3. PROGRESS ON THEMATIC AREAS 3.1 DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL GOVERNANCE 3.1.1 Improving public participation and access to information Transparency and accountability are regarded as the basis for good democratic governance. Other components of democratic good governance include constitutionally guaranteed access to information that enable citizens to monitor and hold government accountable as well as a vigilant media and civil society that serve as building block for a strong liberal democracy. During the reporting period, national and provincial government has continued to strengthen and implement systems to promote civil society participation in government programmes. Opportunities have been created through platforms such as the development of the Green/White papers, petitions, outreach programmes, State of the Nation Address (SONA) and budget vote where representatives from civil society organisations are invited to participate. Although platforms are created, there are challenges which include, among others:     Poor turnout during public hearings in certain areas and on certain issues. In some cases, this has to do with the perceived relevance of government services relative to citizens’ needs and the weak role of civil society formations in representing citizen’s interests in these forums; Weak publicity and communication about the public- hearings process in general and specific events in particular, which is what both legislatures and civil society need to enhance; The relatively poor awareness among citizens of government decision making processes, public resources and abilities as well as the importance of participatory processes, resulting in the domination of processes by the middle-class that is able to organise itself into NGOs, business and other similar interest groups; and There are challenges of physical access in some cases owing to travelling distances to the seats of legislature or meeting places, despite the initiatives by legislatures to bring themselves closer to communities by holding sittings in various localities across the country. During the reporting period, there has been an increase in the number of hotlines for citizen communication with government in both national and provincial levels. The multiplication of the hotlines is a response to the need to be responsive to citizens’ needs, expectations and concerns. Notwithstanding the increased number of government hotlines, there is evidence that some of these are not linked or integrated with one another. This is an indication of a lack of coordination which exacerbates the incapacity of government to the manage data, measure the level of duplication, and determine the speed at which service delivery challenges are resolved. This in turn affects the overall achievement of the objective of establishing hotlines. The establishment of a central hotline system at national level and for each province will ease the process of escalating reported cases to the relevant institutions 31