The link between sustainability and the planning process has been legislated and polices applied but the practical rhetoric and implementation thereof remains problematic (Oranje & Van Huyssteen, 2004 and Owens, 1994). An integral part of that link is the ability of the planning process to provide for public involvement. However within institutionalized planning processes the dominance of “experts” (scientific based) in the process allows for an exclusionary debate with regard to local issues (Eden, 1996). This research explored the ability of the local legislated integrated development planning (IDP) process as a tool through which the implementation of sustainability could be fostered. It specifically explored the discourse of knowledge (scientific, counter scientific and non scientific) as a construct in implementing deliberative public participation for sustainability. The qualitative approach utilized in this study employed multiple research methodologies through the utilization of the Lesedi Local Municipality (LLM) IDP process as a case study. This research report shows that while the IDP is a technical process paying little attention to other knowledge’s, it does have some potential as a framework that can aid in the implementation of sustainable participation through its ability to empower communities and foster community led development through ownership of this local process.

In order for the Vredefort Dome to be declared, and to exist as a World Heritage site, it is imperative that the tourism product owners in the area realise their roles as custodians of this precious site. This proposition leads to the main aim of this study, namely to develop an integrated tourism development strategy for the Vredefort Dome as a proposed World Heritage site. In order to achieve the above-mentioned aim, a thorough literature review was conducted. The goal of the literature study was to investigate the birth and growth of sustainable development based on Agenda 21. This literature review revealed that the three-legged chair of sustainable development has more profound foundations than the obvious economical, social and environmental aspects. Each one of these aspects consists of various elements that are interrelated. In order to formulate a strategy for sustainable tourism development, this interrelation between aspects was analysed and the following conclusions were drawn: Sustainable tourism development is an integrated system Education, poverty alleviation, health and insight into human settlements and demographics are the cornerstones of social well-being Climate change, land resources, deforestation, drought, mountain development, agriculture, biodiversity, freshwater resources, toxic chemicals and waste are central concerns in environmentally sensitive development 0 Institutions involved such as the different levels of Government, as well as aspects such as fair trade, economic enhancement programmes and economic measuring are essential elements of economic sustainability. The custodians of the present generation in the Vredefort Dome should realise their role in this complicated and integrated system and therefore the practices at present were evaluated as well as the future view regarding sustainable practices. In order, then, for sustainable tourism development to realise in the Vredefort Dome, the following strategies were formulated to assist product owners to achieve sustainability: Assisting to alleviate poverty in the VFD with a view to a sustainable future and supporting sustainable livelihoods Improving participation that would be true to the demographic composition in the VFD Protecting and promoting human health in the VFD Promoting education and training in the VFD Promoting sustainable human settlement development in the VFD-area Following an integrated approach to the planning and management of land resources Promoting sustainable agriculture and rural development Conserving the biological diversity in the VFD Acquiring support from national, provincial and local levels of government Establishing a system that guarantees supply that is coherent with fair trade in tourism Establishing an economic enhancement system that will contribute to the well-being of the VFD community Reducing leakage and other purchasing practices. The results of the empirical study indicated that tourism stakeholders are prepared to improve the present situation in the Vredefort Dome and are willing to adjust their businesses practices in the future. These changed practices addressed some strategic issues and the strategies above would give direction to this proposed World Heritage site to become more sustainable. / Thesis (Ph.D. (Tourism))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2004.

