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The South African Water Caucus (SAWC) issued an urgent request to Minister Lindiwe Sisulu of the Department of Human Settlements, Water and Sanitation on June 1, 2020, demanding immediate intervention for over 200 communities lacking access to water and basic sanitation during the COVID-19 pandemic.

An open letter from a coalition of civil society organisations to President Cyril Ramaphosa expressing concern over the potential for corruption and waste regarding South Africa's R500-billion Covid-19 relief package. The authors call for urgent transparency measures, independent monitoring, and strict accountability to prevent the diversion of emergency funds.

The South African Water Caucus (SAWC) submitted an urgent request to Minister Lindiwe Sisulu on April 30, 2020, demanding the provision of water tanks, reliable water supply, and sanitation packs for numerous communities across South Africa facing dire water shortages and sanitation failures during the COVID-19 lockdown.

The South African Water Caucus (SAWC) submitted an urgent request to Minister Lindiwe Sisulu on 22 April 2020, demanding the provision of water tanks, reliable water supply, and sanitation packs for numerous communities lacking basic water access during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This case study by GreenCape examines how FoodForward SA, a Public Benefit Organisation, utilizes a circular economy model to recover and redistribute surplus food in South Africa, specifically focusing on the impact within Cape Town during 2020/21.

This monograph examines the use and misuse of less-lethal weapons (LLWs) within South African prisons and by the South African Police Service (SAPS) Public Order Police (POP) units during crowd management from 2013 to 2018. It analyzes the legal and regulatory frameworks of the Department of Correctional Services (DCS) and SAPS, highlighting systemic failures in accountability, the use of equipment as instruments of torture, and the lethal consequences of weapons marketed as 'less-lethal'.

This report analyzes the failure of Section 139 interventions in South African municipalities between 1998 and 2019. It finds that interventions are typically initiated too late, are legally misclassified to avoid mandatory financial recovery processes, and rely on an unauthorized 'administrator model' that often exacerbates municipal collapse. The authors call for a standardized, non-political implementation framework with clear triggers and strengthened oversight.

This report, produced by the South African Civil Society Working Group on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, provides a 'Citizens’ Report' to offer an alternative perspective to the government's Voluntary National Review (VNR). It evaluates South Africa's progress on six specific Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): Quality Education (Goal 4), Decent Work and Economic Growth (Goal 8), Reduced Inequalities (Goal 10), Climate Action (Goal 13), Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions (Goal 16), and Partnerships for the Goals (Goal 17). The report generally finds that while South Africa possesses strong policy and legal frameworks aligned with the 2030 Agenda, there is a significant gap in implementation, public awareness, and the inclusion of civil society in the monitoring and review processes.

The Khoikhoi Peoples’ Rooibos Biocultural Community Protocol (BCP), published in 2019 by Natural Justice, serves as a formal framework to assert the Khoikhoi people's rights as traditional knowledge holders of Rooibos (Aspalathus linearis). It outlines the community's history of dispossession, their organizational structure for granting Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC), and the mechanisms for sharing benefits from the commercialization of Rooibos through a dedicated trust.

The South Africa’s Low-Emission Development Strategy (SA LEDS) 2050 is a strategic framework designed to transition South Africa to a low-carbon growth path by 2050. It aligns national policies with the Paris Agreement and the country's Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC), focusing on a 'peak, plateau and decline' emissions trajectory. The strategy outlines sectoral measures for energy, industry, agriculture, forestry, and waste, while emphasizing a 'Just Transition' to ensure socio-economic upliftment and job security during the shift away from fossil fuels.

This case study describes South Africa's Working for Water (WfW) scheme, a Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) project launched in 1995 to combat invasive alien plants while providing employment and social support to marginalized communities.

The report 'Young Leaders' by WWF South Africa documents the first decade of its Environmental Leaders internship programme (2008–2018), which aims to bridge the gap between university graduation and professional employment in the green economy. The programme focuses on developing scarce green skills through work-based learning, dedicated mentoring, and professional networking to combat high graduate unemployment in South Africa.

The Centre for Environmental Rights (CER), representing the Life After Coal/Impilo Ngaphandle Kwamalahle Campaign, submitted detailed comments on the Climate Change Bill, 2018. The CER argues that the Bill focuses too heavily on government bureaucracy and fails to address the urgency of the climate crisis or provide sufficient mechanisms for holding emitters accountable. Key recommendations include setting a strict, legally binding emissions trajectory aligned with the Paris Agreement, ensuring full public disclosure of carbon budgets and GHG reports, and establishing independent oversight and appeals bodies.

This policy brief by the Institute for Economic Justice (IEJ) argues for the mainstreaming of Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) in South Africa to address risks to food security, water supply, and rural employment. The document proposes a transition toward agro-ecology and conservation agriculture (CA) to restore degraded land and protect strategic water source areas, suggesting that these labour-intensive practices can create new jobs in a 'Catchment Economy' and within the biofuel sector.

This policy brief by the Institute for Economic Justice (IEJ) outlines a strategy for South Africa's transition from a coal-dependent electricity system to a low-carbon model. It emphasizes the need for a 'just transition' to protect vulnerable workers, the urgent need to reform Eskom's business model, and the potential for localizing the manufacturing of renewable energy components to drive economic growth.

This report details a trade mission from the Netherlands to Cape Town, South Africa, held from May 22-25, 2018. Organized by GreenCape in cooperation with the Netherlands Government, the mission focused on the circular economy and biomass valorisation, specifically targeting organic wet streams, invasive species, construction and demolition waste, plastics, and waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE).

This 2018 report by the Centre for Environmental Rights evaluates the legal and practical regulation of wild animal welfare in South Africa. It argues that the current system is fragmented, outdated, and biased toward economic gain, leaving captive and exploited wild animals with minimal protection. The report highlights a critical jurisdictional divide between biodiversity conservation (Department of Environmental Affairs) and animal welfare (Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries), which results in inconsistent permitting, poor compliance monitoring, and inadequate enforcement.

The ATI Network Shadow Report 2018, compiled by the South African History Archive (SAHA) and other civil society members, evaluates the effectiveness of the Promotion of Access to Information Act 2 of 2000 (PAIA) in South Africa between 1 June 2017 and 31 July 2018. The report highlights systemic failures in public body compliance, including high rates of non-responsiveness and the misuse of legal provisions to delay information release, while also discussing the challenges of accessing data from private bodies and the impact of these barriers on rights to education and the environment.

This 2018 fact sheet by the Institute for Economic Justice examines South Africa's fulfillment of economic and social rights ahead of its first UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights review. It argues that the government's adoption of fiscal austerity, combined with extreme systemic inequality and corruption, undermines the rights to health and education.

This report by WWF South Africa explores the business case for introducing electric orchard tractors in South Africa's horticultural sector. It identifies a significant market opportunity to replace small diesel tractors with electric alternatives for low-energy applications, highlighting potential carbon emission savings, socio-economic benefits through local manufacturing, and the financial viability of a lower total cost of ownership despite higher initial capital costs.