Youth and persons with disabilities to be placed at the core of EPWP Projects
In a bid to provide more economic opportunities to the Youth and Persons with Disabilities (PwD), the government plans to scale-up the participation of these two groups in the Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP). The EPWP is one of Government’s medium to long term strategies to reduce unemployment and alleviate poverty through the creation of work opportunities using labour-intensive methods.
With a target of creating 5 million EPWP work opportunities by 2024, the Department of Public Works and Infrastructure (DPWI) wants 55 percent of these opportunities to be allocated to the Youth while 2 percent of them are to be taken up by PwD. Since the start of the current financial year (2029/20) the government has created a total of 742 969 EPWP work opportunities for poor and unemployed South Africans – close to 40 percent of these opportunities have been taken up by the Youth, while 1.18 percent (of the overall opportunities) were taken-up by the PwD.
The DPWI, as a lead facilitator of the EPWP, is therefore working with public bodies that are participating in the implementation of the Programme to come up with strategies to increase the participation of Youth and PwD in EPWP projects. At the EPWP Colloquium that was held at Saint George Hotel and Conference Centre recently, stakeholders came up with the following recommendations to solve the challenge of not meeting targets for designated groups:
- EPWP Programme Design
All EPWP projects and programme should include the Youth and PWD from the conceptual and design stage.
Project costs should accommodate people with disabilities at design & planning stages.
Strengthen participation of Entrepreneurship through the EPWP Enterprise Development Programme.
Re-engineer the Programme to accommodate (Forth industrial revolution) and career-pathing.
- Partnership
Strengthen partnerships with disability organizations, SETAs, TVET Colleges/Institutions of Higher learning and private sector to ensure placement after training.
- Mainstreaming
All departments should strengthen units dealing with PWD and have databases of PWD or organisations. Implement Disability training for Project/ Programme Implementers/ Coordinators.
- Monitoring and Evaluation
Profiling of communities to establish types of disabilities prevalent in areas where projects are to be implemented for inclusion in the design of a project.
Tracking System to monitor Youth Participants placement and Training acquired.
Brief background on the EPWP
The Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP) is one of Government’s medium to long term strategies to reduce unemployment and alleviate poverty through the creation of work opportunities using labour-intensive methods. The EPWP is implemented in four sectors namely: Infrastructure, Social, Environment & Culture and Non-State. All spheres of government and State-Owned Entities are expected to implement the programme.
The EPWP Participants (beneficiaries) work in different projects like Community Work Programme (CWP), Early Childhood Development Programmes, Home Community Based Care Programmes, Extra School Support Programmes, Working on Fire, Working for Water, Roads Maintenance Projects, etc.
Through various skills and training that the participants receive fro006D the EPWP, they (participants) stand a better chance to enter the formal job market and/or become entrepreneurs.
For media enquiries:
Kgomotso Mathuloe
Cell: 082 957 3667
Michael Mokoena
Cell: 082 906 5795
