District Management Area

A District Management Area ( DMA for short ) is the name of a former South African administrative unit. The name means something like "district administered area".

South Africa is (at municipal level administratively into three types of municipalities English Municipality ) divided. Category B municipalities form the lowest administrative level, which in turn are grouped into districts (Category C municipalities), and correspond to associations of municipalities with a capital. Exceptions to this are the metropolitan municipalities and, until 2011, the District Management Areas . In the latter, sparsely populated areas were grouped together. Often these were national parks or other protected areas.

DMAs reported directly to the district administration. This also took over all tasks that would otherwise fall to the local community, such as providing the necessary infrastructure.

The Municipal Demarcation Board set three requirements for the establishment of DMAs:

• Deserts and semi-arid areas ; they are sparsely populated and make up a third of South Africa.
• State protected and other nature reserves
• Areas with particular economic characteristics that are of national strategic importance.

The establishment of the DMAs was controversial from the start as they are not provided for in the constitution. Only the three categories of municipalities are specified there. A constitutional complaint was dismissed on the grounds that the DMAs belonged to the districts and thus did not form a separate municipality category.

See also

• List of District Management Areas in South Africa

Web links

• Redetermination of Municipal Boundaries, Metropolitan Municipalities, Withdrawal of District Management Areas and Delimination of Wards. Municipal Demarcation Board, January 2008, accessed June 4, 2010 . 
• The Determination of Category A (Metropolitan) and Category C (District) Council Boundaries, the Publication of Draft Boundaries for Category B (Local) Municipalities and the Board's Approach to District Management Areas. (DOC, 229 kB) Municipal Demarcation Board, November 18, 1999, accessed June 4, 2010 . 

Individual evidence

1. ^ Municipal Demarcation Board: About Demarcation . at www.demarcation.org.za (English).
2. ^ SAIRR : South Africa Survey 2000/2001 . Johannesburg 2001. pp. 534-535.