As of October 2022 it claims to have more than 115,000 members in good standing in 81 branches in four of the nine provinces of South Africa - KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga, the Eastern Cape and Gauteng.

"[17] Academic Peter Vale writes that Abahlali baseMjondolo is "along with the Treatment Action Campaign the most effective grouping in South African civil society.

[19] In 2001, the eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality, which governs the city of Durban and surrounding places including Pinetown, embarked on a slum clearance program.

[24][25] The group's original work from 2005 onwards was primarily committed to opposing demolitions and forced removals and to struggling for good land and quality housing in the cities.

[27][28] AbM quickly had a considerable degree of success in stopping evictions and forced removals, winning the right for new shacks to be built and gaining access to basic services.

[30] In late 2008, the AbM President S'bu Zikode[31] announced a deal with the eThekwini Municipality which would see services being provided to 14 settlements and tenure security and formal housing to three.

[44][45] Abahlali baseMjondolo is the largest shack dweller's organisation in South Africa[46][45][47] and campaigns to improve the living conditions of poor people[48] and to democratise society from below.

[49] Since 2005, the movement has carried out a series of large scale marches,[16][50] engaged in direct action for various kinds, including such land occupations,[51] arranging self organised water and electricity connections and making tactical use of the courts.

[63] The movement has often used the phrase 'The Right to the City'[64] to insist that the location of housing is critically important and it demands that shack settlements are upgraded where they are and that people are not relocated to out of town developments.

[67][68] The movement also campaigns for the provision of basic services to shack settlements[69] and for equal access to school education for children from poor families.

AbM released a statement in Afrikaans, English, isiZulu and Portuguese, declaring, "a person cannot be illegal [...] don't turn your suffering neighbours into enemies.

"[78] Sociologist Michael Neocosmos saw this as the "most important statement on the xenophobic violence" and praised the fact that it was a shack-dweller group addressing the issue.

[92] Its key demand is that the social value of urban land should take priority over its commercial value[93] and it campaigns for the public expropriation of large privately owned landholdings.

Practically, it means that such a politics must be conducted where poor people live or in places that they can easily access, at the times when they are free, in the languages that they speak.

[103][104] This is primarily because its praxis correlates closely with central tenets of anarchism, including decentralisation, opposition to imposed hierarchy, direct democracy and recognition of the connection between means and ends.

[110] In its early years individuals in the ruling party often accused it of being criminals manipulated by a malevolent white man, a third force, or a foreign intelligence agency.

[113] There were more Than 200 arrests of Abahlali members in the first last three years of the movement's existence and repeated police brutality in people's homes, in the streets and in detention.

[115] In 2006 the local city manager Mike Sutcliffe unlawfully implemented a complete ban on Abahlali's right to march[116][117] which was eventually overturned in court.

[136][137] The Socio-Economic Rights Institute of South Africa issued a statement saying that the "charges were based on evidence which now appears almost certainly to have been manufactured" and that the Magistrate had described the state witnesses as ""belligerent", "unreliable" and "dishonest".

[138] Amnesty International noted that the court had found that "police had directed some witnesses to point out members of Abahlali-linked organisations at the identification parade".

[139] IRIN, the newsletter of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, reported in April 2010 that "The rise of an organised poor people's movement [Abahlali baseMjondolo] in South Africa's most populous province, KwaZulu-Natal, is being met with increasing hostility by the ruling African National Congress (ANC) government"[140] and in April 2013 the movement successfully sued the Minister of Police for violence against three of its members.

[150][151] After a call was made for eThekwini Mayor Zandile Gumede to step down to face charges of racketeering and fraud, the Durban offices of AbM were burgled in May 2019.

When Zikode said he was concerned by the timing of the burglary, the mayor's representative replied: "This is an old, repeated, fabricated allegation by Abahlali ... they must approach relevant security agencies if they have evidence instead of the media".

"[151] On July 24, 2022 Khaya Ngubane, a member of the local ANY Youth League was convicted for the assassination of Lindokuhle Mnguni and sentenced to fifteen years in prison.

[157] In a speech at the AbM UnFreedom Day event on 27 April 2008 Phillip said: The courage, dignity and gentle determination of Abahlali baseMjodolo has been a light that has shone ever more brightly over the last three years.

"[181] According to Lennox Mabaso, the then spokesperson for the Provincial Department of Housing, the movement was "under the sway of an agent provocateur" who is "engaged in clandestine operations" and who has been "assigned to provoke unrest".

[182] City Officials continue to argue that the movement was a Third Force seeking to undermine the ruling African National Congress for nefarious purposes.

[183] In December 2006, AbM and the Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign, disrupted a meeting of the Social Movements Indaba (SMI) at the University of KwaZulu Natal.

A member of the SMI collective said to the Mail & Guardian "they insulted us, using abusive language and all that macho lingo" whilst S'bu Zikode asserted denied any verbal violence.

[188][189] Mzonke Poni, the chairperson of the Cape Town structure at the time, publicly endorsed road blockades as a legitimate tactic during this strike.