Community Work Programme

The Community Work Programme (CWP) was established to provide an employment safety net to eligible members of target communities by offering them a minimum number of regular days of work each month.

The programme targets unemployed and underemployed people. The stipends participants receive supplement their existing livelihood means and provide them with a basic level of income security. They also assists those whose livelihood activities are insufficient to lift them out of abject poverty.

The CWP is an innovative offering from government to provide a job safety net for unemployed people of working age. It provides a bridging opportunity for unemployed youth and others who are actively looking for employment opportunities.

The programme provides them with extra cash to support them in their search for full-time or part-time employment. Programme participants do community work thereby contributing to improvements that benefit all community members.

Purpose of the CWP

  • To provide an employment safety net. The CWP recognises that sustainable employment solutions will take time, particularly in reaching marginal economic areas.
  • To contribute to the development of public assets and services in poor communities.
  • To strengthen community development approaches.
  • To improve the quality of life for people in marginalised economic areas by providing work experience, enhancing dignity and promoting social and economic inclusion.

The CWP is implemented at the local level at ‘a site’ which generally comprises two or more wards. The programme is designed to enrol 1 000 people per site for a site that is operating at full capacity.  It offers two days of work a week, eight days a month, or 100 days a year.

Presently, regular CWP participants who constitute approximately 94% of the total number of participants enrolled in the programme work two days a week / eight days a month in the CWP and receive R81/day in stipends.  The remainder, approximately 6%, work 5 days a week and receive R106/day in stipends.  The latter are largely supervisors and storekeepers.

Participant stipends are increased every year on 1 November by between 5 and 6.5% as per the Department of Labour’s Ministerial Determination which specifies the minimum wage for participants in Public Employment Programmes.  Since inception, the CWP has never paid stipends that fall below the stipulated minimum wage.

The rationale for availing 8 days of work a month in the CWP was in order to allow participants to engage in other income generating activities for the remainder of the month.  The idea was that most unemployed people would not normally sit and do nothing while unemployed.  Instead they would find some “piece jobs,” take up part-time or casual employment or self-employment.

Whenever participants get an opportunity to engage with CWP management or political principals, they do ask whether their stipends could not be increased or if they could not work more days than the 2 days they are presently offered. Increasing the number of days while maintaining the conceptual framework on the basis of which the programme was designed (i.e., keeping the work part-time), has been considered in the past in response to participant requests.

However, another key consideration would have to be the budget. If participants who are already enrolled in the programme were to work more days, then they would have to be paid higher stipends. That means that fewer participants would benefit from the programme than presently is the case and a higher proportion of the implementation budget would go towards stipends and the allocation for tools/equipment and training would be proportionately less. The question then would be whether we want the people who are already in the programme to receive higher stipends while keeping out of the programme other poor unemployed people who are not receiving anything at all.  Is that the trade-off we could live with, certainly not.

While it is desirable that participants find other opportunities and exit from the programme over time, participants may remain in the programme for as long as their socio-economic circumstances stay the same. Government recognises that even if the economy starts to expand rapidly to create new jobs, its impact might take time to reach the most marginal areas and groupings. Therefore, access to an employment safety net will continue to be availed to vulnerable South Africans to complement other social assistance programmes.

The CWP can be seen as an instrument of community development as it improves the quality of life in poorer communities. It focuses on work tasks that uplift and support communities, while at the same time ensuring that participants acquire skills.

These tasks include looking after orphans or vulnerable children, helping sick people, assisting teachers in schools, looking after children of working parents and working with the local police to improve safety and reduce crime.

One of the advantages of the programme is that it creates a caring community environment. It also strengthens the interface between local government and communities, and community participation in local development planning through local structures such as CWP Local Reference Committees (LRCs) in which Ward Committees are represented.

The programme is located within the Department of Cooperative Governance (DCoG) which is on track to establish at least one CWP site in every local and metropolitan municipality by March 2017. Over the five years of this administration, the CWP will put R5,6 billion into the pockets of the poorest of the poor.

Currently (March, 2016) there are 212 sites in 203 municipalities which put R1,7 billion into the pockets of more than 200 000 participants during 2015/16. During the 2016/17 financial year, new sites will be established to ensure that every municipality in the country benefits from the CWP.

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