In order for the Vredefort Dome to be declared, and to exist as a World Heritage site, it is imperative that the tourism product owners in the area realise their roles as custodians of this precious site. This proposition leads to the main aim of this study, namely to develop an integrated tourism development strategy for the Vredefort Dome as a proposed World Heritage site. In order to achieve the above-mentioned aim, a thorough literature review was conducted. The goal of the literature study was to investigate the birth and growth of sustainable development based on Agenda 21. This literature review revealed that the three-legged chair of sustainable development has more profound foundations than the obvious economical, social and environmental aspects. Each one of these aspects consists of various elements that are interrelated. In order to formulate a strategy for sustainable tourism development, this interrelation between aspects was analysed and the following conclusions were drawn: Sustainable tourism development is an integrated system Education, poverty alleviation, health and insight into human settlements and demographics are the cornerstones of social well-being Climate change, land resources, deforestation, drought, mountain development, agriculture, biodiversity, freshwater resources, toxic chemicals and waste are central concerns in environmentally sensitive development 0 Institutions involved such as the different levels of Government, as well as aspects such as fair trade, economic enhancement programmes and economic measuring are essential elements of economic sustainability. The custodians of the present generation in the Vredefort Dome should realise their role in this complicated and integrated system and therefore the practices at present were evaluated as well as the future view regarding sustainable practices. In order, then, for sustainable tourism development to realise in the Vredefort Dome, the following strategies were formulated to assist product owners to achieve sustainability: Assisting to alleviate poverty in the VFD with a view to a sustainable future and supporting sustainable livelihoods Improving participation that would be true to the demographic composition in the VFD Protecting and promoting human health in the VFD Promoting education and training in the VFD Promoting sustainable human settlement development in the VFD-area Following an integrated approach to the planning and management of land resources Promoting sustainable agriculture and rural development Conserving the biological diversity in the VFD Acquiring support from national, provincial and local levels of government Establishing a system that guarantees supply that is coherent with fair trade in tourism Establishing an economic enhancement system that will contribute to the well-being of the VFD community Reducing leakage and other purchasing practices. The results of the empirical study indicated that tourism stakeholders are prepared to improve the present situation in the Vredefort Dome and are willing to adjust their businesses practices in the future. These changed practices addressed some strategic issues and the strategies above would give direction to this proposed World Heritage site to become more sustainable. / Thesis (Ph.D. (Tourism))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2004.

ABSTRACT Local government is the sphere closest to the people and is described as the most important sphere of government. The end of apartheid in the early 1990s has left South Africa with permanent social and economic legacy which is characterised by racial division and discrimination. Over the last decade all local government institutions in South Africa had been totally restructured and transformed into a single uniformed system of local governance in which all municipalities area given a new status, new powers and functions and a new constitutionally entrenched vision of achieving specific municipal objects and to be generally developmental in nature (Bekink, 2006). Most important shifts in direction for local government are enshrined in Chapter 7 of the Constitution (Act 108 of 1996), which provides the objectives of local government as being to provide a democratic and accountable government for local communities and to encourage the involvement of stakeholders, including the communities in the matters of local government. This marks the difference between the new form of local government and that of the past. The new local government has a dynamic developmental role to ensure maximum impact on poverty alleviation and to address socio-economic inequalities. Local government cannot achieve their new goals on their own. They need the support and assistance of the two higher spheres of government. This is because developmental local government requires a system of intergovernmental planning in the decision-making of local development. This entails mutual understanding with inclusive decision-making between government spheres, private sector and communities. This needs to take place within the framework of Integrated Development Planning. Therefore, stakeholder involvement in the IDP process is relevant. Over the past few years in the democratic South Africa, local government has seemed to reflect a system of government characterised by low levels of service delivery by local authorities, lack of transparency in decision making and inability to participate in municipal affairs. Various efforts have been made to bring about a system of co-operative governance to enhance intergovernmental planning, economic regeneration and social reconciliation in South Africa’s municipalities. In general, the results thus far have been somewhat mixed, but as case-study evidence (chapter 4) suggest, it is clear that some significant improvements have taken place in municipalities, particularly in terms of the implementation of the IDP. This study was undertaken in an effort to assess the extent to which intergovernmental planning plays a role in the IDP implementation of Makhado LM.