scholarly journals Hallmarks of irresponsible and unresponsive governance: Internal xenophobic attacks in South Africa’s municipalities

2015 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
S Makwembere
Keyword(s):  
Service Delivery ◽  
South African ◽  
Local Governance ◽  
Economic Restructuring ◽  
Document Analysis ◽  
Participatory Development ◽  
Citizen Engagement ◽  
Contributing Factors ◽  
Roles And Responsibilities ◽  
Sustainable Solutions

Municipalities face major pressures to demonstrate that they are responsible and responsive institutions. At present, different policies and institutions exist to guide local governance in pursuit of numerous ideals through various assigned roles and responsibilities. Broadly, the latter involve government’s vision of participatory development, citizen engagement and innovative service delivery amongst other things. Xenophobia has been a particular challenge to the South African government’s vision for local governance, especially due to its complex contributing factors. Using document analysis, this article discusses issues around citizenship and regionalism as suggested in policies and strategies on local governance in view of the realities of xenophobic attacks. The experiences of marginalised migrants as stakeholders of local governance reveal the paradoxes of xenophobic attacks as local governance agenda on responsibility and responsiveness this article suggests implications of the conceptualisation of citizenship and regionalism in municipal approaches to local governance. Political and economic restructuring associated with local governance goals are undoubtedly shape constructions of citizenship and regionalism. As sustainable solutions to the problem of xenophobia are yet to be achieved, this article concludes by offering possible routes to local governance that broaden what is conceptualised as responsible and responsive vision and action in addressing xenophobia.

Evolving local government in post conflict South Africa: Where to?

2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (7) ◽  
pp. 710-725 ◽  
Author(s):  
PS Reddy
Keyword(s):  
Local Government ◽  
Service Delivery ◽  
South African ◽  
Good Governance ◽  
Local Governance ◽  
African State ◽  
Main Role ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Role Players ◽  
Basic Functions

Protracted negotiations between the main role-players steered in the new South African state on 27 April 1994 and final Constitution, 1996 , which constitutionalised local government. A cursory analysis points to some municipalities which are pockets of excellence; however, local government generally is in ‘distress’. Local communities are rapidly losing confidence in the system as the majority of municipalities are unable to discharge even basic functions. Local government has been characterised by violent service delivery protests; abuse of political power and increasing corruption; financial challenges; poor infrastructure planning/maintenance/investment; political strife and factionalism and staff turbulence. Despite governmental interventions to improve local governance, there are still major constraints hampering good governance, namely political posturing and factionalism; corruption; lawlessness and poor service delivery, symptomatic of virtually all post conflict states. Good local governance is an integral part of post conflict reconstruction and development and is key to building a new local government dispensation.

Group structural elements in e-Government strategy formulation at local municipal level in South Africa

2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 2-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua Osah ◽  
Caroline Khene
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Service Delivery ◽  
South African ◽  
Theory Development ◽  
Citizen Engagement ◽  
Structural Elements ◽  
Strategy Formulation ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Local Government Level ◽  
Degree Of Differentiation

Purpose This study aims to identify group structural elements that should be assessed in e-Government strategy formulation processes at local government level for service delivery in South Africa. These elements influence the success or effectiveness of the strategy formulation process. Design/methodology/approach The theoretical framework of group structural elements by Asplund and nine other strategy formulation-related approaches are reflected upon. Weick’s approach of theory development is used to guide the theoretical analysis. A pragmatic approach is applied to conduct the empirical investigation using a case study of a digital citizen engagement project in South Africa. Findings The paper highlights the following group elements that influence the strategy formulation process: group member relations, degree of differentiation within the group and resources of the group. Not addressing these structural elements may result in a lack of creativity or a reluctance to participate in the context of public sector engagement. Research limitations/implications The paper does not provide an exhaustive list of all aspects that necessitate assessment before and during a strategy formulation process, for example, organisational and environment structural elements. Practical implications Assessing group structural elements provides valuable knowledge on how to engage stakeholders in a joint problem-solving activity. This is particularly pertinent where citizen engagement is fundamental to addressing basic service delivery concerns. Originality/value In the South African local municipal context, there is no existing literature that discusses the need to assess group structural elements influencing the outcome of an e-Government strategy formulation process.

scholarly journals Community development workers (CDWs): a case study of the Bitou Local Municipality

2012 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kishore Raga ◽  
J Derek Taylor ◽  
A Gogi
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Local Government ◽  
Community Development ◽  
Service Delivery ◽  
South African ◽  
Local Governance ◽  
Developmental State ◽  
Local Municipality ◽  
The Government ◽  
Development Workers

