PARLIAMENTARY INVOLVEMENT IN RURAL COMMUNITIES
Left: A typical small South African farm. This page: Citizens in remote areas can debate at meetings of the Parliamentary Democracy Offices.
is about 70 km from Vryburg and the nearest airport is Kimberly Airport. The work of the Parliamentary Democracy Offices is co-ordinated and managed by the Central PDO which is based in Parliament.
The mandate of the Parliamentary Democracy Offices is to serve communities in the provinces, particularly in the rural and under-serviced areas which for various reasons have remained outside national debates and the mainstream of public participation and involvement. Parliamentary Democracy Offices are not independent units but are an extension of Parliament in the provinces and local communities.
Their programmes and activities are informed by those of Parliament through the co-ordination and management of the Central PDO based in Parliament.
Our objectives are: to expand Parliament’s access and opportunities to be directly in touch and
continuously engaged with the people who are ordinarily outside national debates in society; to facilitate public involvement in the legislative and other processes of both the National Assembly and the National Council of Provinces and their committees in all the provinces in accordance with the parliamentary strategic plan and annual calendar, and to provide parliamentary programmes with a
greater level of efficiency, economy and effectiveness in accessing communities.
Bringing the NCOP to the people
Most of our energies and resources are invested in providing support to the National Council of Provinces’ Taking Parliament to the People Programme. PDO involvement started in 2011 when the programme was held at Nquthu in KwaZulu-Natal province, even though we did not have a PDO office in KwaZulu-Natal. A team was put together from PDO Limpopo and PDO Northern Cape to assist with public education and mobilization.
In November 2012, a team from the PDO Northern Cape and Central PDO was put together to assist and facilitate the public participation and involvement in this programme in the small town of De Aar in the Pixley kaSeme District of Northern Cape province. Parliamentary Democracy Offices together with the team members mobilized approximately 13,000 people who attended over the four days of the event. This is a remarkable number for a province like Northern Cape which has the smallest population of all nine provinces.
Some of the advantages were that there was a Parliamentary Democracy Office in this province
The Parliamentarian | 2013: Issue One - South Africa | 81
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144 |
Page 145 |
Page 146 |
Page 147 |
Page 148 |
Page 149 |
Page 150 |
Page 151 |
Page 152 |
Page 153 |
Page 154 |
Page 155 |
Page 156 |
Page 157 |
Page 158 |
Page 159 |
Page 160 |
Page 161 |
Page 162 |
Page 163 |
Page 164 |
Page 165 |
Page 166 |
Page 167 |
Page 168 |
Page 169 |
Page 170 |
Page 171 |
Page 172 |
Page 173 |
Page 174 |
Page 175 |
Page 176 |
Page 177 |
Page 178 |
Page 179 |
Page 180 |
Page 181 |
Page 182 |
Page 183 |
Page 184 |
Page 185 |
Page 186 |
Page 187 |
Page 188 |
Page 189 |
Page 190 |
Page 191 |
Page 192 |
Page 193 |
Page 194 |
Page 195 |
Page 196 |
Page 197 |
Page 198 |
Page 199