30 October 2006
The Gauteng Department of Social Development held a successful Social
Welfare Summit aimed at building a healthy partnership between government and
its social partners.
The Social Development Welfare Summit held on Thursday and Friday, 26 and 27
October, was attended by non-governmental organisations (NGOs), community-based
organisations (CBOs), elderly people, youth, faith-based organisations (FBOs),
development centres and senior managers in the department.
The summit was intended to find a common ground on how to improve relations
as well as to build a good partnership between government and community
organisations.
The following resolutions were taken at the summit:
- On partnerships
* to rededicate ourselves to fighting poverty, underdevelopment and
marginalisation in partnership particularly as it affects the elderly, women,
children, and persons with disabilities
* to review and define our partnership which will be underpinned by service
level agreements with clear outputs advancing the provincial priorities,
targeting poverty pockets and vulnerable communities
* to formalise regular meetings with the welfare/development sector through a
representative forum as provided for in legislative frameworks
* that sufficient and realistic notice to be given for the Non-Profit
Organisation (NPO) sector to facilitate the consultation process.
- On the integrated service delivery model
* extend the mandate of the Steering Committee for the Welfare Summit to
become a permanent partnership structure
* develop an integrated information system by capacitating the research unit in
the Department of Social Development (DSD) so that targets can be annually
planned for
* integrated planning should be based on discussions between the DSD and NPOs
from the beginning
* detailed social audit must show existing gaps in service delivery
* need to explore existing good practice models around the integration of
specialist and general services
* community development needs to be based on inter-sectoral planning
* a capacity building plan needs to be in place for emerging CBOs
* every organisation should determine effective norms and standards they need
to render their services. This should feed into current research processes of
the national DSD
* the above is the responsibility of both the NPO sector and the DSD and must
be a collaborative effort
* use the monitoring and evaluation system and continuous improvement
principles to keep the classification of services current (continuous
improvement in accordance with data provided)
* DSD and civil society organisations to play the role of facilitator of
service delivery through the local government Integrated Development Plans
(IDPs)
* DSD to monitor and evaluate the Integrated Service Delivery Model
(ISDM)
* service provider fora to be reinstituted based on the existing, e.g. the
Gauteng Welfare Forum.
- Transformation
* lobby for more resources, fundraising by organisations should
increase
* networking between sectors should happen more often
* government should provide incentives to organisations to transform
* monitoring and evaluations of transformation of organisations and funding and
should be linked to specific timeframes
* government to provide stipends to volunteers
* representation of people with disabilities in management structures, and be
capacitated in decision making processes
* NGOs to be involved in decision-making processes
* strengthening of partnerships
* bi-annual summit to be held for progress and future planning
* form social clusters with government and NGO sectors
* government should facilitate workshop on transformation and NGO and CBOs
should attend
* government should be monitored by the NGO sector.
- Finance
* to improve consultative process on issues affecting the funding of the
sector
* to explore the possibility to enter into multi-year funding with indicative
allocation aligned to Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) cycle
* to jointly explore ways to increase the funds for services generally
* to improve consultative process on issues affecting the funding of the
sector.
These draft resolutions will go to the Department for further engagement and
the programme will be aligned to include areas which may be done in the short
term and medium term. Other resolutions will be put into the programme as the
department implements its current programmes.
For more information please contact:
Fred Mokoko
Tel: (011) 355 7977
Cell: 082 447 8407
Issued by: Department of Social Development, Gauteng Provincial
Government
30 October 2006
