A Strategic Evaluation of Public Interest Litigation in South Africa

Based on three case studies, discusses trends and challenges in public interest litigations in South Africa, the most effective combination of strategies in advancing social change, and the role of litigation in social mobilization

Reducing Youth Unemployment in South Africa

South Africa is faced with a crisis of high and rising youth unemployment. Throughout the country, only 1 in 3 young people of working age is employed. This distressing statistic not only plays out through the limited earnings potential and future prospects of these youth, but also emerges within stymied business growth and unsustainable pressure on governmental social programs. The solution will take action from a variety of sectors and actors in order to turn the tide.This report, funded by The Rockefeller Foundation, highlights two cross-sectoral partnerships—the EOH Youth Job Creation Initiative and the Mentec Foundation—that have seen success in placing these disadvantaged youth in jobs throughout South Africa. The report concludes with a table of recommendations for employers, training providers, philanthropic funders, and government officials to begin growing and replicating these efforts.Top TakeawaysThroughout their lives, youth within South Africa are put at an employment disadvantage due to inadequate education and recruiting systems. Despite an estimated 500,000 entry-level vacancies throughout the country, young people often lack the necessary problem-solving skills, business acumen, technological savvy, and communication skills needed for the workplace, and structures that would enable this on-the-job learning (training, mentoring, and coaching) are not standard practice for most workplaces.In order to place more youth in jobs, sectors can bring their unique skills to bear while complementing one another's efforts: government incentives can encourage employers to take calculated risks and reform HR practices; training providers can focus more on skills, including job-readiness skills, that are directly demanded by employers and work with these employers for placement; and funders can strategically deploy grants to such programs and collaboratives.Youth who participate in demand-driven training programs and are then hired into jobs become valuable staff in short order: the youth were more motivated to perform well and assimilated quickly to the work environment

Strengthening the role of civil society in water sector governance towards climate change adaptation in African cities – Durban, Maputo, Nairobi

Water resources management is one of the most important climate change-related issues on international, national and urban public policy agendas. Income inequality in South Africa, Mozambique, and Kenya is among the largest in the world; in all three countries, equity struggles related to water are growing in social, political and ecological significance, which is both a symptom and a cause of urban vulnerabilities related to climate change. Democratic mediation of these conflicts, and sustainable long-term management of water resources in the face of climate change, requires public participation. But those most affected by water issues such as scarcity and flooding are also those least likely to be able to participate in governance and policy institutions. In particular, members of economically disadvantaged groups – especially women, in general – tend to be gravely impacted by poor water management, but also face great difficulties in participating effectively in governance bodies. This project responded to that particular need, and has developed practical strategies for strengthening urban governments in planning investments in climate change adaptation. The project linked university researchers with community-based NGOs conducting environmental education and organizing participatory workshops in low-income urban areas with pressing climate change and water-related problems; built on proven methods of community-university collaboration to strengthen urban watershed governance; increased equity in public participation processes related to urban climate change adaptation; and fostered progressive local, national and international policy development on climate change-related water management – while training students, university researchers, NGO staff members, and community participants. The major research outcome of the project is its contribution to understanding effective ways of strengthening local governments, NGOs and civil society organizations involved in environmental education and organizing for improved public participation in watershed governance and climate change adaptation in African urban areas.This research was supported by the International Development Research Centre, grant number IDRC GRANT NO. 106002-00

The role of multi-stakeholder engagement in local economic development projects in Ethekwini Municipality: a case study of Inanda, Ntuzuma and KwaMashu.

