Enhancing Sustainability by Resolving Conflicts Between Traditional Leaders and Ward Committees

Traditional leaders and ward committees are vital players in rural development in most developing countries like South Africa. Unfortunately, however, their performance continues to be undermined by multifaceted tensions and conflicts, which compromise their abilities to contribute effectively toward rural development. In a context of slow development due to these multifaceted conflicts, there is a need to propose a framework to inform strategies that can be used to resolve these tensions. This chapter attempts to do this by providing a conflict resolution framework (CRF) that is informed by data on conflict resolution, which was solicited from purposefully selected informants comprising traditional leaders, ward councilors, and representatives from nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and community leaders by using Likert scaled questionnaires. A rigorous review of the literature complemented this information. This investigation revealed that most conflicts are instigated by reliance on conflict resolution frameworks whose effectiveness is severely constrained by the lack of inclusiveness. This deficiency was then interrogated and used to formulate an inclusive case study-based conflict resolution framework that can be used to resolve conflicts between traditional leaders and ward councilors.