This paper provides an overview of the efforts of successive Zambian governments to transform and institutionalise democratic local governance, and to come to grips with the socio-economic development challenges facing the country. It assesses the progress and challenges that governments are facing in their efforts to transform local government into democratic, developmental local governance.

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.

The new democratic government of South Africa came into power in 1994 and it inherited a dysfunctional municipalities. In fact it inherited a country with high levels of poverty, growing levels of inequality and also social dysfunctionality. The local government sphere was established in South Africa with the main aim of addressing inequality, segregation, inequity, discrimination in the provision of municipal services and eradication poverty within communities. However, ever since the establishment of local government sphere in South Africa, the sphere of local government is fraught with many challenges which make it impossible for municipalities to render proper municipal services to the members of the public. This is evident from the protests which were observed in the country ever since the year 2008 were communities demanded better services from their municipalities. This mini-dissertation therefore discusses the application of the principles of corporate governance in delivering and improving municipal service in South Africa. It further discusses the legislative framework and the institution of government which are responsible for the effective implementation of corporate governance in the local government sphere. Pursuant to that it also explains the concept of Corporate Governance within the local government. Furthermore, it discusses the parameters of the challenges that are faced by the municipalities which are ranging from fraud, nepotism, corruption and poor financial management which result in poor service delivery.

he various facets of “measurement,” “comparison,” “evaluation,” and “monitoring” of government performance stubbornly continue to be topics of international relevance. Within this context, debates focusing on the subnational level of governance have been claiming more and more space in the academic and policy arenas. The extra attention given to the “local” is easier to explain. The decisions and actions of local executives have a very real and immediate impact on people’s lives. Local governments are the closest link to the State for the majority of the world population. They are responsible for crucial policy sectors such as spatial planning, transport, and utility services and are also the enablers of many social and cultural activities (LSE Cities 2016). While most people already lives in cities, urbanization trends will continue to put strain, but also relevance, on local government institutions around the globe. In fact, the decentralization of powers from nation states to local governments can currently be observed across jurisdictions.