Are civil society organisations effective agents of mobilisation for development in 21st century South Africa? case study of the people's budget campaign.
Date
2009-01-30T12:26:02Z
Authors
Egoh, Modi A.
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Abstract
ABSTRACT
From the 18th century, a considerable element of legislative democracy has been that of
national budgeting. This has been substantially critical in assuring legislative statute over
the government which has been controlled by kings. Predictably, the notion of public
participation in budgetary processes has been disparate by governments in Africa. Due to
its technocratic and elitist design, it is mostly a complex issue to recognise the making of
national budgets by ordinary citizens in South Africa. However, topical developments
have shown that the processes of creating national budgets should consider civil society’s
role particularly in evaluating the impact of budgets on the poor. It is against this
technocratic and elitist architectural backdrop of the state, regarding public budgeting and
implementation, which this study employs the People’s Budget Campaign as a unique
civil society organisation advocating for an alternative budget process in South Africa.
This research has used a qualitative method in analysing data collected from primary and
secondary sources, semi-structured interviews, as well as direct and participant
observation of PBC activities.
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Keywords
Mobilisation, Participation, Budget, Civil Society Organisations, Campaign, Advocacy