Evaluating the importance of community participation in infrastructure delivery in the Western Cape

Abstract

There is a realisation that new emphasis and added responsibilities are heing placed on professional consultants to involve local communities in the development process. The traditional hierarchical 'top-down" approach which characterised the way projects were initiated and managed by construction professionals in the past has lost favour with the Department of Public Works (DPW). It is therefore necessary for professionals to change their thinking, react and adapt to change. This will require a major paradigm shift on the part of the construction professional consultants. The World Bank advocates three measures to reform the provision of infrastructure services, namely wider application of commercial principles to service providers, broader use of competition, and increased involvement of users where commercial and competitive behaviour is constrained. The need for people involved in development to be placed in the centre also suggests the implementation of specific and intruding shifts in emphasis. Policies and strategies directed mainly at the control of natural settings, technological considerations, economic structures and demographic conditions have to be replaced by policies that take full cognisance of concomitant values, customs, social structures and political participation. The study examined the lack of community participation in current community development projects in South Africa which resulted in their diminished usefulness to beneficiary communities. The study had five main objectives namely (a) To highlight the importance of community participation in development projects through a theoretical study; (b) With the use of surveys establish whether community development projects involve the participation of the beneficiary community in all the stages of a project; (c) To show the Current project delivery systems enhance community participation; (d) To highlight the effect that community dynamics has on the process of delivering development projects and (e) Show through a survey that beneficiary communities do not accept ownership of projects unless they participate in these projects.