The Public Service Commission, an oversight institution mandated to promote good governance and administration in the public service, embarked on a series of dialogues on poverty reduction strategies and interventions in order to deepen its contribution to the poverty reduction debate. The series comprised of four dialogues covering different themes. The Dialogues on Poverty and Women and Poverty, Access to Services and Xenophobia were held on 29 August 2008 and 20 November 2008 respectively.
To conclude the series, the Public Service Commission held its last dialogue on 6 August 2009 at the South African Reserve Bank conference centre in Pretoria. This year’s dialogue, which comes against the backdrop of service delivery protests, covered two themes, namely; Measurement of Poverty and Monitoring and Evaluation of Poverty Reduction and Strategies.
Addressing delegates, the Commissioner of the Public Service Commission, Advocate Mamaroba Malahlela remarked that: “by entering the debate on poverty reduction, the Public Service Commission intends to send a clear message that development issues and development administration form a critical part of the work of the public service. Through this involvement, said Advocate Malahlela, it is hoped that the public service will fully appreciate its role in the implementation of effective poverty reduction strategies.
Also addressing delegates, Professor Andries du Toit, Deputy Director at the Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, said that the term poverty by its nature is political and ideological and draws on varied underlying political, philosophical traditions, captures a wide range of meanings and is essentially contested. Thus, there was consensus amongst delegates on the need for a common definition and understanding of poverty and the inclusion of the poor in such definition was identified.
The delegates agreed that debates on poverty reduction efforts should go beyond statistics and aggregates, especially because the poor are not necessarily a homogenous group. They also acknowledged different efforts by government aimed at alleviating poverty. They nevertheless flagged the importance of understanding the lived experiences of the poor and how they experienced government poverty alleviation programmes.
Likewise, they agreed that a need for an integrated approach on anti poverty strategies to create the desired impact was required. For poverty reduction strategies to be effective, the delegate conceded that its plans must include amongst others, achievable targets and timelines facilitating continuous monitoring by all stakeholders including government, civil society organisations, bilateral and multilaterals donors.
In order to contribute effectively towards poverty reduction discourse and in a bid to improve the lives of the poor, the delegates recommended the following:
* The need to consciously interrogate the applied strategies and programmes in terms of the way they are implemented, the difference they are making as well as the challenges they are faced with
* The establishment of a body that its sole responsibility will be to tackle poverty issues in the Republic
* Government should utilise the information gathered from the dialogues to draft a poverty reduction strategy document and take it to communities for their inputs
* The Public Service Commission should facilitate a dialogue regarding the coordination of poverty alleviation programmes at departmental level
* The establishment of a mechanism to monitor government departments who have been allocated poverty alleviation budget to account.
In closing Mr Indran Naidoo, Deputy Director-General, monitoring and evaluation committed the Public Service Commission to reporting on the outcome of these dialogues to the Portfolio Committee on Public Service and Administration.
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Issued by: Public Service Commission
11 August 2009
Source: Public Service Commission (http://www.psc.gov.za/)
