Cacadu District REPORT

Transcription

1 Cacadu District REPORT Strengthening Civil Society/ Local Government Interface

2 Strengthening Civil Society/Local Government Interface Cacadu District Municipality Contents 1. Message from the Director, ECNGOC Mrs Rooks Moodley Introduction Civil Society Context Cacadu District Profile The Cacadu dialogues SLGP Best-practice and benchmarking Cacadu dialogue findings Conclusions SLGP Recommendations an ECNGOC perspective SLGP provincial implementation... 7

3 1 Strengthening Civil Society/Local Government Interface Cacadu District Municipality 1. Message from the Director, ECNGOC Mrs Rooks Moodley The Eastern Cape NGO Coalition (ECNGOC) funded by GIZ implemented the Strengthening Local Government Programme (SLGP) in the Cacadu District Municipality. This project was implemented during the 2012/2013 cycle and has achieved many significant milestones. The project was aimed at strengthening the mission of the ECNGOC in creating a vibrant civil society. The current structure of the ECNGOC is represented by a bottom-up approach manifested through its District Structures represented by Civil Society Representatives from each local municipality within a District. Therefore the GIZ-funded programme focused on strengthening the civil society sector through enhancing structures representing both local and district levels as well as deepened the interface between Civil Society and District and Local Government. National Democratic Institute (NDI) document entitled New Directions for Democracy Promotion encapsulates the philosophy behind democratic development: democracy building is about much more than elections, which are a prerequisite but insufficient condition for democracy. The health and extent of democracies are judged as much on the basis of events and changes between elections, with democratic reformers and democracy assistance organizations working in the trenches on seemingly mundane matters: building political parties that are internally democratic, open, and responsive to constituencies; helping parliaments conduct pluralist political debate that includes public input and leads to legislation and executive oversight; assisting civil society organizations that engage in policy advocacy and accountability activities; and supporting journalism, the rule of law, civic education, and citizen participation including women and minorities in government and public affairs. Empowering citizens to exercise their sovereign rights between and during elections is the hallmark of democracy assistance. The hallmark of a working democracy is a vibrant civil society through meaningful public participation. The purpose of strengthening institutional capabilities is to ensure that Civil Society entrenches its mandate of both Constitutional and Electoral Democracy. This model has direct bearing on the National Planning Document Vision 2030, which focuses on Active Citizenship as a key driver in the development agenda. The SLGP provided opportunities for dialogue platforms between civil society, between civil society and local and district government officials to engage on the role of civil society in nation building. The key highlights within this programme is the dialogues that were hosted at local municipality level in partnership with local government officials within all 9 local municipalities of the Cacadu District as well as the joint training of the civil society and public sector officials on the topic of How Local Government Works. The success of the programme was due to the commitment from both District and Local Municipalities as well as Civil Society. GIZ also played a crucial role in ensuring strong partnerships between the two sectors were forged and catalysed during the process. The ECNGOC is happy to produce this report and share this pilot model with all the other District Municipalities as well as Metro s within the Eastern Cape. Due to the vastness of the province structures of this nature are crucial to ensure sustainability of the Civil Society Sector. 2. Introduction The Strengthening Local Government Programme (SLGP) seeks to strengthen and improve the institutional framework condition and functional preconditions for capable and cooperative local governance. In terms of the involvement of the Eastern Cape NGO Coalition, the core thematic area addressed through the role of civil society seeks to achieve participatory and accountable governance and partnership development. The role of the ECNGOC has been to provide capacity development training and to build links within civil society and between NGO s and stakeholders to be in a position to share information and best-practice in order to achieve the overall objective of participatory and accountable governance through partnership development. By strengthening these linkages the ECNGOC seeks to help civil society, local and provincial government to build effective civil society and government interfaces to increase dialogue and improve service delivery.

