During the month of August, PSAf continued to collaborate with rural communities in South Africa’s KwaZulu Natal Province in the production and dissemination of content on pertinent development issues in the community and its surroundings.  

A number of programmes were produced and aired on the local Maputaland Community Radio station. This is in line with the organisation’s objective to amplify the voices of poor and marginalised populations to enable them to actively participate in development processes.

Following the election of new councillors in May, PSAf facilitated engagement between citizens and the local leadership through live radio programmes featuring the mayors of three local councils in the province namely Mayor Mashiya Hadebe of Pongola Local Municipality, Mayor Mthethwa from Jozini Local Municipality and Mayor V. F Hlabisa of Hlabisa Local Municipality. This enabled community members to find out from the local leadership the plans they have put in place to address the various development challenges.

In one of the debates, Hadebe told the programme that although the focus of his newly elected team of councilors was primarily on water and sanitation, a lot of attention and resources would also be directed towards empowering young people to take an active part in the development of the community. This is primarily because youths form the majority (53%) of South Africa’s population.

The community in Pongola faces a lot of challenges, with water and sanitation topping the list. Through the programmes, members of the community have expressed concerns that most of the water resources in the area benefit commercial sugarcane irrigation plantations rather than the local community. This prompted the Zululand District Municipality (ZDM) to give a tender to Impala Project to work on providing water to the farmers in Pongola.

Through the live phone in programme, members of the community managed to interact with the mayor asking him questions on housing and other key development issues and making suggestions on how they feel the municipality can best serve them. The discussions focused mostly on the council’s interventions for the youth, who form the majority of South African citizens. 

Through the programmes, listeners managed to engage the mayors of the three municipalities and managed to make a lot of demands for the council to look on.

The programmes are part of the Governance and Transparency through Radio (GTR) activities which PSAf is currently running courtesy of support from the United Nations Democracy Fund (UNDEF). Activities under the GTR project are being implemented in Zambia, Malawi, South Africa and Lesotho to promote engagement on governance issues.