Whilst many developing countries engage in sound policy processes on macro level as far as economic and social development are concerned, the day-to-day victual needs of impoverished communities also depend on sound policies as well as appropriate arrangements, which take effect in the municipal sphere. Such needs, as food security, is dependant on the establishment of effective partnership agreements among all stakeholders, including local councils, district councils as well as metropolitan councils; the actual entities that are responsible to create the enabling environment in which food security could be enhanced. In this article, issues relating to food security, partnership models, the enabling environment, and community involvement in this partnership process, are discussed briefly. Public administration practitioners should ensure they contributively involve themselves in this debate. The article concludes by emphasising the need for a proper and structured approach to be followed, of a food security policy is due to be operationalised in practice.

Diss. (sammanfattning) Linköping : Univ., 2002. / Härtill 7 uppsatser.

More and more people choose to move from the countryside into the cities, which can eventually have a negative impact on rural municipalities. Rural municipalities with a negative populationgrowth may ultimatley be difficult to handle and offer health, education, social services and service. How will swedish rural municipalities reach a population growth? The purpose of the studie is to studie population developement in Osby and Åsele municipality, and how each municipality work with strategies to achieve and increase in population growth. A comparison between the two municipalities will then be made on the basis of natural population growth, internal migration and the role of immigration. In order to awnser the purpose, semi-structured interviews were conducted with both officals and politicians from each municipality. This is to gain a deeper understanding of how municipal different conditions and how they work with theses issues. The result showed that local conditions to attract a new population is different, but there are strategies of both municipalities to reach a population growth. Municipalities use of their advantages on the conditions that are to be able to market themselves and attract a new population.

A dissertation submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters in Development Studies in the Department of Anthropology and Development Studies, Faculty of Arts at the University of Zululand, 2017. / The aim of this study was to examine partnerships between the local municipality, host communities and the selected multinational companies in community development activities. Numerous studies have been conducted in pursuit of the role of multinational corporations (MNCs) in developing countries. Whilst it has been understood that MNCs are essential for the development of less economically developed countries (LEDCs), other studies have discovered that LEDCs face the challenge of limited benefits from MNCs which does not necessarily address the root causes of underdevelopment. As a result, exploring factors that inform corporate social responsibility (CSR) of the selected MNCs in the City of uMhlathuze was the point of departure in this study. In this regard, the study sort to find out if there were any partnerships between MNCs and the local Municipality during the execution of CSR activities, and whether were there laws or documentations that guide and support partnerships amongst the MNCs, host communities and the local municipality. The study followed a qualitative research approach and thereby used qualitative data collection tools to help achieve its objectives. It was found that the type of partnerships that exist between MNCs and the municipality are erratic and not formal. This is entirely caused by the absence of governmental binding laws and documentations between MNCs and municipalities in the city of uMhlathuze, South Africa, and LEDCs in general. Given that the local municipality is the custodian of the communities, particularly in the area of community development, the study concluded that community development partnerships between MNCs and the local municipality are essential. The completion of this study has helped realise that partnership are essential and that they can help achieve community development goals and address the root causes of poor livelihoods for the City of uMhlathuze and communities in the developing countries, if they could be properly managed.

M.P.H., Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, 2008. / Disasters are events that cause death, injury or disease, damage to property, damage to the environment and disrupt the life of the community. The majority of South Africa’s population lives in fragile and vulnerable conditions due to high levels of poverty, low standards of living and lack of access to resources. The risk of further disaster occurrences is increased by population growth outstripping available residential, agricultural, commercial and industrial development leading to occupation of “at risk” areas such as flood plains. Furthermore South Africa’s extensive coastline and proximity to shipping routes present various meteorological and marine threats. The Disaster Management Act, 2002 (No. 57 of 2002) was promulgated in January 2003 and seeks to focus on disaster risk reduction and prevention. Among other things, the Act requires every sphere of government to develop disaster management plans. It is not clear how much progress has been made by local government in Gauteng province in this regard. A cross-sectional descriptive survey was conducted to evaluate the disaster management function of municipalities in Gauteng province as at February 2008. The study aim was broken down into three study objectives; a) to determine the availability of disaster management plans; b) to determine the degree of compliance of each disaster management plan to the standard required by the Act and c) to determine the disaster management capacity of each municipality. A questionnaire was forwarded at least two weeks before Key informant interviews with designated disaster managers were conducted. Following each interview a physical site inspection of each Disaster Management Centre was carried out and assessed against a uniform check list. All six metropolitan and district municipalities were evaluated with no abstention. The key findings of the study were that; • 66.7% (four out of six municipalities) had approved disaster management plans. The remaining two had draft plans. All the plans were level 1 disaster management plans. • In terms of compliance of the disaster management plans, the municipalities scored between 65.6% - 84.4% with an overall average score for Gauteng province at 75%. • In terms of capacity to carry out their disaster management function; the municipalities ranged from 35.5% - 78% with the overall average for Gauteng province at 65.6%. Significantly Metsweding district municipality was the only municipality in Gauteng province without a Disaster Management Centre. The study made the following recommendations; • The National Disaster Management Centre and subsequently the Provincial Disaster Management Centre need to develop a Remedial plan of action with new time frames for the development of level 3 disaster management plans that are realistic. The Remedial plan of action should prioritize which objectives and Key Performance Indicators in the Disaster Risk Management Framework are deliverable in the immediate term, the medium term and over the long term. • The establishment of a Disaster Management Centre for Metsweding district municipality. This will require that the municipality engages with the Provincial and National Disaster management Centres about the allocation of a conditional grant to fund start up costs as provided for in the Disaster Risk Management Framework (Enabler 3 – funding arrangements). • The National and Provincial Disaster Management Centres need to provide guidelines on the standards/norms for the staffing requirements of a Disaster Management Centre as well as the physical infrastructure requirements of a Municipal Disaster Management Centre.