4 2 Strengthening Civil Society/Local Government Interface Cacadu District Municipality 3. Civil Society Context According to the World Economic Forum (WEF) report on the future role of civil society released in January 2013, civil society is seen as a dynamic, influential but also selectively restricted element of modern communities. The report goes further to acknowledge the fact that the roles and responsibilities of civil society are rapidly changing in line with global trends these roles and responsibilities include: Acting as a societal watchdog Advocating and creating awareness on important issues Delivering services to meet social needs Building capacity Acting as an incubator for development Acting as representative and giving a voice to the marginalized Encouraging citizen participation and engagement in terms of human rights Promoting fundamental and universal values Within the South African and Eastern Cape context all eight of these roles and responsibilities are applicable to civil society organisations within a changing civil environment which calls for improved partnerships and co-operation to achieve developmental goals. Amongst the challenges facing civil society, the WEF report highlights the following: Traditional civil society organisations are no longer fit for purpose and need to realign themselves to be responsive to the needs of communities There is increased pressure for government, business and civil society to respond to challenges of inequality Demographic shifts are dictating the direction of economic, political and social systems Funding and access to funding for civil society organisations is diminishing rapidly Trust between communities, civil society and government is being eroded as a result of unfulfilled promises Fiscal pressures means the scaling back of social service provision Driving forces for the survival, growth and development of civil society organisations beyond 2013 include: Availability of, and access to, funding Access to information and technology Direct engagement with, and acting as the link between, government and communities on issues of development Ability to develop and maintain trust relationships and partnerships between government, business and communities It is against this background and within this context that civil society organisations within the Eastern Cape are seeking to establish their relevance, their identity, their focus and their roles and responsibilities in terms of addressing developmental challenges in society. Service delivery is a problem and people don t know their rights. There is also a lack of knowledge around policies dialogue participant in Graaff Reinet

5 3 Strengthening Civil Society/Local Government Interface Cacadu District Municipality 4. Cacadu District Profile The Cacadu District Municipality (CDM) is the largest ( square km) of the six (6) District Municipalities in the Eastern Cape Province. The Cacadu District is situated in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa and covers an area of km². The area has an estimated population of (Global Insight Database, 2008) of which 495 speak IsiXhosa, 45% speak Afrikaans and 6% speak English. The District is situated in the western part of the Province, bordering the Western Cape, Northern Cape and two other District Municipalities in the Eastern Cape, namely Chris Hani District Municipality and Amathole District Municipality. In terms of the Integrated Development Plan, the Cacadu District envisions a transformed and integrated Cacadu District Municipality contributing to development and a sustainable quality of life in our urban and rural communities. Key development priorities are identified as, funding, effective local governance, economic development, health (HIV and AIDS), and development facilitation. The District is relatively prosperous in the Eastern Cape, despite rising poverty within towns and settlements. While the exclusion of the Metro has resulted in a 94% loss of the District s main income stream, this has mostly been addressed through massive restructuring. The employment potential of the expanding eco-tourism market has been recognised, with CDM drawing the most tourists in the Eastern Cape. The district s population is largely rural and agriculture, which forms the basis of the local economy, is a significant employer. Cacadu has a relatively developed age structure, with 37% of all residents aged below 20 years and 6.46% aged over 64 years. Of all the districts, Cacadu has the lowest unemployment rate (34.79%), poverty (46.21%) and dependency 91.48%. The District claims a substantially lower proportion of the poverty gap (3.16%) than population (5.89%) of the Province. Functional literacy (60.18%) is below provincial average, as is access to education and health professionals and services. Women slightly outnumber men and the rate of women s unemployment is (46.04%) and growth in women s unemployment (6.49%) is significantly greater than for male counterparts. Municipal capacity is comparatively low and CDM has been identified, in the National Capacity Report (MDB, 2005), as requiring priority assistance based on past poor performance. However, the IDP Development Priority two (2) relates to capacity building and support to Local Municipalities. The rationale for this development priority is: To provide democratic and accountable government for local communities To provide services to the communities in an equitable and sustainable manner To promote social and economic development To promote a safe and healthy environment CDM therefore has an obligation to support and provide capacity to the nine (9) local municipalities within the district these municipalities being Baviaans, Blue Crane Route, Camdeboo, Ikwezi, Kou kamma, Kouga, Makana, Ndlambe and Sundays River Valley. We believe that local structures for CSO s are important but we need to start at a local level in our own towns dialogue participant from Camdeboo 5. The Cacadu dialogues In terms of the SLGP and the involvement of the ECNGOC in partnership with the GIZ, the ECNGOC SLGP initiative in the Cacadu region sought to achieve two specific goals: Firstly to consolidate and organise the NGO sector in order to develop a cohesive civil sector structure with a joint and mutually beneficial strategy to address both civil society and public sector service delivery; and Secondly, to engage with district and local municipality structures to create mutual understanding as to the role of NGO s and civil society and to thereby create a platform for dialogue, public participation and lobbying on developmental policy, priorities, initiatives and needs These two goals are in line with the civil society driving forces as identified above.