Local government in South Africa is no longer simply an extension of the national and provincial spheres of government; it has become an independent sphere in its own right. Steady progress has been made in the delivery of services since the advent of a democratic and developmental state in 1994. The 1996 South African Constitution positions local government as an independent sphere of the government, interrelated to and interdependent with the national and provincial governments. To give it a collective voice, local government speaks from a position of strength through organised local government, as embodied in the South African Local Government Association (hereafter referred to as SALGA). The government is aware of the challenges facing local government service delivery, particularly in the rural areas, where progress in service delivery has been slow. During the former Presidential Izimbizo’s, the gap between the government’s delivery efforts and communities’ ability to benefit from that delivery was repeatedly highlighted. The introduction of community development workers (CDWs) is to assist the three spheres of government to ensure that service delivery reaches the intended recipients effectively and efficiently (IDASA, 2006: On- Line).It was against this background that community development workers (CDWs) were introduced as a link between the government and communities. CDWs are defined as participatory change agents who work in the community in which the live, and to whom they have to answer for their activities. They are required to help members of the community to improve their living standards and change circumstances. To do this, CDWs are expected to make the poor aware of their constitutional rights such as their right to basic service delivery including social grants and assist community members to understand how they can participate in the development plans for their communities. CDWs are expected to facilitate community participation in policy-making, implementation and in service delivery (Republic of South Africa. Grassroots Innovation, 2007). In this article, the role of community development workers in enhancing service delivery within the Bitou Local Municipality is discussed. The article concludes with recommendations based on an empirical survey to establish the extent to which CDWs play a role in improving service delivery and enhancing the accessibility of government services to communities.Keywords: Bitou Local Municipality, local governance, community development workers, participation, ward committeesDisciplines: Public Management and Administration, social science research methodology, development studies

scholarly journals Public participation in services delivery projects in Buikwe District Local Government Uganda

2016 ◽  
pp. 127-146
Author(s):  
Sylvester Kugonza ◽  
Robert Mukobi
Keyword(s):  
Local Government ◽  
Service Delivery ◽  
Public Participation ◽  
Information Dissemination ◽  
Local Governance ◽  
Pearson Correlation ◽  
Local Planning ◽  
Civic Consciousness ◽  
Roles And Responsibilities ◽  
Services Delivery

Public participation as a democratic right has gained wide acceptance in local governance, both to improve accountability in service delivery and to enhance civic consciousness. Uganda now has two decades’ experience of various forms of decentralisation. However, the extent of public participation both in local planning and in holding local politicians to account has been inconsistent. Taking Buikwe District local government as a case study, the authors argued that three key factors influence public participation in local governance – access to information, ability to use information effectively, and awareness of citizens’ rights, roles and responsibilities. They found that these factors positively influenced overall respondents’ participation in local government projects by 10.2%, 19% and 22% respectively based on Pearson Correlation Coefficient. The study further found that information is not readily accessible or effectively disseminated to the majority of citizens and therefore is not fully harnessed for planning, monitoring and evaluating government projects. Reasons for this inadequate access included: limited and costly infrastructure for handling information: lack of skills in relation to how and when to use information; and lack of analytical and simplification skills among those disseminating information. In light of these findings, the paper recommends that information dissemination must be planned and carried out in a targeted and systematic way, if citizens’ awareness of their rights, roles and responsibilities in service delivery is to be achieved.

Exploring the Uncharted Territory of Devolution in Zimbabwe

2019 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jephias Mapuva ◽  
George P Miti
Keyword(s):  
Local Government ◽  
Service Delivery ◽  
Citizen Participation ◽  
Local Governance ◽  
Public Affairs ◽  
Participatory Governance ◽  
Enabling Environment ◽  
Efficiency And Effectiveness ◽  
Local Levels

Devolution, which was incorporated into the Constitution of Zimbabwe through section 264, is a new phenomenon in Zimbabwe. This incorporation came about because of the need for participatory governance and the devolution of power away from the centre. Over the years, local governance has been informed by a plethora of pieces of legislation that do not provide an enabling environment for citizen participation, giving Zimbabwe’s local government a chequered history that excludes citizens from participating in public affairs that affect their lives. An analysis of section 264 of the Constitution revealed that devolution has the propensity to enhance transparency, efficiency and effectiveness as well as the fulfilment of central government’s responsibilities at provincial and local levels. This article argues that the belated implementation of the devolution of power has delayed improved service delivery, effectiveness, efficiency and accountability within local governance. This article further seeks to explain how the implementation of section 264 of the Constitution can bring about good local governance.

Epistemic Ruptures in South African Standpoint Knowledge-Making: Academic Feminism and the #FeesMustFall Movement

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Desiree Lewis ◽  
Cheryl Margaret Hendricks
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Economic Restructuring ◽  
Student Protests ◽  
Political Processes ◽  
Academic Feminism ◽  
The Many ◽  
Radical Knowledge ◽  
Intellectual Activism

Alongside the many structural and political processes generated by the #FeesMustFall student protests between 2015 and 2016 were narratives and discourses about revitalising the transformation of universities throughout South Africa. It was the very notion of “transformation,” diluted by neo-liberal macro-economic restructuring from the late 1990s, that students jettisoned as they increasingly embraced the importance of “decolonisation.” By exploring some of the key debates and interventions driven by the #FeesMustFall movement, we consider how earlier trajectories of feminist knowledge-making resonate with these. The article also reflects on how aspects of intellectual activism within the student protests can deepen and push back the frontiers of contemporary South African academic feminism. In so doing, it explores how radical knowledge-making at, and about, universities, has contributed to radical political thought in South Africa.

