Ward 2 Development Forum

The Yearly Valley Survey

Properties3
descriptionAn idea for a yearly household survey that would let Ward 2 speak to government and investors with one voice, backed by its own numbers: what each village has to offer and how life is changing. Not yet agreed. To be tabled in November 2026.
tagstheme/youth, theme/2038, theme/trancraa, priority/education-skills, priority/business-procurement, lang/en
aliasesAnnual Survey, Valley Survey, Jaarlikse Vallei-opname

15 min read

This idea is not yet agreed. Our Long-Term Goal says the Forum plans a yearly survey from 2027 [MS]. This page sets out how it could work and what it could measure. Nobody named on this page has been asked about it yet, including the Transformasie Komitee, Theewaterskloof Municipality, and the residents associations. Please do not share this page publicly yet. The idea will be tabled at the Forum’s November 2026 meeting.

What the letters in square brackets mean

Facts on this page are followed by a tag that shows where they come from.

  • [IC] Independently Corroborated. Confirmed by at least two sources that do not depend on each other, or by an official record.
  • [MS] Mission-Sourced. Comes from the people putting this idea forward, or from the organisation the sentence names, in their own documents or statements. It has not been checked against other sources.
  • [TBV] To Be Verified. Seems likely, but nobody has confirmed it yet.

Statements without a tag are proposals. They describe what the idea could become.

The goal

Every year, the valley speaks to government and investors with one voice, using its own numbers, and shows what each village has to offer.

Why the valley needs it

What government sees today

  • Stats SA publishes population estimates down to the ward, the smallest area it covers [IC]. The estimates give age, sex, and population group [IC]. Ward 2’s seven settlements appear together, as one ward.
  • The Western Cape’s socio-economic profiles describe the whole of Theewaterskloof Municipality [IC].
  • The municipality’s plan, the Integrated Development Plan (IDP), treats Stats SA as the only recognised source of population data [IC].
  • For the 2026 update of that plan, the municipality held one public meeting for Ward 2, on 27 November 2025 in the Moravian Hall in Greyton [IC]. What residents raise at these meetings is gathered in a Community Needs List [IC].

None of these records show what the valley’s people know how to do, which businesses could supply a government buyer, or how much money leaves the valley each month. In the official record, the valley appears mainly as a population count and a list of needs.

The smaller settlements have raised a related worry before. In 2004, residents at the smaller settlements on Farm 39 were concerned that Genadendal would dominate decisions, and asked for their own representatives [IC]. A survey reported village by village would let each settlement be seen on its own.

From needy to needed

A needs list asks others for help. The BioConomy work calls this being needy. It describes a needed place as one that offers a checked service to buyers who already want it [MS]. See Needed vs. Needy.

Community workers have argued this for a long time. In 1993 John Kretzmann and John McKnight wrote that starting from a community’s problems leads it to look to outside agencies for help [IC]. They proposed that a community should begin by mapping what it already has [IC].

The survey would give the valley that map, and update it every year.

Working with the bodies that speak for the valley

The valley already has bodies that speak for its residents. They include the Genadendal Transformasie Komitee, elected on 9 November 2004 to represent the residents of Farm 39 in the transfer of their land [IC], and the residents associations.

The survey would add to the work of the Komitee and every other body in the valley. Delegates would still negotiate and sign agreements. The survey would give them evidence to carry. The Komitee, the residents associations, and the Forum could all use the same numbers. A delegate who brings survey results into a meeting speaks with the weight of every household that answered.

Results about Farm 39 land and water would go to the Komitee first, as every page on this site that touches the land does. The Forum has agreed not to duplicate bodies already dealing with the TRANCRAA land process [MS].

What the survey would measure

The survey would have five parts. The household questions would take about 15 minutes [MS]. Businesses would answer a separate short set. Most questions would stay the same every year, so that change can be seen.

1. Life in the valley

These are the questions already set out on Our Long-Term Goal: whether people work together, whether villages are treated as equals, and whether people are free to learn, believe, and celebrate. They would form the core that is asked the same way every year.

A few questions on services would be added: whether water, toilets, electricity, refuse removal, and roads worked in the past month. The municipality plans and budgets for these services, so village-by-village answers would show where the gaps are.