6 4 Strengthening Civil Society/Local Government Interface Cacadu District Municipality Important to note is that, during the Cacadu dialogues, the Eastern Cape NGO Coalition was recognised, by all participants, as the provincially-representative body for civil society in the Eastern Cape. A major achievement of the Cacadu dialogues, carried out in 2012, was the fact that the ECNGOC has established district/local civil society representatives and/or representative committee s in the following areas: Camdeboo representing Graaff Reinet, Nieu Bethesda and Aberdeen Baviaans representing Steytlerville and Willowmore Ikhwezi representing Jansenville and Klipplaat Humansdorp representing Humansdorp and Patensie Sundays River representing Addo and Sundays River Makana including Grahamstown Blue Crane Kouga The appointment of these representatives and/or the establishment of these representative committees lend support to the fact that, as an organised sector of society and communities at large, civil society can command a greater voice in the local and district municipality development space. 6. SLGP Best-practice and benchmarking During the Cacadu dialogues the ECNGOC found that in two particular municipalities Ikhwezi and Humansdorp the civil society sector had a good working relationship with local government. This relationship went beyond the aspect of involvement in democratic processes and public participation and included direct and indirect municipal support for civil society initiatives. It is civil society examples such as these that the ECNGOC, in conjunction with its members, can research further to develop bestpractice and benchmarking initiatives for piloting and implementation in other municipalities using similar methods as those adopted by municipal and civil society structures in the Ikhwezi and Humansdorp areas. In addition to this these best-practice and benchmarking findings are relevant to the overall SLGP in that they highlight workable models of implementation not only within the civil society sector in terms of strengthening co-operation, co-ordination, leadership, governance, democratic principles and public participation. Within the context of the SLGP it would be recommended that such examples be researched and lessons learnt be piloted within other district and local municipalities to help enhance and improve service delivery in the Eastern Cape. 7. Cacadu dialogue findings The interaction with civil society and NGO s in the Cacadu region highlighted the following common areas of concern and elements which, if taken within context, reflect the findings of the international research undertaken by the WEF: The non-recognition and/or acknowledgement, by local government, of civil society structures and, as a result, the inability of civil society to play an integral role in the democratic and public participation process The disdain, disregard and contempt with which civil society organisations are treated because of a general ignorance, within municipal structures, of the importance and role of civil society structures at local level Political organisations, by virtue of their power role in society, enjoy greater recognition at local and district municipal level than civil society organisations. This poses a threat to civil society organisations in terms of their non-partisan role

