Ward Commitees
In 2002 the DDP together with several other leading NGO’s in the
Province initiated a programme for local government practitioners
across all municipalities. The primary aim of the programme was
to:
- Assess the capacity of existing structures to meet the needs of the community in terms of service delivery.
- Provide capacity building around the IDP, the budget Process as well s the Municipal Systems and Structures Act.
- Assist stakeholders to recognize the interdependency of all functionaries in order to provide an efficient and effective municipality.
Arising out of the evaluation of this workshop a number of key concerns
were identified. These were:
- The serious lack of capacity of many of the councilors to engage meaningfully with the municipal officials.
- The lack of any clear transformation agenda of the municipality in order to deal with the new challenges that they were facing.
- The trivialization of public participation mechanisms that often amounted to no more than meeting the basic requirements of the constitution.
- The political infighting amoungst the major political parties often at the expense of good governance practices.
- The general distrust that existed amongst stakeholders that made it difficult to work meaningfully together in the pursuit of a common agenda.
Since this time the DDP has been engaged with these issues at a number of different levels but felt that there was a need for a more holistic approach. The DDP has worked on the second edition of the training manual, Partners in Transformation which will form the basis of interventions with selected municipalities in order to:
- Build a common vision and understanding of a developmental agenda for that particular municipality.
- Build trust amongst the stakeholders so that they can work more harmoniously together towards meeting the needs of their communities.
- Assessing gaps in both capacity and information in order to support the local government transformation process.
- Build a common plan of action that will be monitored and supported over a period of time by the DDP as well as other interested stakeholders.
- Create a communication protocol that will ensure meaningful public participation.
The approach and methodology is quite different from the simple transmission of information and will involve the facilitation of a process of co-creation of possibilities and the joint design of responses to these possibilities. We hope that this approach will add considerably to our understanding of the dynamics that operate within municipalities and more importantly, that this intervention could be replicated in other parts of the country.
The programme is supported by the Charles Stuart Mott Foundation as well as the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung and the rollout has begun in the Mkanyakude District in far Northern Natal.
Excerpts from the Pilot Project on Partners in Transformation. Click hereWard Committee Programme in 2005
In 2005, DDP has facilitated 38 workshops in 12 local municipalities. This was followed by an intensive 4-day evaluation workshop of the programme. To find out more please download our report.