Managing different stakeholders has become a core element of business strategies in many successful organisations. SALGA like many other private and public sector organisations has realised that managing its stakeholders effectively will lead to enhanced delivery on its core mandate and will help in enhancing its profile and that of local government in general. It has therefore established a Stakeholder Engagement programme.

Aims and Objectives

The Stakeholder Management programme aims to develop a coherent approach to managing SALGA’s stakeholders in order to facilitate a collective effort towards advancing the interest of Local Government and its pursuit of innovative, quality and sustainable services.

The programme seeks at all times to maximise value from different stakeholders towards achieving its mandate and objectives referred to in its constitution, Five Year Strategic Plan (2007 – 2012) and annual business plans. It is acknowledged that sustainable relationships must be mutually beneficial to all parties concerned hence SALGA tries wherever possible to structure its relationships and associated activities in a manner that stakeholders may also derive value from their relationship with it.

The main objectives for engaging with various stakeholders include:

• To harness the collective resources available towards enhancing the local government agenda
  
• To build SALGA’s capacity to guide, advise and support municipalities in delivering on their mandate
  
• To build SALGA’s capacity to engage with policy making processes in the interest of local government
  
• To facilitate a large critical mass of voices advocating local government issues in the best interest of local government
  
• To facilitate issue based alliances as an advocacy tool
  
• To facilitate a mutually reinforcing peer learning approach to IGR and co-operative governance
  

Stakeholder Categories

SALGA has different categories of stakeholders which require differentiated management in order to maximise achievement of various objectives. The categories are structured as follows: