Photo: Sunshine Seeds / Shutterstock

By Maru Attwood 

29 April 2026 

When local government service delivery fails, it is often young children who suffer most. A third of ECD (Early Childhood Development) centres rely on pit latrines, 10% lack electricity, and only 59% have taps for hand-washing, according to the latest national survey of these facilities. 

Inadequate services and infrastructure can be deadly. Diseases linked to unsafe water and poor sanitation are a leading cause of death for children under five. In May 2025, four toddlers were killed when a fire broke out in an overcrowded creche in Mayfair. With too few safe places to play, children regularly die from falling into uncovered municipal manholes. 

Real Reform for ECD, a campaign part of the Equality Collective, is driving changes to how government departments at all levels support young children, their caregivers, and ECD teachers. On the local level, Real Reform works across eight municipalities, from rural areas to the biggest metros, to change policies, budgets and practices to enable quality infrastructure and nutrition for young children. Fixlocal spoke to Real Reform's Senior ECD Coordinator, Tshepo Mantjé, to find out how they are doing it. 

Whose responsibility? 

Early childhood development is the responsibility of multiple spheres and departments of government. While the Department of Basic Education handles curriculum, subsidies and regulation, the Constitution explicitly places "child care facilities" under local government. 

In practice, confusion around the specific role of local government in child care facilities has led to neglect of this key area. Real Reform's work reveals that many councillors and officials don’t realise they are responsible for child care facilities at all, let alone take action to assist ECD centres with infrastructure, zoning and registration. 

Barriers to registration

In 2022, when early childhood development shifted from the Department of Social Development to the Department of Basic Education, new norms and standards came with it. These regulations require ECD centres to register and to meet standards such as child-friendly toilets, sick bays, adequate kitchens, and 1.5 square metres of indoor space per child.

The standards are essential for child safety. But as Mantjé notes, "It's not enough to just set rules without creating supportive mechanisms." Many ECD practitioners have been operating informally from backyards and homes, providing attentive care without charging fees for many years. These centres struggle to renovate to meet new standards. 

Without being registered, centres can’t access a R24 per child per day government subsidy that covers nutrition, learning materials, and operational costs at ECD centres. Mantjé says, “Only 44% of centres are registered, and about 30% of those registered are receiving the subsidy.” Lack of access to nutrition has contributed to malnutrition, with one in four children in South Africa being stunted. 

To ease registration issues, the Department of Basic Education has introduced tiered registration (bronze, silver, gold), allowing practitioners to register gradually.

But local government has become a critical blockade. Registering must be done with the municipality and is often unnecessarily complex. It requires practitioners to leave centres multiple times to get zoning, environmental health, fire safety, and more documents from separate local municipal departments, while municipalities can drag out inspections needed to complete registration for months. 

Mantjé says that local government can do a lot to make it easier to register by simplifying standards, speeding up inspections, and establishing one-stop ECD desks where all registration requirements can be completed in one place.

The power of the IDP

One of Real Reform's most effective tools in pushing for changes with local government is the Integrated Development Plan (IDP). Every municipality has a five-year IDP that guides all planning and budgeting. When Real Reform first reviewed municipal IDPs, they found that the majority don’t mention early childhood development.

"Everything and anything that the municipality plans to do will be within the IDP," Mantjé says. Real Reform educates ECD practitioners and community members about how municipal planning processes work and mobilises them to attend public IDP meetings and make submissions. 

In municipalities like the Breede Valley in the Western Cape, where Real Reform has worked with local partners to include commitments for early childhood development in the IDP, “we have had a lot more traction in addressing issues like zoning and infrastructure. The IDP puts ECD squarely within the plans of local government.” This means that land, money, and infrastructure can go towards supporting children. 

“Everyone’s concern” 

Mantjé says, “Children cannot be in parliament. Young children cannot be in election queues, cannot vote, cannot make submissions to local government. Someone has to do that on their behalf.” 

What can you do to advocate for ECD reforms in your municipality? 

• Listen to and support the concerns of caretakers, teachers and other ECD practitioners in your community
• Attend municipal planning meetings to advocate for ECD infrastructure and services in your local Integrated Development Plan
• Push your municipality to allocate unused municipal land towards new ECD centres 
• Hold councillors accountable by asking what your municipality is doing to streamline ECD registration and improve centre infrastructure

“We need to start framing early childhood development as everyone's concern and as something that is not just about child outcomes, but around nation-building,” Mantjé emphasises.