Skweyiya, to the seminar on Co-operation for Development hosted by government
of Chile, Pretoria
30 January 2007
The South African Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs,
Your Excellency, the Chilean Ambassador to South Africa,
Members of the diplomatic corps,
Distinguished guests,
I appreciate this opportunity for us to share ideas on co-operation amongst
ourselves as developing countries in the continent and in the south.
We are particularly pleased that this seminar seeks to enhance the warm and
wonderful relations that exist between Chile and Brazil on the one hand, with
South Africa and its sister countries of Angola and Mozambique. Collaboration
amongst us can only take us forward in pursuit of the goal of a better life for
all our peoples.
As a new nation that faces enormous challenges, given the legacy of
apartheid, we continue to seek fruitful co-operation and partnerships as we
work to extricate our people from the grip of poverty.
In our country over 18 million people live below the poverty line.
Hence the various programmes that we have put in place to alleviate poverty
and also to create an enabling environment for the creation of sustainable jobs
and income generating activities.
Over the past 12 years, government has implemented a myriad of poverty
alleviation measures. Social assistance is the biggest of them all. To date we
provide social assistance to about 11,8 million South Africans and the majority
of beneficiaries are children, who number 7,7 million. The increase in
beneficiary numbers represented the success of the awareness campaigns and
proactive registration that we have embarked upon in recent years. At the same
time this phenomenal growth has put sharp focus on the sustainability of the
programme.
Social grants or cash transfers cannot guarantee community economic
empowerment unless the grants are linked to economic activity. Unlike most of
government's poverty alleviation measures, the social assistance programme was
not specifically designed with exit strategies for beneficiaries. We are now
working on addressing this shortcoming.
We have released for public comment a discussion document proposing
strategies to link the beneficiaries of grants and the unemployed to economic
activity.
Our work is informed by, amongst others, useful information from studies
that have been conducted recently which point to the positive impact of social
grants although cautioning us on sustainability. The study conducted by the
Economic Policy Research Institute (EPRI) directed at exploring the social and
economic impact of the South African social security system found that although
grants generally have a positive impact on the socio-economic conditions of
recipients, much work still has to be undertaken to ensure sustainability.
The research found empirical evidence demonstrating that people in
households receiving social grants have increased both their labour force
participation and employment rates faster than those who live in households
that do not receive social grants.
In addition, workers in households receiving social grants had realised more
rapid wage increases. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that
South Africa's social grants increase both the supply and demand for labour.
This evidence does not support the hypothesis that South Africa's system of
social grants negatively affects employment creation.
Through our own various interactions with young and able bodied
beneficiaries of social grants we have come to accept the reality that our
people are not interested in hand outs but prefer self-supporting initiatives
which assist in reinstalling their dignity and esteem. But one cannot rule out
the fact that grants may have the unintended consequence of promoting
dependency instead of boosting self-reliance.
We will therefore work with our communities to revamp the social security
system, to build sustainable communities in line with our new approach of
linking grants to economic activity.
The indicators of sustainable communities are that they comprise of healthy,
skilled and productive citizens. These communities are further characterised by
socio-economic growth, development and enhanced quality of life.
They are able to participate in meaningful social and economic activities
including the deepening of democracy and nation building. More specifically,
the development of sustainable communities is aimed at addressing poverty, job
creation, capacity building and increased political and economic participation.
This approach points to the value of recognising the skills of the targeted
communities and making efforts to engage them in new and more participatory
programmes.
It is our fervent hope that all key stakeholders in our country will join us
in the journey to build sustainable communities, through engaging with the
linking grants to economic activity discussion process.
We will also seek the co-operation and support of our development partners
in the south and our sister countries in the region, to make these efforts
meaningful.
I look forward to continuing active engagements amongst us all, towards
sustainable development and prosperous communities in our respective
countries.
I thank you!
Issued by: Department of Social Development
30 January 2007
