FREE DAILY EMAIL

Date: 14/05/2005
Source: Gauteng Provincial Government
Title: Shilowa: Launch of Community Development Workers programme


  Address by Premier Mbhazima Shilowa at the launch of the Community Development Workers Programme in Gauteng
Minister of Provincial and Local Government (attendance to be confirmed)
Minister of Public Service and Administration (attendance to be confirmed)
MECs for Local Government and other MECs
Executive Mayors
Speakers
MPLs
Members of the Mayoral Committee
Ward Councillors and members of ward committees
Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen

Today is a proud moment for Gauteng as we officially launch our first group of Community Development Workers (CDWs) who have, since the beginning of this month, been deployed in various communities in Gauteng.

The CDWs are a key prong of our efforts to build an effective and caring government, which at all times acts in service of the people to improve their lives. They are in a sense the grassroots activists and foot soldiers of our people-centred, democratic government.

The establishment of the CDW programme was in response to the President's announcement in his State of the Nation address in February 2003 that government would create a public service echelon of multi-skilled community development workers.

The CDWs emerged from the recognition that, while government had made important progress in improving access to public services and redressing the legacy of poverty and underdevelopment in disadvantaged communities, many ordinary people, especially the poor and the vulnerable and those in marginalized communities, still faced difficulties in accessing government and getting government to respond to their needs.

There were still too many cases where government services were not reaching the intended recipients or where services are of poor quality or are not provided timeously. For example, we were coming across too many women and children in poverty stricken areas who were suffering greatly as they had not been able to get an identity document or access the child support grant.

In other cases, a sewerage pipe is broken and left unfixed for two weeks.

This also emerged strongly in our interaction with people during last year's election campaign and in the ongoing government Izimbizo programme across the province.

It was realised that the existing instruments were not adequate to deal with the challenge. There was therefore a need to introduce a new layer of civil service cadreship that would be locally recruited and deployed to become the pulse of both government and the community at a local level.

CDWs' role would be to take government directly to the people so that we could sharply improve the quality of the outcomes of public expenditures intended to raise the standard of living of our people.

They would also be positioned to help make the machinery of the bureaucracy work more efficiently, increasing the effectiveness of systems of all levels of government and strengthening government's awareness of and capacity to respond to the needs of the people at the local level.

A study we commissioned in 2003 showed that, despite progress made in reaching communities through programmes such as Multi-Purpose Community Centres (MPCCs), outreach programmes by both government and non-governmental organisations as well as social security and poverty alleviation programmes, there was a need to increase both the pace and reach of service delivery.

In establishing the CDWs we therefore set out to improve people's access to government services, information and knowledge, particularly among the poor as well as to strengthen coordination and integration of service delivery at local and community level, with the objective of improving.

It was obvious that one of the difficulties was that we could not expect residents, especially the poor and the marginalized that we particularly wanted to reach, to come to government offices in town. We needed to establish a permanent presence of government officials in communities and ensure direct contact with the people where they live.

The CDWs' tasks were to identify people's needs, assess service delivery levels and barriers to service, do awareness and advocacy work - including ensuring that residents were aware of the opportunities available to them to improve their own lives - and to improve residents' access to services, particularly through referrals to relevant service providers.

Government and other service providers need to be more responsive to people's needs and ensure a more rapid turnaround times, acting and providing the necessary feedback on deliverables and unblocking bottlenecks. The CDWs are key to the achievement of this objective.

In short, this new cadre of servants of the people, as we have called them, are to be local champions of government's plans to drive development and build better communities in every ward in Gauteng.

CDWs will be breaking new ground in that, even though they are employed by provincial government, they will be working at a ward and municipal level and acting on behalf of and working hand in hand with all three spheres of government. This places them in an ideal position to promote synergies and integration across the three spheres in the interests of local residents.

They will draw upon and complement a number of existing government initiatives such as MPCCs, Izimbizo, community health workers and other outreach programmes and strengthen local systems and structures rather than set up something completely new.

They will also complement the work of ward committees and ward councillors and should be seen as a local resource for these structures. While ward councillors are elected representatives of the people, the CDWs are government officials. They should be local people of integrity who enjoy respect from the community and understand local service delivery challenges, opportunities and linkages as well as the machinery of government.

In rolling out the CDW programme we adopted three key principles:

* that the recruitment and deployment of CDWs should not be simply a bureaucratic process, but should be inclusive of local structures in the identified areas, including municipalities
* that the first phase of the program should focus on recruitment and deployment of CDWs in identified poverty pockets in the province * that the ultimate goal is to have one CDW in every ward in the province.

We are pleased to report that 199 CDWs who completed learnerships conducted by the University of South Africa (Unisa) are now in the full-time employ of the Gauteng Provincial Government and have been deployed in 133 different wards throughout Gauteng. We are also pleased to note that more than half of them at women, keeping to our commitment on the employment of women in the public service.

The training that the CDWs have received includes understanding the challenges of poverty and underdevelopment, how government works, the policy and development process, starting and managing small business, project management, conflict management, HIV and AIDS and gender development.

The next group of 120 CDWs learnerships will start a 12-month learnership programme in July this year. They will be selected from 120 wards in consultation with local authorities, and will be appointed as full-time public servants in 2006. A further 130 learnerships will be appointed next year to ensure that all 446 wards in Gauteng have at least one CDW deployed there as a full-time, dedicated public servant.

CDWs have already completed important work, including developing profiles of their respective communities, including local services providers. They have also done door-to-door work to identify key service gaps such as access to social grants and identity documents.

They have not only been reactive in addressing residents' problems, but have also taken proactive steps in supporting government campaigns in line with theme months such as Human Rights month, Youth Month and Women's Month. For example, they helped mobilise for the women's dialogue and mobilised awareness among parents to register learners timeously, participated in door-to-door awareness on HIV and AIDS and were active in the campaign of 16 Days of Activism against Violence against Women and Children.

An example of the types of problems that CDWs have already helped address was a family in Vosloorus, where an elderly man was a pensioner but was not receiving a pension, an unemployed mother and her seven-year-old child who were also not receiving grants and who were suffering from full blown AIDS-related illnesses, and another relative who was suffering from leprosy.

The departments of Social Development and Health were called in to intervene and the matter has since received their attention.

In Lanseria and Diepsloot, CDWs have assisted community-based projects to solicit funding from the Department of Social Development and Department of Trade and Industry in their poverty alleviation work.

In Metsweding, CDWs have assisted rural communities with applications for Identity documents and social grants through the Home Affairs mobile station.

These are but a few examples of where the CDWs are making a difference in people's lives and helping to make Gauteng a better place.

We should congratulate those in Gauteng who have helped drive the CDW programme and place Gauteng has played a leading role in the establishment of CDWs in the country. We are the first province to deploy fully fledged CDWs.

We call on all stakeholders to provide the necessary support to them to maximize their impact in the community. To the CDWs, your challenges are great but we know that you will not disappoint us. You have the mandate to pressurise government at all levels to deliver better services to our people. I wish you all the best in your endeavours.

I thank you. For more information contact: Annette Griessel Cell: 082 563 3614

Issued by: Office of the Premier, Gauteng Provincial Government
14 May 2005
   

SPONSORED BY

Advanced