UFH-based accredited journal contributes to renewal of local government

What is widely perceived as the dysfunction of local government has made headlines in South Africa for many years now with commentators citing capacity and skills deficits as reasons for failures in service delivery. When JOLGRI was established there was no indication that the world was about to witness a period of unprecedented disruption. An editorial written by Professor Nzewi in January 2020, entitled Re-envisioning local government studies, research and practice for the future, reflected on the potential of local government to best adopt practices and foster growth and innovation.

 

However, as if predicting the near future, the editorial also contemplated the ability of many local governments, given their current state, to manage day to day responsibilities and, at the same time, deal with any crises that might occur. According to United Cities and Local Government, the largest organisation of local and regional governments in the world, local governments in developing nations struggle to attain the momentum needed to innovate and offer alternative services in

many areas including the need to manage spatial development in the context of historical legacies and climate change.

 

The need for local governments to meet complex challenges and, at the same time, make the most of opportunities for innovation represented an opportunity for a new journal as a forum for research. In 2021, JOLGRI was listed in the Directory for Open Access Journals (DOAJ), an index approved by the Department of Higher Education (DHET) for subsidy purposes. In an editorial entitled ‘Transformative networks and public participation in local government in the post-COVID era’ written in the same year, Professor Nzewi noted how limitations on social contact during the pandemic had affected the way local government, the sphere of government closest to the people, was able to interact with the people it served.

 

For Professor Nzewi, Covid-19 had forced a ‘hard shift in previously designed public participatory strategies’. JOLGRI is the only accredited South African journal focused on local government research and practice and sees its role as becoming even more urgent in coming years.

 

In its 2022 editorial entitled ‘Aluta Continua: will it ever end? The reality of local government in practice’, Associate Editor Dr Tando Rulashe, of the Department of Public Administration at UFH, argues that the struggle identified in the rallying call of ‘aluta continua’ cannot last forever. The editorial then goes on to describe JOLGRI as a journal that seeks to become a major player in scholarship and research on local government by developing a number of niche research areas. UFH’s Strategic Plan, Towards a Decade of Renewal, 2022-2026, sets into motion a decade of new beginnings, fresh perspectives and good governance. Arguably, the same kind of renewal is needed in local government in South Africa. However, to re-envision local government as the globe recovers from COVID-19, research must play a role and it is here that JOLGRI has an enormous contribution to make.

 

As a DHET-accredited journal hosted by UFH, JOLGRI is not only working towards contributing to the University’s decade of renewal but also to the renewal of local government itself by encouraging and disseminating high-quality research.