Country overview South Africa

Abstract

South Africa offers wide spread ICT infrastructure in the country and adoption is high amongst the population. With greater ICT availability, there is a growing possibility for citizens to hold government accountable, by sending immediate feedback on service performance through digital technologies. But ICT-mediated citizen engagement is still a novelty and in its infancy stages. This State of the Art report intends to provide a contemporary picture of citizen engagement in South Africa and the extent to which ICTs are contributing towards citizen participation with government. The paper is broken down into three sections: the first section is an overview of government policies around citizen participation and a national overview on ICT-mediated citizen engagement; the second section explores some of the emerging ICT-mediated spaces in South Africa; and the last section uses the theory of structuration to analyse digital state-citizen engagement.