FHR IDP Project

Posted in Access to Information

Themes

Proactive Disclosure, Integrated Development Planning, Housing, Community Engagement, the Open Government Partnership

Abstract

With funding from the Foundation for Human Rights, in 2012 ODAC has embarked on an exciting and progressive project that aims to liberate information that relates to the integrated development planning (IDP) process in South Africa.

Background

In September 2011 the South African government, as a founding member of the Open Government Partnership, committed to:

“…increas[e] our efforts to systematically collect and publish data on government spending and performance for essential public services and activities. We commit to pro actively provide high value information, including raw data, in a timely manner, in formats that the public can easily locate, understand and use, and in formats that facilitate reuse”.

In South Africa, a significant opportunity to embrace this commitment exists through the Integrated Development Plan Nerve Centre (IDPNC). The IDPNC is an internet-based information system that enables municipalities and departments to communicate key planning, programme and project-based information to one another. It facilitates processes to ensure that the Service functions effectively; facilities that include training, online support and dedicated personnel; and it consists of a council representing the interest of all three levels of government, overseeing the strategic direction, processes, procedures, standards and change request of the IDP Nerve Centre.

ODAC aims to make the information on this database publicly available in a format that provides real and meaningful information to the public.

Through a collaboration between the Department of Cooperative Governance, the South African Human Rights Commission and the Open Democracy Advice Centre, we will strive to find the best solutions for advancing the proactive release of information through the opening of the IDPNC in an evidence-based and strategic manner, as a flagship open government data project in South Africa. We believe that by embracing the idea of open data in South Africa, some of the key impacts that this will achieve include:

  1. Freeing up time and resources that NGOs spend trying to access information, creating possibilities for an open access civil society information registry;
  2. Cutting down on the need for litigation as a key access to information strategy;
  3. Enhanced accountability and good governance of government especially at the local level;
  4. An increased ability to effectively and sustainably monitor effective engagement between civil society and government;
  5. A positive change in citizen consciousness; and
  6. Lessening the need and desire for community confrontation with government.

The system

The fact that the IDPNC is able to integrate various forms of IDP information in a “one stop shop” makes it exceptionally useful. We hope the collaboration will maximise the amount of information proactively made available, while providing COGTA with technical mechanisms to easily deal with justified limitations on access where applicable. We would suggest three key possible mechanisms for moving forward in this regard:

  1. Public access through the IDPNC website with certain access and user privileges blocked to public members;
  2. The bare provision of data sets for download, or for uploaded to open data repository which is publically accessible; or
  3. Links from the IDPNC website to an independently hosted site with a specialised user interface designed with the end-user in mind.

 Our perspectives on the information needs above have been realised through research conducted directly into the research needs of civil society, where development plans and related information were directly identified by several organisations. Specifically, groups identified the need for the following information types to contribute to their understanding of the local government information environment:

  1. Housing Information relating to Reconstruction and Development Plans
  2. Development plans of all designated IDP areas in the country
  3. Timely release of national, provincial and municipal budgets and expenditure inclusive of under-spent funds
  4. Minutes and resolutions of municipal council meetings
  5. Land/property information including pricing, ownership and control
  6. Social welfare information relating to government support programmes and fund allocations
  7. Government contact information
  8. Government tenders awarded at all levels of government.

User needs

What makes this project unique in many senses is that it is founded on identifying the actual needs of the community prior to providing information in a "top-down" approach that has previously been used by civil society organisations. We are thus also concurrently working with community groups to understand in detail what the “user-needs” will be in terms of the IDPNC, both in terms of the type of information that would be useful, as well as the type of system or format best able to transmit that information into something meaningful for groups.

We are have also considered in earnest the question of how communities can physically access such information, once it is openly available. That is why, within our community interventions, we will be focusing on real and direct capacitation. Ways in which to the forward these objectives could be to raise public awareness about the availability of the database through the GCIS' Thusong Centres and Multi-Purpose Community Centres; we are also exploring the possibility of new and social media, as well as computer terminals made available by ODAC at a very limited number of sites (due to our resource restrains).

Resources:

  • Project Outline PowerPoint
  • Information Needs Research

Our strategy partners:

  • Foundation for Human Rights
  • Department of Cooperative Governance
  • South African Human Rights Commission

Our community partners:

  • Tembelihle Crisis Committee
  • Right 2 Know Campaign
  • The Social Justice Coalition

Final product

Our community consultations resulted in the development of a demo product to showcase how best integrated development project information, and associated information, could be re-packaged for the benefit of communities. The product was developed in partnership with Code for South Africa and presents a user-friendly map interface for engaging with big projects information in different wards. The demonstration site was based on information from the City of Cape Town, which it makes proactively available through its website, but was not only translated into digital form. It was also translated into information brochures which not only summarise the information for specific wards (so that its hyper-local and relevant to the given community), but also provides step-by-step guidance on how to take action on the information that the community now have easy access to.

You can interact with the map tool developed at http://idp.code4sa.org/

Ward brochures

  • Delft
  • Gugulethu
  • Kaheylitsha