South African Local Government Association

Overview

The South African Local Government Association (SALGA) is the constitutionally mandated organisation responsible for local government oversight. SALGA performs two key strategic roles within the system of government: as protector, robustly enforcing the rights of the local government sector; and constructively disrupting areas of existing systems that make it impossible for local government to deliver on its mandate.

The 2017-2022 strategy is premised on the fact that local government is the closest sector to the people and needs to be empowered, resourced and capacitated to assume its critical role in delivering quality services. SALGA aims to ensure that local government realises/achieves spatial justice and social cohesion through integrated management of space, economies and people. This would be achieved through the three strategic outcomes that have been identified as follows: sustainable, inclusive economic growth underpinned by spatial transformation; good governance and resilient municipal institutions; and financial sustainability of local government and greater fiscal equity.

For SALGA to realise the impact on the three identified outcomes, enabling priorities were identified as follows: ICT – ensuring local government is benefitting from technological developments to provide better and more efficient services; data intelligence – providing indicators and data to enable empirical-based planning, governance and overall decision-making; innovation – exploring new and better ways of delivering services; research and knowledge management – by examining the best practices from around the world, local government can draw on global expertise to inform its own practices; IGR advocacy and structured engagement – ensuring that local government is fully represented at various levels, including the National Council of Provinces, various parliamentary committees, and intergovernmental relations; strategic partnerships – identifying organisations and programmes that will assist SALGA and local government to achieve shared developmental goals; and strategic profiling – serving as a platform for conversations about local government and educational initiatives.