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22 February 2008

Chairperson,
Councillor Aileen Colleran
The Rt Honourable Douglas Alexander
Secretary of State for International Development
The South African High Commissioner, Her Excellency Ms Lindiwe Mabuza
Distinguished Guests
Ladies and gentlemen

My last interaction with Local Authority Action for Southern Africa (LAACTSA) was on the occasion of your 2004 conference which took place here at South Africa House. The conference was dedicated to the task of taking stock of achievements made by the government and the people of South Africa in the first decade of freedom, and to identify outstanding challenges.

Both the title and the theme of this, the 2008 a Biennial Conference: "Southern Africa after Colonialism and Apartheid-Unfinished Work"; "How Partnerships can be Built and How they can Help", serve the purpose of once more drawing our attention to the tasks that lie ahead. Equally importantly, both the title and the theme, remind us that, in times of need, when the people of our region sought to unshackle themselves from the yoke of colonialism and apartheid, you threw so much of your own resources into the crucible. For that, we are eternally grateful!

We are where we are today because, in great measure, members of LAACTSA and other people of goodwill throughout the world shared the trenches with us. We are indeed encouraged by your continuing commitment to help us live the vision, which was born on the terrain of those struggles.

Madam chairperson, although local authorities in Southern Africa have experiences that are varied and country-specific, there are trends and challenges which are common to all of them:

* they have to continue to tackle the legacy of underdevelopment and grinding poverty
* they must have a systematic program of decentralising key government functions to a transformed local government sphere and
* they must build local government into a major and more effective agent for sustainable economic development and delivery of services.

The services include social and economic infrastructure, health facilities, water and sanitation supply, co-ordinating urban planning and rural development, as well as reducing vulnerability to natural disasters.

Over the past decade, many governments within the Southern African Development Community (SADC) have made interventions to strengthen local government and to decentralise powers and functions to local government.
At your last conference in 2004, we drew attention to the fact that a Local Government Forum has been established, bringing together SADC ministers who are responsible for local government affairs.

The forum has two basic tasks:
* to ensure that national governments take greater responsibility for helping strengthen local government, and
* to serve as a knowledge-sharing platform.

Given the many post-conflict challenges in such countries as Mozambique, Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo, the importance of the work of this forum cannot be overemphasised. The brief of the forum goes to the heart of the macro-challenge of promoting good governance within the region. Once achieved, good governance will be an important antidote to conflicts and instability. Therefore, it will help create conditions for sustainable development.
A strong partnership with LAACTSA will go a long way towards buttressing the work of the SADC Local Government Forum. We urge conference to consider, as a first concrete step, establishing a team which can work with us to conduct and "Needs Assessment" which will form the basis for formulating a programme of co-operation between us.

The interaction can also be used to give LAACTSA, insights into relevant initiatives undertaken by individual countries. For instance, in October 2004 the South African government launched an initiative known as Project Consolidate. This intervention was directed at a selected group of municipalities. The initiative saw the deployment of experts to provide hands-on support in identified municipalities.

As a result of Project Consolidate, we have seen significant progress in, amongst others, the following areas:
Municipalities have shown an improvement in their ability to spend the funds allocated from the national fiscus. They are now better placed to discharge their responsibility of creating and building municipal infrastructure.
We have also witnessed significant progress with regard to the task of redressing service-delivery backlogs.

The recently published 2007 Community Survey of Statistics South Africa shows that:

* the percentage of households who have access to water has increased from 59% in 1994 to 86% in 2007
* the percentage of households with access to sanitation has increased from 48% in 1994 to 73% in 2007; and
* whereas in 1994, only 30% of households in South Africa had access to electricity, in 2007 this increased to 80% for lighting, 67% for cooking and 59% for heating.

Although municipal revenue collection remains a challenge in low capacity municipalities, the average collection rate in our six metropolitan municipalities has now risen to about 97%.

In order to consolidate this kind of progress and to sustain the momentum of improvement, other forms of co-operation will still need to be encouraged. These include:
* mobilisation of resources to support relevant nation-wide initiatives undertaken by SADC member states
* encouraging existing twinning arrangements between municipalities as well as helping to bring new ones into life.

Chairperson, ladies and gentlemen, as always, we await the outcome of your conference with keen interest. We stand ready to take our relationship to the next functional level.

Issued by: Department of Provincial and Local Government
22 February 2008
Source: Department of Provincial and Local Government (http://www.dplg.gov.za)