National Consultative Process (NCP)

- Minister outlines welfare priorities
- My mandate to address this crisis
- Creating a collective vision and strategy
- The priorities that drive our response to the social crisis
- What we heard when we listened

• Are we acknowledging, building upon and improving the capacity of communities, NGO's and provincial departments of welfare?
• Are we generating and sharing accurate information that is usable?
• Are our responses to HIV/AIDS appropriate?
• Are we listening and responding to the needs, problems and issues of specific groups in society?
• Is the current system of social grants working and is it sustainable?
• Are we getting the full benefit of the partnerships that we have established?
• Are our curriculum development and training activities enabling us to meet our social development commitments?
• Are we reducing poverty?
• How can we improve the delivery and financing of services?

- How we will monitor and evaluate our response to the social crisis
- NCP Participants

Let me begin by saying that I have one overriding impression after six months in this ministry. It is that the welfare system is failing those people who most need its support. This became clear to me during my visits to the provinces, including those with the highest poverty levels. The conclusions I have reached have been reinforced by what I heard from civil society organisations during the National Consultative Process in October 1999. 
The country is sitting on a time bomb of poverty and social disintegration. We need to act now and correct the weaknesses in our welfare system. We therefore have to set about this task with a full understanding of the nature and extent of the social crisis that we face. Such an appreciation creates a foundation from which we can translate Presi-dent Mbeki's call for a caring society into reality.

The nature and extent of the social crisis
South Africa has been and is experiencing a deep social crisis. This crisis has the potential to reverse the democratic gains made since 1994. The disintegration of the social fabric, of family and community life is a reality that has not been acknowledged at a fundamental level. 
Our social policies assume the ability of families and communities to respond to the crisis. 
Welfare has proceeded as if these social institutions are fully functional and provide the full range of social support that is required to restore the well being of people.
Persistent and increasing levels of poverty, violence, social inequality, and unfulfilled expectations place an enormous burden on existent social welfare services. 
The national context as we all know, is characterised by persistent and deepening poverty which is accompanied by social alienation and related pathologies.
Violence against children, women and the elderly is an affront to the type of society we are building. Added to this is one of the fastest growing incidences of HIV/AIDS in the world. Poor people are the most vulnerable to HIV/AIDS and HIV/AIDS exacerbates poverty.
In addition, low economic growth and highly inequitable income distribution has placed increased demands on the range of social welfare services offered by government. 
The poorest 40 percent of households receive only 11 percent of the country's total income. The richest 10 percent of households receive more than 40 percent of the total income. The age, gender and racial characteristics of South Africa's population indicate that the most vulnerable households are in the rural, peri-urban and township areas. 
Only 45% of the total population live in rural areas but rural areas contain 72% of the people that are poor. Most people who are poor are African, and the majority are women. In measures of human development such as life expectancy, infant mortality and adult illiteracy. South Africa compares unfavourably with several other middle-income countries. 
These shocking statistics do not give us the full picture of the extent and depth of human suffering experienced in communities living on the margins of our society. Such a situation cannot continue. 

As the Minister of Welfare, Population and Development, I have political responsibility for the following key areas of governance:

• The drafting of policy and legislation to achieve the constitutional objectives of universal access to social security and welfare services and the promotion and protection of the rights of children, youth, women and older persons.

• The design of strategies to ensure that relevant policies pertaining to the above mandate are implemented "within available resources, to achieve the progressive realisation of each of these rights".

• The transformation of the Department to ensure that it is able to meet its constitutional, policy and legislative responsibilities in keeping with the Reconstruction and Development Programme.

• The building of sound institutional governance arrangements to promote co-operative government within the welfare sector and between the national and provincial departments of welfare.

• The building of sound intergovernmental relations to promote integrated social development and cost-effective service delivery.

• Reporting to Cabinet, Parliament, and the nation on the achievement of the Ministry's stated objectives.

The nature and extent of the social crisis highlights the need for a vision and strategy that is more responsive to both the structural causes of problems as well as their social manifestations. Because of these imperatives I initiated a national consultative process that brought together some hundred and eighty people representing 70 national organisations working in social development. During the 6 days in October I engaged in a dialogue with a range of organisations representing women, children, the disabled, the homeless, poor people, development workers, and professional associations. These include virtually all the major national organisations working in the welfare and social development sector. They included emerging organisations that spoke on their own behalf. In all these sessions we had to grapple with the question of whether our welfare system was failing the people who needed it most. The first five years of democratic governance could be seen as laying the foundation to respond to the social crisis facing our country. We have put in place a social welfare legislative framework and developed policies that are in keeping with the principles of the RDP and our constitutional mandate. Much more however needs to be done.

In the light of my mandate and what I heard during the national consultative process, we must address the following priorities over the next five years: 

1. Restoration of the ethics of care and human development into all our programmes. This requires the urgent rebuilding of family, community and social relations in order to promote social integration.

