is the second most important manufacturing hub after Johannesburg and its harbour is Africa’s busiest port.
Furthermore, eThekwini’s economy impacts positively on neighbouring municipal areas, making it an economic stimulus for the wider region.
Durban does not only serve as a regional trade hub for many countries in Southern Africa but the potential for this role to be used to diversify and expand the local economy in the areas of trade, manufacturing and logistics should be highlighted.
As one of the busiest ports in the continent, we have adopted a pro-development approach and proactively attract industries in key target sectors, such as logistics and export orientated manufacturing.
The municipality monitors closely the cost of doing business and reduces red tape to facilitate investment as well as the growth of small business.
In recent years, road and rail development have taken place along the coast, to allow relatively easy movement of goods and this has helped Durban cement its place as the region’s “port hub”.
The Port of Durban is the country’s biggest and busiest. It is the gateway supporting not only Durban and the KwaZulu-Natal province, but Gauteng, the country’s economic hub and the Southern African Development Countries. In Africa it is the second largest container port after Egypt’s Port Said and the fifth largest container port in the Southern Hemisphere.
In the coming years, extensive development will take place in the city as Transnet seeks to significantly increase the container handling of the port of Durban by making structural changes to the port.
Over and above our ports being the gateway to Africa, one of the strategic programmes of the Provincial Growth and Development Plan that the municipality supports is the development of the Aerotropolis around the King Shaka International Airport on the North Coast, seen as an important gateway that will connect KwaZulu-Natal to global markets.
Undoubtedly the Mercer survey proves that our city is on track towards achieving our strategic priority of maximising the municipality’s financial resources to ensure long-term financial viability, investor confidence, job creation and sustainability, thus improving service delivery.
* James Nxumalo is eThekwini mayor.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
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