GOVERNANCE PERFORMANCE INDEX SOUTH AFRICA 2024

The 2024 Governance Performance Index (GPI) by Good Governance Africa evaluates 257 South African municipalities across categories including service delivery, administration, leadership, and planning. The report highlights a strong performance dominance by the Western Cape, significant disparities in service access between areas with and without a history of homeland or traditional authority governance, and the varying impact of hung councils on municipal effectiveness.

• Western Cape municipalities consistently lead national performance rankings; in 2024, 15 of the top 20 highest-ranked local municipalities were located in the Western Cape.
• Swartland Local Municipality is the highest-performing local municipality in South Africa according to the 2024 GPI.
• There is a significant gap in access to critical services—such as piped water, sanitation, and refuse removal—between municipalities with no history of homeland or traditional authority (TA) areas and those that do have such areas.
• Household electricity connectivity is the only core service where municipalities with homeland/TA areas have achieved near parity with those without such history, although the quality of access has declined since 2008.
• Hung councils do not automatically result in poor governance; 10 of the 20 best-performing local municipalities in the 2024 GPI are governed by hung councils.
• Among metropolitan municipalities, the City of Cape Town is the highest ranked, while the City of Johannesburg and City of Tshwane struggle specifically in administration, planning, and leadership.
• Category C1 district municipalities (which lack water services authority responsibilities) significantly outperform Category C2 district municipalities (which possess these responsibilities) across all GPI categories, particularly in service delivery.
• The Winnie Madikizela-Mandela Local Municipality (formerly Mbizana) showed dramatic improvement, rising from the lowest ranking in 2016 to the 22nd nationally in 2024, following capacity-building projects and improved financial management.
• The North West province has the lowest average GPI scores, which correlates with the fact that nearly 40% of its 18 local municipalities are under provincial administration.

APA

Good Governance Africa (2024). GOVERNANCE PERFORMANCE INDEX SOUTH AFRICA 2024. https://digitalmallblobstorage.blob.core.windows.net/wp-content/2024/03/Enhanced-GPI-2024.pdf

Chicago

Good Governance Africa. GOVERNANCE PERFORMANCE INDEX SOUTH AFRICA 2024. 2024. https://digitalmallblobstorage.blob.core.windows.net/wp-content/2024/03/Enhanced-GPI-2024.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Good Governance Africa |title=GOVERNANCE PERFORMANCE INDEX SOUTH AFRICA 2024 |date=2024 |url=https://digitalmallblobstorage.blob.core.windows.net/wp-content/2024/03/Enhanced-GPI-2024.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{goodgovernanceafrica2024governance, author = {{Good Governance Africa}}, title = {{GOVERNANCE PERFORMANCE INDEX SOUTH AFRICA 2024}}, institution = {Good Governance Africa}, year = {2024}, url = {https://digitalmallblobstorage.blob.core.windows.net/wp-content/2024/03/Enhanced-GPI-2024.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }