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Up one levelNewsletter 61 – Food for thought – 5 March 2010
Poverty remains a serious problem which goes with hunger. Community projects which translate into food production and income generation are one way in which councillors can empower poor people to provide for themselves.
Newsletter 60 - From the richest to the poorest, and those in between – 26 February 2010
South Africa’s municipalities continuously come under fire from the media and the communities they serve, largely because of their failure to provide services efficiently. However, the country has 283 diverse municipalities, from those which serve largely affluent communities to those serving the poorest. This means that a uniform approach to municipalities will not succeed in helping all of them function effectively. An analysis of the different environments in which they function is essential for policy-makers in all three tiers of government to devise policies for municipalities in a manner appropriate to the strengths and weaknesses of each.
Newsletter 59 – The councillor’s job beyond the council chamber – 19 February 2010
This week’s newsletter is based on an article by Professor André de Villiers. He is an associate of the Africa Leadership Development Institute. He emphasises the role of councillors based on the principles of responsibility and accountability.
Newsletter 58 - New local government report reveals challenges – 12 February 2010
The Fast Facts for Local Government published by the Institute this week is a comprehensive review of local government. It analyses 80 indicators which include indicators on demographics, education, employment, housing, access to basic services, transport, social security, health, and crime. The report provides a detailed insight into local government performance. It also allows for detailed comparisons between municipalities. The Institute has released the report to all members of Parliament, all members of provincial legislatures, and councillors in South Africa’s eight largest urban municipalities.
Newsletter 57 – A Fast Facts dedicated to municipalities – 5 February 2010
The February issue of Fast Facts for Local Government focuses almost entirelyon municipalities. It contains three articles and a number of graphs and charts, and reviews 80 indicators for each of the 52 district and metropolitan municipalities in the country. It covers subjects from service delivery protests to health and crime.
Newsletter 56 – 14 months later – 29 January 2010
Fourteen months into the Municipal Outreach Project the project has proven itself to be one of the most successful outreach and research projects operated by the Institute.
Newsletter 55 – Strategic plan not so strategic – 22 January 2010
The Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs published a strategic plan for municipalities for 2009 to 2014. According to the department, their ‘desire is to ensure that governance systems are streamlined and utilised as a vehicle to change people’s lives.’ This newsletter raises four issues with regard to this plan.
Newsletter 54 - Local economic development focused on poverty alleviation - 15 January 2010
This week’s newsletter focuses on some of the results of a study entitled Pro-Poor Local Economic Development in South Africa which was commissioned by the World Bank and implemented by Rhodes University, Khanya-aicdd, and the University of the Witwatersrand. The study focused on surveys and workshops with 20 of South Africa’s urban municipalities.
Newsletter 53 – Best practice case study: Ekurhuleni – 8 January 2010
In 2009, the first year of the municipal outreach project, the Institute’s staff, municipal councillors, officials, and NGOs identified key challenges facing municipalities. The findings were detailed in the supplement to the 2008/2009 South Africa Survey entitled Local Government and the Poverty Challenge. This year, the second year of the three-year project, the objective is to identify best practice interventions to combat the challenges identified in year one.
Newsletter 52 – Corruption, nepotism, and maladministration – 18 December 2009
Three local municipalities in KwaZulu-Natal have been placed under administration following allegations of corruption, nepotism, and maladministration. In this newsletter, these allegations as well as the levels of service delivery backlogs in the three municipalities are analysed.
Newsletter 51 – A case study of Capricorn – 11 December 2009
The supplement to the South Africa Survey entitled Local Government and the Poverty Challenge to be posted next week contains much-needed information on local government ranging from demographics to the economies of the 52 district and metropolitan municipalities, and in some cases even on all 283 municipalities in South Africa. This week’s newsletter focuses on the relationship between poverty and lack of access to basic services, as well as prospects for people to escape the poverty trap. A case study of the Capricorn District Municipality in Limpopo is presented.
