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The Municipal Barometer as a Tool for Human Rights Realisation at Local Government

29 May 2018
12:30 - 14:00

Presenter: Mr Parks Tau – SALGA/UCLG President

Discussant: Professor Narnia Bohler-Muller, Executive Director, DGSD, HSRC

Date: 29 May 2018   

Time: 12:30 – 14:00 

Venues: Pretoria, Durban and Cape Town

In 1994 the world witnessed South Africa transition into a democratic state and subsequent promulgation of the South African Constitution in 1996 as the supreme law of the land. The Constitution guarantees all SA citizens human rights as enshrined in the Bill of Rights.

Section 7(2) of the Constitution express that LG must respect, protect, promote and fulfil human rights such as the right to water, a clean and healthy environment, and housing amongst others. The Human Rights Act places a legal duty on those in LG to ensure that human rights are considered when developing policies, making laws, delivering services and making decisions. It is then imperative that realisation of human rights is measured over time. Drivers for the measurement of human rights include: (1) the need to address the imbalances inherited during the apartheid era; (2) the need to properly evaluate the effectiveness of different government programs and policies in addressing these imbalances; (3) the need to track general life circumstances for the population of South Africa (4) as well as spatial transformation.
 
In order to monitor and measure LG performance SALGA established the Municipal Barometer web-portal which tracks a pre-determined list of indicators. The indicators are grouped into 9 broad areas aligned with the constitutional mandate of local government and the NDP amongst others. The Municipal Barometer ensures that local governance and development data is readily available and easily accessible for improved municipal governance and performance. It can be accessed from www.municipalbarometer.co.za

Pretoria: HSRC Video Conference, 1st floor HSRC Library Human Sciences Research Council, 134 Pretorius Street, Pretoria. Contact : Arlene Grossberg, Tel: (012) 302 2811, e-mail: acgrossberg@hsrc.ac.za

Cape Town:
HSRC, Merchant House 116-118 Buitengracht Street, Cape Town. Contact : Carmen Erasmus, Tel: (021) 466 7827, e-mail: CErasmus@hsrc.ac.za

Durban:
The Atrium, 5th Floor, 430 Peter Mokaba Ridge, Berea, 4001. Contact Ridhwaan Khan, Tel: (031) 242 5400, cell: 083 788 2786, e-mail: RKhan@hsrc.ac.za

The HSRC seminar series is funded by the Department of Science and Technology (DST). The views and opinions expressed therein as well as findings and statements of the seminar series do not necessarily represent the views of the DST

Kindly note that seminars can now be accessed via the Vidyo link:
https://hsrc-vc.tenet.ac.za/flex.html?roomdirect.html&key=GGKGXLnInSbnn5Mspk7JfF1qu8