MPM / Oliver Tambo Institute of Governance and Policy Studies

Community Economic Development (CED) in South Africa is shaped by the historicalprocesses of the former Apartheid regime that discriminated the social and economic rights of the majority of people, thus disempowering them to participate in development. The notion of Integrated Community Economic Development (ICED) enhances the concept of participation in community economic development in that it advocates for an empowerment dimension in development. In order to facilitate this participation, the government has introduced the participatory mechanisms of the IDP and ward committee system. Paradoxically, inequalities in development persist in previously disadvantaged homelands which were excluded from participation in developmental initiatives of the former regime. Consequently, these mechanisms for ICED have not been able to achieve participation of communities in ICED. Winterveldt is one such area with a legacy of social exclusion through racial and ethnic discrimination. The goal of the study was to explore the lack of participation of the Winterveldt community in ICED guided by the research question: “What are the reasons for the lack of participation of the Winterveldt community in ICED?” A qualitative research approach was followed and the research design was a case study. Data was gathered through focus group interviews and document studies. The focus groups were comprised of 13 community participants and 10 ward committee personnel from Winterveldt. Research findings revealed various reasons for the lack of participation in the ICED of Winterveldt including role confusion, the lack of information and training on the IDP and political power abuse. The study concluded that participation flows along lines that safeguard the interests of local government with little respect for the community’s capacity to make decisions concerning their development. Recommendations towards the achievement of participation in the ICED of Winterveldt include training on the Integrated Development Plan (IDP), the development of a guideline for implementing the IDP and changes in attitudes of all actors in the ICED of Winterveldt. Copyright / Dissertation (MSW)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Social Work and Criminology / unrestricted

MAdmin / Department of Public and Development Administration / The study focusses on the challenges militating against community participation on the Integrated Development Plan (IDP) process in Thulamela Local Municipality (TLM) and to find strategies to be used to enhance community participation on Integrated Development Plan. The study is based on matters of community participation and IDP in order to find out how community participation in the municipalities can influence the planning process in an integrated manner. The Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996 (Act No. 108 of 1996) mandates local government to encourage the involvement of communities and community organisations in the matters of local government. IDP is the rightful platform to fulfil the aforementioned mandate in the local government. In this study, the researcher made use of a mixed research method where both qualitative and quantitative research methods are used. The research is qualitative in nature, but the quantitative method is also used in data interpretation, because data collected was based on the views and opinions of a large number of respondents and the analysis of results based on statistical significance. The researcher used the non-probability sampling and its subtype purposive sampling method to select the participants in this study. Questionnaires, interviews as well as literature were used to gather data in this research. Two types of data analysis were used when analysing the data. For data collected through interview, the researcher used thematic analysis (Narrative form) and for data collected through questionnaire, the researcher used International Business Machinery (IBM)- Statistical Product in Service Solutions (SPSS) Statistics V25. The researcher followed research ethics before conducting the study. The major findings of the study are: • The study found out that 38 (76%) of the respondents agreed that community members actively participate in IDP process. This is an indication that community members of Thulamela Local Municipality actively participate in IDP process. • The researcher found out that the majority of the respondents at 45 which constitutes 90% agreed that active community participation in IDP process plays an important role in the improvement of the basic service delivery. • The researcher found out that majority of the respondents at 35 which constitutes 70% of the respondents in the study agreed that community members are well informed about different types of participation in IDP process. • The researcher found out that majority of the respondents at 38 which constitutes 76% of the respondents in the study disagreed that there are enough resources to capacitate community members in order to participate actively in IDP process. v The main recommendations are: • The researcher recommends that community members should take a share of responsibility to actively participate in IDP process. Thus, the community members should consider it necessary that they strive to make community participation on IDP process fashionable. • The researcher recommends that there should be active community participation in IDP process because it plays an important role in the improvement of basic service delivery. Community participation in IDP process needs to be active for the basic service delivery to be improved. • The researcher recommends that community members should be well informed about different types of participation on IDP process. It is the responsibility of the municipality to inform community members about different types of community participation that they can use to participate in IDP process. • The researcher recommends that the municipality should make enough resources to capacitate community members in order to participate actively in IDP process available. The municipality should embark on a journey to raise funds either from other government sectors and/or private sectors. / NRF