The aim of the Policy Engagement programme is to ensure public participation in the formulation of social service, welfare and development policies. The ultimate goal is to not represent civil society but to facilitate the process for members to coordinate and represent themselves.

The Forum monitors the development of policies that affect poor and marginalised people in South Africa and lobbies for these policies to ensure that work done in the social welfare sector is relevant to the service beneficiaries.

It does this through active engagement with government and coordination of civil society, which it is able to do thanks to its solid network base and strong relations with central and provincial government as well as local social service providers.

Concretely, this policy work involves many different areas, such as financing and budgeting, the development of models for rendering of services, the formation of partnerships between the various actors within the sector and the selection of data informing policies and regulations.

Activities in 2005-2007
During the period 2005-2007, The Forum carried out a number of policy engagement-related activities through its provincial offices and national secretariat.

The highlight of this period was the Gauteng Welfare Summit, jointly hosted by the Gauteng Minister for Social Development, The Honourable, Mr Kgaogelo Lekgoro, and the Gauteng Welfare Forum on 26 & 27 October 2006. Click here for The Forum’s Report on the Summit.

The Summit was launched as a step in the process of redefining the partnership between NGOs and government in social service delivery. Three thousand delegates, representing government, NGOs, FBOs and CBOs in the province, participated.

The main purpose of the Summit was to reach a consensus on the role of the sector and to develop a mutually agreed framework for partnerships between government and civil society in the delivery of social welfare services. The Summit sought to identify the relevant debates and options open to the sector in four interrelated focus areas and with regard to particular issues, namely: 

• Models for partnerships in social welfare delivery;  Report of Focus Group 
• The Integrated Service Delivery Model and its practical application;   
• Approaches to the Financing of the sector; and 
• The need for Transformation within the sector in order to assure effectiveness and efficiency of rendered services 

Preparing for the Gauteng Welfare Summit constituted the main activity of the Gauteng Forum during the period 2005-2007, and The Forum played a vital role in making the event a success. The Gauteng Forum initiated the idea for the Summit and through hard work and persistence succeeded in securing the participation of the Provincial Department of Social Development (DoSD). Gauteng Forum representatives worked as members of the steering committee, as task team members preparing the discussion papers and finally as facilitators during the summit. The aim of The Forum was to ensure the joint ownership of the process between government and civil society and this objective was met and exceeded.

During the preparation period the summit gained political support as well as attracted the interest of the national DoSD. The nature of the summit shifted from being envisaged as the culmination of a process of dialogue and debate, to being a starting point for further discussions with post- summit activities and follow-ups being projected. One of the achievements of the summit was the drafting of a resolution in which the aims, needs and potential of all parties were acknowledged and guidelines for a continuous and close cooperation between the Gauteng DoSD and NGOs were drawn up. The highlights of the resolution include: agreement that service data provided by NGOs will be incorporated in the baseline measurement for policy formulation; and that NGOs will be involved in policy processes from the stage of conceptualisation and not only when the direction of the process has already been determined. This has strengthened the relationship with provincial government to the point where the Gauteng Forum is now actively engaged with provincial government in setting and implementing policy objectives in relation to poverty eradication, social service and social security.

The outcomes of the summit have also had an impact on a national level through the attendance of delegates from other provincial offices of The Forum. The Gauteng example has provided a model for how to generate a meaningful dialogue between local governments and civil society, inspiring the Eastern Cape and Mpumalanga Forum officials to make progress on their own Provincial Welfare Summits.

Another example of successful engagement and cooperation with local government comes from the Eastern Cape. Through regular contact with its member organisations, the Eastern Cape Forum discovered that there had been problems in accessing social welfare subsidies from the provincial department offices in Bisho. As a result some organisations had been unable to pay the salaries of their employees, leading to a loss of skilled staff in various development projects. The Eastern Cape Forum attended to this problem in various ways. Meetings were organised with the DoSD to make the provincial government aware of the severity of the situation and the problems it might cause in rendering proper services to poor and marginalised individuals and communities. Other actions taken by the Eastern Cape Forum in this matter include: exploring options for legal action through facilitating contact between affected NGOs and the Legal Resource Centre in Grahamstown; organising and hosting meetings with the different parties; highlighting core issues in the process of revising existing policies on subsidies (e.g. the importance of allocation letters and service level agreements); and discussions on inflation-related issues of subsidies. In February 2007 The Forum together with NACOSS decided to take joint action in preparing a paper on the discrepancies of subsidies in various provinces. The Eastern Cape Forum is lobbying for a national standardisation of subsidies so as to ensure the maintenance and continuation of social services delivered by NGOs in all provinces.

In Mpumalanga, The Forum has also started the process of building better relationships with local municipalities with a view to holding a provincial summit.  The recognition of the Forum’s role as a link between government and civil society in social welfare policy and programmes has been strengthened and we look forward to reporting on further progress in the next review period.

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