As part of the Local Government Support Programme Isandla Institute lead the design of a ‘knowledge bank’ to ensure that the lessons emerging from the various pilot projects and change processes in local government are readily available and systematically disseminated, 1999-2000.

Isandla Institute provided technical support to design and roll-out a major support programme of US-AID aimed at strengthening the democratic contract at local level through capacity building of municipalities and meeting the basic needs of the poor, 1999-2000.

Isandla Institute conceptualised and facilitated the programme of this conference for senior municipal representatives from the Western Cape on behalf of the provincial Department of Local Government and Housing, 2007.

Input papers prepared for the national Department of Provincial and Local Government as part of the government’s review of local government. The papers dealt with service delivery, Local Economic Development, community participation and crosscutting issues (gender, youth, children, the elderly, disability, HIV/AIDS), 2007

Isandla Institute coordinated a book project aimed at reviewing lessons and challenges in institutionalising developmental local government. The project included a national conference in 2006 and resulted in the edited volume Consolidating Developmental Local Government: Lessons from the South African Experience in 2008 (Juta Press). ISBN: 9781919895048

Isandla Institute conceptualised and coordinated the inaugural Governance Summer School for 150 senior local government councillors and officials from municipalities in the Western, Eastern and Northern Cape, on behalf of the Western Cape government, 2008.

Isandla Institute, in partnership with PDG, prepared an input paper on the role of provincial and local government in poverty reduction, which was one of five commissioned papers aimed at informing a provincial anti-poverty strategy of the Western Cape government, 2009.

Isandla Institute co-hosted an international workshop for local champions of public participation in Southern and Eastern Africa in November 2009. The workshop culminated in a policy seminar with South African policy audiences. The project was a partnership initiative with the Citizenship Development Research Centre (UK) and was officially endorsed by the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs.

In the period 2011/13, Isandla Institute focused on the politics of local governance in an effort to enhance prevailing perspectives on local governance, which tend to be preoccupied with the challenges, weaknesses and opportunities of formal spaces of public participation. The project focused on the three-way interface between state, party and civil society. A key premise underpinning the project was that, albeit in different ways, both the state and political parties tend to posit themselves as the ‘rightful’, if not sole, custodians of citizens’ aspirations and interests. This, combined with a general retreat by civil society organisations/the non-profit local governance sector from what is considered ‘political society’ (in particular the space taken up by political parties) means that the essence and vibrancy of local governance is jeopardised. Project activities included research, roundtables with relevant stakeholders and advocacy.

In 2012/13 Isandla Institute developed a proposition/methodology to establish collaborative planning structures, at project and city level (also referred to as ‘Planning for Informality’). This stems from earlier work on the concept of ‘networked spaces’, mooted by the organisation in 2011, as a vital addition to the current institutional repertoire to facilitate participatory local governance and development. The project was guided by a Technical Steering Committee consisting of representatives from national government (Departments of Human Settlements, Cooperative Governance, Treasury), municipalities and CSOs.