7 5 Strengthening Civil Society/Local Government Interface Cacadu District Municipality Weak governance within civil society organisations as a result of capacity constraints this means that NGO s, CBO s and NPO s are seen as being jointly weak and unable to manage themselves, let alone their involvement in democratic and public participation processes Civil society is ignorant and, as a result, apathetic to the democratic and public participation processes of local and district municipality. This results in very few civil society organisations being aware and abreast of, let alone knowledgeable about, public policy. This ignorance and apathetic mindset and condition is borne out of a lack of access to information, lack of knowledge about where to access relevant information, the inability to access this information and a lack of access to information resources Civil society organisations highlighted the fact that they do not have access to public documents such as municipal budgets, IDP s, SDBIP, annual report, etc. This finding relates to the capacity needed within NGO s, CBO s and NPO s as to how to access such information. Civil society structures in geographic areas do not communicate, network or collaborate with each other A combination of factors including the non-recognition and/or acknowledgement by local/district government, coupled with the disdain, disregard and contempt and the weak civil society governance, ignorance and apathetic approach has resulted, to a large extent, to a general lack of co-operation, co-ordination and communication. This has exacerbated the perception, within local, district and provincial government, of a fragmented and disorganised civil society Based on the findings of the project as outlined above, the global context of the role of civil society and the ECNGOC interaction with its members across the Eastern Cape, it is evident that civil society in each of the six district municipalities in the province as well as the two metro s face the same challenges, the same issues and the same constraints when engaging in participatory and accountable local governance and partnership development. For this reason the ECNGOC has consolidated these findings and would like to see a longterm provincial roll-out of the SLGP based on the recommendations set out below. CSO s must organise themselves we need to communicate, co-operate and coordinate dialogue participant from Ndlambe 8. Conclusions It is evident from the ECNGOC pilot project carried out in the Cacadu area that there is a distinct need amongst both civil society, local and district municipality for a co-ordinated effort, by a central, objective and representative civil society body such as ECNGOC, to undertake an education, empowerment and joint civil society strategy development project for primary stakeholders. The Cacadu dialogues identified a number of key areas where both civil society and government fall short in terms of their engagement with each other on priority areas of democratic processes, public participation and synergy in development. The ECNGOC, in implementing the SLGP and witnessing firsthand the impact in terms of strengthening the civil society element of communities and engaging with municipalities on civil society acknowledgement and recognition, strongly believe that the implementation of this programme should be rolled-out to all other districts and metro s of the Eastern Cape. However, it is evident that rolling out a project of this nature is not a short-term project as, based on our findings, there is a distinct need for providing monitoring and evaluation linked to impact assessment. There is a need for on-going interaction and the need for the implementing agent (ECNGOC) to act as facilitator and mediator between civil society and local and district municipalities until there is a mutual understanding and acceptance of the role and responsibility of each within the sphere of democratic and public participation processes. Based on this the ECNGOC would like to present the following recommendations and possible implementation plan for consideration.

8 6 Strengthening Civil Society/Local Government Interface Cacadu District Municipality 9. SLGP Recommendations an ECNGOC perspective Based on the findings of the pilot project and the outcomes of the Cacadu dialogues, the following recommendations can be highlighted: The need for organisation of civil society structures at a local and district municipal level and, following this, the introduction of such organised structures to the political and administrative leadership at each municipal level in order to gain recognition and acceptance of the important role played by civil society in terms of democratic and public participation processes. The broad-based education and empowerment of local and district municipal leadership and officials on the importance and role of civil society and how civil society structures can be engaged to assist and guide on developmental issues and challenges. o The outcome of point 1 and 2 should be the recognition and representation of organised civil society structures on local and district government structures relevant to public participation and developmental partnerships. The development, design and implementation as a joint effort between civil society and the public sector of effective, efficient and broad-reaching communication tools/public participation techniques which will ensure greater knowledge, understanding and involvement in local and district government developmental issues. The need for NGO, CBO and NPO capacity-building in the fields of good governance, financial management, resource mobilisation and project management in order to create a strong, credible civil society and thereby ensure credible, strong and integrity-focused civil society structures that can solicit recognition based on their community involvement, representation and reputation. Educating and empowering civil society organisations on the basics of public participation especially at local and district municipal level. This would mean educating NGO s, CBO s and NPO s on their rights, the municipal planning processes, public consultation initiatives and developmental planning priorities. In addition to this the education and empowerment of civil society organisations would have to go hand-in-hand with advising and informing them of how and where to access public information. Educating and empowering civil society organisations on access to information, public documents and where and how to access such information and/or public documents A primary role of local and district-level organised civil society structures would be to ensure communication, networking and collaboration between NGO s, CBO s and NPO s in all development-related debates and discussions CSO s are not taking part in local government processes there is also limited information to NGO s about how local government works dialogue participant from Patterson

