This paper analyses poor service delivery at local government level, which is attributed to the politicisation of administrative components in municipalities, resulting in poor local governance. The public service delivery system has been perceived as one of the most important ways of reducing poverty through poverty alleviation programmes. As part of the South African government's cooperative system, key stakeholders in municipalities ought to adopt an integrated approach to public service delivery. An integrated approach to public service delivery demands that local municipalities, together with relevant stakeholders, integrate processes and services to ensure effective and efficient service delivery. This ultimately will result in an improved standard of living and sustainable livelihood for communities. With regard to public service delivery, local municipalities have the obligation of creating income opportunities people, especially the poor, with the sole aim of contributing towards poverty reduction and the realisation of the expectations of people, as stated in the South African government's White Paper of transforming public service delivery. The political interface in local municipalities greatly affects effective and efficient administration, as well as growth opportunities. Administrators, therefore, have the important function of ensuring that explicit assignments of objectives and administrative functions are wholly separated from the policymaking activities of government. This paper, therefore, suggests that municipalities adopt the merit system and abandon the spoils system that is highly characterised by political favours and political interferences. Political favours and interferences are dominant in local South African government, and they hinder the process of providing services equally.

Purpose

This paper aims to explore the key issues and challenges that can affect the quality of stakeholder engagement processes and outcomes in relation to sustainability reporting.

Design/methodology/approach

Case study research was used to gain in-depth insights into the stakeholder engagement practices of three Australian local councils.

Findings

The findings of this study suggest that the effectiveness of stakeholder engagement can be undermined by certain difficulties and challenges faced by an organisation. These include limited resources, lack of commitment from internal stakeholders, political factors, heterogeneous concerns, inadequate representation and an unwillingness to engage.

Research limitations/implications

The study adds to the limited literature on stakeholder engagement in sustainability reporting specifically and on sustainability accounting and reporting in public sector organisations (PSOs) more generally.

Practical implications

This research provides practical guidance to government authorities on the challenges that need to be addressed to enable an effective stakeholder engagement process for sustainability reporting.

Social implications

Stakeholders have a critical role in holding organisations accountable and research into their engagement with these organisations has societal benefits.

Originality/value

This research while focused on the Australian context has international relevance as it provides unique insights into the stakeholder engagement process. The implications of this research apply to not just PSOs but also corporations that are grappling with the (difficult) process of effective engagement with stakeholders.

This article discusses gender-responsive budgeting (GRB) at the local level in Kerala by studying a village panchayat, the lowest tier of rural local government. GRB of a rudimentary form, known as Women Component Plan (WCP), had been in existence at the local level for the last 20 years as a key feature of participatory planning. The study adopts a fourfold classification of all projects implemented in the panchayat on the basis of their gender friendliness and calculates allocation and expenditure under each of these categories. The data on which the article relies relate to the expenditure incurred under the annual plans rather than budgets, which are based on inflated and unreliable data. The article ends by making some observations based on the data and the overall experience of Kerala in gender budgeting.

The second edition of this popular and authoritative text provides a truly global assessment of democratization in theory and practice in the contemporary world. It has been systematically revised and updated throughout to cover recent developments, from the impact of 9/11 and EU enlargement to the war in Iraq.

NOTE: Downloadable document is in Italian.The purpose of this paper is to analyze the evidence of a relationship between the level of accountability that a P.A. can demonstrate and consolidate, and the presence or absence of corruption or even perverse situations of State Capture. Through an empirical analysis is verified if placing a filter (accountability) to the current system of local government, we could overcome persistent situations of arbitrage and abuse of public power, rather than in the new needs for reporting and monitoring required by national and international legislation relating to transparency and sustainable P.A.'s development.