Impact evaluation as a reform mechanism, to assess performance of Gauteng’s metropolitan municipalities in delivering basic services : a case of Millennium Development Goals

Abstract

Metropolitan municipalities in Gauteng Province of South Africa are responsible for more than nine million inhabitants. This implies that they are the largest providers of municipal services to the inhabitants of the Gauteng Province. The research focused on only the services identified as basic to society. This was done to establish the extent to which the three metropolitan municipalities viz. Tshwane, Ekurhuleni and Johannesburg meet the Millennium Development Goals. The research focused on the delivery of services to informal settlements to determine how the respective municipalities identified the need for services and how they provided the services to a rather unknown number of inhabitants in the selected settlements. A sample was used in each municipality to guide the researcher in determining the impact of the services in relation to the Millenium Development Goals. The article discusses the essence and importance of programme performance information as reform mechanism in metropolitan municipalities in the South African context, Millennium Development Goals [MDGs] and the provision of basic services by the South African government since 2003 – 2013. The approach adopted in this article, is to use Impact Evaluation (IE) – which is a process used to conduct evaluations and provide publication of results in Gauteng’s metropolitan municipalities (Ekurhuleni, Johannesburg and Tshwane). For a scientific and balanced output – various sources of information will be consulted, results analysed and compared to calibrate a view and formulate an opinion on how metropolitan municipalities in Gauteng are performing in terms of the provision of basic services.