LOCAL AUTHORITIES’ PERFORMANCE IN ZIMBABWE-A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

Abstract

There has been a global uproar recently as local authority service delivery has fallen short of ratepayer expectations, despite the fact that local authority performance, particularly service delivery, is seen as a major motivator of nations towards global sustainability and competitiveness. The current study was therefore founded on the requirement to reduce the gap between ratepayers’ expectations and the performance of the corresponding local authorities in Zimbabwe. For this investigation, we used the search engines Scopus, Google Scholar and Web of Science (WoS). The review took into account empirical studies up until June 2022. Because the emphasis was on the performance of local governments, the initial search used variants of the terms ‘efficiency,’ ‘performance assessment,’ ‘local government,’ and ‘local authority.’ The databases produced more than 250 books, articles, and unpublished research papers when these keywords were used. We disregarded conference presentations and dissertations to reduce the overall number of results. The results were then qualitatively screened to make sure they answered the research topic. We ultimately collected 78 studies. The review provides a contextualized view of earlier research in discourses, techniques, and frameworks that draw attention to the difficulties local authorities have in performing their functions, with a focus on service delivery and strategic growth toward sustainable futures. As we go on with our empirical inquiry, the systematic review technique has been a helpful organised way to provide a preliminary source of knowledge in local authority performance assessment and more generally. Future research has a number of prospective directions that have been identified.