Leader by Rajesh Latchman

Social grants have made an impact on poverty in South Africa by giving poor and marginalised people the means to meet some of their basic needs for food and shelter. Over the past few years this social security safety net has come in for a fair deal of media attention, from corruption and fraud claims to touching stories of the positive impact of the grants. There is also concern that grants create dependency amongst recipients and that the welfare state approach is not sustainable in the long term.

The dependency syndrome argument is contentious because it makes news as much as the fraud and corruption claims. While these conditions may exist, the discourse focus on these items serves to hamper dialogue about the other aspects of social welfare such as development initiatives that seek to address poverty through systemic approaches that obviate the need for social security.

In her address to the Biennial General Assembly of The Forum, Professor Leila Patel argued for a comprehensive policy framework to act as a driver of development implementation at local level.  Patel also challenges the notions around social security dependency, questions the true extent of transformation in the sector, and asks why CBOs are not given their due as implementers of transformational development.

See also Member Profiles: Professor Leila Patel.

Topic: Panel on “The post apartheid policy environment for social welfare: are we winning?”

Prof. Leila Patel, Centre for Social Development in Africa:

"Chairperson and members of the National Welfare Social Services and Development Forum, I am greatly honoured to be invited to contribute to this panel discussion. I am proud to have been associated with the ‘Welfare Forum’ over the years and continue to do so.

The ‘Forum’ has historically played a role in critically engaging with government and representing the sector. From my reading of your recent strategy document, it seems that you see yourself as continuing to play this role in the future. It is critical that the welfare sector finds its voice again and that different voices in the sector are heard. There is a need for space to engage in critical reflection and dialogue about the pressing issues and challenges facing our society and how we might respond particularly in the coming months in the run up to the national general elections in 2009. To what extent does the ‘Welfare Forum’ see itself as shaping public opinion about key social welfare policy and service delivery issues? What role do you want to play and can you play in this process as welfare and development issues are critical in current political discourse?   

Against this background about the current context in which we find ourselves, I wish to make a few remarks about the challenges and achievements facing us. “Are we winning?” is the question that is being posed by The Forum.  My short answer is yes and no.  

Yes, in the sense that we have much to be proud of. Social welfare enjoys greater visibility today than ever before and there is growing public acknowledgement of the potential role that social welfare can play in promoting human development.  Progress has been made in setting a new developmental policy agenda and in implementing some aspects of it. New legislation has been developed and far reaching institutional arrangements to change the character of social welfare in SA have been implemented. The social security system has been overhauled to reduce mass poverty and social welfare services are being refashioned to be more developmentally oriented and to redress past neglect of welfare services to the majority of the population. Social security continues to play a critical role in poverty reduction and in supporting community based care and development. Researchers are showing the positive developmental impacts of social security in terms of ensuring food security and improved nutritional status, improved school attendance and support for livelihood strategies among others. I believe that the contribution of social assistance to community care is under-estimated and under-recognized. In addition, the grants reduce inequality as evidenced by the lowering of the Gini coefficient when grants are taken into account in the calculations. The majority of beneficiaries are now women, which is significant since women make up the vast majority of the poor.

Public pressure to expand the social security net is mounting and positive steps are being taken in this direction through the progressive implementation and expansion of the grants. Some of the key issues that are constantly raised publicly are related to welfare dependency and the unintended consequences of creating incentives for people to become ill or remain ill especially for those who are ill from AIDS. Fears are also expressed about prenatal incentives especially among teenagers. Some of this is directly related to the discourse about welfare dependency, which stems from a fear that the system will be abused by those that it is not intended for. There is evidence that counters some of these fears. The point that is widely made is that it is a consequence of having a means tested system in a context where there is widespread poverty and inequality. Further, the argument that grants may contribute to welfare dependency might hold true in a society where people have comprehensive access to social assistance and social insurance. In SA however, working people or the economically active population does not have access to grants; it is only the elderly, children and people with disabilities who qualify. So, how can grants be considered to encourage laziness and work shyness?

I now wish to turn to comment on welfare services more specifically. I am of the view that less progress has been realized in the repositioning of welfare services from a remedial approach to a developmental approach. There seem to be three reasons why this is the case:

• Firstly, there has been a policy vacuum for almost a decade. It is only in 2006 that the Draft Service Delivery Model was adopted. As yet, it has not been gazetted and adopted formally.
• Secondly, there has been the phenomenon of the ‘crowding out’ of welfare services as a result of the expansion of social grants which led to the stagnation of the sector.
• Finally, the lack of human resource capacity coupled with a lack of  knowledge and skills to implement a developmental approach has been widely cited as a reason for the lack of progress toward realizing the new approach.

The Centre for Social Development in Africa (CSDA) conducted research on the transformation of the welfare sector based on data collected via a postal survey of affiliates of the National Council of Social Services (NACOSS). A random sample of
1 064 organizations was surveyed and a 25% response rate was achieved. This year we would like to probe the findings further with qualitative research.
 
The findings indicated that there is, overall, support for developmental welfare amongst NACOSS affiliates and that the idea of developmental social welfare is beginning to take root, while organizations believe they are transforming. Areas where progress has been achieved are in the increased access that poor and disadvantaged people have to services; in the profile of service users which has shifted to be more reflective of needs and demography; in the positive shifts in the race and gender profile of staff; in agency boards that are more representative of the population they serve; and in a more balanced use of social work methods, although case work is still the method that is used to the largest extent followed by community work.

However, service delivery continues to reflect historical patterns of service types and funding in that the main focus of service delivery is on residential care, statutory services and on children and older persons. There is a lesser focus on poverty reduction but a significant growth in services related to the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

Looking ahead

Overall, however, it can be concluded that welfare services are still mainly remedial, statutory, urban based and residential in nature. On the basis of this evidence, it was concluded that there is still much to be done to transform welfare services in South Africa. HIV/AIDS coupled with mass poverty is a public issue and requires a comprehensive response. Social problems on this scale cannot be addressed purely by means of statutory and remedial welfare measures. Training more social workers to deliver more remedial services misses the point. Funding and other policies need to incentivize NGOs to implement the paradigm shift, and we need to invest in capacity building across the government and NGO sector if the vision of developmental social welfare is to be realized.
       
A critical policy gap that needs to be addressed in the future is the lack of a policy on social development at local government level. The White Paper for Social Welfare promoted the idea of the decentralization of developmental welfare services to local level. The purpose was to increase access to services; promote greater responsiveness to needs at the local level; coordinate efforts; promote inter-sectoral collaboration and the empowerment of local communities. Local authorities are grappling with what their role should be and in the absence of national and provincial initiatives, the SA Local Government Association (SALGA) has taken the initiative to develop policy. There is scope for enlarging the contribution of local authorities in the delivery of social development programmes. Limited progress has been made in realising the potential of community-based organisations as partners in facilitating development efforts in local communities and in partnership with other civil society organisations and local authorities. An understanding of the interaction between these formations could inform interventions to fast track service delivery at the local level. Such pooling of resources, knowledge, experience and understanding of local conditions could contribute to meeting needs, building community assets and enhancing social cohesion."

---

Bookmark this article: