Dolly Ntseane and Kholisani Solo’s book Social Protection in Botswana: Socio-Economic and Legal Perspectives is a careful, well-regarded study of social protection in Botswana, anchored in its historical and socio-economic context. The book reviews existing international, regional and local legal instruments on social protection and their suitability for application in Botswana. This includes United Nations instruments that offer policy guidance that is supplementary to local instruments. The latter part of the book offers practical recommendations to improve Botswana’s social protection regime, and these will be of great use to policy-makers, administrators and those implementing social protection programmes.
This study investigates the successes and challenges of Ghana's District Performance Assessment Tool (DPAT) for local governments, and offers recommendations to inform future policy. A descriptive qualitative research design was employed, and 24 staff were purposively sampled. The study found that DPAT has enabled local governments to improve their performance, and acts as a check to ensure that they follow good governance principles and comply with legal regulatory frameworks. The challenges of DPAT include the practicability of indicators, lack of an equitable system of assessment, inadequate understanding of indicators, composition of the national-level steering committee, human resource challenges, and inadequacy and delay in the release of funds. Furthermore, it was found that stakeholder engagement, equity in the assessment ofperformance, strict compliance with relevant laws, regular monitoring by regional consultative committees, and prompt disbursement of required funds are key factors that can help make DPAT more effective.
This policy and practice note analyses the provision and implementation of municipal health services since decentralisation in South Africa, through a case study of Pixley Ka Seme District Municipality in Northern Cape Province. The purpose of the study was to determine whether municipalities are able to render the services they are tasked with since decentralisation was implemented. The findings are broadly positive, although concerns remain about the adequacy of both funding and enforcement powers to discharge the municipality’s environmental health mandate. The paper concludes that all spheres of government should collaborate – and also engage with other stakeholders such as the private sector, community-based organisations, community members and political leadership – to ensure that the function is implemented in line with national regulations.
This study looks at recent city council debates over introducing Indigenous seats in Canadian and New Zealand municipalities, asking whether debate is respectful and focused on relevant issues, and agreements are decisive and consequential. Despite very different national contexts and local government systems, overall we find similar arguments across the two countries. And while deliberation is generally civil and principled among councils as a whole, individual councillors who voted against Indigenous representation tended to argue in ways that are potentially polarising. We relate our observations to wider arguments about the exclusion of urban Indigenous peoples from local policymaking and the importance of making rational inputs available for citizens' judgement and decision.
This study examines local government staff perceptions of whether accountants within the KassenaNankana Municipal Assembly, Ghana behave ethically. Within Ghana's decentralised governance system, accountants play a central role in safeguarding public resources, yet little is known about how ethical they are perceived to be by colleagues. Using a qualitative case study design, data was collected through semi-structured interviews with staff from eight departments. Thematic analysis, guided by Rest's four-component model of ethical decision-making, revealed gaps in ethical awareness, inconsistent training, and organisational pressures that undermine ethical conduct. While staff expressed strong intent to act ethically, weak institutional support, political interference and limited enforcement of policies often prevented ethical judgement from translating into action. The study findings underscore the need for continuous, context-specific ethics training and stronger institutional safeguards. The study contributes to the literature by extending Rest's model to show how organisational culture mediates the translation of ethical intent into practice.