Masters Degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban.The objective of the study was to explore the role of multi-stakeholder engagement in Local Economic Development (LED) in eThekwini Municipality. The LED has been utilized for several decades by the countries of the North with an aim of shifting from the top-down approach. The number of scholars state that this concept has been introduced throughout the world by different governments with an idea of embracing the bottom-up and people- centred approach. The idea behind this approach is to empower all relevant stakeholders in developing partnership with localities. Generally, the LED in South African perspective is associated with co-operatives and Small Medium and Micro Enterprises (SMMEs). The LED in the post-1994 era in South Africa has entrenched the constitutional mandate of the municipalities to ensure the active participatory and optimal allocation of scarce resources to communities. Due to the number of changes introduced by the ANC-led government since the demise of apartheid, the LED is supported by numerous legal frameworks and, hence it is still an unfunded mandate. These policies and legal documents include the Reconstruction Development Programme (RDP), Growth Employment and Redistribution (GEAR), The Constitution of the Republic of South Africa 1996, Municipal Systems Act 32 of 2000, National Spatial Development Perspective (NSDP) and Integrated Sustainable Rural Development Strategy (ISRDS) just to name a few. The existing literature states that in the developing countries in general and with reference to South Africa the little success that has been made by the LED. The study employed pragmatist paradigm in order to attain the study’s aims and objectives. The study also adopts the mixed-method research which draws from the population of 218 people and 165 participants participated in this study through the usage of in-depth interviews, focus group discussions and survey questionnaires to obtain data. The thematic analysis and Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) was used to analyse the collected data. The study revealed that multi-stakeholder engagement is very good in LED projects in eThekwini Municipality. The study further revealed that eThekwini Municipality has to ensure and make use of informal and formal structures such as Community Development Workers (CDWs), CBOs, NGOs, Ward committees and community mobilizers to ensure active citizenship participation. However, some of the are groups are more dominant than others.The study recommended that all stakeholders, including the society, private sector, business forums, local leaders, donors and voluntary organizations should be involved in all projects in eThekwini Municipality

Towards clean, attractive and well maintained metropolitan cities: a case study of Ethekwini municipality.

Doctoral Degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban.Numerous cities around the world encounter challenges with urban degeneration, especially those related to dilapidated buildings, dumping and littering. The African continent and South Africa, in particular, have had many challenges triggering urban degeneration over the years. The end of apartheid in South Africa in 1994, resulted in an influx of people into the main city centres of municipalities, largely with expectations of job opportunities; access to basic services; financial, economic and social opportunities, and access to urban living quarters. Municipalities, however, have limited budgets and resources to fully cater for the burgeoning needs of the population. Municipal mandates are predominantly focused on the delivery of basic services, including housing, water and sanitation, and electricity; regrettably, cleaning up the environment and maintaining infrastructure are not a priority. Taking into consideration these circumstances, the study examines the ways, in which metropolitan municipalities address dilapidated buildings, dumping, littering, damaged infrastructure, unkempt neighbourhoods, and ultimately, urban degeneration, within the context of the eThekwini Municipality. EThekwini Municipality is the third-largest metropolitan city in South Africa, and the largest city within the KwaZulu-Natal Province. This study concentrates on three wards within the inner-city of Durban, which is the main Central Business District of eThekwini Municipality. The inner-city was purposively selected, as it provided a combination of residential, business and tourism areas and has experienced many challenges related to urban degeneration. The research strategy used in this study was a descriptive, mixed methods, convergent design case study approach. Converging data from both qualitative and quantitative processes provided a holistic approach to the study. Quantitative data was obtained from questionnaires interviews with respondents as well as from the secondary analysis of data obtained from the municipality. The latter included data from call-logging of faults from the eThekwini Area Based Management Unit; media data from mainstream and local newspapers and radio stations; fines issued by the municipality on littering and dumping; municipal reports on inner-city projects and programmes; relevant legislation and the Municipal Services and Living Condition Survey questions on the cleanliness of the city. Qualitative data was extracted from semi-structured interviews and survey questionnaires administered to councillors, management, ward committee members and external respondents from the hospitality/entertainment industry. The study involved a critical analysis of the projects and programmes of the eThekwini Municipality, which is a metropolitan located within South Africa, and diagnosed that the objectives of keeping the city clean, attractive and well-maintained, cannot be accomplished in an unsystematic manner. The strategies, programmes and projects which are currently in place within the municipality, have only touched the surface of a well-intended vision of ‘A caring and liveable city’. Many of the projects are fashioned on international best practices but fail within the African context. The study contends that emphasis on crucial and basic issues will inspire the regeneration of the inner-city spaces and infrastructure in a sustainable manner. The study identified that many of the challenges, which have resulted in the increasing rate of degeneration, arise from ineffective regulations and enforcement; outdated service levels and monitoring; the lack of education initiatives for employees and the public; ineffective leadership and governance; the lack of involvement of the public and business in keeping the city clean and well-maintained, and most importantly, the lack of patriotic behavior patterns of citizens, mostly arising as a result of the history of the country. The key recommendations for municipalities, identified through the study, include ensuring an integrated strategic plan for urban regeneration within a proactive policy environment; increasing resources dedicated to waste management; implementing enforcement and consequence management strategies; stimulating change in behavior patterns of citizens, business, as well as municipal employees; empowering communities through effective communication and technological tools, with ongoing awareness and education sessions, and ensuring an effective performance management, and monitoring and evaluation process. An ‘Integrative Transformative Model’, focusing on the assimilation of various core processes and identifying key role-players who have a common understanding of the outcomes of the actions directed towards regeneration, is offered as a panacea for a clean, well-maintained and attractive city

