Impact – Asivikelane

Power from the ground: Dignity and change in informal settlements

webfactory — Thu, 01 Oct 2026 15:10:54 +0000

Community Facilitators are at the heart of Asivikelane’s work. Living in the communities they serve, they provide a vital bridge between informal settlement residents and government officials, helping communities raise their concerns, advocate for better services and hold government accountable. Through their persistence and ongoing advocacy, Community Facilitators continue to make a meaningful difference in their communities. These are their stories.

Download the pdf

2025 Impacts report

webfactory — Thu, 21 May 2026 10:47:40 +0000

Asivikelane aims to connect residents and government by building relationships. Our hubs bring together various groups – including reformers, donors, communities, private companies, and auditors – to tackle service delivery challenges in cities. We take a look at our impact over 2025 and showcase our contributions to improved access to safe drinking water, dignified sanitation, and regular refuse removal.

Download the PDF

Sustainable Informal Settlement Infrastructure Summit: Building sustainable infrastructure through community-driven repairs and maintenance solutions in informal settlements

webfactory — Thu, 04 Dec 2025 09:10:05 +0000

We hosted a Sustainable Informal Settlement Infrastructure Summit: bringing together a diverse range of stakeholders to foster partnerships and explore innovative solutions for dignified, sustainable access to essential basic services. The aim was to improve repairs and maintenance of water and sanitation infrastructure. The outcomes of the summit found that the future of repairs and maintenance is contingent upon empowering communities, reforming institutions, and forging resilient partnerships. The path forward must be rooted in a fundamental shift: from seeing repairs as a technical afterthought to recognising them as a cornerstone of dignity, health, and sustainable urban development.

Read the post-summit publication

How does Asivikelane calculate our impact?

webfactory — Mon, 01 Dec 2025 07:05:00 +0000

Assessing impact in informal settlements can be challenging due to high population mobility and overlapping interventions make it difficult to attribute outcomes to a single intervention. Understanding our approach is essential to our own accountability and learning, and also strengthens our advocacy for improved basic services in informal settlements. This publication outlines our methodology and how we calculate our impact.

Download the PDF

Community Facilitators improving basic services, one informal settlement at a time

webfactory — Mon, 25 Aug 2025 18:17:32 +0000

Community Facilitators are at the centre of Asivikelane, making working with informal settlement communities possible. By gathering data on access to water, dignified sanitation and refuse removal, they advocate for better services – bridging the gap between local government officials and informal settlement residents. Read their inspirational stories about how they are improving access to basic services in their own communities.

Download the PDF

Manage temporary sanitation in informal settlements

webfactory — Thu, 05 Jun 2025 15:40:07 +0000

Urban municipalities often struggle to provide permanent sanitation to informal settlements, relying on temporary solutions like chemical toilets and VIP latrines. These often face issues such as high costs, poor maintenance, and community rejection, remaining in place long-term despite their shortcomings. In our latest learning paper, Asivikelane’s insights highlight solutions to improve sanitation and address the lack of municipal planning for permanent infrastructure.

Download the PDF

Safety Guidelines for Community Facilitators

webfactory — Sun, 25 May 2025 16:08:00 +0000

It is essential that Asivikelane Community Facilitators and volunteers remain safe while working in communities. Drawing on their own experiences, CFs across the Asivikelane network collaboratively developed and documented safeguarding tips through a series of workshops. Click here to read the full guide.

Download the PDF

Knysna. Small fixes, big impacts

webfactory — Fri, 25 Apr 2025 09:46:59 +0000

We take a look at how municipalities can integrate community plumbers and enhance fault reporting for efficient community repairs of communal services.

Download the Knysna PDF

Asivikelane impacts: July to December 2024

webfactory — Tue, 04 Mar 2025 10:34:57 +0000

Asivikelane aims to connect residents and government by building relationships. Our hubs bring together various groups – including reformers, donors, communities, private companies, and auditors – to tackle service delivery challenges in cities. Since its inception in March 2020, Asivikelane has contributed to improved access to safe drinking water, dignified sanitation, and regular refuse removal to over 8,5 million informal settlement residents.

Download the PDF

AGSA Asivikelane Newsletter

webfactory — Fri, 07 Feb 2025 07:21:46 +0000

Did you know that Asivikelane works together with the Auditor General of South Africa? Audit teams make extensive use of Asivikelane’s service delivery data and encourage metro governments to do the same. Auditors also benefit from Asivikelane’s firsthand experience, and knowledge of issues and challenges experienced by citizens. Asivikelane helps to disseminate and explain audit recommendations to the public and mobilise public pressure for their implementation. Read more on how we collaborate.

Read Newsletter