South Africa Archives – Decentralization Net

An inflection point in South Africa’s local government reform?

March 3, 2026 LPS Alliance

South Africa’s system of local government is at a critical juncture. Nearly three decades after the advent of democratic local governance, the country has built a comprehensive municipal system and expanded access to basic services. […]

Reimagining democracy from the ground up

February 17, 2026 Limabenla Jamir

In their newly-published open access volume, Citizen Participation in Local Governance: An Urban–Rural Perspective (Springer, 2026), Karl Kössler and Eva Schläppi bring together insights from 18 partner institutions across six continents to examine one of […]

How intergovernmental fiscal transfers shape local democracy

January 19, 2026 LPS Alliance

Intergovernmental fiscal transfers are among the most powerful, and least visible, instruments in multilevel governance systems. They shape how resources flow across levels of government, determine the fiscal space available to local authorities, and influence […]

Western Cape Province publishes a comprehensive municipal budget performance review

February 28, 2025 LPS Alliance

Municipalities in South Africa–like those around the world–have faced challenges and opportunities in achieving financial sustainability, efficient service delivery, and responsive governance in recent years. As part of its efforts to ensure an efficient and […]

How does intergovernmental coordination strengthen local governance?

December 4, 2024 Marina Jandrevska

The crux of decentralization is that a multilevel public sector can produce better (more responsive and efficient) outcomes compared to a centralized public sector. An underlying–often unstated– assumption is that intergovernmental coordination mechanisms are in […]

An Initial Assessment of the State of Local Governance Institutions in Sub-Saharan Africa

March 17, 2024 LPS Alliance

Many countries in Africa and around the world have established regional and local governance institutions based on the notion that government powers are best exercised at the lowest level of the public sector as efficiently […]

The Forum of Federations Handbook of Fiscal Federalism

August 20, 2023 Marina Jandrevska

Fiscal federalism is a critical area of study as it underpins almost all other facets of subnational governance. The overriding issue in fiscal federalism is referred to as the assignment problem, that is, the assignment […]

Climate Governance and Federalism

May 28, 2023 LPS Alliance

Climate change poses one of the greatest challenges of our time, demanding urgent action and global cooperation. As nations grapple with the complexities of climate governance, the role of federal systems becomes a topic of […]

Local Government and the Changing Urban-Rural Interplay

March 29, 2023 LPS Alliance

What is the impact of increasing population movements from the countryside to cities and towns on the provision of local public services? How can urban and rural local governments cope? How do they finance these […]

South Africa’s Architecture of Government

June 19, 2022 LPS Alliance

South Africa’s current intergovernmental architecture was an important element of the country’s successful post-apartheid transition. A broadly unitary state, South Africa nonetheless adopted some of the framework and language of a federal system. The Constitution […]