Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences (former Departments)

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Browsing Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences (former Departments) by Subject "Community development -- South Africa -- Western Province"

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    Democratic transition in South Africa : a case study of the public participation in development planning on local authority level in the West Coast Region
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2000-03) Smith, Antoinette Rachélle; Groenewald, C. J.; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences. Dept. of Sustainable Development Planning and Management.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The theme of this study is the practice of participatory democracy and its link to local development. The context is the current policy trend to consider the local authority as the core development agent. Governance is seen as a partnership between civil society and local state authority. The mechanism for linking democracy and development is the concept of integrated development planning. This study investigates the integrity of the process of public participation as reflected within integrated development planning. The democratic transition in South Africa forms the backdrop of the study. South Africa, a relatively newly formed democracy, has put legislation, political and social structures in place to support the transformation it intended. The question that remains and that is being researched in this study, is whether the lOP is a sincere attempt on the side of the government to install authentic participation on the part of the local community or is this another scheme for political expediency? The study reflects the transition to democracy on social and political level and on all levels of governance. In the case of local government, it describes the transformation of the role of local government to that of development agent in its jurisdiction of governance. A case study approach is used. The democratic transition in the field of local government and its application in a specific rural development region are selected as case material. The West Coast Development Region, a demarcated development region of the Western Cape, has been chosen as a testing ground for a number of reasons, but most importantly, because this region has taken the lead to implement the newly passed policy of integrated development planning in South Africa. The region also offered the most favorable circumstances for the study as it has been subjected to systematic and sustained development and capacity building inputs from the state since the elections in 1994. These include capacity building of ROP forums and Spatial Development Initiative. An empirical study of the process of public participation within the integrated development planning in this region was done after the first round of the process in 1997/1998. A group administered questiormaire is used to measure the knowledge and attitudes of participants who attended the workshops that were held by the local authority as medium of participation. Two measurements, one at the start of the workshop and one at the end, provided comparable data on changes in attitudes and levels of knowledge. The results indicated definite change in knowledge levels, but did not impact significantly on the attitudes of participants. The findings are presented here and form the basis of a wider study in local democracy and development to be proposed.