South Africa: Citizens’ voice acted on in regulation of services

The “Raising the Citizens’ Voice in the Regulation of Services” is a public education initiative by the National Regulator in South Africa. It supports a bottom-up approach to water services regulation by actively involving citizens in the local monitoring of water and sanitation services. It aims to empower citizens through:

• Training them about their rights
• Setting up Users Platforms that serves as, as monthly meetings between the municipality and the community for solving problems reported by civil society.

The first ‘Citizen’s Voice’ pilot project began in Cape Town in 2006 covering four townships demonstrated its value through reduced water losses, increased payment levels. It was so successful that it scaled-up in Cape Town and spread to other municipalities.

Government and civil society working together

Four spheres of government and civil society are working together in the Citizens’ Voice initiative:
1. The national Department of Water Affairs and Energy provides 1 million Rand (Eur 110,000) per pilot.
2. Each Provincial Department of Local Government seconded 10 Community Development Workers to help train communities in water and sanitation issues, setting up executive committees and user platforms.
3. The municipal water department doing the implementation, the training of trainers with ten modules of CDWs.
4. Civil society organization in an advisory role, or as partner in implementation.

Success in Cape Town

The first ‘Citizen’s Voice’ pilot project began in Cape Town in 2006 covering four townships. It demonstrated its value through reduced water losses, increased payment levels. Citizens played a more effective oversight role in water provision. The City of Cape Town found the pilot so successful that it took over the funding from DWAF to continue the user platforms in the four pilot areas. From 2007 it scaled up the programme to new low-income areas. Water Services hired 22 community facilitators to assist the user platforms to track their service delivery problems.

As Citizens’ Voice becomes more widely known in Cape Town it is becoming more demand-driven. For example, some ward councilors have begun to request that their constituencies become part when the programme expands to other areas.On the basis of this success the National Regulator decided to support pilots in other municipalities in South Africa. In 2008 DWAF funded a pilot project in the Ekurhuleni metropolitan municipality, in Gauteng province and the Msunduzi local municipality, in KwaZulu-Natal. A team from Ekurhuleni went on a lesson learning visit to Cap Town to see for themselves how the user platforms work in practice. The eThekwini metropolitan municipality (KwaZulu_Natal) has also taken great interest in this initiative, and has self-funded it. It framed its own version in partnership with the Durban office of The Mvula Trust. Dr. Laila Smith, Mvula Trust, Head of Policy Unit developed the “Citizens’voice” methodology and has helped guide implementation in the municipalities.

Key lessons

Key lessons include:

• Securing political support at the outset of the introduction of a pilot project
• Keep momentum going
• Ensure citizen ownership of users platforms

In both Cape Town (since 2006) and Ekurhuleni (since 2008) the pilots started before officials had sought Council resolutions to endorse the pilots and/or consider funding the programme in the longer term. The delays in getting Council resolutions for the two initiatives made it difficult to get political support at the community level to conduct the pilots in such a way that they could be sustained over time.

Challenges

The challenges are political in nature.

• The user platforms can be very easily be used to become public relations vehicle for relaying Council decisions on water and health.
• Cape Town Water Services uses the platforms for promoting devices that restrict water flows in the household, which is controversial among users and CSO in the area. This threatens to undermine the reputation of Citizens’ Voice among the general public.
• There are tensions between elected councilors and community development workers. CDWs who take on a public profile by training communities are at times seen as commute leaders, which conflicts with the roles of the councilors.
• Community facilitators who represent the municipality have sometimes dominated user platforms which are meant to be community-driven.

Based on: WIN-SA (2009). Public Accountability through Citizen’s Voice: City of Cape Town shares good practice, Lessons Series 20, WIN- SA, Pretoria, South Africa and a discussion with Dr. Lailia Smith in Lesotho.

Dick de Jong