
Practice Areas

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PDG undertakes national scale public finance policy work; assists provinces to better support municipalities; and carries out financial planning and strategy work directly for municipalities. At national level, we have conducted research and analysis to support policy development with respect to tariffs, property rates, capital and operating grant mechanisms, as well as supporting clients with the roll-out of policy. Our work directly for municipalities is typically based on a set of financial models, developed and refined over the years, including long term financial planning tools and financial viability models for individual municipal services. Over the past decade, we have built up specific experience with tariff setting and the affordability of services, including the development of tools to set tariffs and to test their affordability. |
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PDG undertakes national scale public finance policy work; assists provinces to better support municipalities; and carries out financial planning and strategy work directly for municipalities. At national level, we have conducted research and analysis to support policy development with respect to tariffs, property rates, capital and operating grant mechanisms, as well as supporting clients with the roll-out of policy. Our work directly for municipalities is typically based on a set of financial models, developed and refined over the years, including long term financial planning tools and financial viability models for individual municipal services. Over the past decade, we have built up specific experience with tariff setting and the affordability of services, including the development of tools to set tariffs and to test their affordability. |
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PUBLIC FINANCE

MONITORING & EVALUATION

URBAN ECONOMIES

MUNICIPAL SERVICES

INSTITUTIONAL DEVELOPMENT

URBAN SYSTEMS
The Urban Systems Practice Area focuses on the interaction between land, housing, infrastructure and public transport, with a focus on how these are financed. Our interest is in how cities function to facilitate the flow of people and resources. We undertake research, policy development, financial analysis and fiscal impact assessments around housing, land, spatial planning, infrastructure services, public transport public services, and environmental sustainability. We are therefore able to perform a niche role of providing consulting services around a full suite of public sector functions to clients that are tasked with integrating these functions, as well as those that have a larger policy perspective.
URBAN SYSTEMS

PUBLIC FINANCE
PDG undertakes national scale public finance policy work; assists provinces to better support municipalities; and carries out financial planning and strategy work directly for municipalities. At national level, we have conducted research and analysis to support policy development with respect to tariffs, property rates, capital and operating grant mechanisms, as well as supporting clients with the roll-out of policy. Our work directly for municipalities is typically based on a set of financial models, developed and refined over the years, including long term financial planning tools and financial viability models for individual municipal services. Over the past decade, we have built up specific experience with tariff setting and the affordability of services, including the development of tools to set tariffs and to test their affordability.
PUBLIC FINANCE

MONITORING & EVALUATION
Brendon is a Senior Consultant and leads the Urban Systems Practice Area. He also works in the Municipal Services and Public Finance practice areas. He performs quantitative and qualitative research and analysis, as well as financial and non-financial modelling in Microsoft Excel. Significant projects that Brendon has worked on include research and case study visits to sub-Saharan African countries to investigate their use of land to finance urban infrastructure, analysing and modelling the fiscal impact of development strategies and long-term financial planning for municipalities in South Africa. He has also led a project in Rwanda on the creation of an online reporting system, the cost of rural water supply and the creation of a tariff setting methodology for rural water systems.
MONITORING & EVALUATION

MUNICIPAL SERVICES
The Municipal Services Practice Area focuses on the engineering services of water, sanitation, electricity, roads, stormwater and solid waste, as well as the interactions between these services. The objective of the practice area is ultimately to improve the speed, scale and quality of municipal services through providing evidence and facilitating strategic processes to support decision making around how municipalities provide their mandated services. We work at the local scale providing research, analysis and planning work for metro, local and district municipalities, as well undertaking policy work at national and provincial scales.
URBAN ECONOMIES

The Urban Economies Practice Area prides itself in its expertise in looking ‘under the bonnet’ of observed sectoral and system-wide trends by harnessing a wide array of administrative, operational and 3rd party data and, by means of bespoke interaction models, create the evidence-base for supporting decision-making in the public interest. PDG provides analytical support in a range of fields requiring a longer-term perspective, such as spatial planning and land use management, economic development, property development and urban management, and transport and related infrastructure planning.
MUNICIPAL SERVICES

INSTITUTIONAL DEVELOPMENT
PDG supports the evolution of a sound framework for public institutions with specific attention to the relationships between them, and between state institutions and the private sector. PDG builds on considerable experience with intergovernmental relations and the powers and functions of the spheres and tiers and government with effective regulation being a central part of the framework. Municipalities play a central role in the functioning of the government system and PDG supports this through policy development relating to the inter-governmental system, regulation of local government activities, the role of parastatals and the interface with the private sector and civil society.
INSTITUTIONAL DEVELOPMENT