Programme director, Rre Alfa Mahlako
Honourable MEC for Health and Social Development, Mme Rebecca Kasienyane
Honourable Mayor of Madibeng local municipality, Mme Sophie
Molokoane-Machika
Representatives from Khanya African Institute for Community Driven Development and the University of Free State
Community development practitioners
Members of the Bokfontein Community Development Forum
Councillors and ward committee members present
Bomme le borre
Dumelang bagaetsho
Thank you for joining us this afternoon on this important occasion which marks a new chapter in our work as community development workers. I have been looking forward to the launch of this toolkit and I have no doubt in my mind that you are all as excited about this new development as I am.
As you already know, the ultimate goal of this new toolkit for community development practitioners is to engender self-reliance in our people and communities. Our belief is that a community that can stand up and do things for it will always be better off than the one that is largely dependent on government and other institutions for development.
I therefore welcome representatives from government, development agencies and our academic institutions who are here to launch this project with us. This is a clear sign of people from different sectors willing and committed to confront poverty head on. This impressive and well organised initiative is indeed consistent with our government’s philosophy to encourage communities to participate in their own development.
The hope, which I share, is that the launch of this toolkit will re-ignite the spirit of community development and self-reliance among the people of Madibeng local municipality and beyond. Our philosophy, as government, has always been about the increased participation of communities in development. Today, our dream has come true.
The development of this toolkit follows two important processes. In 2007 the department conducted a study to assess the impact of its services on the lives of communities living in the 21 Presidential nodal areas that constituted the Integrated Sustainable Rural Development programme (ISRDP) and the Urban Renewal programme (URP).
These areas are characterised by high levels of unemployment and poverty.
The ISRDP and URP was introduced by government as a strategy to speed up transformation in the underprivileged areas through economically viable and socially cohesive anchor projects and better coordination of governmental and non-governmental interventions. The study found that the interventions or projects did not achieve the intended objectives.
Subsequently the department conducted skills audit with the view to assess the existing personnel capacity to facilitate community development programmes as well as to integrate their activities with those of other departmental programmes. Key amongst others, the study found that there was no standardised approach in community development practice.
Therefore, today’s launch is the culmination of extensive work and consultation between the Department of Social Development and our partners.
Through a series of steps and useful suggestions the toolkit guides the community development practitioner through an analysis of their particular situation; examining strengths and weaknesses, defining realistic objectives, and asking relevant questions to choose the best possible options for a development project.
Designed for community development practitioners, the toolkit is not a technical guide but a complement to the existing technical inputs which already inform this work. It is a practical tool which will enable them to better facilitate community development processes and assist in providing the shared understanding of the sustainable livelihoods approach.
What is important to note is that this toolkit is not only based on the theoretical knowledge of scholars, but draws from the vast practical experience of community development practitioners. It serves as an informative, easy to follow guide which will prove invaluable not only to community development practitioners but also to development agencies and those interested in community development work.
I am therefore calling upon all provinces to ensure that their foot soldiers (community development practitioners) are equipped and knowledgeable on how to use this toolkit. As a department, our work is more than just the provision of social grants. The most important part of our work is to build the capacity of communities to become self reliant.
While appropriate social security provision plays a critical role in addressing the basic needs of poor households, it is only meant to be a temporary measure. Over the last few years, the Department of Social Development started piloting various strategies to connect the recipients of social grants to opportunities for sustainable livelihoods, employment and other economic opportunities.
Having succeeded in expanding the reach of our social security system to over 13 million South Africans, the challenge now is to focus on programmes that have the potential to graduate people out of poverty. Such programmes can be used to complement the local economic development initiatives at the local government level.
We are grateful that the Madibeng local municipality has partnered with us as we work together to ensure that our poverty alleviation projects are directed at empowering communities and thus do away with the situation where communities are simply passive recipients of government services.
This approach operates within the framework of adaptive social protection, a process which facilitates the strengthening of coping strategies of the poor to tackle vulnerabilities and build their adaptive capacities to improve access to socio-economic opportunities. It might not solve all their problems, but it does build up their confidence to tackle such problems more effectively.
We strongly believe that the pursuit of the goals and in the end, of development and poverty requires the active participation of the beneficiaries. In order to speed up the implementation of government’s Programme of Action, we must build on the progress made as a basis for the further advances needed to eradicate poverty and transform our country into a just and prosperous society.
We are confident that this process will further help push back the frontiers of poverty if government and communities are to work together in partnership. As we launch this toolkit here today, we do so with the hope that it will bring us much closer to the attainment of our shared and common goal of making poverty a history.
Finally, I would like to express my appreciation and gratitude to the University of Free State, the Khanya African Institute for Community Driven Development, the community development practitioners and officials of my department who offered their time and expertise in developing this valuable toolkit.
I also appreciate the presence of all other partners and the local community who found the time to be with us here to look into these issues which are of great concern to us as a nation. Let us treat this as the beginning of a new chapter which we shall all be proud of. Just as the toolkit is a product of a remarkable partnership between government, academia, civil society and development practitioners, effective implementation of the community development will require a continuation of this partnership at all levels, including at community level.
It is my firm belief that working together we can do more to restore the dignity of our people by putting them at the forefront of our development initiatives.
On that note I would like to formally launch the toolkit for community development practitioners.
Ke a leboga.
Issued by: Department of Social Development
22 February 2010
