What an independent evaluation says the MCPP has taught us
Published by Elsona van Huyssteen, and Vickesh Bholai (CSIR) in MCPP Approach · Monday 27 Jul 2026 · 4:15
Tags: MCPP, independent, evaluation, municipal, capability, partnership, programme, lessons, learned, municipal, partnerships
Tags: MCPP, independent, evaluation, municipal, capability, partnership, programme, lessons, learned, municipal, partnerships
Six years ago, the Municipal Capability and Partnership Programme (MCPP) set out with a simple conviction: that municipalities and partners in mining regions require support, but don’t need more outside experts parachuting in with ready-made answers. This year, we finally got to see that conviction tested from outside the programme. An independent evaluation of the MCPP, conducted by the Public Affairs Research Institute (PARI), was featured in Municipal Focus (Volume 83) - and it's a milestone worth pausing on.
None of this belongs to any one partner, and we're mindful of that. It is a testimony to the sustained commitment of Anglo American, participating municipalities (currently Gamagara, Tsantsbane, Blouberg and Musina) and industry partners (currently Kumba Iron Ore with Sishen and Kolomela mines, as well as De Beers with Venetia mine), government partners lead the Department of Cooperative Governance (DCoG), Provincial COGHSTAs, PARI's careful independent evaluation, and (above all) the municipal teams and implementation teams and collaborators (including EUP, KAGISO Trust and SALGA) who've done the real work of building these relationships since the programme began.
South Africa has no shortage of municipal capacity-building initiatives. Most follow the same pattern: an external specialist arrives, produces technical solutions and hand it over. When the funding or the consultant leaves, so does the capability. PARI's evaluation (including interviews with municipal, district and provincial officials, as well as mine representatives) is significant precisely because it tests whether the MCPP, deliberately designed to work differently, actually holds up after six years. Its findings suggest it does - and point to why.
- It strengthens capability, not dependency. Rather than delivering ready-made technical solutions, the MCPP works alongside municipal officials to identify their own problems and design their own interventions. The evaluation found this distinction is the difference between a document that gets filed away and a skill that gets used long after the programme has moved on.
- Municipal (and industry) collaboration to achieve results is the actual product. Over 90% of participants reported improved collaboration across departments (planning, finance, engineering, governance, and between industry and government) during the programme. PARI's evaluators are explicit that these functions can't be strengthened in isolation, which is why the MCPP was built around systems thinking rather than department-by-department fixes from the outset.
- It recognises psychological safety, team functionality and survives the people leaving. By strengthening functionality of teams instead of merely focusing on professionalisation of individuals, or relying on individual “champions,” the programme has seen strengthening moral, communication and continuation of work in municipalities even whilst there was real staff turnover - a point of failure for most capacity-building efforts, which tend to evaporate the moment the trained official moves on.
- A shared “why” enables municipalities and partners to place the focus on development and even start to plan past their own borders. In the Northern Cape, Gamagara and Tsantsabane (with the Office of the Premier, Districts and Industry Partners) have established a joint Regional Development Compact – recognizing the importance of economic diversification and treating a shared post-mining future as a municipal and regional planning question rather than something each municipality must solve alone.
- Time and resourcing determine how deep the change goes. Where the programme has had more time, funding and mandate, results have been markedly more institutional. PARI frames this not as a critique of any partner, but as confirmation of an unglamorous truth the sector often ignores: sustained investment focused on results (not outputs), paired with root-cause interventions is what produces results that last - quick, underfunded interventions largely don't.
- Capability can't outrun governance and financial viability. The evaluation is candid that municipal finances and governance (e.g. revenue still tied to mining activity, high consumer debt, incomplete billing systems) remain binding constraints. The MCPP can strengthen how municipalities plan and act; it cannot substitute for the governance and funding municipalities need to actually deliver services.
- The model's replicability depends on an institutional anchor, not more champions. In the municipalities where the programme operates, there is an established commitment among government, industry, and municipal stakeholders, reflecting recognition of the CSIR's role as a credible intermediary. The CSIR’s unique combination of technical expertise and its ability to connect government, civil society, and industry positions it as a trusted partner in advancing local development outcomes. What's missing, and what PARI recommends the sector build toward, is secure, possibly shared, funding and institutional anchoring that lets this work outlast any one budget cycle, personnel change, or company's CSI calendar.
Read the full feature in Municipal Focus (Volume 83).
