1. Introduction
2. International and National Obligations

1. Defining, understanding and reaching "the community"
2. Public Participation
3. Integrated Development planning
4. Performance Management
5. Human Resources
6. Service Delivery

1. Key Areas Of Concern

1. Defining, understanding and reaching "the community"
2. Public Participation
3. Integrated Development planning
4. Performance Management
5. Human Resources
6. Service Delivery

4. List of Recommendations

5. Reference Table of Recommendations

1. Introduction

The Commission on Gender Equality (CGE) is an independent, statutory body established in terms of Section 187 of the Constitution of South Africa, Act 108 of 1996.

The role of the CGE is to promote respect for gender equality and the protection, development and attainment of gender equality. The powers and functions of the CGE are detailed in the Commission on Gender Equality ACT 39 of 1996. In terms of Section 11(1), the CGE must inter-alia evaluate any law proposed by Parliament, affecting or likely to affect gender equality or the status of women, and make recommendations to Parliament with regards thereto.

The Commission welcomes this opportunity to engage with the Committee and to make this submission. We find it crucial that the Committee engage its self on the gendered implications of the Bill and submit the following for your attention.

The Municipal Systems Bill is a detailed, innovative, and ambitious approach to restructuring and regulating local government’s internal operations, according to principles laid out in the Local Government White Paper (LGWP), and in keeping with other already existing, and future, local government legislation. The Minister and Department for Provincial and Local Government should be congratulated on a holistic and forward thinking piece of legislation.

In hopes of adding further positive content to the Bill for the advancement of gender sensitive local government, this submission will first outline the international and national obligations towards gender equality for which the Bill must accountand then sketch key concerns around gender equality found in the Bill. A list of recommendations will then follow, completed by a reference table of recommendations, with appropriate sectional reference to the Bill.

• The Beijing Platform for Action (BPFA) contains numerous calls for re-evaluation of all policies using gender analysis, including gender-disaggregated data, in particular to improve rural and poor women’s access to social resources and public services.
• CEDAW mandates anti-discriminatory practices so as to ensure women and men equal access to social goods.
• The International Covenant on Economic, Cultural and Social Rights entitles citizens to access second-generation rights (such as water, housing, etc).

• The LGWP clearly indicates that "municipalities need to be aware of the divisions within local communities, and seek to promote the participation of marginalised and excluded groups in community processes" including examples of women.
• The RDP clearly states that in terms of water access, a progressive block tariff (where higher rates of consumption are taxed at a higher rate) was mandated in urban areas as well as cross-subsidisation from urban to rural areas to ensure rural affordability.
• The Department of Public Work’s (DPW) White Paper has noted that socio-economic and physical attributes of particular areas should always be considered when determining state expenditure priorities.

2. Public Participation

• The BPFA calls for organisational transformation that is aligned to gender sensitive principles. It also established that 30% women could be considered a "critical mass" for equal gender representation in decision-making structures.
• The Copenhagen Declaration and Programme of Action states "the eradication of poverty requires policies based upon "people-centred sustainable development," for which the participation of women is integral. It also promotes changes in attitude and structures to eliminate all obstacles to women’s meaningful participation.
• Habitat II supports gender sensitive institutional and legal frameworks and capacity building at both national and local levels that are conducive to "civic engagement" and broad-based participation.
• CEDAW requires governments to ensure "women and men’s equal access to participate in the formulation of government policy and the implementation thereof" (Article 7). Article 14 also mandates states parties to "take into account the particular problems faced by rural women."

• The LGWP mandates municipalities to "adopt inclusive approaches to fostering community participation, including strategies aimed at removing obstacles to, and actively encouraging, the participation of marginalised groups in the local community."
• The Department of Provincial and Local Government’s recent "Local Government for the 21^st Century" publication series notes "participation must be based on the understanding that not all groups and members of communities have the same opportunities to make their voices heard. People without access to resources (often women, the youth, people with disabilities and older people) have to work harder to be heard than other groups in communities…local government needs to work harder to include them" (Introduction).
• The Department of Water Affairs (DWAF) mandates in the Water Services Act (1996) that at least one third of all members of Water Services Committees be women.
• The Municipal Structures Act (1998), in its provision for the creation of ward committees (also comprising some members of the public), provides for "women to be equitably represented in a ward committee; and for diversity of interests in the ward to be represented."

