Abstract
Using Mopani District Municipality as a case study, this study investigated the function of public participation and stakeholder engagement as strategic communication approaches in implementing the district development model as a social innovation in local government in Mopani District Municipality. The South African government's attempt to empower local government and encourage intergovernmental planning through the District Development Model (DDM) is reflected in the lack of coordination, coherence, integration of sector-departmental collaboration, and localisation of national and provincial development strategies by municipalities. The Redistribution Development Programme (RDP), Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) program, the Batho Pele Principles, Back-to-Basics, the National Development Plan (NDP), and the localisation of the Sustainable Development Goals are just a few of the initiatives the South African government has implemented since the country's democratic transition in 1994 to improve service delivery and speed up development. Nonetheless, the World Bank (2018) ranked South Africa as one of the most unequal nations in the world, highlighting the country's ongoing struggles with poverty, unemployment, and inequality. The COVID-19 pandemic added to the difficulties by undoing some of the progress the government had made in raising the standard of living for ordinary people. In order to manage the pandemic, the government had to reallocate its budget to fund its COVID-19 social compact. This had an impact on municipal spending and progress in implementing the DDM.
There is public debate and different views on whether the current public participation mechanism have assisted the government to achieve and progress society. Issues such as poor service delivery, corruption, maladministration, ageing infrastructures, lack of capacity,energy crisis, lack of local economic development and poor municipal financial performance continues to dominate the public sphere. These difficulties have prompted disgruntled communities across the country to take matters into their own hands and demonstrate for improved local government services. The reasons behind service delivery protests and the tactics municipalities can employ to end them, such as involving the public, have been the subject of numerous studies. Stakeholder engagement and public participation in the context of the DDM, however, have not received much attention in research. In light of this, this study aimed to investigate how the district DDM as a social innovation strategy in Mopani District Municipality can
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be implemented through stakeholder engagement and public participation to enhance sustainability and inclusivity in local government service delivery decision-making. The study explored a multifaceted study and addressed the identified knowledge gap by using the complexity paradigm as a meta-theoretical approach to examine the phenomenon being studied.
In order to examine this complex process, research began with the identification of stakeholders, their profiles and responsibilities in the DDM in Mopnani District, including the five local communities, namely, Greater Tzaneen Municipality, Greater Letaba Municipality, Ba-Phalaborwa Municipality, Greater Giyani and Maruleng Local Municipality. Second, it examined the type of public participation methods, structures and programs used to implement the DDM. Third, the perceptions of the stakeholders for the DDM and methods of engagement and participation. Finally, the study also examined the role COVID-19 regulations on participation efforts by MDM in implementating the DDM. The study employed the qualitative research approach using semi-structured interviews and focus groups as data collection methods and thematic analysis for the analysis of the data.
The findings of this study established that there is a lack of awareness of the DDM in Mopani and the local municipalities at the community level. The study also revealed that the current public participation and engagement in Mopani are government-controlled and based on the top-bottom approach. The study also established poor consultation, inadequate information sharing, and a lack of collaboration and progress reports on projects. The findings also revealed that the stakeholders in the municipal public participation structures and system are not equally treated and prioritsed in the consideration of the decisions, leaving the council to be the highest decision maker. The study also found that communities prefer service delivery protests over formal public participation mechanisms because they do not deliver the desired outcomes for communities.
Subsequently, the study proposed a conceptual framework based on a bottom-up process where the government must use social innovation to identify social issues, public participation to get input from the community, and co-creation to craft innovative solutions to the identified social issues through a collaborative governance approach. The framework also proposes using stakeholder communication and stakeholder
consultation to review all the proposed plans, monitor progress, and evaluate the collective social impact of the innovations identified.