A telephone survey of municipalities throughout South Africa undertaken in May 2010 by the South African Local Government Association (SALGA)
produced a baseline of the status quo with regard to local government responses to gender equality and women’s empowerment across six key
municipal indicators: capacity, policy, strategies or plans, integrated development plans (IDPs), service delivery and budget implementation plans
(SDBIPs) and performance management (PM). The article poses three key questions relating to the findings:
• Against the backdrop of developmental local government, what is the
mandate of local government as far as gender equality and women’s
empowerment are concerned?
• Taking into account the survey results, what does a rights-based approach
to local government mean?
• If local government does not, at present, adequately address the gender
equality concerns of women as a group, what do we need to do differently
to see different results?