The new developmental role of local authorities holds the key to the development process of South Africa. In this process local government is a key role-player that should be empowered to unlock local delivery and development.

Empowering local government will require a major reconstruction and transformation effort. It will also require changes in the way local government thinks, behaves and organises itself. Developmental local government

• actively promotes social and economic development in their areas;

• shapes their local spaces in a more equitable and efficient manner;

• plays a strong policy-making and strategic role;

• restructures itself to allow for both effective service delivery and greater community participation; and

• has the interest of the poor at the core of its mission.

Integrated Development Planning (IDP) is a crucial mechanism to achieve developmental local government and to overcome the apartheid legacy of our towns. It generally refers to a process of planning which takes a range of sectors, development activities and actors into consideration. It also adopts a holistic approach to the tools available to undertake such a process of planning and, on this basis, attempts to construct linkages between financial planning, infrastructure investment planning, service delivery and inter-governmental relations.

IDP is a way of maximising the impacts of all developmental interventions that government makes and is especially relevant at the local level.

Click here to view the 2007/08 IDP in Adobe .pdf format (2472kb)
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