Integrated Development Planning (IDP) in South Africa
Since the end of the Apartheid regime, South Africa has implemented a
number of reform steps in order to spur the transformation process in
the country. Political and constitutional reforms included the
restructuring of government spheres into national, provincial and local
tiers, the creation of new policy and legal frameworks and an extensive
re-demarcation process which resulted in more viable municipalities.
In this transformation process, municipalities and communities at the
local level have become focal areas of development endeavors. It is
here, on the local level, that non-racial and viable municipalities need
to be established which are supposed to function as the building blocks
of the new society. This means that local government is becoming a key
role-player in the whole process and has to fulfill a central
developmental role in it.
One of the key tools for local government to cope with its new
developmental role is Integrated Development Planning (IDP). In contrast
to the role planning played in the past, integrated development planning
is now seen as a function of municipal management, as part of an
integrated system of planning and delivery. Integrated Development
Planning is meant to be a consultative, systematic and strategic process
that should arrive at decisions on issues such as municipal budgets,
land management, promotion of local economic development and
institutional transformation.
The IDP methodology recommends that local governments initiate a
participatory process to work their way from the visions and objectives
for the respective municipality to localised strategic guidelines. These
strategic guidelines need to consider important development aspects
under the given local circumstances and will after a public debate
finally be turned into operational strategies. Apart from spatial,
poverty, gender and environmental aspects, local economic development is
a crucial area that local governments need to consider for their
strategic guidelines.
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More about the Roles
and Responsibilities of District and Local Municipalities, Planning
Approach and Methodology, Public
Participation, and Strategies (Part
1 and Part 2) in
the IDP approach
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