POWER TO THE PEOPLE: THE USE OF “FORUMS” IN CONFLICT RESOLUTION IN POST‐APARTHEID SOUTH AFRICA

After the Mandela government took power in 1994 in South Africa, one of its highest priorities was providing power to the impoverished rural areas, and particularly the infrastructure‐poor black “townships.” In addition to a scarcity of resources, multiple stake‐holders with very different agendas were integrally a part of the decision‐making process. To this extent, what happened with the electricity industry is a metaphor for the multiple issues—social, economic, and political—which had to be negotiated by the new society. The multiple stake‐holders were brought together in a “Forum,” a non‐regulatory advisory body which was designed to specifically include all relevant interested parties in an open (“transparent”) problem‐solving process. This forum system was extensively used in the 18–24 months immediately before and after the 1994 elections to deal with a host of issues. The National Electricity Forum (NELF) was one of the earliest and most successful of these forums. This case reviews the build‐up to the 1994 elections, describes how the forum process worked, and outlines its structure.