Context and Realities of Policy Implementation in South Africa: Quo Vadis

Abstract

This paper intends to examine the context and realities of policy implementation in South Africa. This is important because South Africa has over the years crafted good policies but suffers from poor implementation. Scholars, policymakers, non-governmental organisation, and target beneficiaries have advanced various reasons contextualizing the root causes of policy failure in the South African context. Such reasons include but are not restricted to, lack of resources, lack of precision and policy design, incorrect policy instrument, lack of leadership, negligence of relevant actors, and lack of precision and clarity in the implementation stage. This paper discovered that in South Africa, there has been a particular emphasis on the delivery of services with the capacity and capabilities of national, provincial, and local government to advance service delivery, however, challenges have been encountered in the implementation processes. This article concludes that actors of public policy implementation must be seen as formal and have access to ‘implementation structures’ that they can use to advance their own “different interests; values; perceptions and policy preferences during the implementation process. This paper recommends, that the South African government should review the policy implementation strategies with clear contextual considerations to demonstrate the goals. Furthermore, the paper recommends that public policy implementation should be entrusted to suitable government departments that have the necessary administrative capacities.