Asivikelane service delivery impacts counter

Water

1315

SANITATION

1769

REFUSE REMOVAL

2096

Infrastructure

191

SYSTEMS IMPACTS

RESIDENT IMPACTS

10987588

Since March 2020

Contact

Infrastructure

Briefs & Reports, Infrastructure

Improving disaster preparedness = safer communities

10 Dec 2025

In March 2025, we asked 5,308 residents across 202 informal settlements in 8 municipalities what types of disasters they experienced over the past year. Residents experienced floods and fires which leads to loss of homes and belongings as well as illness. Residents asked for early weather warnings, functional communication networks and taps with enough pressure for fires.

Download the PDF

Briefs & Reports, Infrastructure

Basic training and tools can fix minor faults

10 Dec 2025

In March 2025, we asked 5,308 residents across 202 informal settlements in 8 municipalities about communal services. Even when faults with taps and toilets are reported promptly through official channels, residents struggle to get them fixed. 79% of residents said they would fix services themselves if given tools and basic training.

Download the PDF

Impact Case Studies, Infrastructure, Learning Paper

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

4 Dec 2025

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

Briefs & Reports, Infrastructure, Learning Paper

Learning paper: Building Sustainable Infrastructure through Community-Driven Repairs and Maintenance Solutions in Informal Settlements

25 Aug 2025

Asivikelane hosted a Sustainable Informal Settlement Infrastructure Summit, aimed at improving repairs and maintenance of water and sanitation infrastructure in informal settlements. The summit brought together a diverse range of stakeholders to foster partnerships and explore innovative solutions for dignified, sustainable access to essential basic services. We’ve documented these solutions in a multi-pronged strategy, demonstrating how to build sustainable infrastructure through community-driven solutions.

Download the PDF

Impact Case Studies, Infrastructure, Learning Paper

Learning paper #2: Knysna. Small fixes, big impacts.

25 Apr 2025

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

Infrastructure, Releases, Western Cape

Asivikelane Western Cape #14: Knysna and Stellenbosch – Women’s safety is compromised when broken services are not fixed

13 Nov 2023

Asivikelane Western Cape #14 The municipalities of Knysna and Stellenbosch are slow to repair broken services in informal settlements. This results in the overuse of functional facilities, and some women express concerns about the safety and accessibility of alternative water and sanitation services.

Download the Knysna PDF

Download the data for Knysna

Download the Stellenbosch PDF

Download the data for Stellenbosch

Briefs & Reports, Infrastructure

Brief 8: Spatial data and adequate fault reporting can improve maintenance of informal settlement taps and toilets

24 Nov 2022

One of the biggest challenges affecting access to basic sanitation in informal settlements is poor repairs and maintenance. While there are informal settlements with no access to taps and toilets – several settlements have fewer taps and toilets to the ratio of residents – what is worse is that the majority of these are unusable because they are either broken or blocked.

Read the full brief

Infrastructure, National Releases, Releases

Asivikelane #31: Metro fault reporting systems don’t work for informal settlements

29 Sep 2022

Asivikelane #31 Metros fault reporting systems are not user-friendly and can’t locate broken taps and toilets. Despite ongoing efforts by informal settlement residents to report via the system, many said they wait longer than a month before anyone comes to fix them.

Download the PDF

Download the data

Summaries for municipalities

Infrastructure, National Releases, Releases

Asivikelane #29: Residents let down by metros’ poor resilience score

28 Jul 2022

Asivikelane #29 reports that better response from metros to disasters is needed in informal settlements. Faster access to disaster services and speedier damage assessment and repairs will lay the foundations for resilient cities.

Download the PDF

Infrastructure, Releases

eThekwini special release

13 Jul 2022

In this special release, 417 informal settlement residents in 81 settlements in eThekwini share their experience of the Metro’s response to the floods. They report that, in most cases, the damage to taps and toilets has not been repaired. While they wait for these repairs, the Metro has also provided limited emergency water and almost no emergency sanitation.

Download the PDF

Download the data

Contact us

IBPSA NPC
G02, Ground Floor, Park Building,
Black River Park South,
2 Fir Street, Observatory,
7925, Cape Town

+27 21 447 0019
info@asivikelane.org

Asivikelane is an initiative of International
Budget Partnership South Africa (IBPSA NPC).

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