GCRO 2024/25 Annual Report
During the April 2024–March 2025 financial year, the Gauteng City-Region Observatory (GCRO) advanced its record of rigorous, policy-relevant research while concluding its 2020–2025 strategic cycle.
The organisation developed a new Five-Year Strategic Plan (2025–2030) built on four goals: strengthening the GCR knowledge base, deepening partnerships across the academic – policy interface, enhancing communication and dissemination, and ensuring organisational resilience.
The year was marked by strong support to the Gauteng Provincial Government (GPG) as it entered a new term of office. The GCRO played a key role in the Five-Year Review (2019–2024) and contributed to the Medium-Term Development Plan (2024–2029). It also commissioned MISTRA to produce the Gauteng City-Region Scenarios 2035 to inform long-term planning.
A major highlight was the release of Quality of Life Survey 7 (2023/24), offering insights into life satisfaction, service delivery pressures, household finances and safety. The GCRO also produced a wide range of publications, including a Provocation on local government interventions, a research report on peripheral and displaced urbanism, two Occasional Papers, fourteen QoL 7 Data Briefs, one Rapid Research Paper, ten Maps of the Month and various journal articles, book chapters and conference presentations.
Date of publication:
December 2025