2. Integrated Development Planning

• The SADC Gender Declaration also notes the need to promote women’s access to, and control over, productive resources such as land to assist in poverty reduction. These factors should play a role in overall economic and social planning processes such as the IDP.
• The Copenhagen Declaration and Programme of Action supports the establishment of policies, objectives and measurable goals to ensure gender balance and equity in decision-making processes.

• The LGWP notes that one of the key functions of IDPs is poverty alleviation – notably absent here It also notes the need for key performance indicators to match plans against reality noting that gender disaggregated indicators are necessary to ensure gender sensitive planning and delivery (3.2).
• The DPW White Paper insists on incorporating social and economic objectives into public investment plans. It urges government to include socio-economic factors in all cost-benefit analyses of project planning, such as job creation (including for women who are often left out of public works projects), the redistribution of income, and the development of SMMEs, an economic location disproportionately occupied by women residing in rural and marginalised urban areas

2. Performance Management

• The BPFA speaks most clearly about the need for KPIs to be gender disaggregated. Follow up to the Beijing conference has resulted in internationally agreed upon frameworks for gender equality indicators.

• The LGWP also recommends using gender-disaggregated data for development indices (3.2), making a precedent that the MSB fails to respect. The Women’s Budget initiatives that have taken hold in Central Statistics Service and Department of Finance are also precedents for government-led gender sensitive evaluation of delivery.

2. Human Resources

• The BPFA, the Copenhagen Declaration and Programme of Action and CEDAW demand equal pay for equal work, which the Bill does recognise. The BPFA also calls for active support of women’s access to vocational and technological education and training, and for training and education that utilises gender-sensitive curricula and materials.

• The LGWP mandates that municipalities "need to proactively ensure that the gender and racial composition of management reflects the composition of South African society" and "should develop affirmative action programmes in line with the National Labour Relations Forum framework."
• The DPSA Affirmative Action White Paper concur that affirmative action plans must be adopted in all government departments, including objectives, time-bound targets, accountability lines, financial resources, allocations, monitoring, reporting, evaluation, and formal and informal processes for resolving conflict. These plans must be aligned to racial and gender representative targets. It also provides that conditions of service need to include a safe environment, including free from sexual harassment (policies in place to deal with sexual harassment)."
• The Employment Equity Act also prohibits unfair discrimination on the basis of race, gender, sex, pregnancy, marital status, family responsibility, ethnic or social origin, colour, sexual orientation, age, disability, religion, HIV status, conscience, belief, political opinion, culture, language and birth. Harassment of any sort is specifically included in the definition of discrimination. Under the Act, employers must establish an equity plan including "preferential treatment and numerical goals but not quotas" (15(3)).
• The DPSA’s Education and Training White Paper supports these provisions, advocating accelerated and intensive training for affirmative action appointees (women and disabled in particular), as well as training in gender and race awareness, respect for cultural diversity and human rights, public service ethics.

• The BPFA aims to "promote women's economic rights and independence, including access to employment and appropriate working conditions and control over economic resources."
• CEDAW prohibits discrimination in the workforce, and therefore supports equal remuneration, access to employment, and health and safety– all benefits that local government should have a vested interest in promoting.

• The LGWP and the Green Paper on Municipal Service Partnerships both set the framework for private and other sector involvement in local government, including where local government retains accountability for ensuring that constitutional obligations are met.

The DPW White Paper emphasises government's overall objectives to social and economic upliftment, including labour-intensive public works with community participation and control for beneficiaries; active promotion of affirmative action with respect to race, gender and youth, and the integration of disabled people as producers and consumers of services; and active support for small, medium and micro enterprises (SMMEs), as well as cooperatives and non-profit NGOs.

The Bill begins by redefining "municipality" to include both "the governing structures and administration of the municipality and the residents and communities in the municipality" (S2). This is an admirable attempt to re-vision the way that municipal officials and representatives interact with people whom they serve, and reaffirm that local government is an organ of democracy, accountability and representivity.

There are two concerns.

