A monitoring and evaluation system utilisation model for support to South African municipalities

Abstract

The Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996 (Section 154), stipulates that national and provincial government must support and strengthen the capacity of municipalities to operationalise their constitutional mandate. The primary mandate of the provincial Departments of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA) and the national Department of Cooperative Governance (DCoG) is to promote sustainable development by providing support to local government. Such support should strengthen the financial, human, technical and administrative capacity of municipalities and enable them to achieve their developmental objectives. To facilitate such support, a Government-wide Monitoring & Evaluation System (GWM&ES) was established. This article reports the results of empirical research conducted in a sample of 36 local municipalities to determine the extent to which COGTA and DCoG utilise the Monitoring & Evaluation (M&E) system in support of municipalities. Based on these results, a model is proposed for the improvement of M&E system utilisation by COGTA and DCoG, helping them to fulfilI their support mandate more efficiently.