Augmented participation

For several weeks, we have been collaborating with three miraculous women from the Atlantic Fellows Programme - Myriam Hernández, Maria Carrasco and Jenny McEneaney - to unpack the intersections between innovation and public participation in both the Global, and South African, context. Represented by me, OpenUp have enjoyed three intensive days of workshopping and come to an exciting conclusion: digital participation is out, and augmented participation is in.

Let me explain.

Digital participation is a wonderful buzzword for the advancement of democratic practice, and is frequently an aspect of civic technology interventions. But these aspirations aren’t necessarily linked to a full appreciation of how data and digital inequality impact not just the efficacy, but the overall context, for implementing participation solutions in South Africa. Years of engaging communities on digital participation has taught us many things, but one lesson is profoundly underrated: how important in-person participation can be for improving trust between citizens and state. The risk is that over zealous digitalisation may simply alienate more South Africans from the participation process.

There are important reasons for foregrounding these realities. South Africa faces a paradox in political participation. Whilst national elections saw low voter turnouts - our Elections dashboard shows that there was a lacklustre 58% turnout at our 2024 national election - South Africans are not politically apathetic. As per the 2021 IJR Reconciliation Barometer, significant engagement exists at the community level: 34% attended a community meeting, and 30% collaborated on raising issues (Potgieter, 2019). This is confirmed by Afrobarometer’s South Africa survey for 2021 which notes that 28% of people would attend a community meeting if they had the chance, and 54.9% agreeing they had participated in the last year. Compare this to participation at more  national levels of government: whilst 66% of the population said they would never approach a Local Government Councillor with an issue, 93.9% of the population said they would never approach a Member of Parliament (and 82% would never approach a member of a political party). This indicates untapped potential for fostering civic engagement in local governance, in spite of a challenging environment in national democratic practices. 

But there are other limitations to participation - the 2023 IJR Reconciliation Barometer (we love the IJR Barometer…) notes that there is concomitantly a lack in citizen self confidence to participate. South Africans agree that the people, and not politicians, should make the most important policy decisions. Most also agreed that citizens should have the final say on important issues by voting directly in referendums (77%); that politicians should always follow the will of the people (76%); and that ordinary South Africans can only rely on each other rather than on elites (73%). But sadly, almost half of all South Africans (47%) feel unqualified to participate in politics. And a further 51% believe that they do not have a good understanding of the important issues affecting the country, with 52% saying that they are less informed than other people.

What does this mean for how we might best approach “digital” participation? Our people need to feel more empowered. And they also need to be provided with more information to help this empowerment. And they need to feel greater trust in the processes available. It seems clear then that only part of these needs can be met by introducing digital innovations; direct engagement between the Municipality and the community remains a vital part of the South African participation ecosystem. 

OpenUp has been exploring the different ways we can help improve participation processes for a while - by simplifying information access, facilitating participation notices, and other such digital solutions. But the main conclusion we have come to is this: technology is here to augment participation. Digitalisation should not be used to replace in-person engagement. Rather, it should augment how our citizens access information, how they engage in the process in their preferred method, and how they facilitate our administration's ability to engage with, analyse, and embed that public participation in their own systems. 

OpenUp and the Atlantic Fellows eParticipation consortium will explore these ideas in the next phases of our collaboration, and plan how to advance South Africa’s unique Integrated Development Planning process to meet the needs of the community and local municipalities for the advancement of (augmented) participation.

If you are interested in how we are augmenting public participation through our MiIDP project do let us know, and we will continue to update you as our ideas (and actions) grow in this exciting field.