Assessment of the Opportunities That Prevail During the Process of Mobilising Financial Resources for Service Delivery Optimisation in Vhembe Municipalities
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.51137/wrp.ijarbm.543Keywords:
Financial Resources, Infrastructure Development, Investor Confidence and Sustainable DevelopmentAbstract
The rationale for the study is to discuss the opportunities that prevail during the process of mobilising financial resources for the optimising service delivery in Vhembe municipalities. These opportunities can be referred to as the direct benefits or positive implications of the financial resource mobilisation process. They include amongst others socioeconomic development, infrastructure development, and increased service delivery, expansion of services, job creation, social development and inclusion. The other examples include environmental sustainability, capacity building, institutional strengthening, community empowerment and participation, long-term sustainability and resilience, technological advancement, and policy innovation and governance improvement. The research methodology used in this study is qualitative wherein twenty one participants were interviewed face to face, virtually and telephonically. The study targeted senior political leadership, management, oversight and community structures such as executive mayors, portfolio heads, municipal managers, senior managers, managers, oversight committees and mayoral forums. The study found that there are plenty of opportunities presented by financial resources mobilisation. These opportunities include attracting relevant investors, access to development initiatives, infrastructure development (roads, water, sanitation, revenue generation, job creation, social improvement (health and sports facilities), community development, poverty alleviation, Small Medium Micro Enterprises development, project funding, youth empowerment, power to pay for services, industrial development as well as improvement of revenue base.
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