IT Deployment and Integration – An Assessment of Enabling and Inhibiting Factors

Although delivery of services in South Africa is the responsibility of all spheres of government, the provision of basic services lies at the doorstep of local municipalities. Local municipalities have, for many reasons, frequently been unable to live up to this mandate despite the fact that some of the challenges that they face can be addressed by using IT. This paper assesses factors enabling and inhibiting the efficient deployment and integration of IT in local municipalities. The technological, organizational and environmental (TOE) framework was deployed to assess the factors. A multiple case study in which semi-structured interviews were conducted produced qualitative data and thematic analysis was carried out. This paper suggests that effective deployment and integration of IT is not solely dependent on technological factors but that organizational and environmental factors also influence the outcomes to a significant extent

Accountability for the Human Right to Sanitation in South Africa’s Informal Settlements: Strategies of Civil Society Organizations

Despite South Africa’s international and domestic commitments to the right to sanitation, approximately twenty percent of the population did not have access to adequate sanitation as of 2014. As a large portion of this population resides in informal settlements, civil society organizations are attempting to hold the government accountable for the realization of the right to sanitation in these areas. In an attempt to determine if civil society organizations and their employment of various strategies have the ability to accomplish this objective, eight civil society organizations were interviewed about their use of strategies. The empirical evidence revealed specific trends about civil society organizations’ use of strategies and the challenges surrounding their objectives, including that civil society organizations are attempting to balance the use of cooperative approaches and adversarial approaches in their employment of strategies. This thesis seeks to expand on theories on how civil society impacts the realization of socioeconomic rights, and more significantly, it aims to fill in the gaps in literature on civil society’s use of advocacy strategies to hold the government accountable for the right to sanitation. This thesis seeks to contribute to the development of better methods for demanding accountability for this right. Accountability will lead to better realization of the right to sanitation for the informal settlement population in South Africa

The e-Municipality in South Africa as a Panacea for Adopting and Implementing Sustainable Online Services: A Case of the City of Tshwane: E-Municipality

Since municipalist praxis has proliferated, so too have the use of e-Municipality with multiple political motives and municipalist monikers springing up across public administration. All this typological creativity in digital governance suggests a new and pre-paradigmatic way of empirical inquiry aimed at improving service delivery and enhancing good governance through means of Information and Communication Technology (ICT). However, there seem to an ongoing problematic issue signifying a misconception jostling for academic attention in providing an understanding of e-Municipality within the context of political settings particularly in South African municipalities. This is necessary in clarifying the confusion and obscuring of what’s at stake in relation to service delivery within municipalities. This study used the adoption and implementation model for e-Municipality and Public Value theory to position e-Municipality services. Methodologically, the study adopted the qualitative research approach with the aid of secondary data gathered from scholarly journal articles, books, trusted websites, municipal database, government legislations and peer-reviewed articles. With the City of Tshwane adopted as a case study, the researcher analysed data using the online content analysis techniques to present e-Municipality results. The findings reveals that, the e-Tshwane system’s failure to automatically update or reflect changes made by customers in relation to home addresses and payments made to municipal account often result into a large number of disgruntled customers. To address this issue, this study recommends that the City of Tshwane must find alternative online mechanism to identity system faults to reduce the number of disgruntled customers. This study offers policy-makers in government some insights in relation to the adoption and implementation of sustainable online services by addressing issues aimed at improving online mechanisms to eliminate physical contact at municipal offices in order to access services. &nbsp