The thesis deals with property taxes in the context of the competences of the municipalities which has possibility to increase income from the property taxes. The first chapter deals with income structure of the municipalities with a detailed focus on income tax. The second chapter is focused on property tax legislation and on property taxes income which flow into the budgets of municipalities. The third chapter is focused on particular municipalities and their competences to increase property taxes. Competences mean using of a local rate correction coefficient and the coefficient of 1.5 for taxation of buildings. The local property tax rate has the greatest influence on the overall incomes. Impact on the overall budget of the municipalities depends on the character of the municipality.

Published Article / Municipalities in South Africa are under pressure as a result of poor financial control and lack of accountability, leading to extensive corruption and financial mismanagement with detrimental consequences for effective and efficient service delivery. Financial control is of the utmost importance when it comes to determining the success or failure of local government in South Africa. Currently, several challenges exist that hamper effective and efficient financial management at municipalities. These challenges include, amongst others, a lack of expertise, an inability to collect arrear debt, extensive corruption, exorbitant salaries and bonuses, and so forth. These challenges also contribute towards ineffective and inefficient municipal service delivery. If municipalities want to overcome these challenges, it is essential for those involved to address matters in a sincere, honest and ethical manner. In this article the author investigates the challenges facing local government and proposes ways of overcoming the challenges by means of the enforcement of strict financial control measures for public accountability. This in effect serves as a guarantee for sound municipal financial management in South Africa.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of financial management, governance and service delivery levels on the effectiveness of municipalities in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) for the financial Year, July 2008 to June 2009. The study is descriptive in nature, using a quantitative technique of surveys via questionnaires to collect data from chief financial officers (CFOs) from low and medium capacity municipalities in KZN. Regarding the level of financial management, corporate governance and service delivery and the impact on effectiveness of municipalities, the results indicate there are areas of low and high levels of financial management, corporate governance and service delivery in the municipalities. There are some areas in which the municipalities are effective and other areas that need attention. This implies that there is not a 100% state of efficiency with respect to policies and procedures. The difficulty in carrying out research of this scope to investigate the impact of financial management, governance and service delivery levels on the effectiveness of municipalities is that it cannot be measured with absolute certainty. In addition, municipalities may be influenced by political powers and this is also difficult, perhaps impossible, to measure. The study is an important contribution to developing what should be done by municipalities in KZN to be effective i.e. in developing a framework for success in terms of financial management, governance and service delivery. / Graduate School of Business Leadership / (M.B.A.)

The concept of ecosystem services often is defined as a way where we as humans protect and preserve available ecosystems and at the same time can make use of these ecosystems for our own well-being. According to the UN report Millennium Ecosystem Assessment from 2005 the services can be classified into four categories: provisioning, regulating, cultural or supporting. This study is focusing on how Swedish municipalities are managing all of these services. The main aim was to examine if there is a difference among municipalities in general and between municipalities with a high and a low range of population density in particular. The reason for these potential differences was also discussed by interviews with representatives for a number of selected municipalities, complemented by studies of literature, this study showed that there are differences between Sweden’s more populated and less populated municipalities. Typically, the main difference was found in the area of the knowledge and the use of the concept in daily planning. Some municipalities seems to be almost unaware of that they partly already are planning for the maintenance of these services. In conclusion, there is still more work to do fully make use of the ecosystem service concept in planning to create a more resilient society, not least for the municipalities on the country side!

The insufficient amout of research regarding social media use in municipalities was in part why this study was conducted. This study examined how Swedish municipalities interact with its followers through Facebook’s different post types to create engagement. Grunigs excellence theory stood as the base for the theoretical framework. The method used was a quantitative content analysis. Data was collected from 30 different municipalities’ Facebook pages. The study found that municipalities use Facebook to engage their citizens in some ways more than others and that municipalities, in some regards, do not use Facebook to its full potential. To reach the various ways of engagement, municipalities need to be aware of how to achieve that. Such as what format best suits the engagement that the municipalities wish to achieve. Posting a larger variation of formats should be implemented in order to take advantage of all the benefits that the different formats provide.