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the integration of the Integrated Development Plan (IDP) and Performance Management System (PMS) processes in the Mangaung Metropolitan Municipality. The aim of this study will not be to find solutions to the lack of service delivery, but to evaluate the lDP and PMS process as well as the theory. The need for this study was considered relevant and necessary as municipalities today have become focus points for service delivery as per their constitutional obligations. The IDPs are management and planning instruments and are only effective if they enable municipalities to improve and accelerate the delivery of essential services and development. Central to the constitutional mandate, amongst other things, the Municipal Systems Act 32 of 2000 (SA, 2000) requires municipalities to establish a Performance Management System that will play a pivotal role in promoting a culture of Performance Management. It is through Performance Management that priorities, objectives and targets are set, as contained in the Integrated Development Plan, are implemented and measured. Along with the implementation of lDPs, the Municipal Structures Act (117 of 1998) also mandates the implementation of performance management systems within the structures of the municipality. It was found during the literature review that the processes of IDP and PMS are linked, the resulting performance is more likely to meet the needs of an institution. There are various legislative acts and policy documents that state and mandates the use of these processes. Along with this are various guidelines that have been formulated to assist municipalities to successfully implement the lDP and a performance management system. / MBA, North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the integration of the Integrated Development Plan (IDP) and Performance Management System (PMS) processes in the Mangaung Metropolitan Municipality. The aim of this study will not be to find solutions to the lack of service delivery, but to evaluate the lDP and PMS process as well as the theory. The need for this study was considered relevant and necessary as municipalities today have become focus points for service delivery as per their constitutional obligations. The IDPs are management and planning instruments and are only effective if they enable municipalities to improve and accelerate the delivery of essential services and development. Central to the constitutional mandate, amongst other things, the Municipal Systems Act 32 of 2000 (SA, 2000) requires municipalities to establish a Performance Management System that will play a pivotal role in promoting a culture of Performance Management. It is through Performance Management that priorities, objectives and targets are set, as contained in the Integrated Development Plan, are implemented and measured. Along with the implementation of lDPs, the Municipal Structures Act (117 of 1998) also mandates the implementation of performance management systems within the structures of the municipality. It was found during the literature review that the processes of IDP and PMS are linked, the resulting performance is more likely to meet the needs of an institution. There are various legislative acts and policy documents that state and mandates the use of these processes. Along with this are various guidelines that have been formulated to assist municipalities to successfully implement the lDP and a performance management system. / MBA, North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

Historically the practice of conservation planning has occurred in an ad hoc manner in areas that have no economic or agricultural value. When systematic conservation planning has been implemented it has ensured the identification of priority areas that contain species, habitats, and processes essential to achieving conservation targets and goals set out by government. In the recent past a number of authors within the conservation planning fraternity have started questioning the actual impact of conservation plans. Only one third of the conservation plans (globally) published between 1998 and 2000 resulted in actual implementation. Prendengast et al. (1999) described this gap between conservation plans and conservation action as the ‘research–implementation–gap’. The same phenomenon is experienced in local government conservation planning, in South Africa. This has led to a lack of conservation planning and implementation. By using the Gauteng provincial Conservation Plan (C–Plan), that is considered the strategic conservation planning document for the province government, a critical evaluation of the extent to which environmental aspects are considered in strategic level municipal decision making was done. Six local and two district municipalities within the Gauteng Province were selected to ascertain, through a comparative and objective analysis, to what extent their strategic documents (Integrated Development Plan, Spatial Development Framework and Environmental Management Framework) reflect the conservation planning done on a provincial sphere (C–Plan). An analysis was done of the selected documentation and spatial maps to determine whether incorporation occurred either explicitly and/or implicitly. The expectation is that municipalities within the Gauteng Province, should, as part of their Integrated Development Plan process, integrate the Gauteng C–Plan with their Integrated Development Plans. The research found that all the municipalities fully incorporated the C–Plan within their Environmental Management Frameworks indicating that local government conservation planners do consult and incorporate provincial conservation plans when they are generating their own plans. The Spatial Development Frameworks and Integrated Development Plans did not reflect this strong connection with regards to conservation planning. There is a lack of integration between the different documents and an inability to bring a planning aspect(s) to delivery and implementation. There is no problem with the incorporation of the C–Plan into the Environmental Management Frameworks, thus future research or conservation initiatives should focus on the effective incorporation of the Environmental Management Frameworks into other strategic municipal documentation (Spatial Development Frameworks and Integrated Development Plans) and promote the integration that occurs between the municipal documents themselves. / Thesis (M. Environmental Management)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2012.

