The Barefoot Facilitator has been walking a journey with the members of the Built Environment Integration Task Team convened by South African Cities Network. This podcast hosted by Talking Transformation features Beryl Khanyile – Deputy City Manager of eThekwini and Geoff Bickford Programme Manager for Built Environment at South African Cities Network sharing parts of the journey.
There are many spatially transformative proposals in the plans and programmes of local government. National, provincial and local government are all committed – on paper at least – to “Spatial
Transformation”. But what does it actually mean? Why is success of government frequently measured only in numbers – the auditors having an increasingly powerful role in the space and outcomes of municipalities?
What about the “softer” issues and the numerous dependencies across municipalities and between spheres of government?
Addressing complex spatial challenges successfully is frequently dictated by the strength of the institutional and governance aspects to be in place – the right people, in the right place, doing
the right things…
A multi-disciplinary team of dedicated professionals has been reflecting on these issues across the country over a number of years. The Built Environment Integration Task Team (BEITT) has been
focused on understanding what has been going on and what we can learn about the forces and processes that play out when we endeavour to transform places, spaces and communities.
Today we hear from Beryl Khanyile, Deputy City Manager at eThekwini Municipality and Geoff Bickford, Programme Manager with the South African Cities Network (SACN). Both were committed to the process and products generated from the workof the BEITT. We learn about the Citopoloy game developed as an interactive platform for the team’s findings. Citopoly used actual practitioner quotes from experience: each having a consequence impacting on institutional and / or societal value. Themes of Leadership/ Interaction / Rules of the Institution and Skills and Capacity frame the game play and lesson learnt.
Beryl and Geoff kindly took time out from their work and showcasing the work and products of BEITT and spoke to the Talking Transformation Podcast about the BEITT journey and findings.
