LIST FIGURES
7. Conclusion
clean water and other basic services. People felt that not enough was being done to lessen their plight.
Also worth noting is that certain areas have unique characteristics which make them different from others in regard to community participation. These characteristics are likely to hinder or enhance community participation. For instance, in some areas there are high rate of unemployment among the youth, and poverty is generally high. This is likely to have impact on the level of participation in these areas. Even in terms of infrastructure, some areas are better than others. For instance at ward 40, they have 2 community halls.
This is likely to play a crucial role in participation in that it is likely to enable the community to hold meetings, as venues for such activities are available. Some areas do not have such infrastructure, and the level of services delivery is still very low. In some cases there are areas where the level of crime is generally high, and the level of literacy is very low. This will also impact negatively on public participation.
Community organisations are facing the challenge in terms of securing funds that will facilitate community participation. Most communities indicated that they are in need of sponsorship in order for them to successfully build their organisations and make them ready to participate in government processes. It is apparent that lack of funds has negative impact on the survival of most community-based organisations. Most of the organisations interviewed cited this as the main problem.
Let me conclude by giving a brief summary of findings. The research found that there are undesirable effects that make proper community participation becomes a failure:
Firstly, people view the Municipality's system of governance as unresponsive. This is because of lack of effective mechanisms of communication between the councillors, officials and the communities; lack of delivery of services to the community, resulting in people feeling that their needs are not being addressed therefore there being no need to participate; lack of municipal offices close to the places where people are liVing so that it becomes very difficult for people to be in touch with local government.
Secondly, there is also a general feeling that local government does not consult with the people when taking decisions on crucial matters.
Thirdly, political parties are not working in harmony with each other; this leads to high competition that is responsible for the hampering of service delivery.
Fourthly, people on the grassroots level do not have knowledge on how government structures function; this makes it difficult for them to have meaningful and effective means of participation.
Lastly there is found overwhelming evidence that there is a direct correlation between participation levels and unhappiness and dissatisfaction around the levels of service delivery of the municipality.
The foltowlnq chapters will look at how the Municipality can change these undesirable effects to desirable effects.
ChapterS
Systemic Orqanisational,}InaCysis
1. Introduction
The previous chapter presented detailed findings of the study. These findings revealed that there are undesirable effects that need to be converted to desirable effects. In this chapter, I will first do my analysis based on the current organizational design. In doing this analysis, systems thinking will be my primary frame of reference. Most concepts discussed in the second chapter of this document are going to be used during the analysis. The chapter following this one will mainly give recommendations that will help the Municipality to be more effective when it comes to community participation and local governance.
2. Organisational Change: Purpose Statement and Vision
Expressed in simplified terms (as depicted in figure 1 below) the process-based organisational modelstarts with the goal, then examines the process that will deliver the goal and finally deals with the different parts that work together in the process that delivers the goal.
It is contended that without understanding what the purpose of the organisation is, and whom it is meant to serve, any organisationalchange process will be meaningless. More importantly, a narrow definition of the organisation's goal can lead to very narrow actions on behalf of the organisation. This could have effects that do not fulfill the aims of organisation. The Municipality adopted an approach which views communities as "clients".
This means that the City Vision is around improving the quality of life for its "clients". Still this has not sunk well enough to municipal officials and Councillors.
•
Having clearly established the goal in2001, it is then necessary to determine how well the organisation is measuring up to the goal. This can be done by examining what the Chapter5:Systemic Organisational Analysis Page 65
•
various stakeholders say about the organisation, its performance and in particular their complaints.
The uniqueness of the methodology lies in how it deals with these complaints. Essentially there are two ways to deal with such complaints.
The first way (which presently exists), which is typical of many change methodologies, which are driven by "activity-based, parts thinking" (rather than results-oriented, process thinking), involves the allocation of each of the problem areas to separate, relevant departments (e.g Community Participation and Action Support) to analyse and generate possible solutions independently of each other. The problem with this approach is that the symptoms often persist because the parts are only dealt with - and in isolation from each other. This problematic approach has led to a situation (which I describe diagrammaticallY) whereby: