Asivikelane Guides

Asivikelane means ‘Let’s protect one another’ in Zulu. The campaign was born as South Africa entered a national lockdown due to the Covid-19 crisis in March 2020. South Africa has 3,000 informal settlements with over 10 million residents, many of whom struggle with access to basic services. Many settlements are faced with poor water, sanitation and refuse removal services. Asivikelane creates a channel between municipal governments and informal settlements. The growing network reaches 400 informal settlements in 10 municipalities.

Asivikelane is made up of partner organisations working across South Africa. It works in Buffalo City, City of Cape Town, Ekurhuleni, eThekwini, City of Joburg, Mangaung, Nelson Mandela Bay, Tshwane, Stellenbosch and Knysna. Partner organisations identify residents in informal settlements willing to participate in the campaign.

The Asivikelane initiative has developed a series of guides to assist in responding to different sector issues. The guides are listed below, with each heading leading to the PDF download.  

Guidelines for capturing social audit data

This guide is designed to help social audit volunteers capture on a computer all the social audit data that have been collected on the paper social audit questionnaires. 

Guidelines for developing a social audit questionnaire

This guide provides guidelines to help you to develop a social audit questionnaire that will collect evidence or information that will be easy to capture and analyse, and will provide accurate and representative findings and recommendations that can be used to engage with government.

A Guide to Finding Information About Municipal Contracted Services in Your Community

This guide is designed to help informal settlement communities find the documents that provide information about a service being delivered to their community. 

Access to Information: Finding the Right Municipal Official

A graphic presentation of how to find the officials responsible for a specific service.

Guide to Local Government Budget Advocacy South Africa

This guide describes a step-by-step approach to reading and analyzing local government budgets with a focus on specific service delivery issues.

A Guide To Conducting Social Audits

This guide is for community activists and organized civil society interested in conducting social audits in South Africa

Abstract based on source.