Empowering the urban and regional planner

18 Feb, 2018 - 00:02 0 Views

The Sunday Mail

Professor Innocent Chirisa
Growing up, we used to see nurses and hospital orderlies looking immaculate, all dressed up in pure white. I remember then, nurses had spectacular headgear, something like a crown.

The nursing profession, in the villages where we grew up, was the epitome of all smartness and healthfulness. I don’t doubt that most girls of that time vied to join the profession.

As an ambassador and health activist, the white colour was such that any dirt, any spot, any unwanted dot needed to be done away with as speedily as possible.

I am not privy as to why this colour seems to have disappeared in many of today’s hospitals and clinics and I am not bothered to find out.

Perhaps, some view it to have been a symbol of oppression and was perhaps demeaning to the African nurse.

One other important aspect I noticed about nurses was a badge with the letters “SRN” or “CN”. I didn’t know what it stood for.

Later, I learnt that SRN is the abbreviation of State Registered Nurse and CN of Certified Nurse. These words and badges did not mean anything, especially to a boy shivering and praying so hard that the prescription should not have anything do to with the “jekiseni” (injection).

The issue of certification or registration of any or in any profession is very important. Register or certify them and you have greatly empowered them.

I presume that everyone out there is seeking some recognition, especially public recognition. It gives one that acceptability and, hence, the legitimacy to discharge duties fully and with confidence.

Registration or certification is a confidence booster.

It is a testimony to the world that I am not a Stone Age practitioner. In the context of globalisation, it means I am recognised within my local context, moreso my regional and global context.

If the world has become one village, I must be able to practice what I have trained for in any part of that village without any doubt or fear.

It is one thing to qualify with an honours degree and another to be qualified. The world is not much interested in the theory that one has loaded in their head, it is interested in seeing that theory translate into tangibles.

I am not saying theory is not important.

In fact, I believe that a practitioner of anything must be so drenched in theory such that they know why they are doing what they choose to do.

To this end, I will quote one veteran engineer-planner, Professor Jay Wright Forrester, who passed on two years ago at the age of 98.

In his 1989 book “Planning in the Face of Power”, Prof Forrester argues, “Planning theory is what planners need when they get stuck: another way to formulate a problem, a way to anticipate outcomes, a sources of reminders about what is important, a way of paying attention that provides direction, strategy and coherence.”

These are powerful nuggets.

Theory tells one the way to swim when they face new challenges. Challenges are ever unfolding.

So are planning challenges.

It is my firm belief that planners who are bold, confident and armed with the right theory are needed to deal with the current challenges that planning is facing.

If we know how bad colonial planning was, especially for the black populace, we should find ways to rectify that problem and acquire plans that addresses the social, economic and political challenges that we face.

Three weeks ago, I said society should not blame us.

This week, I was just thinking; maybe it has that right, too.

If society is a human body, planning is the eye.

The eye should desist from myopia. It should see the pothole 200 metres away and find means to deal with that problem beforehand.

Unfortunately, we have embarked on so much knee-jack planning that we have lost our direction.

Imagine a whole Department of Physical Planning busying itself with the mess created by the so-called land barons!

If you stare on the accelerator and the brakes and forget the road, you are brewing nothing but disaster to other road users and to yourself as well.

I am persuaded that the role of the Department of Physical Planning is not so much to be obsessed with issues that local authorities must deal with.

What is happening currently in this department is a case of “when a steward becomes a nanny”.

The DPP must steer the country towards the direction that it has to go in terms of planning matters. It must have an oversight role and not to reduce itself to a class monitor.

Please forgive me my fellow planners up there, if I am unnecessarily poking you.

We look to you because you are rightly-placed to change things there and for our entire profession. The whole profession looks up to you, you are there for us.

But let us come back to certification.

Planners in Zimbabwe are supposed to all be registered with the Zimbabwe Institute for Urban and Regional Planners.

It is supposed to be a professional body for planners; to regulate and monitor whether planners remain professional and ethical in their conduct.

I have attended several meetings where planner registration in the country has been discussed.

Every Zirup president, past and present, has always promised to have this agenda item cleared.

I am talking of the likes of Messrs Shingirayi Mushamba, Percy Toriro, Psychology Chiwanga, Phineas Dohwe and Dr Sasha Jogi.

Each one has an anecdote to tell on why the issue seems to be hitting a brick wall. I empathise with them, too.

Three years ago, I was asked by the then President to go and speak on national television, giving the reason that planning is going bad in the country partly because it is being done by unregistered planners as well as other professions masquerading as planners.

Wearing my grey suit and a smile, I appeared on TV pointing to this fact. Indeed, if the untrained minds and hands begin to smear what they do not know, it is a recipe for disaster.

Other professions, say architects, engineers, land surveyors, quantity surveyors, nurses, medical doctors, to name these few, have guarded their territories jealously such that you cannot easily enter and mess them. From time to time, they update their members on the latest developments.

They also monitor what their members are doing and bring to book those violating the code of conduct and professional ethics.

Year in year out, there is a Zirup Annual School (usually in August), which some disgruntled planners feel is nothing but a holiday and a mere coterie.

I like the South African arrangement.

Here, roles have been spilt. There is the South African Council for Planners whose role is the registration and certification of planners.

Then, there is the South African Planning Institute whose role is to oversee the professional development of the planner by organising short and refresher courses as well as conferences and workshops.

I know Zirup has the council within its structures. Why not split the two and see whether that can also work for us?

Meta-planning is the planning of planning.

Zirup needs to consider meta-planning and separate roles. You cannot have your own cake and eat it.

Strides have been made to try and make planning recognised in the Regional, Town and Country Planning Act (Amendment), which is due for discussion in Parliament.

Every planner is waiting to hear the outcome. The existing Act recognises planning but does not recognise the planner.

We are saying that in as much as the cattle owner gets concerned about the welfare of his or her cattle, he or she must also be concerned about the cattle herder.

Without the empowered herder, hirelings will prowl and mess the herd. Planners need recognition.

Everyone who has trained and who wants to practice must be certified.

A certified professional is easy to deal with. If they mess, the body can suspend or withdraw their licence. That way, few, if any, will dare be found on the wrong side of the law.

Some land barons, I presume, hire the “green” planners because they are cheap and can be manipulated. The State must consider if the weak planner is the best tool for its use or not.

Using a weak planner is shooting itself in the foot.

The profession must decide whether recognition (not only within the borders of Zimbabwe) and confidence matters.

A weak profession is prone to infiltration by dissidents and abuse.

Urbanisation is a reality.

What Zimbabwe needs now is the expertise of a planner who is empowered, especially to plan the urban space with its various unfolding challenges.

Empowerment is a shared responsibility of the State and the profession.

Sustainable urban spaces are to be achieved when the planning profession in Zimbabwe demonstrates itself as spotless, immaculate, bold and confident.

 

Professor Innocent Chirisa is the Chairperson of the University of Zimbabwe’s Department of Rural and Urban Planning. He wrote this article for The Sunday Mail.

 

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