Integrated Development Planning (IDP) in South Africa

Since the end of the Apartheid regime, South Africa has implemented a number of reform steps in order to spur the transformation process in the country. Political and constitutional reforms included the restructuring of government spheres into national, provincial and local tiers, the creation of new policy and legal frameworks and an extensive re-demarcation process which resulted in more viable municipalities.

In this transformation process, municipalities and communities at the local level have become focal areas of development endeavors. It is here, on the local level, that non-racial and viable municipalities need to be established which are supposed to function as the building blocks of the new society. This means that local government is becoming a key role-player in the whole process and has to fulfill a central developmental role in it.

One of the key tools for local government to cope with its new developmental role is Integrated Development Planning (IDP). In contrast to the role planning played in the past, integrated development planning is now seen as a function of municipal management, as part of an integrated system of planning and delivery. Integrated Development Planning is meant to be a consultative, systematic and strategic process that should arrive at decisions on issues such as municipal budgets, land management, promotion of local economic development and institutional transformation.

The IDP methodology recommends that local governments initiate a participatory process to work their way from the visions and objectives for the respective municipality to localised strategic guidelines. These strategic guidelines need to consider important development aspects under the given local circumstances and will after a public debate finally be turned into operational strategies. Apart from spatial, poverty, gender and environmental aspects, local economic development is a crucial area that local governments need to consider for their strategic guidelines.

More about the Roles and Responsibilities of District and Local Municipalities, Planning Approach and Methodology, Public Participation, and Strategies (Part 1 and Part 2) in the IDP approach

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