2. Implementation of an integrated poverty eradication strategy that provides direct benefits to those who are in greatest need within a sustainable development approach. In other words, addressing poverty in rural and urban areas with the prime beneficiaries being women, youth and children. This requires that all other programmes support this orientation.

3. Development of a comprehensive social security system that links contributory and non-contributory schemes and prioritises the most vulnerable households. Such a system must reduce dependency on non-contributory cash payments and give consideration to food security. We need to establish a national unit to monitor, evaluate and audit the administration of social security to deal with unacceptably high levels of fraud and leakage. 

4. We must respond to the brutal effects of all forms of violence against women and children as well as effective strategies to deal with the perpetrators.

5. Our welfare programmes must include the provision of a range of services to support the community-based care and support for people living with HIV/AIDS as well as those affected, such as AIDS orphans.

6. Urgent attention needs to be given to the development of a national strategy to reduce youth criminality and youth unemployment within the framework of the National Crime Prevention Strategy.

7. Making social welfare services accessible and available to people in rural, peri-urban and informal settlements as well as ensuring equity in service provision is critical to the transformation process.

8. Redesign services to people with disabilities in ways that promote their human rights and economic development.

9. All our work must be based on a commitment to co-operative governance that includes working with different tiers of government and civil society. The Department will work in partnership with communities, organisations and institutions in civil society. A particular challenge here is to work with organisations that are located and have the competencies to reach beneficiaries. Capacity will have to be built where needed and will result in reallocation of resources.

10. Train, educate, re-deploy and employ a new category of workers in social development to respond to the realities of South Africa's crisis. Review the training and re-orientation of social service workers to meet the development challenges of South Africa and link these to our regional and global demands.
    
    I am committed to addressing all of these priorities over the next five years. All the social welfare resources of government are going to be aligned with these priorities.
    
    Our Implementation Strategy 
    These priorities will form part of a systematic, co-ordinated strategy for social development over the next five years. It will be linked to the department’s medium term expenditure framework. In addition the plan will involve the mobilisation of national and international resources, including the use of a wider pool of technical expertise. New skills, experience and creative strategies in social development and management will be brought in to complement the department’s resources.

• The Department of Welfare and government in general have insufficient capacity to address the social issues such as HIV/AIDS. 
• Communities needed to be capacitated to plan, strategise and address their own priorities.
• There are not enough service providers to respond to the numbers of terminally ill people and there is a need to re-focus and increase the involvement of volunteers.
• Community organisations lack the project planning skills, management skills and confidence to engage government.
• The department has no capacity to document and share innovative strategies that evolve from organisations in the sector.

• Most organisations stated that it is extremely difficult to gain access to government data.
• Research tends to focus only on poverty, not on wealth, income inequality and other development issues.

• Advocacy by politicians and senior decision-makers does not speak to the real causes of rapid transmission - they do not recognise up-front women's subordinate position.
• There is no clear policy on home-based or community care services for people infected or affected by HIV/AIDS.
• The department has yet to address the implications of the rapid increase in the numbers of child-headed households.
• The need for material aid to people infected and affected by HIV/Aids is growing.
• Little is known about the plight of Aids orphans on privately owned and tribal trust land and the despair of children trying to survive with no support.

• Institutions and foster parents encounter an uncaring bureaucracy when they need to arrange for a child to be buried in a pauper's grave.
• There is a lack of a safety net for children over the age of 7 (the ceiling age for the Child Support Grant).
• The diversionary programme for street children is provided only to children with guardians.
• The education curriculum is geared to in-school children while the majority of street children are out-of-school.
• There is lack of appropriate health services for street children who are glue abusers. 
• Often places of safety do not receive their fees and refuse to offer their services as a result.
  

Services for people with disabilities are inadequate:

The increase in the number of people with disabilities in SA is due to widespread poverty and violent crime.

• Currently only 19% of people with disabilities receive cash grants from government. The rest do not receive and fall outside of government's mainstream service delivery.
• There is widespread ignorance of and insensitivity towards the needs of deaf people.
• There is a lack of communication with, capacity building for and empowerment of deaf people.
• Rural offices of the department of Welfare have no knowledge of care dependency grants.
• District surgeons have no understanding of intellectual disability and often refuse to handle such applications.
• The non-ratification of the Declaration of Rights of Mentally Retarded Persons (1971) and the Principles for the Protection of Persons with Mental Illness and for the Improvement of Mental Health Care (1991) needs to be addressed.
• There is a marked absence of programmes focussing on the emotional/psychological healing of men.

Assistance for the elderly is not sufficient:

• Old people, especially in rural areas spend their pensions on family and are often responsible for rearing the young.
• Old Age Assistance does not provide poverty relief in rural areas.

