Integrated Development Planning (IDP) in South Africa

Public Participation in the Integrated Development Planning Process

1. Existing Legal and Policy Framework

The Constitution stipulates that one of the objectives of municipalities is "to encourage the involvement of communities and community organisations in the matters of local government".

The White Paper Local Government (WPLG) emphasises the issue of public participation (not only in municipal planning). It goes into some detail on how to achieve public participation and of the role local government has to play to ensure the involvement of citizens in policy formulation and designing of municipal programmes, as well as implementation and monitoring and evaluation of such programmes. Public participation is meant to promote local democracy. While the WPLG emphasises that the municipalities themselves should develop appropriate strategies and mechanisms to ensure participation, some hints on how are given, such as:

• forums of organised formations (especially in the fields of visioning and on issue-specific policies, rather than on multiple policies);
• structured stakeholder participation in council committees (in particular in temporary issue-oriented committees);
• participatory action research, with specific focus groups (for in-depth information on specific issues); and
• formation of associations (especially among people in marginalised areas).

There are guidelines reflected in these hints. Firstly, participation should be a structured process rather than a process of public mass meetings. Secondly, public participation should focus on certain specific processes, and is not equally useful in all fields of municipal management.

Local government is not only expected to find its own ways of structuring participation, but is expected to become active in encouraging and promoting participation, especially when it comes to the participation of marginalised groups and women.

While the MSB defines a municipality as a "corporate entity" which consists not only of its "structures, functionaries and administration", but also of its "communities, residents and ratepayers", it differentiates clearly between the roles and responsibilities of the "governing structures" (which form a separate legal personality), and the communities, residents and ratepayers.

The public participation chapter of the MSB is guided by the principle that formal representative government must be complemented by a system of participatory governance. Participation in the decision-making processes of the municipality is determined to be a right of communities, residents and ratepayers. Integrated development planning is emphasised as a special field of public participation.

The decision on appropriate mechanisms, processes and procedures for public participation is largely left to the municipality. The only prescribed participation procedures are the receipt, processing and consideration of petitions and complaints and the public notice of council meetings. No procedures are prescribed for participation in the integrated development planning process.

Municipalities are requested to create conditions for public participation and, moreover, to encourage it. The only prescribed tool for promotion of public participation, however, is the dissemination of information on mechanisms and matters of public participation, on rights and duties of residents and on municipal governance issues in general.

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2. Experiences to Date

Leaving the decision on ways and means of public participation to each municipality results in:

• completely different styles of democracy with highly diverging combinations of formal representative and participatory governance within the country;
• helplessness and confusion on the side of most municipalities, which find it difficult to determine appropriate procedures of their own; and
• denying residents their right to participate, by avoiding setting minimum requirements which specify that right.

Many participation processes in the recent integrated development planning phase were organised in a way which did not comply with any of the general principles stated in the WPLG and the MSB.

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3. Principles of Public Participation

1. The elected councils are the ultimate decision-making forum on IDPs. The role of participatory democracy is to inform, negotiate and comment on those decisions, in the course of the planning/decision-making process.
   
2. Public participation has to be institutionalised in order to ensure that all residents of the country have an equal right to participate. Institutionalising participation means:

• setting clear minimum requirements for participation procedures which apply for all municipalities by means of regulations, and
• providing a legally recognised organisational framework.

3. Structured participation: Most of the new municipalities are too big in terms of population size and area to allow for direct participation of the majority of the residents in complex planning processes. Participation in integrated development planning, therefore, needs clear rules and procedures specifying who is to participate or to be consulted, on behalf of whom, on which issue, through which organisational mechanism, with what effect.
4. Diversity: The way public participation is institutionalised and structured has to provide sufficient room for diversity, i.e. for different participation styles and cultures. While there has to be a common regulatory frame for institutionalised participation in the country, this frame has to be wide enough for location-specific adjustments to be made by provinces and municipalities.
5. Promotion of public participation by municipal government has to distinguish between:

• creating conditions for public participation, which is a must for all municipalities (in line with the MSB), and
• encouraging public participation, which should be done in particular with regard to disadvantaged or marginalised groups and gender equity in accordance with the conditions and capacities in a municipality.

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4. The Functions and context of Public Participation in the Integrated Development Process

Participation in the integrated development planning process is only one of several arenas of participatory interaction between local government and citizens. Other means of ensuring participatory local government are:

• offering people choices between services;
• citizen and client-oriented ways of service delivery and public administration;
• partnership between communities/stakeholder organisations and local authorities in implementation of projects; and
• giving residents the right of petition and complaint and obliging municipal government to respond.

Participation in the development of municipal IDPs has to be seen within this wider context. It serves to fulfill four major functions:

1. Needs orientation: ensuring that people's needs and problems are taken into account.
2.  Appropriateness of solutions: using the knowledge and experience of local residents and communities in order to arrive at appropriate and sustainable problem solutions and measures.
3. Community ownership: mobilising local residents' and communities' initiatives and resources, and encouraging co-operation and partnerships between municipal government and residents for implementation and maintenance.
4. Empowerment: Making integrated development planning a public event and a forum for negotiating conflicting interests, finding compromises and common ground and, thereby, creating the basis for increased transparency and accountability of local government towards local residents.