Delivering water services during protracted armed conflicts: How development agencies can overcome barriers to collaboration with humanitarian actors

2019 ◽  
Vol 101 (912) ◽  
pp. 1067-1089
Author(s):  
Edoardo Borgomeo
Keyword(s):  
Service Delivery ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Contributing Factors ◽  
Emergency Relief ◽  
Organizational Goals ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Development Agencies ◽  
Sub Saharan

AbstractThis note discusses the challenges of water service delivery before, during and after protracted armed conflict, focusing on barriers that may impede successful transition from emergency to development interventions. The barriers are grouped according to three major contributing factors (three “C”s): culture (organizational goals and procedures), cash (financing practices) and capacity (know-how). By way of examples, the note explores ways in which development agencies can overcome these barriers during the three phases of a protracted armed conflict, using examples of World Bank projects and experiences in the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa. Before the crisis, development agencies need to work to prevent armed conflict. In a situation of active armed conflict or when conflict escalates, development agencies need to remain engaged as much as possible, as this will speed up post-conflict recovery. When conflict subsides, development agencies need to balance the relative effort placed on providing urgently needed emergency relief and water supply and sanitation services with the effort placed on re-establishing sector oversight roles and capacity of local institutions to oversee and manage service delivery in the long term.

Investigating the factors that influence use of ICTs for citizen engagement in Malawi

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Rachel Sibande
Keyword(s):  
Service Delivery ◽  
Information And Communication Technologies ◽  
Self Efficacy ◽  
Citizen Engagement ◽  
Willingness To Participate ◽  
Social Constructs ◽  
Utaut Model ◽  
Utility Companies ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Radio Programs

Literature has suggested that Malawians are keen to participate. Malawian’s willingness to participate is evident as the country has recorded high voter turnouts during the elections in recent decades. However, literature also suggests that there is minimal citizen engagement in between elections. Elsewhere, Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have been used to enhance citizen engagement, but ICT led citizen engagement is still an emerging field and yet to be explored as an area of research particularly in Malawi. We thus sought to explore if the use of ICTs could improve citizen engagement with councils, councilors, and utility companies that provide water and electricity in Malawi. We developed and deployed an ICT platform called Mzinda which means My location in Malawi’s populous Chichewa language. The platform provided various channels for citizens and duty bearers to engage via SMS, USSD, web and a mobile application. We sought to understand the factors that influence citizen’s behavior intention to use an ICT platform to engage. We applied the modified UTAUT model by including Attitude and Self Efficacy social constructs that have among others been cited as limitations of the UTAUT model. We conducted factor loadings of six social constructs of the modified UTAUT model to validate content and reexamine the model in the context of citizen engagement using ICTs in Malawi. We found that, Attitude and Self Efficacy were not significant determinants of the Behaviour Intention for citizens to use the ICT platform. However, 75% of the Behaviour Intention was influenced by Perfomance Expectancy and Effort Expectancy as moderated by age and gender. Empirical evidence showed that responsiveness and actionability of councils and councillors had improved. We also learned that citizens believed that service delivery had improved and that they had more influence over councils, councillors, and the utility companies because of using the ICT platform. We conclude by noting that improvements in service delivery; enhanced responsiveness and actionability of councils, councillors and the utility companies were not necessarily as a result of the ICT platform alone; but a combination of ICTs and non-technology mechanisms of engaging the stakeholders through community campaigns, radio programs, print media engagement, community meetings and debates among others. It is evident that ICTs are not the panacea of all citizen engagement problems. This research can be useful to researchers and practitioners in the technology and citizen engagement domains.

Community Asset Management A Good Practice in Participatory Local Governance

2005 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 19-24
Author(s):  
Wendy Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Service Delivery ◽  
Community Participation ◽  
Asset Management ◽  
Poverty Reduction ◽  
Good Governance ◽  
Local Governance ◽  
Local Development ◽  
Good Practice ◽  
Governance Process ◽  
Development Service

This article places the concept of community asset management (CAM), the focus of a DFID Knowledge and Research (KAR) project which has been described elsewhere, in the context of the broader concepts of participatory local governance and good practice, themselves the subjects of other recent KAR projects. It is contended herein that it is imperative to local development, service delivery and poverty reduction that these concepts are fully operationalised by the stakeholders involved in the governance process. The article argues that, not only is CAM as a community participation approach a good practice in good governance ‘in its own right‘, but the very practice of the CAM approach involves the operationalisation of other participatory local governance principles.

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