• There is a wide gap, 18 -59 years for women and 18-64 years for men, in the social security system.
• Welfare service offices do not apply a uniform policy or follow proper procedures when dealing with the public. Officials often adopt a "don't care" attitude.
• Applications take between 6 and 8 months before they are granted and only 3 months of arrears are paid. This means that the welfare organisation that accommodates the applicant loses approximately R2000 per applicant.
• A comprehensive social security system should be put into place.
• The Child Support Grant is not being accessed by the people who need it.
• The UIF system is inadequate and has been steadily eroded by bureaucratic provisions over the last two years.
• The Social Relief of Distress Grant is not adequately budgeted for and is difficult to access in rural areas. Qualifying criteria for the grant also varies from area to area.
• Many attorneys involved in processing Road Accident Fund claims are defrauding the public.
• The department of welfare consistently fails to implement the Right to Administrative Justice. Departmental officials do not seem to understand this right.
• Domestic workers are excluded from the provisions of COIDA and UIF.
• The Pensions Means Test is unjust, inefficient and impossible to administer.

• A common understanding of the basis for partnerships is absent.
• The national department of welfare fails to recognise or acknowledge the wealth of resources and skills in the NGO sector.
• The planning that the national department undertakes with the full range of service providers does not occur within a clear protocol on resource mobilisation and financing.

• Government needs to have an integrated poverty eradication strategy.
• There is a lack of coordination between national and provincial departments regarding the policy on allocation of funds from the Poverty Relief Programme.

• There needs to be an effective mechanism of cooperation so that NGO's can access international donor funds.
• The new financing policy is incomplete as is - there are uncertainties about how it will be implemented.
• The past discounting of government loans made to welfare institutions has been discriminatory because it favoured institutions that traditionally only served white people.

The implementation of these national priorities will be monitored through joint civil society and government processes. These will include an assessment and evaluation of programme expenditure (cost-benefit effectiveness), impact on needs, the extent to which those prioritized have been reached, and the levels and types of participation of the poorest people in the process.
A National unit will be established as a priority to audit and monitor the implementation of social security and social development programmes.
We need to move quickly at all levels to link social development and population concerns to economic strategies so as to establish socially integrated and caring communities. In reclaiming Africa’s place in the global community, let us work towards an African Renaissance that will deal with poverty, social inequality, women’s marginalisation, violence and social alienation, the impact of HIV / AIDS and human development that is environmentally sustainable. Let us mobilise for a caring society.

• University of Transkei
• Women's Health Project, University of the Witwatersrand
• University of Natal (Population Research Unit)
• Mineworkers Development Agency (MDA)
• Rhodes University, Population Research Unit - HIV/AIDS
• Institute for Democracy in South Africa (IDASA)
• University of Pretoria
• Children in Distress (CINDI)
• Centre for Development and Population Activities (CEDPA)
• Women's Health Project
• Mohau Centre, University of Pretoria
• SA National Council for Child and Family Welfare
• South African National NGO Coalition (SANGOCO)
• Centre for Rural Legal Studies (CRLS)
• People's Dialogue
• Human Rights Advocacy Project
• Trust for Community Outreach and Education
• Self Employed Women's Union (SEWU)
• Black Sash
• Anthony Asher (University of the Witwatersrand)
• Naledi
• NEDLAC
• Actuarial Society of SA
• SA Federation for Mental Health
• SA Council for Social Service Professions (SACSSP)
• Portfolio Committee
• National Youth Commission (NYC)
• Operation Hunger
• Pinetown-Highway
• Southern African Student Volunteers (SASVO)
• Development Workers Association
• National Co-operative Association of South Africa (NCASA)
• National Religious Association for Social Development (NRASD)
• Development Workers Association
• Afrikaanse Christelike Vroue Vereeniging (ACVV)
• Land and Agriculture Policy Centre (LAPC)
• RUTEC/AMITEC
• Development Resources Centre (DRC)
• Joint University Committee for Schools of Social Work (JUC)
• Southern African Development, Education and Policy Research Unit (SADEP), University of Cape Town
• SA Black Social Workers Association (SABSWA)
• Social Workers in Private Practice
• Centre for Social Work, University of Natal
• National Association for Child and Youth Care Workers (NACCW)
• Centre for Adult and Community Education, University of Natal
• National Council for Persons with Physical Disabilities
• UNISA
• National Children's Rights Committee
• People Opposed to Women Abuse
• Commission on Gender Equality
• NICRO
• DEAFSA
• South African Council for the Aged
• SA Federal Council on Disabilities
• National Forum on Street Children
• Volunteer Centre - Western Cape
• National Council for Marriage and Family Life
• Ministry of Caring (Dutch Reformed Church)
• National Coalition for Social Services (NACOSS)
• Kagiso Trust
• COSATU
• Southern African Grantmakers Association
• National Welfare, Social Service and Development Forum
• Council for Child and Family Welfare
• The Salvation Army
• South African Red Cross
• Disaster Mitigation for Sustainable Livelihoods Project (DiMP)