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This paper aims to present relevant literature review to build up the case pertaining to the impact of traditional leadership in the demarcation of municipal boundaries in South Africa. Municipal boundary demarcation remains a major contentious issue during the process of establishing municipalities. Little or no attention has been paid to the significance of traditional leadership in resolving issues around boundary demarcation between municipalities, hence this paper.

This paper adopted case study design. Data were collected from secondary sources and the contents were analyzed for this research purpose.

This paper put boundary in municipal context as a result of spatial reconfiguration process. It also discussed the impactful roles of traditional leadership as an institution involved in municipal (re)demarcation processes.

This paper focusses on the contemporary roles that traditional leadership is at vantage position to play in the process of municipal boundary demarcation. Therefore, the paper concludes that traditional leadership could resolve issue of ethnicity as a causal factor mitigating the redemarcation of municipal boundaries.

It contributes to existing knowledge by providing information on the roles of traditional leadership that could complement the resolution of the ethnic complexities arising from municipal (re)demarcation processes.

This study investigates the impact of political alignment on intergovernmental transfers to the Brazilian unified health system (SUS). The authors analyzed both automatic transfers based on pre-established rules and discretionary transfers, using two criteria of political alignment between mayors and the central government.

For the empirical analysis the authors used regression-discontinuity design (RDD) and the outcomes of close elections between 2001 and 2017.

The results indicate positive and statistically significant effects of party alignment on the two transfer categories, especially discretionary transfers, but also on transfers based on pre-established rules. The effect of direct party alignment, when mayors and the president are from the same party, is greater than that resulting from coalitions established in municipal and federal elections.

The positive effect of party alignment was found both in discretionary transfers (those that do not have previously established rules) and some non-discretionary transfers (although they have previously defined regulations). A part of these regulations depends on production capacity and on taking part in programs promoted by the central government, which may produce entropy in the financing system, and a margin to benefit political allies. In the case of the SUS system, it is possible that this entropy is greater in the basic health care category than in the moderate and high complexity one, allowing a higher margin for discretion in transfers allocated to the former. Stricter rules associated to basic health care transfers would be desirable.

In Brazil, stricter rules and monitoring associated to basic healthcare intergovernmental transfers would be desirable.

The results may inspire some improvement in the mechanisms that govern the distribution of resources to basic healthcare in Brazil, improving social welfare by improving social justice in the distribution of resources to basic healthcare.

The authors does not know any other study about the impact of party alignment on the distribution of intergovernmental transfers to the Brazilian unified health system.

This study examines how resource dependency affects municipal budgetary process; specifically, it investigates how politically aligned resource sharing between different levels of government along with clientelism interferes with the budgetary process of municipal organizations in developing countries.

The paper adopts a qualitative approach to study two municipal organizations in Bangladesh. The qualitative data are collected from semi-structured interviews with key organizational members. Besides, the study also relies on various publicly available documents and the Local Government Acts to complement the interview data.

The findings of the study divulge dependence on partisan aligned nonprogrammable government funds poses significant problems for municipal organizations in carrying out their budgetary process. Clientelism and informal negotiations of incumbent political leaders are found to play a vital role in such resource sharing decisions. The consequent uncertainties in getting funds have the potentials of interrupting the budgetary process at the organizational level. In some cases, budgets do not appear to be useful as a management tool for guiding organizational activities.

Like other qualitative studies, the results of these case studies are not generalizable because their interpretations are highly dependent on the context of the research sites.

Despite the limitation of a case study research, the results of this study are useful to deepen our understanding of how uncertainty in resource sharing creates clientele behavior and interferes with the organizational budget. Such an understanding helps practitioners and policymakers devise a sound resource sharing mechanism for effective delivery of municipal services on a sustainable basis.

This study provides insight into how precarious central government transfers and clientelism interfere with local governments' budgetary process.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a replicable model that ensures Household Water Treatment and Safe Storage as well as water treatment facilities at the community level by providing total service coverage at community scale. An intervention was implemented in one of the low-lying areas of Basirhat Municipality (West Bengal, India) that included a number of action programs in order to address household- and community-level water-induced challenges.

A research study was undertaken to identify the root causes of the problems that are generally spawned from geomorphological, hydro-fluvial, climatic factors and processes and the situation becomes complicated when many other cumulative problem-contexts layovers the existing ones. A number of social and technological innovations were tested in the field and this paper critically examined the intervention processes and outcomes. It was implemented through participatory process by involving related stakeholders working at that scale so that necessary public acceptance is received for scaling up, at least, in the similar physical, social, economic and institutional contexts.

The problem conceptualization process, spatial assessment for contextualizing the problem, design of interventions for different scales, development of project deployment strategies from field-based learnings contributed in developing a total solution based on fusing of household-level technical solutions, social innovations and actions for community engagements towards sustainability. Mobilized community members in addressing local inundation and waterlogging crisis. Satellite image-based maps shown to make them understand the upper-lower connection of drainage. People also developed their own action plans and engaged themselves in resuscitation of an old canal, removed the garbage that resulted in improved drainage conditions in the area.

Pandemic due to COVID 19 and its related prolonged lock down, West Bengal State Assembly Election, closure of municipal governance system due to the forthcoming municipal election, closure of educational institutions, closure of Anganwadi Centre in the field area were the limitations. Due to the lock down, it was difficult for the team to maintain the time frame as well as the budget. As per the Election’s Code of Conduct gets released no public meeting was allowed without permission, people in the vicinity became suspicious, hence movement of the team members got restricted.

Due to the COVID protocols, the team could not organise mass training programs. It was difficult for the team members to commute in public/private transport, hence filed work got impacted. As the team could not access data from the health department, they developed a strategy of generation data on body mass index, mid-upper arm circumferences and waist-to-hip ratios to understand the status of health and nutrition of the community. It was difficult to access the Public Health Engineering Department’s laboratory situated in the municipality for water sample test. Cost escalated due to extension of the project time.

During the second phase (wave) when people lost access to health facilities they requested the team to stop field visit. Women’s empowerment through acquiring knowledge and skill on treatment and safe storage of drinking water at home. Men appreciated and recognized this, which improved the status of women in the society. Children after expressing their willingness to learn the new technology of water purification were given handholding training by their mothers and knowledge transfer has taken place in the next generation. Mobilized community members in addressing local inundation and waterlogging crisis. Satellite image-based maps to understand the upper-lower connection of drainage helped them develop their own action plans and engaged themselves in resuscitation of an old canal, removed the garbage that resulted in improved drainage conditions in the area.

Household-level solutions include supply of low cost, easy operable, sustainable water purifiers, community-level solution focused on securing water-related challenges at social/public gathering places and wider catchment area level solutions include the engagement of local communities to drain out stagnant waters by clearing drains, creating/digging small canals through collective actions. Geo-spatial techniques (topographical mapping, spatial survey, water quality tests) along with social methods such as participatory appraisals for gathering information on human health, public awareness campaigns and partnership development with local government agencies were the major activities performed as part of the implementation of interventions. It is imperative to mention that water-related challenges in the low-lying settlement areas of Basirhat Municipality have effectively been addressed by relying on necessary theoretical underpinnings (Disaster risk reduction/humanitarian principles) transmitted through application of scientific techniques and mediated through local people and their agencies.