Improving service delivery is a critical element for South Africa's development. For example, according to the latest census, around 15% of the households still lack access to standard water supply. This service delivery gap is particularly pronounced in informal settlements, where a considerable and increasing amount of South African citizens live. The structural weakness has become even more imminent with the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. While the country has a well-developed PFM system and budgetary processes, the transmission into efficient and effective service delivery remains a challenge.

To improve basic public services delivery to the residents of informal settlements in South Africa through changes to the PFM system and its underlying processes. It does so by raising awareness of the existing service delivery problems through citizen montioring, providing diagnostic work to identify the underlying causes to these problems and by supporting capacity building of civil society, both in terms of budget literacy as well as engaging with government to initiate reforms.

Increased budget allocation to basic services in informal settlements by local governments.

Increased funding to metros and secondary cities by national governments intended to improve basic service delivery to informal settlements.

Improved budgetary and procurement processes that enhance basic service delivery in informal settlements.

Improved national regulations that govern metro and secondary city spending on basic service delivery to informal settlement.

Risultati principali attesi:  

Metro and secondary city local governments engaged to discuss budgets and services for informal settlements.

National and provincial government departments engaged to discuss metro budgets and services for informal settlements.

Data about the state of metros’ and secondary cities’ informal settlement service delivery published.

Diagnostic work of difficulties in metros’ and secondary cities’ budget implementation and service delivery published.

Risultati fasi precedenti:  

The initiative was officially launched in March 2020 in response to the Covid-19 pandemic with support from the EU. Since then, the initiative has contributed to improvements in water delivery in 11 informal settlements, sanitation improvements in 16 and refuse removal in 8. It is crucial to ensure that these gains will not be lost with the slow down of the pandemic, but to achieve sustainable improvements by changing the underlying system. To achieve a lasting impact, the International Budget Partnership South Africa (project partner) aims at consolidating and expanding its network of civil society organizations and informal settlements, enhancing the engagement with all spheres of government and further strengthening its diagnostic work on the weaknesses in PFM systems.

Fase 1 01.01.2021 - 31.12.2023   (Active)