Integrated Development Planning (referred to commonly as IDP in this article) is a process which is informed by a legal framework, and thus constitutes an imperative for long term planning which requires skilled municipal officials to manage it. The role of university is critical to create and enhance the human resource capital. However, universities in general were in the past criticized for failing to provide practical innovative skills and orientation of its educational offerings in the wo ...

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2021-Jun-16 10:27:55

Democratising the system of local government in South Africa required a total transformation of all the municipalities and the services they provide. Local government as government closest to the people demanded particular attention as the services they are expected to provide in a transformed system affect the daily lives of all inhabitants of the state. During the apartheid regime South Africa consisted of racially based local authorities responsible for a limited number of municipal servic ...

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2021-Jun-16 10:24:04

The imperatives of a developmental state necessitate that the quality of life of citizens must be enhanced through improved delivery of public services and the creation of an appropriate environment to maximise the participation of the citizens in the mainstream economy, particularly those that were previously marginalised by the apartheid system. Improving service delivery and creating a suitable climate for equitable citizen participation in the mainstream economy are two challenges confron ...

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2021-Jun-16 10:20:40

The gap for which both integrated development planning (IDP) and local economic development (LED) as municipal interventions have been designed for is to respond to the distortions and the characteristic features of apartheid planning. Those that have left most South African cities, towns and villages with profound developmental challenges. Both the municipal interventions are seen as power-twins without which the country's development agenda can not be achieved. Some of the aspects that ...

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2021-Jun-16 10:15:00

This article analyses the relationship between the Integrated Development Plan (IDP) and the public participation process in the Republic of South Africa's new democracy. Given wide and general nature of this topic, the article focuses on the role of public participation in the IDP processes. Firstly, the article attempts to define the term ''public participation'' within the context of the IDP in South Africa. Secondly, it briefly outlines the methods and approaches used ...

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2021-Jun-16 10:11:39

The municipal ward committees and IDP Representative Forums are the arenas within which integrated development planning takes place, the end-results are IDP documents that have to be reviewed annually to incorporate social learning, emerging priorities and new resource opportunities. The key assumption is that decisions on development are more viable, effective and sustainable when the people they affect are integrally part of the decision-making - and the implementation - process. This artic ...

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2021-Jun-16 10:07:53

From a developmental local government perspective, this article proposes a framework for strengthening the capacity of municipalities in South Africa. The article is presented in a user-friendly manner for a wider readership and easy application in a local government set-up. The framework that the article proposes, is based on three components of organisational competency profile, namely knowledge, skills and values. This intellectual exercise is set against the background that, as the articl ...

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2021-Jun-16 10:02:43

Over the last number of years, it has become evident that development interventions with a strong sectoral emphasis are not adequate to deal with the complexity of developmental challenges. Instead, there has been a gradual shift towards the simultaneous - rather than sequential - pursuit of diverse objectives, such as provision of basic services, environmental sustainability, transparency and public accountability, poverty eradication and gender empowerment. The Republic of South Africa' ...

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2021-Jun-16 09:53:24