Newsletter 50 – The supplement is ready! – 4 December 2009
A supplement to the South Africa Survey entitled ‘Local Government and the Poverty Challenge’ has been completed. The Municipal Outreach Project was launched in January 2009, and much has been accomplished thus far. During this first year of the project, the objective was to identify the key poverty challenges in the eight municipalities targeted. This was done in two parts. First, extensive research into poverty at local government level was collated by the Institute’s Research Department. Second, the project team visited each of the eight municipalities to present the research findings as well as to get feedback based on the ‘grass-roots’ experiences of councillors, officials, and development organisations working within the municipalities. The supplement is a comprehensive publication of the research findings collated by the Institute as well as the ‘grass-roots’ experiences of councillors and officials.
Newsletter 49 – Half of the 500 000 job opportunities already covered – 27 November 2009
Some challenges facing local government were discussed and debated at a local government indaba held in Boksburg in October 2009. The Indaba was hosted by the Minister of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Mr Sicelo Shiceka. One of the issues discussed was that of personnel in municipalities. The municipal outreach officer attended the Indaba on behalf of the Institute.
Newsletter 48 - Genocide is a charge too far - 20th November 2009
The minister of health, Dr Aaron Motsoaledi, has blamed Thabo Mbeki and his administration for the Aids pandemic in South Africa. Dr Motsoaledi referred to a report that South Africa had 0.7% of the world’s population but 17% of people infected with HIV and Aids. The Young Communist League has gone even further and called for Thabo Mbeki and his health minister to be charged with genocide. Data the Institute has published in its annual South Africa Survey this month shows the extent of the death and suffering inflicted on black South Africans by the Mbeki administration’s HIV and Aids policies.
Newsletter47 - Implementing People's War - 13th November 2009
When former state president FW de Klerk in February 1990 unbanned the African National Congress (ANC) and its allies, he believed he was laying the foundation for a process of ‘good faith’ negotiations in which all parties would be committed to peace, mutual compromise for the common good, and respect for agreements reached. But, the ANC never had any intention of regarding negotiations in the same way. Instead it saw constitutional talks as nothing more than an additional ‘terrain of struggle’: an adjunct to the people’s war it had been implementing since the Sebokeng unrest in September 1984. The ANC’s strategy was a variant on the Trojan Horse one, for it used its professed commitment to peace to secure the legal return of its armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe, thus bypassing the difficulties it had always faced in infiltrating its insurgents illegally. It then refused to disarm or demobilise Umkhonto, instead using its combatants to step up the people’s war in all its aspects. The ANC’s persistence with its people’s war in the early 1990s – at a time when De Klerk had already thrown open the door to a non-racial South Africa and repealed all major apartheid laws – cost a further 15 000 lives, three times the number killed in the first five years of the people’s war. Almost all those killed were neither policemen, soldiers, nor insurgents, but rather ordinary civilians, most of them black. In this address, delivered in Johannesburg on 10th November 2009, Anthea Jeffery summarises some of the key points from her book People’s War: New Light on the Struggle for South Africa, recently published by Jonathan Ball.
Newsletter 46 – The new ‘whites’ – 6 November 2009
Whereas prosperous white South Africans are often denigrated by the Government and the African National Congress (ANC), the new black elite are often portrayed as an example of progress in our society. That has been a peculiar distinction for the Government and the ANC to maintain. There is now some evidence to suggest that attitudes in the ruling alliance may be shifting.
Newsletter 45 – Gordhan’s gamble - 30th October 2009
While the Medium Term Budget Policy Statement has been well received by the financial and business press it does harbour a risk of South Africa confronting a debt-trap scenario at some point in the next decade. Considering the risks and the difficulty of predicting the country’s future GDP growth trajectory, history might find that the government erred in its fiscal response to the economic downturn.
Newsletter 44 – Are people in big cities getting poorer? – 23 October 2009
Many poor people are leaving the rural areas in former homelands in search of better opportunities in urban South Africa. What has been the impact of this on unemployment and poverty levels at the major urban areas?
Newsletter 43 – The state of public schools – 16 October 2009
Education was voted as one the leading challenges in South Africa’s municipalities by councillors, officials, and development organisations from eight of the country’s largest municipalities that attended the workshops hosted by the Institute for municipalities this year.
Newsletter 42 - Jobs or polar bears? – 9 October 2009
Although the environment is an important issue, and will probably become increasingly so for future generations, environmental needs have to be juxtaposed against the developmental needs of South Africa and the developing world.