Historically the practice of conservation planning has occurred in an ad hoc manner in areas that have no economic or agricultural value. When systematic conservation planning has been implemented it has ensured the identification of priority areas that contain species, habitats, and processes essential to achieving conservation targets and goals set out by government. In the recent past a number of authors within the conservation planning fraternity have started questioning the actual impact of conservation plans. Only one third of the conservation plans (globally) published between 1998 and 2000 resulted in actual implementation. Prendengast et al. (1999) described this gap between conservation plans and conservation action as the ‘research–implementation–gap’. The same phenomenon is experienced in local government conservation planning, in South Africa. This has led to a lack of conservation planning and implementation. By using the Gauteng provincial Conservation Plan (C–Plan), that is considered the strategic conservation planning document for the province government, a critical evaluation of the extent to which environmental aspects are considered in strategic level municipal decision making was done. Six local and two district municipalities within the Gauteng Province were selected to ascertain, through a comparative and objective analysis, to what extent their strategic documents (Integrated Development Plan, Spatial Development Framework and Environmental Management Framework) reflect the conservation planning done on a provincial sphere (C–Plan). An analysis was done of the selected documentation and spatial maps to determine whether incorporation occurred either explicitly and/or implicitly. The expectation is that municipalities within the Gauteng Province, should, as part of their Integrated Development Plan process, integrate the Gauteng C–Plan with their Integrated Development Plans. The research found that all the municipalities fully incorporated the C–Plan within their Environmental Management Frameworks indicating that local government conservation planners do consult and incorporate provincial conservation plans when they are generating their own plans. The Spatial Development Frameworks and Integrated Development Plans did not reflect this strong connection with regards to conservation planning. There is a lack of integration between the different documents and an inability to bring a planning aspect(s) to delivery and implementation. There is no problem with the incorporation of the C–Plan into the Environmental Management Frameworks, thus future research or conservation initiatives should focus on the effective incorporation of the Environmental Management Frameworks into other strategic municipal documentation (Spatial Development Frameworks and Integrated Development Plans) and promote the integration that occurs between the municipal documents themselves. / Thesis (M. Environmental Management)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2012.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / In various formulations, the idea of a developmental state has appeared in official discourse in South Africa since the advent of democratic government in 1994, albeit that its adoption as state policy has been slow, uneven and inconsistent with the original East Asian model. What has been a feature of developmental state thinking in South Africa is the fact that the concept has been so poorly articulated in policy that it has come to mean different things to different state actors and to the public. This has been aggravated by the fact that the idea of a strongly interventionist developmental state has run counter to the idea of a diminished state enunciated in various neo-liberal policies. Moreover, unlike the authoritarian and top-down East Asian model, the government envisages a South African developmental state which is infused with democratic content where citizens assist in the formulation of policy from below. In its emphasis on a bottom-up approach to policy formulation the South African model differs markedly from the conventional idea of a developmental state which is heavily reliant on a strong central bureaucracy to drive economic growth. In the South African model local government has been assigned a pivotal role in addressing persistent economic exclusion and uneven development. A central tenet of this approach is the need for local authorities to institutionalise participatory processes at grassroots level and devise effective structures and processes to facilitate citizen participation in local affairs. In the light of the above, this thesis sets out to examine the manner in which a system of developmental local government is being implemented in the City of Cape Town. Taking as a case study the township of Delft, the study looks at the systems and processes (and particularly the process of integrated development planning) set in place to advance citizen participation. It examines the extent to which the model is perceived to be achieving its goals from the perspective of political office bearers, officials from different spheres of government and residents. The research found that notwithstanding an enabling legislative and policy framework, there is little comprehension of, or interest, in the idea of developmental local government and municipal officials largely pay lip service to participatory processes which are carried out in a top-down fashion and which neither empower local residents nor enhance their welfare. It also concluded that developmental government, in its present form, is contributing little to the establishment of a national developmental state.

A qualitative research approach was utilised with the goal to explore the views and interpretation of community members concerning the participation in the Integrated Development Plan (IDP) of the City of Johannesburg Municipality. The objectives were to conceptualise the legal and policy framework for the implementation of IDP's in South African municipalities (with reference to community/public participation); explore the nature and extent of community participation in the IDP processes (understanding of the IDP process and its meaning to the community); explore community participation in relation to decision-making in the process of IDP consultation, and make suggestions for advocacy on meaningful community participation to optimise the success of IDP in the City of Johannesburg Municipality. Using applied research made it possible for suggestions of meaningful community participation to optimise the success of IDP in the City of Johannesburg Municipality. A sample of 18 participants was drawn from Region E of which only 10 people participated, focusing on Alexandra as the population. The most suitable research design was a qualitative design with a collective case study. A focus group session was held with each of the two groups of participants. The focus group session with community representatives took place at the AlexSankopano multi-purpose main hall in Alexandra, whilst the session with the representatives of the City of Johannesburg municipality, took place at the boardroom of Region E offices in Sandton. Data collected were analysed using Creswell's data analysis spiral. The findings of the research showed that, although participation in the IDP of the Alexandra community which forms part of Region E of the City of Johannesburg Municipality was acknowledged, it was not meaningful and effective to the community and municipal officials. The above finding seems to suggest that the value of community participation for sustainable development in the community, as well as for nation building has not been realised. / Mini Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2016. / Social Work and Criminology / MA / Unrestricted