CONCLUSION

The Road Ahead
After a long and difficult gestation period the Cato Manor Development Project is now in full implementation. Delivery rates are high and escalating, productivity and impact improvements are being regularly recorded and the concrete manifestations of progress are visible throughout Cato Manor. This progress notwithstanding, a number of key challenges will need to be confronted and overcome over the next two years in order to consolidate current achievements and to ensure the sustainability of the development processes underway in Cato Manor. These challenges include:

Challenge 1:
Improved Urban Management Substantial improvements in the management of the urban environments created through the Project are urgently required. This need spans a wide field including: maintenance and operation of engineering infrastructure (roads, electricity, water) and public facilities and spaces; the guidance and regulation of private building practices; public transport management; and revenue collection.

Challenge 2:
Higher Levels of Community Safety Despite substantial progress in this area, crime continues to impact detrimentally on the psychological, social and material well-being of the citizens of Cato Manor and impedes the private investment initiatives necessary to build the local economy. The successful implementation of an integrated and comprehensive Community Safety Project, mobilising all available resources within the public, private and community sectors, is required.

Challenge 3:
Increased private Investment Development in Cato Manor to date has mainly been driven by public and donor sector investment. Over the next two years the rate of investment by these sectors will decrease. Private sector and individual investment rates will need to increase dramatically in order to drive the economic and physical development processes forward.

Challenge 4:
Sustainable Local Development Institutions Since 1994 the CMDA has been the main locus of development initiatives in Cato Manor. It was established as a special purpose vehicle to initiate and drive the development process forward. The sustained development of Cato Manor will, however, require that development initiatives are increasingly undertaken by institutions with long- term horizons.

These include local civil society, economic development and private sector institutions. The successful achievement of this shift will require a complex, planned and managed process of institution building and capacitation over the next two years. Meeting these four key challenges, whilst simultaneously consolidating and extending the delivery programmes described in the previous sections of this report, will require that the public, private and community partnership that has been built around the Cato Manor Project holds firm and rises to these challenges with renewed vigour.

Clive Forster Chief Executive Officer