Uplifting Alex

The City of Johannesburg is ramping up efforts to ensure it engages more extensively and works more closely with its communities. After all, an active citizenry with access to open channels of communication benefits all stakeholders.

Governing for the people,

with the people

As the City continues to work towards emphasising bottomup planning and building sustainable communities, it has reformed its ward-based approach to citizen involvement to a more multicentric model, by incorporating asset-based community development and community-based planning into its analyses.

Asset-based community development is a way of thinking and an approach to development that focuses on strengths, abilities, opportunities, talents and gifts as a foundation or starting point for community development. In essence, it recognises people as assets and involves development from the inside-out, meaning that it builds on existing capabilities. The objective is to co-produce results in the delivery or facilitation of services, to encourage community-driven development initiatives, and to create social capital.

The aim of earlier ward-based community conversations was to assess the level of access to basic services and service backlogs in order to foregather community priority issues for inclusion in the 2021/22 IDP and budget. These sessions presented communities and interest groups (e.g. NGOs, ward committees, CBOs, business fora, etc.) with an opportunity and platform to review the service delivery needs and priorities of the ward within which they reside – and to present their views and aspirations. It ultimately also helped the City to see first-hand what problems its communities are facing, in order to ensure that communities’ needs are adequately articulated and addressed in the IDP and budget.

Citizen engagement measures

The myriad streams and tools used by the City to enhance the active engagement of its citizenry include the following: • public meetings chaired by councillors to engage communities regarding service delivery issues and ward projects • public campaigns, roadshows and briefings • opinion polls, surveys, public hearings and reviews • community research projects and studies – mapping and enumeration • e-platforms: online networks and social media • public-private partnerships to enhance interface with citizens • expert panels, debates and dialogues • marketing, communication and advertising • focus groups • assisting other spheres of government with ‘Taking Parliament to The

People’, and issues related to the

National Health

Insurance and Municipal

Demarcation Board • partnering with the Independent

Electoral Commission on voter education • driving civic education sessions on various topics • implementation of the Citizen

Engagement Plan • awareness/educational campaigns on by-laws and other key legislative prescripts • integrated visible service delivery operations in collaboration with entities, departments and law enforcement agencies (e.g. JMPD,

SAPS, Immigration, etc.) • site visits/walkabouts and inspections to identify service delivery and/or crime hotspots in different areas • hosting of events such as Mandela Day • engagement with business and civic or ratepayers’ associations • regional open days.

Mayoral Izimbizo Programme

The City’s priority to promote an active and participative citizenry is embedded in its desire for a better understanding of residents’ needs and issues, organisational culture change, proactive engagement, continuous citizen interaction, the creation of social capital, asset and community-based planning and budgeting, advancing the ideals of a responsible citizenry, civic education and empowerment.

The Mayoral Izimbizo Programme can be summarised as growing efforts at all levels of government to respond quickly, succinctly and accurately to residents’ needs. These include requests or enquiries for answers to questions and the provision of general information about policies, decisions, delivery and procedures. The goal is to foster closer, more effective and efficient citizen relationships. This will ensure that the City anticipates and meets citizens’ needs and develops a detailed working understanding of what residents want, expect and need from those who serve them – and, in return, for citizens to understand their responsibilities.

The driving force behind this programme is also to take stock of the achievements of the City and for communities to receive feedback on challenges encountered. As a citizen-centred process, the Izimbizo will improve communication and information sharing, and form a solid basis for sustained dialogue between the City and its residents/citizens.

Before the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, the City was preparing to host izimbizo across its regions to contribute to its eighth key priority – an active and engaged citizenry – and reinforce a key pillar of a participatory and consultative democracy, as envisaged in the Constitution. In this context, it was determined that the City needed a different approach, content and even a shift in end goals. Amid all the challenges, community engagement and information-sharing responsibilities must continue.

A basic rule of community engagement is to meet people where they are. Maintaining engagement without involving the physical presence of people is a daunting task, but there are several low-cost, easy-to-use tools like social media, web meetings and survey tools that can effectively be implemented to engage communities and receive feedback. More careful consideration will, however, need to be given to those communities and residents who won’t be able to participate online or will be hard to reach, including the elderly, people with limited or no internet access, those with low computer literacy and non-English speaking citizens. For these groups, the City will consider alternative and more traditional outreach methods and ways to engage.

That said, the universal agreement is that much of the globe has seemingly overcome the worst the Covid-19 pandemic has to offer, and that we may in time be moving towards the endemic phase of the disease. However, there is no doubt that further waves of high numbers of infections await and that national and local government must be able to adapt rapidly when prompted to do so – while communicating clearly and effectively with its citizenry.