Social audits involve communities in issues that affect them

SANITATION is a complex urban puzzle that highlights the challenges of informal settlement upgrading and urban transformation in Cape Town. The many social, technical and economic nuances of urban development will not be solved through short-term battles but require the collaboration of various stakeholders and innovative solutions. But by holding on to the politics around it we could lose sight of some of the opportunities offered by the disputes and debates around this challenge.

It is not only about toilets and not only about Khayelitsha. But we all know that. We also know that, as with most issues in South Africa, the debate around sanitation provision in poor communities is heavily politicised and prevents collaboration and innovation in a highly-fragmented urban context. This is clearly illustrated in two salient ways in which issues around sanitation have been brought into the public debate and managed in Cape Town.

On the one hand is the aggressive, highly-politicised and incoherent approach by some ANC officials who chose to use human faeces (throwing poo in public spaces) to physically attack the City and DA politicians. While gaining attention, it has been damaging in its over-simplification of the complex sanitation challenges and has further polarised an already fragmented city. The result: waste of energy and confrontation that obscures the agency that exists in poor communities to address local challenges. This has not advanced the cause of those in need of better sanitation.

On the opposite side is the more constructive and technical approach of the SJC (a local community-based organisation) in an effort (albeit clumsy in many ways) to provide constructive criticism and oversight while empowering local citizens to take ownership and responsibility around service delivery. Their chosen methodology now applied three times over the last two years is the so-called social audit.

The purpose of the social audit is to monitor the impact of government policies and programmes, measure access to and quality of services and augment the interaction of citizens and government in the process. The audits are carried out by community organisations and volunteers who are recipients of those services (or are somehow connected to the area or service). It involves the analysis and physical verification of government information (service delivery contracts, invoices, delivery notes) for a particular service, project or programme through interviews with service beneficiaries. Results are presented to the community and local government representatives at a public meeting. This process lets communities point out gaps within the delivery chain, air their frustrations (the most common scenario so far) and suggest improvement. It therefore empowers local residents who do physical verifications of service delivery, which could in principle help the City to ensure that services are well-provided and that money is spent where it is intended.

The first social audit in April 2013 focused on chemical toilets of which, according to the SJC, 256were inspected by more than 60 participants and 270 residents across four informal settlements were interviewed. A second audit in October looked at refuse removal services, while the most recent audit (July 13-19) monitored janitorial services. The results of this last have already been published.

The Human Sciences Research Council, as a key research partner for the Cities Support Programme (CSP) led by National Treasury, was an independent observer for the last two audits. Here are, in our view, a few observations for further reflection.

First, beyond the number of toilets inspected or people interviewed, this is a valuable community-driven methodology that is being tried for the first time in the urban context and deserves careful consideration. Second, preliminary observations show that the main values of this tool are to enable knowledge exchange between City structures and local communities and to empower citizens. And it could potentially help to improve service delivery and enhance meaningful engagement.

One of the key recommendations from the Human Rights Commission in last week’s controversial report following the first audit was for the City to take “significant measures” to reinforce community engagement. Since data collection by residents is at the core of the social audit exercise, it is a powerful tool that, if refined and de-politicised, could allow muchneeded, evidence-based conversations between the City and citizens, rather than the usual complaining and blaming that so often dominate this conversation.

The main value of social audits is not in the result, the number of toilets broken or in perfect condition, but in the process, and the possibilities in terms of improving governance and active citizenship.

Sanchez Betancourt and Vivier are HSRC researchers based (respectively) in Cape Town and Pretoria and participated as independent observers of the two most recent social audits around sanitation. dsanchez@hsrc.ac.za , evivier@hsrc.ac.za