• First, the usage of "community and residents" is too homogenous to reflect the gender and other diversity that makes up communities. It thus masks powers causing differentiation within those categories. There is an urgent need for municipalities to both understand where different women exist in "the community," and institutionalise mechanisms that can effectively reach them. Race, disability, rural, urban, and other geographical locations are also pertinent to understanding the institutional realities between municipalities and communities. The Bill needs to do a better job of disaggregating communities.
• Secondly, there appears to be a contradiction within the Bill over the relationship between the concepts of "residents" and "consumers." The beginning of the bill emphasises residents as dynamic members of a municipal-community relationship. Later parts emphasise the obligations of all residents to pay for services ((5(2)(a)); (68)). These obligations are much more stark, clear and prescriptive than any of the other sections dealing with citizen’s rights to a more dynamic relationship with municipalities. Together, these provisions emphasise the financial and/or administrative issues related to service delivery, credit control and indebtedness at the cost of addressing the real circumstances of poverty that many municipalities (along with their communities) face. They also treat all consumers equally (in the same way that "communities" were treated), at the detriment of understanding (poor) women’s realities.

The Bill solidifies the public’s right to participate in municipal affairs and have access to information and municipal meetings. These provisions attempt to formulate a truly participative style of governance and help municipalities to see their communities differently than in the past. They are important, useful, and in keeping with local government’s developmental role.

Nonetheless, the Bill needs to further specifically identify and target women when municipalities embark upon participation processes, including ensuring gender representativity in public participation fora such as the "advisory committee" provided for in the Bill.

The participation and consultation provisions in the IDP process are also not strong enough. There are not many details about how it should develop, or (more importantly) the extent to which decisions actually rest on what "the community" says. The Bill needs to clarify the extent to which decisions taken during IDP consultation processes need be accounted for/listened to/implemented.

The Bill sets the IDP framework out fairly specifically. This framework is a positive step forward, focused as it is on holistic, regional, and inter-sectoral planning that takes long-term account of both objectives and abilities to meet those objectives.

Yet it’s problems in terms of gender sensitivity mirror the previous sections’ problems.

• First, communities are vaguely described, in particular "disadvantaged communities."
• Second, mandated participatory processes are vague in terms of targeting women specifically as community experts on planning needs and priorities.
• Finally, the Bill fails to urge municipalities strongly enough to plan for holistic community upliftment, including the realisation of equality as a primary function of the IDP. The Bill needs to centre the purpose (and process) of IDPs on the need for social and economic equality and quality of life for all members of the community.

3.4 Performance Management

This chapter provides for municipal councils to establish systems of performance management that are both locally and nationally informed. This is a great step forward, and has numerous potential advantages to better understanding, serving, and responding to women and their needs in local government.

As with the rest of the Bill, however, IDP provisions fail to account properly for both the reality of gender (and other) differentiation amongst the public whom local government serves, and mechanisms, such as gender sensitive performance indicators, to appropriately understand that reality.

This chapter of the Bill firmly establishes municipal councils within a rubric of "public service" as defined in the Constitution, adhering municipal councils are to organise management and administration in "people first" ways, including being responsive to needs of residents.

Three key issues emerge from this chapter.

• First is the lack of reference to employment equity mandates placed on local government by both public service policy and law, namely the Employment Equity Act (1998); including the need for a representative workforce and a plan to achieve one. Currently, women are under-represented in local public administrations, where they constitute only 15% to 20% of all employees (GAP 1999), and are disproportionately located in lower level occupations, particularly Black women. Municipalities need to ensure that administrations have representative workforces (and plans to achieve such workforces), under mandate of national policy and law, including disaggregating staff data according to gender, race, and disability.
• Second, the Bill fails to recognise the gendered dynamics of personnel administration (with the exception of two references to equal remuneration for equal work), including cultural diversity, discrimination, and sexual harassment. The Code of Conduct for Municipal Officials (Schedule 1), does not include references to a sexual harassment policy. A sexual harassment policy would need to address harassment both amongst municipal staff and between staff and councillors.
• Third, the Bill fails to highlight that training and education programmes needed to facilitate a harassment-free, representative and genuinely publicly responsive municipal workforce. Not only must there be training and education to assist staff in such an environment, but all training and education offered must be accessible and relevant for all members of staff. Gender and cultural sensitivity training and capacity building to equip staff in dealing with each other and with a diverse public are needed. Further, training and education is needed to conduct municipal business in a way that includes gender analysis and gender planning.

