Research and analysis

The future of Port Elizabeth’s Northern Areas: scenarios

Published 29 August 2024

Northern Areas People’s Development Initiative, South Africa  

This case study explores how development and application of scenarios in 2010-2012 strengthened Port Elizabeth and empowered communities in the Northern Areas to be more innovative, sustainable and inclusive. 

What was the challenge? 

Certain areas of Port Elizabeth, South Africa’s sixth-largest city with a population of just over one million residents, have suffered from marginalisation, neglect, and underinvestment for decades. For example, the so-called Northern Areas – which encompass 40 neighbourhoods, 11 ward councils, and are home to around 250,000 residents – has been an economically disadvantaged region with high levels of poverty, unemployment, and crime.  

In the late 1960s and 1970s, residents from the city areas were forced by the apartheid government to move to the northern areas and eastern townships, which became a demarcated residential zone for non-white people. A lack of access to essential services such as water, electricity, and sanitation, plus poor education, all contributed to the cycle of poverty felt by many. With Port Elizabeth being an industrial city, the boom and bust of economic cycles has been felt acutely.  

By the 2000s, the area had gained a reputation for violence, drugs and lack of job opportunities, with gang tensions spreading fear across the community. The marginalised area embodied many of the complex challenges of the post-apartheid “New South Africa”.  

The Northern Areas People’s Development Initiative (NAPDI), launched in 2009 to set about transforming the situation to help communities improve people’s quality of life. NAPDI united various community groups including professionals, retirees, faith-based organisations, local city officials, and NGOs. It also partnered with the Nelson Mandela University’s Centre for the Advancement of Non-Racialism and Democracy (CANRAD). Members of NAPDI, a volunteer group of 20-strong professionals and activists with roots in the Northern Areas, sought to use their skills, experience, and influence to become “a voice in the community, an enabler of community empowerment, a mobiliser of people and resources, and a catalyst for systemic change”.   

From its political neutrality and local knowledge, NAPDI had the legitimacy to gather diverse and opposing groups. While this was an encouraging start, and early willingness to better the Northern Areas was apparent, the next stage required converting the commitment of a small group into a broader, community-owned process and overcoming deeply entrenched barriers between factions. “We were sick and tired of strategic plans that had limited value as a civil society movement,” said one of the NAPDI founders, Neil Campher. “We wanted to think differently, more imaginatively, and frame the engagement of our work over a longer period of time.” 

What was the approach? 

In 2010, NAPDI engaged Reos Partners, an international social enterprise specialising in multi-stakeholder collaboration. In the previous two years Reos had created the Dinokeng Scenarios, which projected three futures for South Africa in a post-apartheid country (Walk Apart, Walk Behind, and Walk Together).  

NAPDI decided to co-create several future scenarios for the Northern Areas. “Scenarios are stories about a future time which show different pathways towards this future,” explained a NAPDI report on the North Star Scenarios. “By engaging diverse groups in discussion around a hoped-for future, possibilities for joint action are opened up. Together people can identify and try to avoid problems and align resources and energies towards a shared future.”  

Thirty trained volunteers conducted interviews, focus groups, and surveys to understand the values, desires, and concerns of individuals within the community. The findings and opinions gleaned through this extensive public process were compiled, forming NAPDI’s future-focused synopsis report, written by a local researcher, Irna Senekal, called Living, Learning Working, Praying and Playing in the Northern Areas. 

The report was the foundation on which NAPDI built the scenarios. Reos facilitated and provided confidence in the scenario process where Reos’ impartiality and objectivity was valuable in supporting the community. The scenario process was designed to be more participatory and move from theoretical solutions to practical action. The organisation brought together a “scenario team” of 25 people: business professionals, young and older residents, community-based activists, sports administrators, educators, health professionals, local government officials and non-government workers. This multi-stakeholder group participated in two-day workshop sessions in late 2011 to imagine and construct North Star Scenarios that might develop by 2022.  

The four scenarios – Fallen Star, Lucky Star, Shooting Star, and Bright Star – represented a range of possible outcomes. Personas were adopted to make the scenarios more human and relatable. The scenarios told the prospective stories of fictional locals Justin (Fallen Star), Lucky (Lucky Star), Auntie Gertie (Shooting Star), and Loliwe (Bright Star).  

All four scenarios were informed by two primary driving forces: the integrity of local leadership and the extent of local economic development.  

What was the impact? 

The four North Star Scenarios were presented as a campaign for a positive future by Dr Mamphela Ramphele, a champion of citizen leadership in South Africa, to the northern areas community in May 2012 to generate wider enthusiasm for positive change and encourage creative solutions. 

“Capacity creation was certainly one of the outcomes,” said Campher. Through collaboration with local stakeholders, and CANRAD, surveys gained significantly wider reach and therefore more meaningful data to inform decisions and actions. 

Roadshows in the months after the launch helped to spread the word and generate more interest. NAPDI captured and grew support to transform the scenario process into high-visibility community impact activities across the Northern Areas. 

For instance, a public space clean-up and recycling process was established in Helenvale, which had a reputation for being a dangerous neighbourhood, and was funded by the provincial government and local authorities. NAPDI spent two years in the area to drive this project and others to show local impact. Helenvale was purposely chosen to show commitment for change as previous efforts to clean up the area had failed. 

More generally, the scenario process improved collaboration and coordination among stakeholders in the northern areas and abroad. As a result of the Helenvale project, Campher was part of an international consulting team that implemented the Helenvale Safety and Peace Through Urban Upgrade programme, co-funded between the municipality and German Development Bank, that ran for eight years from 2014. 

The North Star Scenarios Facebook page lists other inspiring stories that highlight the longer-term impact of the activity. There was a wider effect in improving relationships with the local authorities including the funding of an arts capacity programme run by NAPDI at a local school. Additionally, within the Nelson Mandela Metro – made up of Port Elizabeth, Despatch, and Uitenhage – an education initiative was set up, enabling mature students to gain their high-school completion certificate, and improving their employment prospects. The “Second-Chance Matric” is still going strong in 2024. It is the longest-running NAPDI programme and continues to benefit the lives of individuals and their families. 

Ultimately, the NAPDI-led movement has helped strengthen Port Elizabeth and empowered communities in the Northern Areas to be more innovative, sustainable and inclusive. A quotation from American anthropologist Margaret Mead, posted on the Facebook page, sums up the success: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world: indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” 

Written by the non-profit company School of International Futures for GO-Science, 2023 (updated 2024). This case study looks at work going back to the 2009, showing the impact up to the time of writing.