Since 1997, CIET has supported South African efforts toward institutional reform and integrity in public services. In Gauteng Province CIET, together with the Southern Metropolitan Local Council (SMLC) of Greater Johannesburg, collected information to assist the Council and other role players, including the police, in designing appropriate interventions to prevent sexual violence.

This in turn expanded into an unprecedented national study on the links between sexual violence and HIV/AIDS risk – a study that includes the views and experiences of over 250 000 school-going youth. One product of this study was the audio programme called Beyond Victims and Villains.

In the Eastern Cape CIET has assessed the impact of a government-sponsored investment programmes on local economic development in the Wild Coast region of the Province over a period of ten years. CIET also participated in community-led telecentre planning in three provinces – the Eastern Cape, Northern Cape and Northern Province. Pilot social audits on communities’ views of service delivery by various departments of provincial government were also conducted in Eastern Cape and Northern Province.

In Gauteng Province, which includes Johannesburg, a social audit of government health services in December 2003 helped to strengthen health planning and delivery. Two surveys were also conducted for the Office of the Premier on residents’ knowledge of and views of the premier.

In 2004 CIET did a baseline study for monitoring the rollout of anti-retroviral AIDS therapy in Free State province.

A project on gender violence and HIV counseling skills for rural elders began in Limpopo province in 2005.

In 2006 CIETafrica conducted a policy-oriented synthesis of evidence for AIDS prevention.

Starting in 2007 faculty members from Witwatersrand University and the University of the Western Cape participated in CIET’s African Development of AIDS Prevention Trial (ADAPT) programme which aims to build on local health capacity to plan, conduct, analyse and use the evidence from large scale, multi-centred AIDS prevention trials in southern Africa.