opening of the Workshop on the Multi-year Study on the impact of Child Support
Grants
27 November 2007
Salutations
Yesterday saw the launch of the 16 Days of Activism for No Violence Against
Women Campaign. The campaign offers us an opportunity an opportunity to renew
our pledge and determination to fight against women and child abuse. For our
part, the department has put in place various mechanisms aimed at transforming
gender and power relations in society. Through key social and cash transfer
programmes such as the Child Support Grant we have begun to instil and offer
choices to millions of people who would have otherwise remained in abusive
relationships and/or households.
This workshop is yet another contribution to this fight. It is our hope that
the intended multi year study will also cast some light on the societal
transformation potential and impact of the Child Support Grant. Many have
provided negative speculations with regards to the relationship between these
grants and society. These speculations have concluded, in the main, that these
grants carry with them perverse incentives, such as teenage pregnancies. As far
as we can tell there is very little correlation between increased take up rates
and teenage pregnancies. We have reached this conclusion after extensive
research which, amongst others, shows that although teenage pregnancies, like
anywhere in the world, are unacceptably high the take up rate of teenagers is
relatively.
Further, the general take up rate of these grants, even after extensive
public awareness campaign is at 35 percent. It is quite clear to us that
teenage pregnancy is a consequence of various socio-economic factors which
require an integrated onslaught.
Such an integrated outlook also ought to include public education and the
development of empirical evidence based policies and interventions. The
increasing momentum on empirical evidence based policy making and interventions
is not only encouraged nationally to optimally align resources to results, to
obtain funding and citizen confidence in processes but also to enable cross
country comparisons. The challenges for a developing country like South Africa
to fully incorporate empirical evidence in all its policies and interventions
are cost, capacity and time constraints.
Traditionally we addressed the needs of our people through compassion and
altruism. Although these processes did to some extent respond to community
level needs, they could not be up-scaled. This was so because the needs were so
dire and widespread, in the context of an anti-development Apartheid State.
Given the decades if not centuries of underdevelopment in South Africa, supply
side constraints will be an issue we will have to endure for some time. Given
the serious supply side constraints we cannot be overly ambitious about the
impacts of our policies and interventions.
This is consistent with any transitional state in the developed and the
developing world. For instance, according to United Nations Children's Fund
(Unicef), "at least 600 million children under the age of 18, struggle to
survive on less than a dollar a day. This represented a staggering 40% of
children in developing countries." This problem is not only today's problem but
also reflects the future our children will live in. This is so because, there
is indisputable evidence that shows that early life poverty has the detrimental
effects of extending over the entire life of an individual and can generate or
reinforce intergenerational poverty persistence. Appropriate and evidence based
policy responses to childhood poverty and vulnerability are therefore critical
in turning this tide against childhood poverty.
The South African case is compounded by inherited and persistent
inequalities. These inequalities are best characterised by the geographic,
racial and class based skew as in relation to unemployment, poor
infrastructure, and participation in the economic mainstream. In summary our
conclusion is that the face of poverty and inequality is a rural with a child
on her back. Trailing behind her is a young woman who, unless we take further
steps is also destined to be that woman.
In recognition of this fact during the adoption of our constitution we
confirmed what we had said in the Freedom Charter, our struggle is a struggle
for the rights of every South African, no matter their station in life. We are
therefore determined, whilst recognising resource constraints, to ensure that
we gradually move away from discretionary approaches to social and public
service delivery. We do so, because these rights have been hard earned and are
the best avenue to maximise human capital development. Unfortunately, in the
current supply side epoch our citizens secure one right only to expend it on
another.
Indeed many of our child beneficiaries utilise their cash transfers to
access constitutionally guaranteed rights such as food, education and health.
This results in the value for money surpassing human dignity, which is critical
for human development. I am not saying there is no place for value for money,
it is cardinal in guiding public service expenditure, all I am saying is that
it cannot surpass human development in the ladder of priority, for the value of
life is infinite.
Because we value life we have made it a point to emphasise the positive
aspects of cash transfers as a short and medium term response. Our studies show
that show that parents do not only use the Child Support Grant for the children
for whom it is intended, but in the interest of all the children in the family.
The money is spent on food, education, accessing health care in the absence of
primary health care and clothing. These studies also show that households that
receive the Child Support Grant are more likely to seek employment than those
that do not. The Social Assistance programme is the largest income
redistribution programme in South Africa in the absence of long term employment
creation especially for the semi and unskilled. It promotes solidarity by
redistributing income from the young to the old, from men to women and from
urban to rural. Studies also show that it has an impact on reducing income
inequality by three percent and household poverty by 20%.
The Child Support Grant responds to malnutrition in children. A study using
height or age measure shows that children who received the Child Support Grant
over long periods of time showed an improvement in their nutritional status and
a reduction in stunted growth and that returns on the Child Support Grant were
between 165% and 265%. The school enrolment rate is reported to be 98% and the
primary school completion rate 96%.
In addition to the macro social impacts on human capital development there
are also micro social impacts namely:
Family preservation
The Child Support Grant enables orphan children to remain together as a
family unit instead of being separated though foster care placements when
children in a larger family cannot find a single placement. It enables women to
remove themselves from abusive relationships and remain with their children as
a family unit. It enables unemployed parents to sustain their families. The
elderly and person with disabilities become a resource in the family and not a
burden.
Pooling of resources to mitigate risk
In poor families, incomes from different sources are pooled to support a
larger number of people. Grandmothers extend their pensions to support
unrelated child headed households in the community. Older children are
educated. Sick members are provided with care.
Empowerment and decision making
Women are empowered through some financial independence to make choices and
decisions in the interest of their children and their wellbeing and remove
themselves from abuse and unsafe environments. It enables them to access
information, skills, training, education and social services to improve their
life's chances.
Income support has the same impact on the lives of poor as it does for the
affluent. Thus it is important that as we do our work of extending rights to
our people we also apply our minds to also extending opportunities to those
very same people. Such an extension of opportunity requires an integrated
poverty eradication strategy which addresses human development whilst also
unlocking the economic potential of our communities. For us, the meeting point
of social policy, micro economics, and macro economics is not in boardrooms but
in communities. Were you to clarify this for us, in this seminar, we would be
almost halfway to finally turning the tide. This proposed study holds for us
this hope that this intersection would become evident and could be a start to
re-instilling the dignity of our people.
I thank you.
Issued by: Department of Social Development
27 November 2007
Source: Department of Social Development (http://www.dsd.gov.za)
