The online reporting system that the North West the Community Development Workers Programme (CDWP) is utilising will go a long way in turning around and enhancing their work. This emerged recently when the North West CDWP under the Department of Local Government and Traditional Affairs played host to a delegation of Community Development Workers Programme (CDWP) from the Northern Cape who were on their two days visit to the North West province.
The sole purpose of this visit which took place around Dr. Kenneth Kaunda District was to benchmark and exchange best practices within the CDW programme. Electronic reporting system which was developed to assist CDWs with reporting and keeping up with the programme itself, sparked interest from the Northern Cape CDW’s.
Leading the Northern Cape delegation was Mr Mogami Manyaneng who is the provincial coordinator of the CDW programme in the Northern Cape province.
He said that their visit to the North West marked the beginning of an interesting relationship between the two provinces.
“Yes we were able to benchmark certain aspects and systems used within the CDW programme in the North West, particularly their online reporting system where they are able to submit their reports.
As the Northern Cape we are going around the country visiting our neighbouring provinces to learn best practices and so far we are convinced that this online reporting system which the North West has will also help us in the Northern Cape to improve the manner in which we do our reports”, he said.
Both provinces agreed on developing an exchange programme where Community Development Workers from both provinces will swop or exchange for a longer period of time to allow them the space to have a deeper understanding of how their working patterns, norms and systems. Ms Nokuthula Khumalo, the North West CWDP provincial coordinator said that exercises of this nature are very important as they allow other CDW’s to interact at their level and share similar challenges.
“We are in a middle of a transition as we are moving into using technology to better enhance and speed up the process or manner in CDWs report. Although there are major challenges such as adequate resources which make it difficult for the system to be as fruitful as we had hoped it would but the system is in a position to do wonderful things in the future.
We are also happy that the Northern Cape choose the North West as a province to benchmark from, it truly humbles us and makes us want to work even harder and be more innovative”, she said. The CDWP in the province is also planning on visiting Northern Cape to also see what best practices can be of good use to CDWP in North West.
The CDW Programme is a government-initiated intervention that launched by former President Thabo Mbeki in 2005. It is aimed at improving access to the delivery of public services by amongst other things, assist in the removal of service delivery deadlocks and strengthen contact between government and the people.
For enquiries contact:
Dineo Lolokwane, spokesperson
Cell: 072 542 8444
