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ID: 32265Added: 2003-06-23 9:27Modified: 2008-11-18 17:00Refreshed: 2010-02-08 08:43 
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Project ID: 101644 Duration: January 2003 to January 2006 Status: Closed Collaborating Institutions: The International Labour Resource and Information Group (ILRIG), University of Cape Town, Woodstock, South Africa. Southern African Research Centre, Queen`s University, Kingston, Canada. For a list of publications, conferences, workshops, news coverage and more, visit http://www.queensu.ca/msp/ Background In the mid-1990s, the South African government implemented the Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) program. This new national policy favoured the commercialization and privatization of basic services delivery, including water and electricity. As the national government subsequently reduced direct subsidies to municipalities, the policy put an immediate pressure on local authorities to recover costs. Many municipalities had no tax base or alternative source of income and their reaction was to divert that pressure to households. This move had direct bearing on the living conditions of the poorer sections of the South African population. The Municipal Services Project (MSP) is a research, policy and capacity-building initiative examining the restructuring of municipal services such as water, sanitation, and electricity in Southern Africa. During the initial phase (January 2000 to August 2002), the project examined social services reforms in South Africa, critically assessing the nature of health conditions following governmental reforms. The research highlighted the importance of sustainable and equitable provision of public services- such as water and sanitation- as integral to the effective functioning of health systems. The Project Although much is already known concerning the negative effects of poor or non-existent basic services such as water and sanitation on the health status of low-income rural and urban households, little is known about the impacts of service delivery restructuring (e.g. privatization, decentralization) on health status. In this second phase, the project will bring together leading experts from health policy and epidemiology with expertise in the MSP to attempt to better measure and evaluate the relationship between these two fields of study. In doing so, the project will evaluate and develop quantitative and qualitative research methodology, generate primary empirical data, and provide multi-disciplinary assessments of health and service policy reforms. Project Objectives More specifically, the project seeks to:
Methodology The project will focus specifically on aspects of equity in municipal services delivery and health services, with attention drawn to correlations between vertical (in)equity and (in)effective citizenship. Research on illnesses—specifically HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and cholera—will involve a series of case studies where a particular illness is evaluated against the quantity and quality of services provided (i.e. mix of services, level of services, location, cost, etc.). The project will also examine the social, economic and political dynamics around service delivery (e.g. household incomes and education levels, role of the community in service decision-making, gender relations, levels of politicization, private versus publicly-owned service provision, etc) and in this way attempt to trace all possible variables linking an illness to service provision. Results to Date Building on the success of research dissemination in Phase I, the MSP continues to make use of the same publication and dissemination venues. The Occasional Papers Series has continued to be distributed to the team mailing list of over 900 institutions and individuals including academics, NGOs, unions, municipal governments, academics and libraries. The project newsletter, Services for All, is widely distributed to about 1000 regional government officials, national and international NGOs, unions, community-based organizations and academics. It is considered to be an important tool in disseminating research findings to a more general audience and will continue to contain summaries of research findings as well as highlights of key policy developments and events in the area of service delivery, local government restructuring and health. The website continues to be a major vehicle for information dissemination and networking, with hundreds of hits every month. Research results have also been the subject of several print news articles and continue to fuel the debate on public services in Southern Africa. Finally, the project publishes academic papers and books, including edited volumes on water privatization and the restructuring of the electricity sector in Southern Africa. Project Contact David McDonald Global Development Studies Queens University Kingston, Ontario, Canada, K7L 3N6 Greg Ruiters Institute of Social and Economic Research Rhodes University PO Box 94 Grahamstown 6140, South Africa Related Articles and Websites “Whose hand on the tap? Water privatization in South Africa” Bob Carty. February, 2003. EQUINET “Who Pays? Municipal Services in South Africa” Keane J. Shore. January 10, 2002. “South Africans too poor to pay for municipal services” SABCNews. March 19, 2003. SouthAfrica.info: Municipal Services
Municipal Services and Health in Southern Africa II: Project Brochure 2007-08-27 Open file Who Cares for Health Care Workers? December 5, 2005 Poster put together from the Samwu/MSP/IHRG 2003/4 programme and presented at the Global Forum for Health Research 9: Poverty, Equity and Health Research, Mumbia, India (September 12-16, 2005). Open file |
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