101 areas of services in short supply and the causes such as poor leadership and inefficient municipal service units. They are almost always a way in which citizens demand responsiveness on the part of their political leaders and parties, pointing to a growing gap between them and their followers. This is why a lot of protests are actually about political alienation, political conflicts and intra- and inter-party issues. On a general scale, it appears that the protests are staged by three groups namely the poor in municipal areas; disaffected youth, trade unions and workers organised outside of the ambit of trade unions. These protests are classified into broad categories namely:     Systemic where they relate to maladministration ; fraud, nepotism and corruption; Structural when structural factors that impinge on healthcare, unemployment and land issues are considered; Governance involving weak leadership; erosion of public confidence in leadership and ineffective public participation; and Opportunism where there is the pursuit of private gain at the expense of the common good. Discontent can also be an unintended consequence of initiatives to bring government closer to the people through the Community Development Workers Programme and other similar initiatives. Initiatives such as CDWS have unintended consequences that exacerbates delivery protest in the sense that they create an expectation of improved service delivery which raises expectations for speedy provision of services. However, in instances where these expectations are not met or there is a perception of failure this may result in increased service delivery protests. In relation to these protests, some of the challenges highlighted during consultations in preparation of this report in the provinces include inaccessibility and poor visibility of CDWs in some areas, poor police support for community policing forums and failure of government to provide stipends for volunteers. During provincial consultations referred to above, some of the issues highlighted were: lack of good governance, poorly skilled public officials, poor quality of services rendered, inadequate flow of communication from government to communities, poor awareness of procedures for demanding citizens’ rights, inadequate consciousness of citizens’ rights; and inaccessibility of government officials77. As part of a comprehensive strategy to curb service delivery protests, the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA) is re-energising the implementation of the Local Government Turnaround Strategy (LGTS) of 2009. This strategy is aimed at expediting the solutions of local problems and the strengthening of local governance. Government envisages that this strategy will restore the confidence of the citizenry in municipalities as primary delivery organs of development as well as rebuild and improve the basic requirements for a functional, responsive, accountable, effective and efficient developmental local government. There have been noticeable improvements in the efficient and effective management of local government programmes in areas such as: operational and capital budgets, in the strength 101