The first democratic elections took place in South Africa in 1994, where after the fight against apartheid marginalized communities - communities of color - were not allowed to participate in terms of government of the country, both from a political and economic point of view. Then in 1994, after the activity of the ANC and other parties, the Liberation Struggle was one and we were able to participate in the democratic process of the country. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay One of the fundamental mechanisms for effective democracy is public participation, and public participation is a process in which the citizens of a country are involved in the context of what is needed in the country's decision-making process. So you need to put in the effort – read up and familiarize yourself with the content and so on. And so in 1994, when South Africa as we know it today – when democracy was quite open, to people of color – one of the things that meant is that it allowed communities – particularly those that were previously excluded – to be a active participant in the decision-making process of the country's future. Now there are different types of public participation depending on the need at the time and there are different ways to approach it, but for now the key for us is just to discuss participation and what it means for the group we worked with. So when we were doing the previous EU project, one of the most important lessons and also one of the recommendations was that many communities - firstly the project was to understand what the energy challenges are in many of these communities and then we understood the nature of such challenges and problems and offered some recommendations and discussed them together with the participants and essentially the “lion's share” of the recommendations pointed directly towards political intervention so that they could be resolved. Which then leads us to ask the question well, if it will require political intervention, what is the current state of participation of peoples or communities in different government structures? And the short answer is that many of the communities in which we have worked have not participated very actively in decision-making processes and that, when they have, the nature of that participation has for the most part been lackluster. In many cases for people it was simply a "ticking" exercise or the process itself was not carried out correctly if one or more people simply felt that all they needed was just their name on a register, without clearly understanding what was the content I will be engaged. And what is expected and required of them in order for them to become more effective in terms of public participation? So, what in a sense should have happened was that after democracy was extended to people of color, many people at the time didn't fully understand what it meant to be part of a democratic system and what it entailed, so it should have been provided training, education and awareness to POC to help them understand how the system works, how to use the system, how to participate in democracy. Now, when we look at the communities we face today, we talk specifically about the energy challenges that people are experiencing. If policy intervention is going to be necessary to alleviate many of these challenges, it will require that the people who are facing these challenges are the ones who are at the forefront of the dialogue about how to alleviate them, what their challenges are, and the details that occur at the internal. We've found that in many cases with the people that we work with and even in this specific program we're finding that people don'tthey have a good idea of ​​where to go to get answers to or certain challenges and what the process is to get some of these things, which then led to a situation where people, for example when they look at electricity, in a community the current is interrupted. If one knew where to go, a person would be able to solve that specific challenge or problem in a shorter amount of time, but simply because a person does not know where to go or who to turn to in order to find a solution to the problem, the person in issue remains without electricity for a long period of time. We've found that even when we engage people, and people have engaged us on energy and other issues, we've found that it's the same thing with water and the same issue with housing and many other socioeconomic issues, particularly in low-income communities. And so this has a direct impact in terms of what we see when we look at many communities and this also partly explains why we find such widespread discontent when it comes to communities in terms of access to services and the quality of services that they receive and also the poor quality of infrastructure they receive. Now, public participation often requires the authority in question to communicate what it intends to do, communicating those plans via documents on its website. In many cases they use newspapers and different types of media to convey the message. However the challenge is that even if a person might take up this invitation, where it is located - it is obviously located in a place which is usually too far away for many in the community to attend, because many people - in the case of South Africa - are poor and cannot afford to go to the city and therefore cannot afford to add their voice to the conversation so that it can be taken into account when making a specific decision. So when you look at the kind of decisions that are happening, again particularly in the electricity field. You look at the price of electricity, the continuous increase in the price of electricity. However, when we look at the issue of electricity prices, every year for at least ten years the price has been continuously increasing and has led to many families not being able to afford electricity. And so every year ESKOM wants to increase their electricity tariff – because it will have a broad impact on society – they need to organize some kind of public participation meeting where they inform people and give them the opportunity to make their voices heard. Now the challenge here is that in many cases the documents issued into space were technical in nature and were usually published online; this means that most people who will be affected are not able to interact with the documents because firstly, going online to download the document has its costs and implications and even if they could download it, it is debatable how much understanding they would have some of these documents. Even for those more experienced in reading some of these documents, they are not the easiest documents to read. Then there is also very little support that these communities receive to help them understand exactly what these documents mean for them, other than a simple price increase. And so we then find that marginalized communities who were previously unable to participate in the democratic process, are still unable to participate in the democratic system, even though that was part of the promise made in the 1994 election. able to participate – as I said – for reasons of cost or understanding. What ends up happening is that if previously marginalized communities continue to