JNB Roundtable: Community Protests: A means to make local government listen? 9 May 2017

This roundtable was held in the Johannesburg Archdiocese in collaboration with the Justice and Peace Commission and was addressed by Dr Carin Runciman,  a senior lecturer at the University of Johannesburg and co-author of the research papers, South African Police Service (SAPS) Data on Crowd Incidents and  Community Protests 2004-2013: Some Research Findings. Referring to her research paper, Dr Runciman argued that categorising community protest as simply ‘service delivery’ protests detracts from the multi-layered complex reasons why communities take to the streets to protest. Other important issues are also raised such as crime, unemployment and corruption. Often the protest are more about the quality of service delivery than the failure to deliver the services. She interacted with the crowd of about 30 community members who shared their stories about the why they often take to the streets to be heard.

L-R: Mr Joseph Dube (Head, Justice and Peace Commission), Mr Kabelo Selema (Programme Manager, Justice and Peace Commission), and Dr Carin Runciman

JNB Roundtable- Community Protests- A means to make local government listen 9 May 2017