The role of Planning as Tool for Politico-Scientific Implementation and Implications for Present and Future Development Path of the Global South

Abstract

Planning since its distinct professional-practice inception over one-and-half century ago mainly in North America and Western Europe, was jolted to prominence by means of, and was sustained by, the revolution and wide reception ‘wave’ of science as basis for policy and decision-making. In South Africa, Planning having been midwifed by the transitioning colonial State into the Apartheid era, saw a fusion of horizons between this aforementioned trend as well as the release of the ‘Report of the Carnegie Commission’ to which together, would form the ‘logical’ basis for the segregation development policy. During the 1990s democratic transition, Planning would again play a key role, with the aid of ‘evidence-based’ scanning/forecasting, in preparing the country’s reconstruction development agenda and tools required to make this vision tangible. Key emergent themes in this paper, include that at pivotal societal transition moments post WW I, Planning has played a key role due to (1) its role as a tool of politico-scientific implementation, (2) technical ability in designing and enforcing an enabling spatial constellation, and (3) aspirations to create a better future(s) for some/all. Based on these observations, the paper examines, given the contemporary collective despair on science and a/the ‘better future’ whose charge is driven by (1) populism, (2) geopolitical fragmentation, warfare, and an ever-real threat of a WW III, (3) climate change fallout, and (4) crime and socio-economic inequity and inequality; whether Planning can ‘yet’ still (be expected) to play a role in the transformation, reconstruction, and transition of South Africa within the dynamics and trends in the Global South. The implications as borne from this analysis are explored as to whether Planning/Plans/Planners (1) can still play a role in shaping futures, (2) it is required/called to do so by sectors of society and (3) should it be able and called to do so, what future(s) can it still plan for; in the Global South.