THE Ministry for Provincial and Local Government is hosting a Southern African Development Conference local government conference to promote co-operation on local government matters in the SADC region. The conference has brought together ministers responsible for local government from the 14 SADC countries. It is a follow-up to a meeting between SADC Ministers of Local Government who attended the African Union of Local Authorities’ Conference held in 1997 at Mafikeng, North West province. It comes at a critical time when a number of the SADC member states are undergoing major local government restructuring and when local government is increasingly given the responsibility to regenerate local economies, build and maintain infrastructure for improved services delivery in spite of financial crisis, decline in regional economies, massive job losses and increasing poverty in the region.