Rebuilding active public participation after the COVID-19 era: The South African case

Abstract

The consequences of COVID-19 have impacted the poor and vulnerable populations of the world significantly, particularly in countries like South Africa. State institutions have been prioritising mitigating the impacts of the pandemic. And in the academy, there has been an influx of recent scholarship contending with the psychological and physical repercussions of the pandemic. This article focuses on South Africa's rebuilding of public participation in governance in the country post-pandemic. The article is based on a qualitatively rooted methodology consisting of a wide range of primary and secondary sources, including official state documents, academic books and articles, and reports from non-governmental organisations and think tanks. The article further draws on the findings of global and continental research and proposes steps for rebuilding public participation in South Africa in a manner that ensures accessible governance for all, especially the poor and vulnerable populations. An exposition of the legislative measures enhancing public participation in South Africa is accompanied by a brief social and economic picture before and during COVID-19, and a comparative synopsis of old and new direction of the processes and realities of the phenomenon in society. The research-based key steps leading to successfully rebuilding political and social engagement after COVID-19 were identified as being founded on a number of steps. The first related to the process of moving from community diversity to communal unity through the continuous development of trust between community and leadership, the processes of community developmental empowerment, the active participation of women in political leadership and the active role of the ward committees in community governance.