On 25 September 2015, the member states of the United Nations agreed on the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that will be the cornerstone of the Post-2015 Development Agenda[1]. The SDGs are acknowledged as a great achievement that amalgamates the sustainability agenda with the development agenda.[2] The South African government has unreservedly endorsed the SDGs, noting that the triple challenge of poverty, unemployment and inequality that they address is also the primary focus of the country. As such, the SDGs are conceptually aligned to South Africa's National Development Plan.
More than twenty years into democracy acts of violence against women have not visibly decreased in South Africa. This publication unpacks the many inter-related factors that continuously contribute to high levels of violence against women and hopes to contribute to more strategic and collaborative action.
Read this step by step guide to understanding and analyzing a local government budget with a focus on a specific service delivery issue. The guide was a collaborative effort with the International Budget Partnership-South Africa and the Accounting for Basic Services project.
This report presents an update on the current state of energy poverty in South African cities. It explores the energy poverty-gender nexus in the urban environment, an aspect that is largely overlooked.
This booklet briefly examines alternative energy technologies and associated energy sources available in the market that are cleaner, appropriate, applicable and sustainable relative to those that are currently available and used by informal households for their domestic energy requirements.
This guide looks at citizen engagement with local government regarding service provision, what those services are and what role ordinary citizens can play in greening their cities.
Informed by the discussions at an international conference jointly organised by the German Development Institute, the Heinrich Böll Foundation and Stanford University on “Emerging Power or Fading Star? South Africa’s Role on the Continent and Beyond”, held 12–14 July 2016 in Cape Town, the articles gathered in this edition of Perspectives shed light on some of the nuances and challenges that define South Africa’s place in the world today.
This paper discusses the ways in which community protocols can be an effective tool for communities to respond to extractive industry projects in their area. It provides an overview of what has taken place over the last three years in four pilot community protocol processes and captures lessons that can be applied to future processes.
Activists, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and social movements across the world are facing verbal hostility from politicians, new laws and regulations that curtail their ability to operate, and outright violence. Africa is no exception.
