Update on GCRO's 'Beyond Crisis, Towards Renewal' local government campaign

In late June 2025, GCRO launched a campaign of planned activities and outputs to mark thirty years of democratic local government in South Africa. The first democratic local elections were held in November 1995 in seven provinces, and in the remaining two – KwaZulu Natal and the Western Cape – in May and June 1996. The campaign recognised that the early years of the democratic transition had seen significant transformation and innovation, but that the early gains from energetic structural reform and a new developmental mandate has gradually given way to malaise. As we head into the next local government elections in November it is now widely recognised that municipal governance is in crisis. We urgently need to move the system of local government beyond crisis and towards renewal.

Over the last year, GCRO has been engaged in a wide range of activities, and published a number of outputs under its Beyond Crisis, Towards Renewal: 30 years of democratic local government campaign. These are listed below. Over the next six months, in the run-up to the November polls and beyond as far-reaching structural reforms are introduced, we will be mounting a number of other events and releasing further outputs that we hope will deepen the understanding of the crisis, and help clarify the path towards renewal.

GCRO published outputs:

1. Götz, G. (2025). Municipal finances in crisis: Johannesburg and Cape Town in historical comparison. GCRO Interactive Visualisation. Gauteng City-Region Observatory, 11 December 2025. https://doi.org/10.36634/JRJC4484
2. Götz, G., Seedat, R., Arnold, S., Bell, J.F., Hamann, C., Hassen, E-K., Khanyile, S., Miles-Timotheus, S., Mkhize, T., Modiba, M., Mosiane, N., Mushongera, D., Naidoo, L., Naidoo, Y., Singh, S. (2025). The state of Johannesburg: Current context and conditions. GCRO Rapid Research Paper, Gauteng City-Region Observatory, December 2025. https://doi.org/10.36634/KUVI9326
3. Franklyn, C. (2025). Exploring possible interventions into dysfunctional local government in Gauteng. GCRO Provocation. June 2025. https://doi.org/10.36634/UELW9821
4. Tshuma, N., Simelane, X., Hamann, C., Miles-Timotheus, S. and Naidoo, Y. (2025). Municipal Benchmarking Report: Findings from the GCRO’s Quality of Life survey 7 (2023/24). GCRO Data Brief 27, June 2025. https://doi.org/10.36634/RFNO2431

Workshops, seminars and presentations:

1. GCRO's Research Director Graeme Gotz spoke as part of a panel at a symposium organised by the Wits School of Social Sciences Governing Gauteng: Practices, Principles, and Possibilities for Local Government on 12 August 2026. His input, 'Understanding the crisis in local government: between leadership, institutional and structural dimensions', is reviewed in a GCRO news item here.
2. As part of GCRO's contribution to a British Academy funded project on extended urbanisation in the former bantustans, GCRO's Research Director Graeme Gotz worked with Prof. Philip Harrison from the Wits School of Architecture and Planning to organise a national workshop on extended urbanisation trends and implications for local government. The workshop on 19 June 2026 was followed by a focused day-long 'thinking session' with the drafters of the new Local Government White Paper, to consider the implications of the dramatic population and residential property development growth in more detail.
4. GCRO facilitated two sessions as part of U20 Mayoral Summit: (1) ‘Building bridges, not walls: Promoting social inclusion in a divided world' – 12 September 2025 (facilitated by Rashid Seedat); (2) 'Global perspectives on enhancing urban living: The role of Quality-of-Life surveys in shaping sustainable cities' – 13 September 2025 (Speakers: Graeme Gotz and Shamsunisaa Miles-Timotheus).
5. GCRO arranged for one of the drafters of the new White Paper on Local Government, former Johannesburg City Manager Pascal Moloi to speak on ‘A Review of the White Paper on Local Government 2026 Discussion Document', in the Faces of the City Seminar Series, 5 August 2025
6. GCRO partnered with PARI, SWOP and Wits Concerned Academics in supporting a seminar series: A multidisciplinary approach to the study of Urban Crisis: a focus on the City of Johannesburg. Various seminars were run under this banner
7. On 24 June 2025, GCRO convened a strategic roundtable on the Local Government White Paper Review discussion document. See the GCRO news item here
8. On request, GCRO researchers Thembani Mkhize and Shannon Arnold presented GCRO's ideas for a submission in response to the 'White Paper on Local Government Discussion Document 2026', to the ANC Gauteng Caucus, 21 June 2025.
9. Graeme Gotz, Rashid Seedat and Shannon Arnold presented 'Crisis in the City of Johannesburg: Structural and governance dimensions', to the Faces of the City Seminar Series, 20 May 2025.

Opinion pieces:

1. Thembani Mkhize, Rashid Seedat, and Shannon Whitaker (2026). 'From Homeless to Paradise Road — mapping the future of Gauteng’s local governance', Daily Maverick, 11 May 2026. Read here.
2. Philip Harrison, Graeme Gotz, Rashid Seedat, Lorena Nunez Carrasco (2025). 'Johannesburg’s problems can be solved – but it’s a long journey to fix South Africa’s economic powerhouse'. The Conversation Africa, 9 June 2025. Read here.

Direct policy contributions:

1. GCRO also prepared two sections of a national report that covered the history of choices around rural local government, and the implications for local government of the current extended urbanisation trends.
2. Synthesis of research into a draft chapter on Spatial Transformation, economic development and climate resilience for the new White Paper on Local Government, and participation in various consultation forums in the white paper process
3. GCRO made a written submission to national COGTA for the Local Government White Paper Review process
4. Core participation in the Presidential Johannesburg Working Group intervention, both on the Strategic Co-ordination Hub and in various workstreams

Academic articles published or submitted for publication:

1. Tladi, M., Joseph, K., Mkhize, T., & Ebrahim, Z. (2026). Understanding electoral shifts in the Gauteng City-Region: Insights on trust, governance and coalition politics. Development Southern Africa, 1-16. https://doi.org/10.1080/0376835X.2026.2678515
2. Tsoriyo, W. (2026). Invited but not included: Socio-demographic patterns and barriers to participation in Gauteng’s invited governance spaces. Development Southern Africa, Online first, 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1080/0376835X.2026.2651756
3. Whitaker, S.L., Mkhize, T. Seedat, R. Local government crisis in South Africa: Insights from Gauteng municipalities. Development Southern Africa (U20 special issue). (Submitted December 2025)