entrench themselves in the circumstances they face, they are still not able toable to find solutions or solutions to their problems. What we find is that because of the way communities the system currently works – where documents are issued online and meetings are held in hotels, etc., they are much more suited to a more affluent community. And so even when feedback comes from the public participation process, it is more reflective of wealthier communities. These are factors that contribute to the divided nature of the protest, because most of the time people cannot find a place to go and raise the issues and even when there are platforms available to make their voices heard, they cannot participate. because they can't get there. And even if they were there they couldn't keep up with the conversation or provide relevant input because they simply can't understand the information being shared. And so the likelihood of there being one person who doesn't understand standing up and making their voice heard drops to virtually zero, which has long-term implications for the broader community. to alleviate many of their challenges, they need to interact with politics and participate in the democratic system, we then need to look at how we can facilitate and create an environment where many of these communities who are unable to participate can participate. Of course, as is always the case, financial resources are a determining factor in who gets involved and how they get involved, because in many cases of public participation the depth is determined by the financial resources available. So when that's not available, the goal is to simply get public input and then the bottom line is what people take and what decision makers take and use that as the basis for making their proposals or at least going through the process. So we then find that, as a result, a community is unlikely to be able to alleviate its problems through the democratic system, simply because it is not economically able to participate and information is limited, which inhibits the ability to participate effectively. Which then results in planning documents that do not reflect the direct needs of many of these communities. And so it's something that's very prevalent in South African society and also in South African communities. And so there is a need for organizations and agents like Project 90by2030 and others to play a very important role in trying to remove some of the jargon from this information and try to get to the core of what some of these documents say and a possible the possible impacts that these decisions will have about these communities, so that a person can make a more informed decision. You know if the way things are going currently - you know that 1994 means that South Africa has finally achieved political inclusion, marginalized peoples have been able to participate in the decisions of this country, but to a lesser extent they have been able to participate in the decisions economical. So after 1994, basically people who didn't know about democracy in any shape or form were left to their own devices to try to find a solution on how to make the system work. At the moment we still find that many communities are still not able to do this. to find out how to get things done have little understanding of how the system works. So, you find that when meetings are held and public officials feel quite insecure in attending these public meetings, because when they come to these meetings they feel bombarded and sometimes they are criticized by the participants in these seminars or meetings, because that is the only platform who have to express their grievances. Yet in many cases these platforms are the platformswrong for their participation. When you look at local, provincial and national government, all of these different spheres require vital public participation when making political decisions that will affect the people of that area and often that means getting out of your area and community and going to parliament, going to the chambers of I recommend or go to some hotel somewhere with people who understand the topics and have taken the time to engage with them. All of these things are things that have not been afforded to many of these communities and so, just as a result of that, it is fair, in my conclusion, to say that apartheid still exists, albeit of a different nature. The exclusion that people face today is not as direct or overt as it was in the past: there are no signs that some people are exempt from participating in or enjoying certain services. What we find now is that it is a more subtle approach, a more subversive approach. Where, if an important document becomes technical, it limits the number of people who can comment on it and understand the information, who can truly understand the impact of the decisions. And therefore, rely solely on those who can understand to work in their own best interests for their communities. But as we can see, this is not what translates in terms of real-world experience. The gap is widening. Those without are even more so without, communities than if we look again at electricity. Renewable energy with respect to the electricity grid through the lens of public participation, what is happening is that as the entity is in the position of no longer being able to provide the social service of electricity to the public due to the problem of mismanagement , etc. The decision has been made that renewable energy will be the alternative we will use to meet our energy needs. But, of course, renewable energy comes with a very high capital cost, meaning that those communities that don't have a lot of money or economic power will have to rely solely on the electricity grid. Now, the more middle- and upper-income families move off the grid and towards renewable energy, the more pressure they put on low-income families who are still connected to the grid and so we will continue to see the price of electricity rise . However, what we can also expect to see is that these families who will not be able to afford electricity – even if the electricity comes from renewable energy – there will come a time when those who have the infrastructure in their home and access to electricity they still can't afford electricity and so it becomes a white elephant or if not a white elephant you will find that there will be an increase in illegal connections as we are now in a society that needs electricity in order to survive. However, people do not have the means to pay for expensive electricity and much of the progress that was made to get people onto the electricity grid after 1994, during the 2000-2002 period, many of those positive gains were made there will removed because we will return to a situation where people have access to their homes but can't afford it and so are sitting in the dark. This is already what we're starting to see in these low income families and so the only way to intervene is at a policy level, realistically speaking about what I just mentioned, what is the likelihood that a person living in a shack or in a township somewhere in South Africa is able to have a significant influence on the direction the country will take in terms of how it will provide electricity to the country,.