Youth participation in development planning and urban management in Gauteng Province

Date
2019-04
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University
Abstract
ENGLISH SUMMARY : South Africa is a country with a history of youth activism, today youth are found to be majority population. This paper investigate youth (18-34) participation in development planning in Gauteng Province, South Africa. The interest on this specific subject was due to the fact that the number of youth around the globe continue to increase, yet the youth are excluded from making contributions in development planning and urban management. In South Africa, participation in development planning is mostly state driven and is done through available structures and institutions. Youth involvement in shaping development is often occur in the form of protests and activism. It is observed that with the increasing number of youth in Gauteng, the majority of youth are not participating in state-led development planning. At the same time, this segment of the population is also the worse affected by development planning outcomes. The study made use of data from the Gauteng City Region that was collected in 2015 to measure satisfaction levels in Gauteng, and analyse youth participation in three state-led development planning and urban management participation meetings i.e. ward meetings, IDP meetings, and Imbizo’s to determine the involvement of youth in those meetings. The study also performed a regression model to understand the factors affecting youth involvement in those meetings. The factors which were investigated were employment, income and levels of education. The findings are that the majority of youth who participated in the survey do not attend local government development planning meetings. While the youth population in Gauteng makes up 40% of the population, youth participation in the three strategic municipal planning meetings are as follows; Ward meeting 28,4% Imbizo 3.3% and IDP 1.3%. From the regression model, it appears that the one factor which plays a significant role on participation in ward meetings and Imbizo’s is employment. Employment has a significant positive relationship to all local government development planning meeting. Non-participation by youth in development planning threatens peace, stability and good governance.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING : Geen opsomming beskikbaar.
Description
Thesis (MPhil)--Stellenbosch University, 2019.
Keywords
City planning -- Youth participation -- Gauteng (South Africa), City planning -- Citizen participation -- Gauteng (South Africa), Community development -- Social aspects, UCTD
Citation