2. What households have to offer

  • Skills people hold: trades, farming, cooking, caring, guiding, languages, computer skills, and knowledge of the valley’s history and plants.
  • Skills people would like to learn.
  • How many people in the home are looking for work, and how many days a month they could work.
  • Young people aged 15 to 24 who are not working, studying, or training. Government and the United Nations track this number [IC]. The survey would report it as people ready to be trained.
  • Land used for food: gardens, plots, and livestock.
  • Rooms, vehicles, or tools that could be hired out or shared.
  • Time people would give each month to valley projects.

Questions about land and water on Farm 39 would be agreed with the Komitee before they are asked.

3. Where the money goes

The New Economics Foundation in Britain developed a way to measure how money that enters a local economy is spent and spent again there before it leaves [MS]. It calls this Local Multiplier 3. The survey would borrow the idea with simple questions:

  • Where the household’s money comes from, by type only: wages, a business, grants, or money from family elsewhere. No amounts would be asked.
  • Where the household buys food, building materials, and transport: in the valley, in Caledon, or further away.
  • Roughly how much of the household’s monthly spending stays in the valley: none, a little, about half, or most.

From the answers, the valley could estimate how much money leaks out, and which goods valley suppliers could provide. That is the case for local buying, and for investment in local suppliers.

4. Valley enterprises

A short separate set of questions for businesses, co-operatives, and farms on The Register:

  • How many people they employ (full-time, part-time, and seasonal), and how many of them live in the valley.
  • What they buy, and how much of it comes from valley suppliers.
  • What they could supply if asked, and how much.
  • Whether they are registered on the Central Supplier Database, which suppliers must join to sell to government [IC].

This would let government buyers, tour operators, and investors see who in the valley can deliver.

5. Land, water, and heritage

Some of what the valley offers is best measured by others: river flow at gauges, hectares cleared of invasive trees, and heritage sites looked after. Each year the survey report would gather these figures from the people who measure them, as Restoring the River proposes, and set them beside the household results. Rock art and burial sites would never be published.

What each audience needs

WhoWhat they already useWhat the survey would give them
Theewaterskloof MunicipalityThe IDP and budget, updated each year, with a Community Needs List for each ward [IC]Results for each settlement, the priorities households rank highest, and service gaps compared across villages, ready before each yearly IDP update
Overberg District and the Western Cape GovernmentA single plan for each district under the District Development Model [IC], and socio-economic profiles for each municipality [IC]Figures for each village, finer than any they hold, and a list of what the valley can supply to district projects
National departments and skills funds (SETAs)Skills programmes and learnershipsThe skills people hold and want, and how many young people are ready to be trained
Impact investors and fundersIRIS+, a free set of measures from the Global Impact Investing Network, linked to the UN Sustainable Development Goals [MS]A starting point and a yearly trend on jobs, local spending, skills, and wellbeing, reported in terms they already use
Buyers of valley services, such as water funds, tour operators, and companies with local supply targetsProof that a supplier can deliverPeople trained and available, enterprises ready to supply, and results checked by others

Speaking the language of the Global Goals

The UN Sustainable Development Goals come with agreed measures [IC]. Some survey questions match them closely:

Survey questionGoal and measure
Young people not working, studying, or trainingGoal 8, measure 8.6.1
Do you have a say in decisions that affect your village?Goal 16, measure 16.7.2: whether people feel decision-making is inclusive and responsive
Do you feel safe in your home and in your street?Goal 16, measure 16.1.4: whether people feel safe walking alone where they live
How much of your food came from the valley?Goal 2, on ending hunger and supporting small food producers
Gaps between villagesGoal 10, on reducing inequality

Using the same measures lets a funder or department compare the valley with other places without a new study.

What “needed” looks like in numbers

The numbers below are made up. They show how the same fact reads in each voice.

A needs list saysThe survey would let the valley say
Genadendal needs jobs for young people.140 young people in Genadendal are ready to work. 35 of them hold a certificate in clearing invasive plants.
Greyton needs more visitors.22 valley businesses can host visitors, and 9 guides are trained in the valley’s heritage.
The valley needs food security.40% of household food spending leaves the valley. 18 growers could supply more if they had a buyer.

The second column is an offer. It tells a buyer, a department, or an investor what they would get.

