The enforcement of socio-economic rights against local governments in South Africa
Abstract
Poverty and underdevelopment are South Africa’s greatest challenges. These
are inextricably linked to uneven access to adequate public services. By all
accounts, South Africa has made impressive progress in extending access to
basic services to marginalised communities (see Table 1 below). However, the
main challenge remains the severe inequality in access to basic services across
different demographic segments of the population of 52 million inhabitants.