Organisation: Centre for Municipal Research and Advice (CMRA)

The Centre for Municipal Research and Advice (CMRA) is a bilateral initiative of the South African local government Association (SALGA) and the International Cooperation Agency of the Association for Netherlands Municipalities (VNG-I). Established in October 2005, CMRA is a Research and Consultancy company that is aimed at strengthening democratic Local Governance in Southern Africa and does that by assisting municipalities to find innovative solutions to critical challenges through research, institutional support and advice.

Benachmarking Local Economic Development

The CMRA in partnership with SALGA and the Association for Netherlands Municipalities (VNG) are currently Benchmarking Local Economic Development (Benchmark cycle 2011). 

The initiative entails the following:

1. Training on the application of the SALGA LED maturity assessment tool;
2. An assessment of the state of LED maturity in the participating municipalities;
3. A group comparative report (highlighting general trends);
4. An individual comparative report (highlighting individual municipal performance against peers);
5. 2 Learning events to exchange knowledge and unpack challenges and good practices.

This initiative is implemented in a partnership between CMRA, SALGA and VNG-International (International Cooperation Agency of the Association of Netherlands Municipalities)

The project will aim to assist municipalities to strengthen their developmental and governance response to the topic mentioned above and can significantly contribute to improving municipal service delivery.

The benefits of benchmarking are:

• Insight in achievements of a municipality,
• It shows the strengths and weaknesses of a municipality compared to others,
• Participants learn how they can improve their performance and overcome, challenges based upon the experiences of peers in other municipalities
• Benchmarking is an efficient and effective tool to implement national policies.

The new benchmark will be implemented by CMRA, in partnership with SALGA.