Here the Bill clearly differentiates local government’s accountability for service provision, and actual service provision.

There are two key concerns.

• First is the need to ensure that the separation of service provision and policy authority doesn’t undermine local government’s own obligations to ensure equality in its communities. This provision is left out of the list of items for which separate service providers are responsible. It should be added to that list.
• Second is the need to ensure that the welcoming approach given to private sector involvement in service delivery is matched with ensuring gender sensitivity in both service providing and receiving. A CGE report on gender and private sector in 1999 found that half of all companies had gender policies in place. A significant number of companies say they are only "interested in business and employ people who can do the work." This gender-blind status quo could jeopardise local government’s responsibility to ensure gender equality in service provision and planning.

The Bill needs to ensure that municipalities hold the private sector (and other service providers) to the same standards of gender equality that current employment and labour laws indicate, as well as employment equity targets. Municipalities should also insist on annual reporting mechanisms by companies to show what progress they are making toward the achievement of gender equality. The Bill needs also to clarify that women are a category of persons in need of affirmative assistance who may not necessarily be included in a preferential procurement policy towards "persons disadvantaged by apartheid" (S77)). It might also want to show preference towards locally based businesses and SMMEs, where women may be more likely to be located and/or persons living in the municipality might more benefit.

1. Definition of residents and communities (multiple sections): The phrase "residents and communities" in the context of municipal-community relations should universally be replaced by "all the different residents and members of the community" or "all the different residents and members of the community, with special regard to historically disadvantaged persons and groups". With the latter, add a definition of "historically disadvantaged persons and groups" that takes into account race, gender, disability, rural location, age, and literacy levels.
2. The obligation of all residents and communities to pay required levies, taxes, service fees, etc (5(2)(a)): Add "wherever possible" or somehow include a provision that allows for the separate treatment of persons who genuinely are unable to afford a basic level of service.
3. A community, a resident and a ratepayer of a municipality have the duty to treat councillors and municipal officials with dignity and respect (5 (2)(d)). This clause serves to further entrench the privilege of position and perpetuate an unfair hierarchic situation. Perpetuating existing differences in power and the discriminatory effect of power serves to further the existing status quo in terms of access. Separating municipal officers and councilors from the community in this manner serves to further increase the distance between the community and its representatives or others contracted to serve the community. It also works in opposition to open and accountable government, which requires an environment free of fear of prejudice in order to survive. This clause must be removed.
4. Tariff and Indigence Policies: Strengthen the section that prescribes "in general the amount a user or consumer must pay for services is in proportion to their use of that service" (68(2)(b))We recommend to institutionalize higher charges for higher rates of consumption in a way that doesn’t disadvantage the poor.
5. Poor households must have access to at least the basic services through … (68(2)(c)) This reference to poor households emerges suddenly in the Bill and is not repeated. While we note the attempt to make concessions in terms of socio-economic conditions, it is important that the Bill also defines what a poor household is. This definition must take into account women headed households. This definition must take into account the differential impact of socio-economic factors on women. Further it is necessary to determine what constitutes ‘basic services’.
6. Differentiations in tariff policies (S68(3)) Is supported with the recommendation that it be enhanced by the following "taking into account gender and other categories of historically disadvantaged persons" to "categories of users".
7. Section 96 is replaces Section 118 of the Gazetted Bill. It is strikingly different however in the absence of a clause approximating the old S118. Hence we recommend that the old S118(2) reworded by adding "geographical areas, taking into account, among other factors, socio-economic and physical attributes of each area" between "service standards" and "and other matters (S118(2) of the Gazetted Bill), be reintegrated into the Bill as S96(2)

1. Targeting Women in Participation Processes (5(1)): The phrase "residents and communities" in the context of all sections dealing with public participation should universally be replaced by "all the different residents and members of the community" or "all the different residents and members of the community, with special regard to historically disadvantaged persons and groups". With the latter, add a definition of "historically disadvantaged persons and groups" that takes into account race, gender, disability, rural location, age, and literacy levels.
2. Municipal Council must take into account special needs of illiterate, disabled and "other disadvantaged groups" (8(2)): Add "including women" to the list of groups whose needs a municipality must take into account.
3. Ensuring Equal Gender Representation in Participation Forums (8(4): Add: "taking into account the need for women to be equitably represented" (from Municipal Structures Act (73(3a)) or require that at least 30% of advisory committees are women.
4. Involving residents and communities in IDP process (25(1)(b)(i)): The role and ultimate influence of public participation needs to be clarified, including at which stages of the IDP process the public should be consulted and evaluation measures required for municipalities to effectively and objectively handle participative input.

