A Review of Mechanisms Used to Improve Community Participation in the Integrated Development Planning Process in South Africa: An Empirical Review

Abstract

In 1996, the government of South Africa introduced the Integrated Development Plan (IDP) policy process to transform municipal administration, integrated planning and service delivery. One of the IDP policy’s key aspects is community participation in the planning process. South Africa is still struggling to achieve their duty of delivering basic services due to ineffective community participation. The article primarily appraises the mechanisms for improved community participation in the IDP process. It is underpinned by the New Public Management (NPM) theory, which promotes management reforms, participatory planning, and decentralising power among municipalities and communities. This study adopted a mixed-methods research approach. It is conducted in the Tzaneen municipal area in Limpopo Province. It is also found that some of the mechanisms to facilitate community participation are no longer relevant and effective in the COVID-19 pandemic era. Public meetings are no longer seen as an effective and safe means of public discussion due to the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Disaster Management Act: Amendment of Regulation (Act 57 of 2002) that restricts the physical contact of large groups of people, which has implications for public meeting attendance. The study concludes by recommending that the Tzaneen municipal area should design mechanisms that make it easier for marginalised and previously disadvantaged people to participate in municipal planning and decision-making processes freely and without prejudice. Lastly, the study recommends that the municipality adopt the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) and E-participation to facilitate effective community participation in the IDP process.

Awareness Level of Spatial Planning Tools for Disaster Risk Reduction in Informal Settlements in Mopani District, South Africa

“…These results agree with those of Mamokhere and Meyer [50]'s study, which revealed that 48% of respondents in their sample in the Tzaneen local municipality in Mopani District were familiar with the IDP, one of the spatial planning tools. Mathebula, Nkuna and Sebola [51] associate this state of awareness to Mopani District's inability to include municipal residents in the participatory processes of management planning, formulation and implementation of the IDP, thereby impacting the awareness level of spatial planning tools for disaster risk reduction.…”

The integration of migration into municipal sustainable development planning in the city of UMhlathuze

“…The South African government launched the Action Plan (NAP) in 2019 to facilitate the integration and embrace a humane and digni ed approach to managing migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers to ensure social cohesion and that foreigners receive the services they are entitled to. According to Mamokhere & Meyer (2022), the integration development planning must be based on the needs and priorities of the community, with opportunities for community involvement to identify the most pressing needs and allow all involved stakeholders to participate in the creation and execution of the plan.…”

Major criteria of credible integrated development planning in local government: city of Mbombela, Ehlanzeni District, South Africa

“…The concept of IDP was identified as one of the perfect tools of planning to give effect to the shift from ad-hoc project-based approaches to a more strategic and integrated form, particularly in developing countries (Sibanda, 2018; Ramaano, 2022a; Mamokhere and Meyer, 2022a). IDP is a mechanism to drive a needs-based practice in which equity, institutional transformation and participatory management are stressed and has had a prolonged incubation involving the recycling and recombination of old and political contexts (Sibanda and Lues, 2019).…”

“…On one hand, it transformed the typical modernist planning system, which was rigid, into a more post-modern, democratic, strategic and developmental type of planning system (Biljohn and Lues, 2020; Ramaano, 2022c, d, e). On the other hand, it replaced the top-down segregation planning of the apartheid regime with bottom-up planning comprising the joint engagement of the public, private and voluntary sectors in local planning (RSA, 2000; Mamokhere, 2022; Mamokhere and Meyer, 2022c). To achieve this, municipalities were compelled, in terms of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa (1996) and the Local Government: Municipal Systems Act (2000), to adopt IDPs to guide the planning and development across the entire municipal area (RSA, 1996, 2000).…”