CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW AND CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
2.5 CONCLUSION
74 vi) What will be the cost of incorporating a new group into the policy coalition, and can the group’s expectations and demands be balanced with other interests supporting the policy?
The questions outlined by Brinkerhoff and Crosby indicate that the process of participation needs to be planned and coordinated if it is to achieve its objective. In addition, they reveal that relevant stakeholders must be carefully selected for participation to be meaningful and those who will not add value excluded. For example, the key questions would be helpful to identify negative stakeholders whose agenda could be to oppose or stall good policy decisions and their implementation for political gains. In this regard, the questions could be used to assess the political and personal interests of different groups. In addition, they can be used to screen the participating groups and individuals to avoid delayed decisions and wasting of time caused by failure to reach consensus.
Although the key questions can be helpful in the selection of stakeholders for participation, there is a danger that the selection process could be prejudiced against some groups especially those in rural settings. The rural poor are disadvantaged in many ways with the use of the aforesaid questions to guide the selection process likely to result in the exclusion of many people living in rural areas. For example, it is difficult to see how public participation could be effectively promoted in rural areas where there is poor institutional capacity and lack of resources. According to Masango (2001), it is difficult to promote public participation in rural areas because of factors such as political and tribal divisions, lack of sophistication and illiteracy amongst the rural population. Kakonge (1996) reiterates that public participation in rural contexts is hampered by factors such as lack of consultation, lack of effective communication between local government and local people, lack of legal framework to facilitate and promote the practice, and the lack of political will to promote it in rural settings.
These allegations are tested empirically in the case study of this current research in the context of local government in South Africa, to determine how they affect rural development processes.
75 by poor infrastructure and limited access to quality services. It was pointed out that inadequate infrastructure in rural areas hampers the delivery of quality services in various sectors such as education, health care, water, electricity, road and telecommunication. Rural areas are also characterised by high rates of poverty, inequality and unemployment. For some researchers, rural is synonymous with poverty because rural people reside under impoverished conditions and limited economic opportunities. It was argued that this description of rural areas fits the situation of the African context and does not apply to rural areas elsewhere in the world especially in Europe where rural areas have well developed infrastructure and better service delivery.
In the African context, there are small farming towns between the bigger cities and rural areas.
But unlike in the European context, these small farming towns usually lack the capacity to provide adequate employment and economic opportunities to the rural population. As a result, large numbers of economically active people migrate to big cities in search of opportunities.
The phenomenon of rural-urban migration has contributed to the impoverishment of rural areas and also exacerbated urban poverty.
It was noted that the concept of rural poverty has two dimensions, the material and the non- material aspects. While the material dimensions explain poverty in terms of variables such as lack of income, lack of resources and adequate infrastructure, the non-material aspects are difficult to decipher. The non-material dimension focuses on the aspects of human life such as capabilities, well-being and empowerment. The non-material poverty of the rural people therefore, includes being economically, socially and politically deprived of a chance to live a dignified life and participate gainfully in the mainstream economy. The non-material poverty of the rural people also manifests itself in their exclusion from decision-making processes and their implementation. Therefore, the conceptualisation of development took into account both the material and non-material aspects of the conditions of the rural poor. To this end, Todaro and Smith (2011:16) argued that development:
“Must represent the whole gamut of change by which an entire social system, turned to the diverse basic needs and evolving aspirations of individuals and social groups within that system, moves away from a condition of life widely perceived as unsatisfactory toward a situation or condition of life regarded as materially and spiritually better”.
Although development can mean different things to different people, this chapter has provided a broader vision of development that includes both the material and non-material aspects.
76 Powerlessness was identified as an element that epitomises the non-material poverty of the rural people. The chapter argued that the rural people lack the necessary power to own and control land which is supposed to be the most readily available resource to them. It was argued that, with access to adequate land, rural people can establish small farms and cultivate different crops and keep livestock for their consumption. Access to land can offer rural people opportunities to be economically independent and create their wealth. Although land is perceived to be readily available in rural areas, the majority of rural people lack full ownership in the form of title deeds. For most rural people land is a common property with fluid boundaries which are continuously adapted to suit people’s social needs. The lack of land ownership means that most rural people cannot sell or use the land they occupy as collateral to get loans from financial institutions such as banks. While the chapter acknowledged land as the most important resource for rural development, it asserted that the lack of proof of ownership severely curtails the options of rural people. Powerlessness is a form of poverty that is also manifested in situations where rural people are excluded from decision-making processes and where they have no control over their local resources.
