Local Government, Local Governance and Sustainable Development

Getting the parameters right

Based on case studies from a number of South African municipalities, this groundbreaking publication examines cost recovery and its implications for service delivery in South Africa. This study looks at how cost recovery affects access to services, affordability and privatisation. Alternatives to cost recovery are also explored.

The use, management and regulation of urban space comes under the spotlight in this occasional paper that highlights a new kind of global urban form, 'postmodern urbanism'. The author uses two aspirant world-class cities, Johannesburg and So Paulo, to describe the spatial fragmentation of the urban landscape.

This book appraises the transformation of infrastructure policy in South Africa since 1994. This volume looks at efforts to establish equitable infrastructure and service delivery in the sectors of water, health, land, electricity, housing and transport. It concludes that transformation has been uneven and has had a differential impact on different groups.

While the informal sector is the ‘forgotten’ sector in many ways, it provides livelihoods, employment and income for about 2.5 million workers and business owners. One in every six South Africans who work, work in the informal sector. Almost half of these work in firms with employees; these firms provide about 850 000 paid jobs – almost twice direct employment in the mining sector. The annual entry of new enterprises is quite high, as is the number of enterprises that grow their employment. There is no shortage of business initiative and desire to grow.