How it would work

  • Who asks the questions. Young people from each village, trained and paid to visit homes [MS]. The training could become one of the pathways on the Learning Campus.
  • How. On a phone, in about 15 minutes, in Afrikaans or English [MS].
  • When. Once a year, in the same month, so that results reach the municipality before its yearly IDP update. The IDP public meetings for the 2026 update were held in November and December 2025 [IC].
  • Which homes. A sample of homes in every settlement, large enough to compare settlements. A statistician would set the number. Small hamlets would be grouped together so that no household can be recognised [MS].
  • The same questions every year. A few new questions could be added each year on a topic the Forum chooses.
  • Checking the method. The survey would follow Stats SA’s quality framework for statistics (SASQAF) where it can, which government statisticians use to judge data quality [IC]. The Forum would publish the questions and the method, and ask a university or an independent statistician to check them. Once checked, results could carry the [IC] tag on this site.
  • Privacy. The survey is anonymous [MS]. No names or addresses would be recorded [MS], and money questions would use ranges. See the Data Policy.
  • Villages see their results first. Each settlement’s results would be shown to its residents before they are published.
  • Who owns the results. The valley. A summary for each village would be published on this site [MS]. Anonymous data could be shared with others under a written agreement.

It has been done before

In South Africa, residents of informal settlements have counted their own communities for more than 20 years. Two movements, FEDUP and the Informal Settlement Network, have profiled about 1,500 informal settlements [MS]. They present their findings to every level of government and ask to plan upgrades together [MS]. Their organisers say that collecting data is a way of organising a community: they collect people as well as information [MS]. In 2017 the Minister of Human Settlements committed to supporting community data collection in South Africa’s cities [MS].

Who would benefit

  • Each village, which would be seen on its own in the numbers.
  • Young people, who would be trained and paid as fieldworkers.
  • Valley businesses and growers, who would become visible to buyers.
  • Everyone who speaks for the valley, including the Komitee and the residents associations, who would carry evidence into their meetings.
  • Government and investors, who would get local data they do not have today.

Who would pay

Nothing has been costed [MS]. The main costs would be:

  • pay and training for fieldworkers
  • phones and survey software
  • a statistician’s time
  • publishing the results

Possible sources are the municipality or the province, funders who want to use the data, and companies with local supply or skills targets.

Who would decide

  • The Forum would decide whether to run the survey.
  • A small survey group, with people from each village, would draft the questions.
  • The Transformasie Komitee would review any question about Farm 39 land, tenure, or water before the survey goes out.
  • The residents associations would review the questions for their settlements.
  • An independent statistician would check the method.

How it fits the Forum’s goal

Our Long-Term Goal sets out a theory of change and says the survey will show whether it is true [MS]. Each part of the survey tests a step:

Step in the theory of changeSurvey part that tests it
The valley can see what each initiative needs and offersValley enterprises, and what households have to offer
People meet more of those needs from inside the valleyWhere the money goes
More money, work, and skills stay hereWhere the money goes, and what households have to offer
Villages get a fairer shareLife in the valley, compared village by village

The survey would also give each of the five priorities a yearly measure, and its champion something to report against.

What is still open

  • Whether the Forum agrees to run the survey.
  • How many homes to visit in each settlement.
  • What it would cost, and who would pay.
  • Whether the survey should also be offered in isiXhosa.
  • Whether the Transformasie Komitee wants questions about Farm 39 land and water, and how it wants those results shared. The Komitee has not been asked.
  • Whether the municipality would use the results in its IDP, beside Stats SA figures. The municipality has not been asked.
  • The views of the residents associations. They have not been asked.
  • Which university or statistician would check the method.
  • Who may receive the anonymous data, and on what terms.
  • Whether residents are comfortable answering questions about money.

What happens next

  1. The idea is shared with the Transformasie Komitee and the residents associations, and they are asked for their views and which questions they would add.
  2. The idea is tabled at the Forum’s November 2026 meeting.
  3. The Forum asks the municipality’s IDP office which figures it can use, and by when.
  4. The survey group drafts the questions and tests them with a small number of homes in one village.
  5. Fieldworkers are trained.
  6. The first survey runs in 2027 [MS], and results are published village by village.

Have your say

To comment on this idea, suggest a question for the survey, or offer to help, contact the moderators via How to Submit, or raise it at the November 2026 Forum meeting.

References

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