The concept of public policy implementation was analysed in relation to rural development.
The examined literature revealed that the implementation of public policies does not occur automatically. Instead, policy implementation depends on a number of factors that include the availability of human and financial resources and political will. The multi-actor and sectoral nature of policy implementation demands that the process of implementation must be managed meticulously to create synergy between the actors. Lack of coordination of the activities of various actors was identified as a key factor that could lead to implementation failure. When managed well, coordination can promote cooperation amongst the different implementing agents and prevent the duplication of programmes and wastage of scarce resources. Therefore, the chapter asserts that implementation failure is often the result of poor coordination. This indicates that the availability of resources alone does not guarantee effective implementation of public policies.
Furthermore, the chapter argues that, rural development policies must be subjected to implementation analysis and implementation evaluation. These are two important exercises that can generate vital information to explain why policy implementation succeeded or failed.
Therefore, it is argued that before a policy can be discarded, modified or continued, it is
77 imperative to conduct implementation analysis to generate information that will justify the decision of the policy makers.
The chapter also reviewed the literature focusing on the top-down and the bottom-up approaches to public policy implementation. It was revealed that both approaches have strengths and limitations. An effective implementation of rural development policies is possible through the use of an approach that promotes the participation of the rural people. However, it was revealed that in reality, it can be extremely difficult to use one approach and totally exclude the other. Therefore, a situation where there is a degree of collaboration between the two approaches would yield better policy results. In this regard, the works of researchers (Matland, 1995; Sabatier, 1991; 1988; 1986; Elmore, 1982) who have attempted to synthesise the two approaches was examined. Although their work did not lead to a universally accepted implementation theory, it has immensely enriched implementation studies.
This chapter proposes an approach to policy implementation in which the top-down and bottom-up approaches converge. It argues that sustainable rural development cannot be achieved without the meaningful participation of the rural people. The top-down approaches are essentially prescriptive and do not recognize the role that local actors can play in policy implementation. Failure to recognise the agency of the poor and independent local organisations is one of the barriers of policy implementation. Therefore, the chapter argues that public participation, although it is not a panacea to policy implementation, can provide the opportunity for the two approaches to enhance each other. The typologies of Arnstein (1969) and Brinkerhoff and Crosby (2002) revealed that the highest form of public participation is the empowerment of citizens especially the poor through capacity building processes. In a democratic context, public participation provides space in which both the material and non- material aspects of rural poverty can be addressed. It empowers the rural poor to be agents of their own change. Burkey (2002:56) succinctly describes public participation as follows:
“Participation is an essential part of human growth; that is the development of self- confidence, pride, initiative, creativity, responsibility and cooperation. Without such a development within the people themselves all efforts to alleviate their poverty will be immensely more difficult, if not impossible. This process, whereby people learn to take charge of their own lives and solve their own problems, is the essence of development”.
Finally, the chapter considered the works of Arnstein and Brinkerhoff and Crosby, which provide tools on how to analyse public participation and various mechanisms for participation.
78 The chapter noted the importance of analysing the different forms of public participation in order to distinguish between situations where citizens participate meaningfully with power and those where public participation is used as a gimmick by public officials. The typology of Arnstein’s ladder of participation is used in this current study to analyse public participation in the implementation of rural development policies in South Africa. The participation mechanisms explicated by Briknerhoff and Crosby are also used to analyse whether the objectives of participation are defined and achieved or not. It was argued in this chapter that public participation which is essentially a bottom-up approach has the potential to bring government and the local people, especially in rural areas into dialogue and partnership. One of its key objectives is to empower citizens to hold public officials accountable for their decisions and actions.
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