2 SEPTEMBER 1999
A PARTNERSHIP FOR ACCELERATED DELIVERY
INTRODUCTION
It is appropriate for me to begin this briefing with a comment on the recent events in the Western Cape following Sunday's tragic tornado. The people of Guguletu, Manenberg and Surrey Estate were struck by a freak accident of nature. In response the people of the Western Cape rallied in support of them, providing material and moral support. This wonderful example of co-operation and partnership should be emulated. I would like to salute the people of the Western Cape and extend my gratitude and that of the government to them.
The declaration of a disaster means that government will be able to assist the affected families directly. Where there is no insurance or related cover, financial assistance will be given for damage or loss with regard to the following: Buildings (houses o r outbuildings), possessions (furniture, equipment and personal effects), motor vehicles and medical expenses.
Following the June elections, the new Government committed itself to land running. In other words, service delivery should continue without interruption and indeed be accelerated. This will be my mission. I will strive for proactive engagement with the sec tor - service providers, NGOs, voluntary welfare sector, CBOs, religious community, training institutions, and others.
This must form the basis of our welfare partnership - a partnership for accelerated delivery. As stated by President Thabo Mbeki, we must become a nation working together to build a better life for all our people.
Welfare touches the lives of millions of South Africans in the normal human life-cycle, and we need to ensure that our people are served humanely and that their rights are upheld, whether young or old. I would like to discuss a few areas where I would like to see welfare focus its attention so that the developmental impact of welfare can be felt and measured.
Our approach will be guided by translating policy into integrated social development action. Our operations will be governed by principles of efficiency, transparency and responsiveness. We will strive to create a process and environment for active partner ships. Building a people-centred social welfare system is our goal. Let me first focus on children, youth and families.
HIV/AIDS has a major impact on children, youth and families and therefore we are addressing this impact in the fields of social security, poverty relief and welfare services.
CHILDREN, YOUTH AND FAMILIES
Programmes and services for children, youth and families are based on the assumption that families and communities should be strengthened. They should be enabled to provide an environment where the developmental needs of children and youth can be met. To a chieve this, one of the challenges facing the Department is the persistent and widespread impact of poverty.
It is having a devastating impact on children in the poorest households. The Child Support Grant has been one of our responses to this challenge.
The child support grant (CSG) was introduced in April 1998. It extends government's social assistance to children living in poor households. To overcome the initial low take-up rate, we have simplified application procedures. In the past few months we have seen a significant increase in the number of applications for the CSG, with close to 150 000 children under seven benefiting from the grant.
The intention is to achieve our goal of reaching 3 million children by the year 2003. By the end of the year 2000 I would like to see the grant reaching 500 000 children. The national department will monitor the implementation of this goal at provincial le vel.
The safety net provided by the child support grant and other social assistance programmes must be delivered with services that build the capacity of children and families to become self-reliant. The child and youth care services provided by government and other welfare partners are being transformed to achieve this. The best practice models of the pilot projects of the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Young People at Risk will be replicated. Examples are family group conferencing and one stop youth justice ce ntres. Thousands of children and youth have already benefited from such projects throughout the country. Let me now turn to an issue that is especially close to my heart, the rights of children.
The unacceptable level of violence against children, including rape and sexual abuse, cannot be tolerated. The national department, provincial departments and private welfare service providers have finalised protocols on how to deal with cases of child abu se and neglect. The protocols are linked to other programmes. These include the Victim Empowerment Programme of the National Crime Prevention Strategy (NCPS) and the overall transformation of the child and youth care system.
The protocols need to be strengthened by partnerships to protect vulnerable children. My ministry will actively work with other government and non-government agencies to ensure implementation of such programmes.
We have also tightened up the child care legislation so as to make the commercial sexual exploitation of children a crime. Adults who exploit young children in this way or those who make their premises available for such commercial sexual exploitation of c hildren can now be charged in a court of law. Other issues in the field of child care legislation will also receive attention. This includes youth justice and probation issues.
A challenge for government and society as a whole is the high rate of unemployment, especially as it affects young school leavers and youth with tertiary qualifications.
The vicious circle that needs to be broken is one where they cannot find jobs because they have no experience and cannot gain experience because they cannot find jobs. The Department is supporting the Cape Argus and the Careers and Information Centre (CRIC ) on such a mentorship programme for youth within the private sector.
This will be used as a model to be replicated in the future. Currently this programme is only operating in the Western Cape and has been allocated R2-million.
A second major component of the Department's work is focused on women.
WOMEN
The fact that poverty affects more women than men, and that it affects women more severely, is well documented. Effectively women have no access to resources and skills to break out of their poverty. This is compounded by violence against women in the home and outside of it. The Department will work with other government agencies such as Justice, SAPS and Health to ensure the effective and speedy implementation of the Domestic Violence Act.
While the department aims to mainstream gender into all its programmes because of the specific needs of women, priority attention will be provided in the following ways:
It is this feminisation of poverty which the Department is addressing through its Flagship Programme for Unemployed.
These projects combine income-generation opportunities with skills training and early childhood development programmes on the site of the projects. We will build on the successes of this programme and use the experience to improve our responsiveness. Key t o this is the development of an overarching poverty alleviation strategy.
