Good Governance Africa

South Africa faces a persistent accountability gap in addressing grand corruption. Despite a comprehensive legal framework and multiple oversight institutions, enforcement remains fragmented, politically exposed, and inconsistently applied. Exposure has not translated into accountability, with limited asset recovery and few successful prosecutions of senior officials. The central weakness lies in enforcement rather than the absence of legal architecture.

Natural Resource Governance and Climate Change This programme tackles the challenges of resource governance and the impacts of climate change. It connects extractive industries to green industrialisation, promotes environmental justice, and anticipates the climate-conflict nexus, aiming to educate and engage communities for a sustainable future. Governance Insights and Analytics This initiative leverages data to enhance governance at local, provincial, and national levels.

Elections are a central mechanism through which citizens exercise political choice and determine who governs them. Yet, the quality of democracy cannot be measured simply by whether voting takes place or a winner is declared. Credible elections require citizens to participate freely, candidates to compete fairly, votes to be counted transparently, and elected officials to remain accountable after the polls.

Counter-terrorism financing is often described as a contest between governments attempting to restrict financial flows and terrorist organisations seeking new ways to survive. Experience from the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) demonstrates that this contest is less a battle of financial resources than one of adaptation.

It’s been four years since the Zondo Commission delivered its five-part State Capture report to President Cyril Ramaphosa, implicating close to 1500 people in the looting and capture of South Africa’s state-owned enterprises. Yet, as former chief justice Raymond Zondo points out, the country still doesn’t have the one institution he says would make the difference between endless commissions and actual accountability: an independent Public Procurement Anti-Corruption Agency (PPACA).

Karam Singh is an experienced leader and manager with extensive and progressive experience in the national and international civil society, government, private sector, academia and philanthropy. He is passionate about access to justice, the realisation of rights and the fight against corruption. His areas of expertise include research, strategy and project planning and implementation, fundraising, investigations, anti-corruption programming and various aspects of public law.

Months after South Africa’s load-shedding pressures finally began to ease, its richest city, Johannesburg, is confronting a new, localised electricity crisis, but this time, instead of a failing national grid, the City is facing severe fiscal insolvency. Last month, Eskom announced that the City of Joburg (CoJ) owed the power utility an outstanding R5.2 billion, not including a current account amount of R1.5 billion, and warned of possible electricity supply interruptions to the city.

For decades, anti-corruption efforts have been built on a familiar premise—that corruption is wrong, illegal, and should be punished. Governments strengthen laws, regulators impose penalties, and companies invest in compliance programmes, ethics training, and internal controls. Yet corruption remains one of the most persistent barriers to economic growth, investment, and development. But what do we mean by integrity?

On 15 August 2026, the residents of Osun State, Southwest Nigeria, will elect their next governor in what is expected to be another defining moment for the state’s democratic journey. While an election is the cornerstone of representative government, credibility is measured by more than the eventual declaration of results. As the election draws closer, Good Governance Africa (GGA) has observed an escalation in political tensions, violent incidents, and vandalism across the state.

Service delivery is one of the clearest channels through which to assess whether South Africa’s municipalities are living up to their constitutional mandates. Yet access to basic services is still uneven, especially in municipalities in former Homeland and Traditional Authority (TA) areas. These municipalities continue to face the legacy of historical spatial exclusion.