The leader article of this edition of F3LG encourages municipalities to devise policies relevant to their distinctive challenges and strengths. It argues that a centrally-developed recovery strategy by the Department of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs will not yield equally effective strategies for all 283 diverse local, district, and metropolitan municipalities. A decentralised model would, however, also not succeed if the skills shortages in municipalities are not eradicated (refer to the January issue of F3LG).

The second article focuses on the community protests that caused havoc in many South African townships and informal settlements in 2009. Although these protests peaked after the election of President Jacob Zuma in April 2009, they are continuing. The minister of cooperative governance and traditional affairs, Mr Sicelo Shiceka, has set a target that community protests will be eliminated by 2014. This ‘elimination’ of protests will depend on the ability of the Government to better meet the needs of communities. This will in turn depend on the Government’s ability to better understand the reasons, demands, and patterns of these protests. This article goes some way to provide the government with that kind of analysis.

The third article is an overview of the data published in this issue of F3LG and is entitled From the richest to the poorest, and those in between. It focuses mainly on the wide discrepancies between the Alfred Nzo and West Coast district municipalities in the Eastern Cape and Western Cape respectively. These two represent the poorest and the least poor municipalities in that order. The article uses poverty rates and a deprivation index to show that richer municipalities are in the most affluent provinces. Poorer ones are in less affluent provinces. The correlation between poverty rates and matric results is analysed. Poorer municipalities tend to have lower rates of unemployment and lower rates of employment simultaneously. Wealthier municipalities have higher levels of unemployment but also higher rates of employment. The article explains some of the reasons behind these surprising trends.

The issue of Fast Facts is available online at www.eumunicipaloutreach.org.za and will be emailed to the more than 1 800 contacts from the eight municipalities covered by the project. It is important that these publications are used by municipalities to influence policy and strategies to improve the lives of the poor.

-          Nthamaga Kgafela