9 7 Strengthening Civil Society/Local Government Interface Cacadu District Municipality 10. SLGP provincial implementation ECNGOC views the implementation of the above recommendations, based on the SLGP, on three key areas acting as the civil society and municipal interface, creating local and district municipality dialogue platforms and enhancing public participation in the democratic process through credible and representative civil society organisations (fig 1). Fig 1: The three primary elements of the ECNGOC SLGP implementation Civil society & municipal interface Thank you to ECNGOC and GIZ for making this project a reality there have been other CSO meetings but none have achieved what has been achieved today Strengthening Local Government Programme Local & district dialogue platforms Enhancing Public Participation In terms of expanding the SLGP in other areas of the Eastern Cape and rolling out civil society empowerment initiatives to become increasingly involved in democratic processes and public participation, the ECNGOC would propose the development of an extensive, long-term roll-out plan based on the following: Capacity-building and empowerment of civil society organisations at grass-roots level Engagement with local and district municipality structures to enhance recognition and support for civil society organisations Provide input, co-ordination and support for civil society initiatives designed to improve livelihoods in both urban, peri-urban and rural areas Mobilisation of civil society around local, district and provincial policy issues Provide a knowledge management repository for civil society organisations and provide support in assisting these organisations to access public planning, policy, information and implementation documents The promotion of civil society as both a developmental partner and watchdog in terms of public participation

10 8 Strengthening Civil Society/Local Government Interface Cacadu District Municipality Within the context of the implementation and possible roll-out of this programme to other districts and municipalities in the Eastern Cape, the ECNGOC proposes a broad-based, four-phased approach comprising firstly of mobilisation, secondly of education, thirdly of information sharing and communication and lastly of monitoring and evaluation (fig 2). Civil Society mobilisation District dialogues Civil society organisation District/Local Government education Introduction - political/administrative leadership Civil society awarness, acceptance & recognition Creation of dialogue & communication platforms Monitoring & Evaluation ECNGOC facilitator/mediator role Impact assessment ACCOUNTABILITY - SERVICE DELIVERY - PUBLIC PARTICIPATION THROUGH THE STRENGTHENING OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT Fig 2: broad-based, four-phase implementation plan

11 Special thanks must be expressed to GIZ who made this programme possible (special mention must be made of the local expert Sandra Lehman), Civil Society Organisations, District and Local Government Officials and the ECNGOC team. "A citizen is one who is willing to hold oneself accountable for the well being of the larger collective of which we are a part, choose to own and exercise power rather than defer or delegate it to others, enter into a collective possibility that gives hospitable and restorative community its own sense of being, acknowledge that community grows out of the possibility of citizens, attend to the gifts and capacities of all others, and act to bring the gifts of those on the margin into the centre". by Peter Block Portia Zili ECNGOC The project revived the civil society organisations by bringing them together at a district level and also in local municipal areas with an aim of strengthening each other and to have one coordinated and integrated voice on issues that concern civil society. CSOs managed to know who is doing what and how they can learn or benefit from each other. They also improved their skills, knowledge and information on how local government works, advocacy, lobbying and how to work together with local government. Artwell Chivhinge ECNGOC The CSOs work with communities and the local government also work with communities as it is the government s sphere that is closer to the people. It is evident that the target is the same communities and there is need for the local government to work with civil society. It was a good experience for the CSOs to hold a dialogue with local government officials and unearth how each thinks of the other. There are more benefits of working together since the CSOs are there to complement or support the government s efforts and to represent the people especially the marginalised, and to hold the government accountable. The municipalities that worked closely with the CSOs yielded positive results and this demonstrates what could be achieved if there is integration, collaboration and coordination between local government and civil society. This project was an eye opener for ECNGOC and explored ideas on how this project can be scaled up and replicated in the Cacadu District and other parts of Eastern Cape.

12 10 Strengthening Civil Society/Local Government Interface Cacadu District Municipality Strengthening Local government Support Programme Eastern Cape NGO Coalition OFFICE NUMBER, BLOCK J1, emonti SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY PARK, HARBOUR ARTERIAL STREET EAST LONDON IDZ, ZONE 1C, SUNNYRIDGE, EAST LONDON, 5201 Tel: Fax