Initiative launched to help escalate service delivery issues, or even for communities to fix problems themselves

702's John Perlman is joined by Mark Heywood, well-known activist and founding partner of FixLocal.

There's endless talk in South Africa about service delivery problems, and the pain these shortcomings inflicts on ordinary citizens.

A new initiative has been launched to help not only find the right person at the local government level to approach to get things done but also to resolve problems yourself if the desired response is not forthcoming.

John Perlman finds out more about FixLocal from founding partner Mark Heywood, a well-known human rights and social justice activist.

The platform works as a website and is also available as a WhatsApp channel.

"What we've tried to do is make it possible for people to find the right person in the right place in the quickest possible time to report problems to the relevant authority but also, assuming that as happens in many cases, those reports don't get acted on, how to escalate those reports and problems and failing that, where possible how to fix the problem yourself."

Mark Heywood, Founding Partner - FixLocal

"It's been a partnership of AI people, communications specialists and activists... We've scraped the Internet for all of the stories we can find about activism in communities all over SA and republished those, so that people can learn from what others have done, but we've also turned them into step-by-step guides."

Mark Heywood, Founding Partner - FixLocal

Heywood emphasises that this is not an attempt to circumvent local government.

He's also adamant that people on the ground stepping up does not mean letting officials off the hook when it comes to the jobs they're actually employed to do.

"It's meant to bring the citizen into closer proximity to the people who're meant to be doing those jobs... The overall purpose is to put the whole breadth of the citizen in the right place and, if it doesn't get any results, to show them how they have even greater power to try to force a result and failing that, the steps they can take."

Mark Heywood, Founding Partner - FixLocal

"As such I think it should strengthen government, and it's really done in a spirit of partnership but it's also with a sense of urgency. It's our right to have functional, safe, efficient local government services."

Mark Heywood, Founding Partner - FixLocal

For now, the initiative covers 18 major metros, but the intention is to include every municipality in the country, Heywood says.

For more detail, listen to the interview audio at the top of the article, and click here to access the FixLocal website