Final Adopted IDP - KZN Development Planning

(viii) that negative impacts on the environment and on people‟s environmental rights be
anticipated and prevented and, where they cannot be altogether prevented, are
minimised and remedied.
Section 2(4)(b) of NEMA prescribes that environmental management must be
integrated, acknowledging that all elements of the environment are linked and
interrelated, and it must take into account the effects of decisions on all aspects of the
environment and all people in the environment by pursuing the selection of the best
practicable environmental option.
National Spatial Development Perspective
The National Spatial Development Perspective (NSDP) is an initiative by the National
Government to provide direction and guidelines for spatial planning in order to ensure
the eradication of the spatially segregated growth pattern that still exists today. The
NSDP guides government in implementing its programmes in order to achieve the
objectives of Accelerated and Shared Growth – South Africa (ASGI-SA) of halving
poverty and unemployment by 2014. The NSDP is built on five basic principles:
Principle 1: Rapid economic growth that is sustained and inclusive as a prerequisite for
the achievement of poverty alleviation;
Principle 2: Government has a constitutional obligation to provide basic services to all
citizens (for example water, energy, health and educational facilities) wherever they
reside;
Principle 3: Government spending on fixed investment should be focused on localities of
economic growth and / or economic potential in order to gear up private sector
investment, stimulate sustainable economic activities and create long-term employment
opportunities;
Principle 4: Where low economic potential exists investments should be directed at
projects and programmes to address poverty and the provision of basic services in order
to address past and current social inequalities;
Principle 5: In order to overcome the spatial distortions of Apartheid, future
settlement and economic development opportunities should be channeled into activity
corridors and nodes that are adjacent to or link the main growth centres in order for
them to become regional gateways to the global economy.
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