1. IDPs to identify communities without access to basic services (S23(1)(b)): Replace "communities" with "all the different residents and members of the community" or "all the different residents and members of the community, with special regard to historically disadvantaged persons and groups".

1. A municipal council must set key performance indicators (S38): Add: "All key performance indicators and targets must be disaggregated on the basis of gender and other relevant factors to measure the differential impact on various groups and residents in the community."

1. Municipal manager must approve a staff establishment (S61(1)(a)): Amend to "approve a representative staff establishment for the municipality". Add: "A staff profile must disaggregated along lines of gender, race, disability data in order to monitor compliance with national labour legislation." Add: "An employment equity plan must be adopted, according to national policy and legislation, including objectives, time-bound targets; who is responsible; financial resources given to it; monitoring, reporting, evaluation; formal and informal processes for resolving conflict."
2. Section 64: Municipal Councils Staff Code does not include a sexual harassment component. This is necessary to ensure a safe and protected working environment for all employees and councillors: Add: "Staff code must include a sexual harassment policy."
3. Municipal councils must develop human resource capacity (S63): Add a reference to the need for municipal staff to deal effectively with all members of communities, including skills in gendered analysis and planning.
4. Municipalities must develop and implement education training and development programmes for staff (S63(2): Add: "based on need and giving equal opportunity to all employees regardless of race, gender, or position in the municipal administration."

1. Municipal Councils remain responsible and accountable for service provision (S75): Include responsibility for development of equality, including gender equality in communities to the list.
2. Municipal councils may delegate responsibility to a separate provider (75(2): Add: "Other service providers need also be held to the same standards of gender equality and affirmative action targets set out in national legislation and policy, including reporting on employment equity progress."
3. A service delivery agreement may authorise a municipality to pass on to the service provider, through a transparent system that must be subject to performance monitoring and audit, funds for the subsidisation of services to the poor (S75(2)(c)).Once again the definition of "poor" is not provided. It is also unclear as to who is to determine the presence of "poor" and how this is to be done. The definition should be provided in the Bill and should also allow for disaggregation by gender.
4. Municipal councils may determine a preference for categories of service providers (S77(2): Clarify that women are also a category of persons in need of affirmative assistance who may not necessarily be included in a preferential procurement policy towards "persons disadvantaged by apartheid". It should also give preference to partnerships with community-based organisations that have closer links to community and local development initiatives, e.g. SMME’s that are key to women’s participation in the economy.
5. Reference Table: Provisions and Suggested Alternatives

Local Government White Paper (1998)

"Local Government for the 21^st Century." 1999.

Department of Public Service and Administration

White Paper on Affirmative Action in the Public Service (1998)

White Paper on Education and Training in the Public Service (1997)

Department of Public Works

White Paper on Public Works (1998)

Employment Equity Act (1998)

Municipal Structures Act (1998)

Water Services Act (1997)

Bond, P. 1997. "Privatisation, Protest and Participation: Citizen Opposition to the World Bank in Haiti and South Africa." Paper presented to the World Bank/NGO Dialogue on Privatisation. Washington, DC. USA.

Fried, S, with Holcomb, D. 1995. "Report of the Women's Human Rights Caucus at the Fourth World Conference on Women." Center for Women’s Global Leadership. New Brunswick, NJ. USA.

Gender Advocacy Project. 1999. "Submission to the Department of Constitutional Development on the Municipal Systems Bill." Cape Town, SA.

Parnell, S. 1998. "Social reflections on developmental local government." Unpublished manuscript.

"UN Common Country Assessment Indicators: UN Development Assistance Framework." United Nations. www.dgo.org//Index2.html

"Targets and Indicators. Selections from The World’s Women." Coordinated by Diane Elson. UNIFEM. www.unifem.undp.org/public/progressbl.pdf