Another initiative is the Microsave Programme. This programme aims to support and promote stokvel-type savings collectives. There are many such collectives operating throughout the country, with mainly women as participants. The resources of such collectiv es have successfully been mobilised for development purposes. An amount of R18-million has been allocated for this programme on a pilot basis in the Northern Cape, Northern Province, Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal - the poorest provinces. The programme is supported by the UNDP and the ILO.
One of the major criteria of our poverty relief projects is that participants should be mainly women. The Department is supporting 1,933 projects countrywide as part of its poverty relief programme, funded directly by central government. This amounts to mo re than R110-million. These projects form the beginning of a sustainable strategy to build capacity for income generation and human development.
OLDER PERSONS
This government is committed to providing social protection for older persons. This will include the payment of old age pensions as well as other services designed to ensure the integration of older persons into active community life. The principle is to p romote active ageing.
Other measures to enhance the quality of life of older persons will also be implemented. The Status of Older Persons Act, will be tabled during this parliamentary session to ensure the proper management and accountability in service provision for older per sons.
The Department will also be piloting an ombuds system as a means of ensuring that older persons are not abused, but valued, respected and treasured as a resource to communities. It is they who care for the young, the sick and even provide financial assista nce from their pensions.
Old age is a time in the life-cycle when there is often poverty. Government's old age pensions have been shown to be a well-targeted poverty alleviation measure, reaching close to 1,8 million older persons - over half of the total number of social security beneficiaries.
These are some of the programmes and services which have a direct bearing on the lives of millions of South Africans. In this second term of our democratic government I will strive to ensure that service delivery is improved.
WELFARE PAYMENT AND INFORMATION SERVICE
One initiative to improve operational efficiency in the payment of social grants - and ensuring a customer focus - is the establishment of the Welfare Payment and Information Service (WPIS). Every month about 3 million South Africans receive pensions or gr ants, totaling more than R16-billion for the past financial year. This is a major poverty alleviation programme of government. The Department of Welfare will publish a tender to find a business partner or partners to completely re-engineer the payment of s ocial grants and establish a new Welfare Payment and Information Service (WPIS).
COMPREHENSIVE, INTEGRATED SOCIAL PROTECTION
A critical challenge for government is to provide a comprehensive, integrated safety net for citizens against old age, unemployment, disability, ill-health and other social risks.
The present system is inadequate in that there is no proper coverage of some of these risks. There is also a need to ensure that systems such as UIF and our social grants system are aligned and working in tandem. We also need to improve the interface betwe en public and private schemes.
An inter-departmental task team led by the Department of Welfare has been established. It is expected that their report will be tabled in Cabinet within two months will include a set of recommendations covering the risks related to unemployment, disability , medical insurance, accident cover, lack of retirement provision and other identified risks.
WELFARE FINANCING POLICY
The delivery of welfare services needs to be transformed. The objective is to transform welfare services from paternalistic and/or specialist services to developmental and holistic services that lead to people being self-reliant where the capabilities of the individual, the household or group are supported and enhanced, and welfare services are organ ised in such a way that individuals and communities are offered the widest possible range of services in their 'immediate neighbourhood'. The intention is to work towards a situation in which every community has access to services for children, women, yout h, families and older persons.
This transformation process is supported by the new welfare financing policy which is being phased in over five years as from 1 April 1999. Through the welfare financing policy we will begin a gradual shift away from the present subsidy system to a system where the Department will support particular services or packages of services in areas where they are needed the most.
Creating a welfare services environment that supports poverty reduction initiatives, human capacity development and social integration of the excluded and vulnerable will be a major objective of the current five-year term. To do this we will need to ensure that the morale of the social service professions is improved. Workers in the sector need to be recognised for their invaluable role.
POPULATION AND DEVELOPMENT
Our objective of sustainable development can only be achieved if we integrate population concerns into development planning. On the eve of the new millennium there are a number of population challenges facing us: Increased HIV / AIDS related mortality, esp ecially of people in economically productive age groups, sustained high fertility rates in rural areas, sustained high levels of inequality in income, access to resources and services, as well as resource consumption between rural and urban areas, blacks a nd whites, and men and women, managing international migration in a manner that supports the regional economic integration of Southern Africa
The National Population Unit is developing a population information system that will serve as a backbone to assist all three spheres of government to integrate population variables in their development planning.
HIV / AIDS
The rapid spread of the HIV / AIDS epidemic poses serious challenges for welfare. Thousands of children will be orphaned, placing a heavy burden on the state and communities. This is also one of the reasons why I am determined to ensure that the child supp ort grant is implemented successfully. Apart from this, Welfare needs to develop child-friendly community responses, incorporating the principles of ubuntu, and which build on the extended family and community involvement.
The Department is part of the Inter-Ministerial Committee on HIV/AIDS which has been tasked by President Mbeki to come up with a plan integrating HIV/AIDS to the governments rural development strategy. This will be done with other key sectors of society.
CONCLUSION
Welfare services are critical to ensuring that our people can play meaningful and productive roles in society, in the economy and political life of the country. I would like to see all South Africans working together to ensure that the ethics of care and h uman development are integral to the transformation of our society.