Enhancing Community Engagement in South African Local Governance: Harnessing Artificial Intelligence

Participatory governance needs the use of community involvement, which ensures accountability, inclusiveness, and responsiveness in decision-making in their localities. Structural inequalities, politicisation and low institutional capacity, however, continue to override meaningful participation in South Africa and traditional processes such as ward committees and public consultations are frequently scaled down to compliance processes. Meanwhile, the use of artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming prevalent around the world as a means of enhancing communication, service provision, and governmental transparency, yet the use raises important questions of ethics, fairness, and preparedness. In this review, 30 peer-reviewed articles, policy reports, and case studies were incorporated to analyse the intersection of AI and community engagement in South African local governance during the period 2019-2025. The review is based on the theory of participatory governance and socio-technical systems and outlines opportunities, including improved inclusivity, accountability, and service delivery, and challenges, including digital divides, ethical risks, and institutional unpreparedness. The results imply that although AI has transformative potential, its successful implementation is conditional on context-sensitive, participatory and ethically motivated strategies that can make technology relevant to the South African aim of democracy and development.