The NGO sector moves poverty back to centre stage with a daring pre-election roadshow, reports Ferial Haffajee
In Bloemfontein, the heart of South Africa, on March 17, the nation’s poor will begin to speak out. They will continue to do so for more than two months, speaking about overcrowded schools, cardboard homes and dwindling social security, as the most daring roadshow by the country’s NGO sector gets under way in every major city in the country.
The “Speak Out on Poverty” hearings come at a crossroads for NGO/government relations. Broadsided by acidic comments by President Nelson Mandela at the African National Congress’s Mafikeng conference, the non- governmental sector must now prove that it can be both watchdog and government partner while moving poverty back to the centre stage it occupied in the run-up to the 1994 elections.
That’s when promises of “food, housing and jobs” helped put the ANC in power. The slogan had its genesis in the Reconstruction and Development Programme – a base programme which the South African NGO Coalition (Sangoco) would like to see revisited.
Sangoco national programme director Jacqui Boulle says: “It’s saying ‘let’s take the poor seriously’ and it’s about setting new election priorities.” She says that the poverty hearings are similar to the ANC’s people’s platforms held before the 1994 election.
In the absence of a mass-based political opposition, could this be the first signs of an NGO-led movement against poverty? “No” is the resounding answer, and not only because Mandela asked pointed questions about the constituencies on whose behalf NGOs speak. “It’s not an antagonistic process. It will be solution-oriented and look at what’s working.” That’s why the coalition’s pamphlets inviting people to make presentations about their problems ask “What are you doing to eradicate poverty?”
The poverty hearings have been designed to be as inclusive as possible. The hearings were launched last week by Minister of Welfare and Population Development Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi, and both the gender and human rights commissions have been drawn in for political clout. After the last person speaks early in June, a report will be written and the commissions will deliver it to Parliament.
For Boulle, the poverty hearings are an extension of a presentation to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission last year which linked present poverty to apartheid economic policies. The hearings will also attempt to look at why delivery has not been as rapid as many had hoped since 1994. This will mean some critique of present policies, though it is likely to be muted as sensitivities abound especially after Mandela accused some NGOs of pursuing “militant opposition to the government”. Ironically, the hearings are likely to see the government and NGOs reach a high degree of convergence.
The government will this month also release its Poverty and Inequality report – an attempt at the first comprehensive poverty report in contemporary South Africa. Dr Pandy Pillay, the head of the co-ordination and implementation unit in Deputy President Thabo Mbeki’s office, says it will combine the data of the 1993 World Bank/South African Labour Development and Research Unit report into poverty, the October household surveys and the income and expenditure surveys by the finance and fiscal commissions.
If its recommendations are implemented, delivery could be sped up. One of the reasons Mbeki’s unit has been established is to implement greater pro-poor benefits ahead of the next election. “They’re two sides of the same coin,” says Pillay of the hearings and the government’s poverty assessment.
The report will also assess the impact of the state’s anti-poverty projects, such as its public works programmes, water provision, municipal infrastructure and small farmer programmes. “Government just doesn’t know enough about poverty,” says Pillay. “That sort of information is critical for policy-making. You need some element to target the poorest of the poor.”
Poverty alleviation strategies are built into macro-economic plans like the government’s growth, employment and redistribution plan (Gear). But poverty also needs political responsibility. “Poverty is a cross-cutting issue. No department is able to grasp poverty as a single nettle,” he says.
This suggests that anti-poverty programmes could get a financial fillip and gain some political muscle from the deputy president’s office; the acceleration of delivery also means NGOs could begin to play a greater role in the implementation of anti-poverty programmes.
While it is the public account of the lives of the poor which is likely to grab headlines in the next two months, a quieter process is under way which presents NGOs with a much finer balancing act. An economic commission is drafting alternatives to Gear which will be presented at June’s economic summit by a coalition of churches and civil society and this is likely to be a far pricklier thorn in the government’s side – as is the NGO plan to unveil a poverty budget ahead of the national budget next year.