What We Do

The Land  Administration and Governance in South Africa (LAGSA) programme focuses on land governance issues in South Africa and beyond. The aim is to contribute to the growing body of work on land governance in South Africa. The specific aim of the PARI land initiative is to contribute to improved land governance through building state capacity, enhancing state–CSO engagements by generating empirical evidence and building the state’s capacity to uphold the South African Constitution.

The Land  Administration and Governance in South Africa (LAGSA) programme focuses on land governance issues in South Africa and beyond. The aim is to contribute to the growing body of work on land governance in South Africa. The specific aim of the PARI land initiative is to contribute to improved land governance through building state capacity, enhancing state–CSO engagements by generating empirical evidence and building the state’s capacity to uphold the South African Constitution.

The Education Programme is premised on dealing with a central problem in South Africa’s basic education system: how education institutions, their internal dynamics and processes affect education outcomes in the country. Thus the programme focuses specifically on education governance as a key constraint in the sustainable, effective and equitable provision of basic education in South Africa.

Capable and effective local government is central to the South African government’s developmental agenda. The primary aim of this programme is to investigate the factors that undermine this capability and effectiveness; to understand the day-to-day reality of administration and politics in municipalities and the factors that shape this reality.

Organisational and Institutional Studies (OIS) is a new programme in the School of Social Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, coordinated by the Public Affairs Research Institute. The programme offers ways to understand organisations and institutions of government and a multidisciplinary approach to the study of the state and civil society.