on the occasion of the signing of a partnership implementation plan between the
United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF), South African
Social Security Agency (SASSA) and the Department of Social Development (DSD)
on Reducing Child Poverty, Sandton Convention Centre, Johannesburg
20 April 2007
Honourable MECs
Country representative of UNICEF, Mr Kamau
Senior Officials,
Welcome to this session of MINMEC, our official co-operative interaction
with the MECs responsible for Social Development in the provinces.
We felt that MINMEC was a suitable platform to witness the signing of the
implementation plan of our partnership with the United Nations Children's Fund.
This critical partnership will enable us to take forward our programmes of
fighting poverty, which adversely affects particularly women and children.
Despite the Government's commitment to the long-term challenge of
transforming the country into a non-racial, non-sexist, democratic nation,
children remain at the margins of social transformation. Social protection for
children is a major concern.
The Child Support Grant is the state's largest intervention strategy to
reduce child poverty and currently 8 million poor children are in receipt of
income support. A study on the profile of child grant beneficiaries indicate
that over 60% of the beneficiaries still live in conditions of dire poverty
with neither access to employment nor assets.
In 2006, the Department of Social Development, SASSA and UNICEF embarked on
discussions to establish formal partnerships within the framework of UNICEF's
new country programme 2007-2010. These areas of work are defined in a bid to
reduce child poverty, and contribute towards supporting the Government to
develop a comprehensive package of services for children.
The Plan to be signed here focuses on the following areas of work:
Strengthening databases and linking poor learners with Social Grants: UNICEF
will support the Departments for Social Development, SASSA and Education to
undertake the following:
* Undertake an analysis of the Social Pensions System (SOCPEN) database and
the Education learner database to identify gaps and challenges that would
constrain systemic linkages between the two databases. The aim of this activity
is to ensure that all eligible learners receive a Child Support Grants (CSG).
Conversely, out of school CSG-recipients could be identified and brought into
the education system.
* Develop a strategy to track children dropping out of school, using the
(SOCPEN) as a starting point. This project could monitor school enrolment,
attendance and grade 12 completion rates. Ultimately, this activity will be
expanded to include other relevant services such as Health and
infrastructure.
Assessing Policy and Implementation Impacts of the Child Support Grant
(CSG)
The review of the Policy Impact of the CSG to be led by the DSD will look at
the overall effectiveness of the grant in reducing poverty in households. SASSA
will lead the research to assess the service delivery impact of the grant at
the household level. The study will focus on barriers affecting implementation,
through a rigorous review of Type 1 and Type 2 errors. This includes
understanding why eligible children do not access the grant and why ineligible
children do access the grant. Both these reviews will inform DSD and SASSA on
relevant policy and implementation reforms to ensure efficient and effective
service delivery.
Identification and consolidation of legislation on social assistance for
children:
Support will be provided to consolidate existing and fragmented pieces of
legislation and policy developments on social insurance, social assistance and
social relief measures for children in South Africa. This will contribute
towards the move to integrate and consolidate all services for children, and
the subsequent amendment of the Social Security Act.
Linking Birth Registration to Social Grants
This is aimed at improving the coverage of birth registration from around
75% of new birth registered to around 90% of new births registered. This is
important not only because a child has a right to an identity, but also because
the birth certificate is required to access the child support grant.
Ultimately, the Government could enrol young children for the Child Support
Grant at the time of receiving birth certificates. Children under five years of
age currently form the smallest number of recipients of the grant.
The following activities will be pursued:
* Support to Valley Trust to conduct an impact study on the online birth
registration provincial pilot in KwaZulu-Natal.
* A nationwide study of status of online registration at hospitals. This will
lead to the consolidation and provision of best practice, policy and technical
inputs in supporting the dialogue between Department of Home Affairs, Health,
Education, SASSA and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to scale up and
improve the efficiency of the birth registration process.
* Assist SASSA and the Department of Home Affairs to offer birth registration
and preliminary screening of the CSG application simultaneously, in an effort
to increase the number of young children accessing the CSG.
Multi-Networked database for social security
Support will be provided to develop a publicly accessible information
management system and database for all research with respect to Social
Security. This initiative is to ensure that there is a dedicated
multi-networked database of national and international information on social
security accessible through the intranet. This will lead to enhanced capacity
on policy development and analysis.
Capacity building of SASSA
This activity will contribute to strengthening SASSA's capability to
recruit, train and retain high calibre individuals who can contribute
effectively in the delivery of social assistance programmes, especially to
children.
Support to policy debates on universal and conditional cash transfers
Currently, there is no clear policy directive from Cabinet and relevant
executive authorities regarding conditional cash transfer programmes to
children.
We look forward to vigorous work that will take place to implement these
programmes. We thank UNICEF for continuing to work with us in our development
initiatives.
Thank you
Issued by: Department of Social Development
20 April 2007