These functions must always influence the choice of appropriate procedures and mechanisms for public participation.

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5. Tools, Procedures and Mechanisms for an Institutionalized and Structured Process of Public Participation

Structured participation is largely based on the existence of a set of organisations with certain rights in the planning process. While the organisational arrangements may differ widely in detail from area to area, the following minimum requirements have to be regulated.

1. Ward Committees are the organisational framework through which communities in geographical areas can participate in the planning process.
2. Stakeholder organisations which represent certain social, economic, gender or environmental interests have to be registered as "Stakeholder Associations" (at municipality level) through which they can participate in the planning process.
3. The council and the chairperson of the IDP Committee have to make sure that all relevant groups and all social strata are given the opportunity to be adequately represented. Unorganised groups should be represented by "advocates" (e.g. social workers, NGOs, resource persons who did studies on such groups, etc.).
4. All Ward Committees and Stakeholder Associations should be represented on the "Representative IDP Forum" which will form a formal link between the municipal government and the public. The Representative IDP Forum should be a permanent organisation which is also in charge of monitoring the performance during IDP implementation. Meetings of the IDP Forum have to be attended by the IDP Committee members and by the councillors.
5. IDP committees and their technical, project/programme-related sub-committees or task teams may include representatives from ward committees and stakeholder associations or resource persons from civil society if the municipality considers it appropriate. Such representatives may be permanent (sub-) committee members or be invited on a temporary issue-related basis.

For category A and C municipalities, different institutional arrangements will apply. While districts can build on the participation processes of the local councils within the area of jurisdiction, metropolitan municipalities may need one additional stage of participation on a sub-metropolitan level.

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6. Guidelines for Creating Conditions for Public Participation

The MSB requires municipalities to disseminate information on processes and procedures and on matters of concern. Transforming this general requirement to the integrated development planning process means that each municipality has to follow at least the following procedures.

1. The residents have to be informed on the integrated development planning process as a whole, and on crucial public events related to that process through:

• public announcements (appropriate media to be determined in the "work plan"); and
• ward committees and stakeholder associations.

2. Councillors have to inform the communities within the area of the ward, through a public ward-level meeting.
   
3. The Representative IDP Forum has to be involved at least once in each major stage of the drafting process.
   
4. The community and stakeholder representatives have to be given adequate time (2-4 weeks) to conduct meetings or workshops with the groups, communities or organisations they represent, before the issue is dealt with by the Representative IDP Forum. This is to give a fair opportunity for legitimate representative participation, but it does not necessarily involve the municipal governments in community- or stakeholder level workshops.
   
5. Draft planning documents have to be accessible for every resident, and everybody has the right to submit written comments. There must be a time period of at least four weeks for ward committees, stakeholder associations and interested groups and residents to discuss the draft document publicly, and to comment on it before the Representative IDP Forum deals with the draft.
   
6. The IDP committee has to inform the ward committees and stakeholder associations on the way the comments were considered, or on reasons why they were not considered by the Representative IDP Forum, before the draft is submitted to the council for approval.
   
7. Council meetings on the approval of integrated development planning must be public meetings.

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7. Guidelines on the encouragement of Public Participation

The municipal government, through its IDP committee and its councillors, should use all appropriate means, above and beyond creating the necessary conditions, to encourage public participation. As it will be a struggle for most municipalities to provide the minimum conditions, and ensure the involvement of the major role-players from within municipal government, and as participation is a right but not a duty of residents, the ability to actively encourage public participation at community level will be limited in most places.

Active encouragement should therefore focus on those social groups which are not well organised and which do not have the power to articulate their interests publicly. This could mean poverty groups, or women, or specific age groups (youth, orphans, aged people). The municipality has to identify the groups and determine appropriate ways of ensuring their representation in the Representative IDP Forum.

8. Guidelines on phasing Public Participation

Public participation is not equally relevant and appropriate in each stage of planning, and not all participation procedures are equally suitable for each planning step. To limit participation costs, to avoid participation fatigue, and to optimise the impact of participation, the mechanisms of participation will have to differ from stage to stage. The following guidelines can help municipalities to decide on appropriate tools for the right step:

Planning phase	Required intensity of public participation	Mechanisms
Analysis	PPP	Community and stakeholder meeting Sample surveys (problem census, etc.) Opinion polls
Strategies	P	District level workshops of IDP committees, with representatives of sector departments and selected representatives of stakeholder organisations and resource people Partly on district-level
Project Planning	P PPP	Technical sub-committees with few selected representatives of stakeholder organisations/civil society Intensive dialogue between technical subcommittees and affected communities/stakeholders
Integration	P	By Representative IDP Forum
Approval	PPP	Broad public discussion/consultation process within all community/stakeholder organisations Opportunity for comments from residents
Monitoring	PP	By Representative IDP Forum

More about the Roles and Responsibilities of District and Local Municipalities, the Planning Approach and Methodology, and Strategies (Part 1 and Part 2) in the IDP approach

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