Citizen Engagement Program

About this program

Purpose: To accompany citizens and communities to achieve their full human potential through creating, facilitating and fostering spaces for critical dialogue and change.

Why?

To activate, educate and mobilise citizens in order to become active co-participants in the creation and accomplishment of their own development agenda.

How?

  • Hosting public dialogues around critical issues of governance, accountability, social and economic justice, and nation building
  • Empowering and accompanying communities through capacity building workshops to support, capacitate and mentor those we work with
  • Producing educational materials that can be distributed to communities to inform and educate them about critical issues of active citizenship
  • Building partnerships with community radio stations in order to increase the reach of our educational programmes to remote and marginalised areas
July 23, 2021

DDP Political Summit 2021: Restoring Public Trust Towards a Robust and Active Participatory Politics

The sharp decline in trust in government is serving to underline that trust is an essential, yet often overlooked, ingredient in successful policymaking. Without trust in […]
June 28, 2021

Adams Mission Youth Indaba

Adams Mission Community SOS Centre (AMCSC) is an organization based in EThekwini Municipality at Adams Mission. It was established in 2017 by a young Ntuthuko Maphumulo […]
June 11, 2021

Amplifying youth potential: promoting youth civic and political engagement.

By: Yanga Malotana On 10 June 2021 DDP hosted the 5th Annual Youth Indaba. The event ran under the theme: Amplifying youth potential: promoting youth civic […]
May 30, 2021

Youth Participation in Policy and Development

This webinar was hosted by the Democracy Development Program (DDP) in collaboration with the Mail & Guardian. It featured Tessa Dooms, Director: Jasoro; Pearl Pillay, Director: Youth […]
May 3, 2021

Election Observer Orientation

The Democracy Development Program conducted an election observer training.  Election observers play a crucial role in ensuring that the elections are transparent, free, and fair and […]
April 30, 2021

Elections Roundtable: On Electoral Accountability, Reform and Voter Turnout

Electoral debates have continued over the years. These discussions have been reintroduced through the Democratic Alliance’s Private Members Bill, the High-Level Panel on the Assessment of […]
April 29, 2021

Civil Society Briefing on the 2021 Local Government Elections

Elections had to take place within 90 days of the expiry of the current term. The earliest possible date for Local Government Elections (LGE) 2021 would […]
March 31, 2021

Protest Free Elections Seminar

Service delivery protests originated during the apartheid era in South Africa as they were used as strategies to express dissatisfaction with the lack of services as […]
February 19, 2021

Unpacking the 2021 SoNA

SPECIAL REPORTS This Mail & Guardian webinar was sponsored by the Democracy Development Project (DDP). It featured as speakers Aubrey Matshiqi, Independent Political Analyst; Sanusha Naidu, Foreign Policy […]
November 20, 2020

Local government in crisis: how it can be fixed

Part 1 This three-part Mail & Guardian webinar series was sponsored by the Democracy Development Program (DDP). The first webinar featured Aubrey Matshiqi, Independent Political Analyst; Kavisha Pillay, […]
November 20, 2020

Africa Unite’s Skills Sharing Project

Africa Unite on the 12th of November 2020 hosted a skill sharing session at Mbumbulu South of KZN and DDP was there to offer partner support. […]
November 11, 2020

Lindelani Youth Forum’s Gender-Based Violence Dialogue

The Lindelani Youth Forum on the 10th of November 2020, hosted a Gender-Based Violence Dialogue at Ntuzuma “A” Hall. This dialogue was aimed at conscientizing community […]
October 26, 2020

Bottlebrush Local Government Dialogue

By: Mbalenhle Mkhize The South African government systems consist of three spheres of government which are National, Provincial, and Local. These spheres all have legislative and […]
October 5, 2020

Pathways to reform South Africa

This Mail & Guardian webinar was sponsored by the Democracy Development Program (DDP).  Speakers included Aubrey Mashiqi, independent political analyst; Busi Sibeko, economist and researcher at the Institute for […]
October 5, 2020

Youth Representation Awareness Campaign at Howick West

By: Mbalenhle Mkhize The Democracy Development Program in partnership with Africa Unite and Empophomeni/ Howick West youth hosted a youth representation awareness campaign. This campaign was […]
October 1, 2020

Youth Representation Online Dialogue

The Democracy Development Program in partnership with the Lindelani Youth Forum hosted an online dialogue via WhatsApp to unpack the narrative of youth representation in politics […]
September 23, 2020

Unlocking the political will: Towards a universal basic income grant Intended Outcome:

DDP in partnership with BlackSash hosted a Virtual Webinar to unpack following narrative for civil society and the public at large: Unlocking the political will: Towards […]
September 17, 2020

Civil Society Response to the Auditor General 2018/19 Report.

The Democracy Development Program hosted a Virtual Webinar in partnership with Afesis-Corplan. This engagement unpacked the contents of the Auditor General’s 2018/19 Report and was held […]
September 1, 2020

DDP Women’s Month Panel Discussion

The Democracy Development Program hosted a #women’smonth panel discussion with an all female panelist. Amongst the panelists were: Thobeka Khubisa, an Activist and founder of the […]
August 19, 2020

DDP Webinar on independent Candidacy

The Democracy Development Program hosted a webinar on Independent Candidacy and Its Implications on Political Parties: Concerns, Challenges and Adaptation. This engagement was held on the […]