This document focuses on Africa’s traditional authority especially the role of chiefs as an intermediary between the state and the citizen. The document has two parts.

The first part is a study which assesses the current role traditional leadership plays in public service delivery, and investigates how this role could be further enhanced. The second part is a report on the workshop on “Harnessing Traditional Governance in Southern Africa”.

The document notes that traditional governance is recognized everywhere in the sub-region although at different development levels with Lesotho and Swaziland having the high level of integration of the traditional institutions into state structures. In the other countries they play a much more limited advisory and lobbyist role on traditional, cultural and customary issues. This limitation and lack of independent resource base hinder the service delivery role of traditional leaders.

A series of recommendations for a better integration of the traditional authorities with the state have emerged from the study and the workshop. They are summed up under the following three main headings

1. Institutional strengthening and capacity building

• traditional leaders’ interaction with the various branches of the government should be enhanced
• steps should be taken to ensure the integration and mainstreaming of traditional leadership into the priority setting, legal and budgeting process, monitoring of development
• the state and representative bodies of traditional authorities should jointly review the legislative provisions
• traditional leaders should be supported to broaden participation as a means of bringing people with technical knowledge within communities to complement their capacities.

2. Information and knowledge sharing: To ensure that traditional leaders acquire knowledge and share the information they access, they should be:

• encouraged and supported to build upon success stories and best practices available in different countries
• provided with platforms at national, sub-regional and continental levels to enhance their voice.
  

3. Boosting good governance: In order to involve the traditional leadership in achieving the goals of good governance:

• the state and traditional leaders should jointly undertake the assessment of needs in their respective communities
• there should be mechanisms for tracking progress where communities under their traditional leaders embark upon development projects

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