Bongani Magongo, NDA Acting CEO
The National Development Agency assists in generating and sustaining self-help developmental interventions in poor communities
There is a dire and urgent need to eliminate poverty and all its causes, perpetuated by lack of access to gainful economic activities at all levels of the active economic population groups in South Africa. The worst affected are particularly black women, youth and those living with disabilities. It is also true that poverty has a spatial perspective in South Africa. The largest proportion of those affected by the consequences of poverty are found in former Bantustans territories which are rural in nature, urban townships formed by apartheid policies and informal settlements that are mainly growing fast in close proximity to urban areas.
Such a complex phenomenon of poverty, once it reaches its chronic stage, becomes too difficult to eradicate or even bring down to manageable levels by the state alone. Only a multi-dimensional approach, with specifically defined target groups and a specific defined spatial perspective can provide pathways for moving affected people from poverty to sustainable productive livelihoods, to an extent that even when economic shocks affect the country, they do not affect the majority of those who have attained sustainable economic livelihoods and a decent quality of life. South Africa still has a window of opportunity to turn poverty around.
The National Development Agency (NDA), a state poverty eradication institution, is tasked by its mandate to effectively respond to people who are severely affected by poverty, lack of access and means for generating sustainable income through self-help projects. The only way they can obtain some relief is through the social security systems implemented by the government. Without the robust social security systems that the South African government put in place, the state of poverty and inequality would be far worse.
The role of the NDA within the Department of Social Development is to provide developmental programmes and projects that support and provide a continuum for poverty relief for South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) beneficiaries, including self-help developmental interventions that bring income to these individuals and families. Working towards a common goal between all the functionaries with the Department of Social Development, also known as the Social Development Portfolio, is a strategic approach to respond effectively in eradicating poverty. Working towards a common goal ensures effectively designed developmental interventions and programmes that are impactful on poor communities.
The NDA vision is “developing a society free from poverty”, with a mission of coordinating and integrating developmental interventions that are provided to the poor who rely on social security grants as their only source of livelihood. This vision and mission requires all developmental interventions provided by government institutions, the private sector and civil society organisations to have a coordination and integration mechanism. Poverty eradication is a huge mandate for the NDA alone to achieve in South Africa — it requires all hands on deck, with one goal and one enemy — the eradication of poverty and all its causes.
The NDA poverty eradication approaches
The NDA, as a premier development agency of the government, is located in the Department of Social Development’s portfolio. The Department has two agencies in the war against poverty that operate on the two sides of the poverty coin. SASSA provides social relief through a range of grants for preventing hunger and death due to poverty, and providing basic needs for survival. The NDA on the other hand lifts those who have fallen into the poverty trap to sustainable livelihood, and it brings hope by providing gainful economic activities for themselves and their families.
The NDA uses the District Development Model (DDM) framework to access its target group — the poor. The DDM has demonstrated that it is a useful framework to organise, develop, plan and deliver impactful developmental interventions to move poor people out of poverty in a coordinated way. It provides a sound coordination and integration framework for all spheres of government, the private sector and civil society to focus their investments on one outcome: the eradication of poverty. Within the DDM framework, the NDA implements a developmental mechanism to contribute to poverty eradication. The mechanism organises those who have fallen below the poverty line and lost hope into self-help income generation projects, working with organised local civil society organisations.
The NDA, at local level, mobilises the poor and assesses their needs to enable them to organise themselves into self-help income generation groups, to start gainful community-based economic activities. They use the cooperative model to bind themselves towards a common goal and shared outcomes for all members of the group. The NDA works with local civil society organisations, government institutions and the private sector to provide a range of integrated interventions. The outcomes of the needs assessments are used to measure the skills, capabilities, interests, available local resources and support to design interventions to support the group in creating sustainable livelihoods.
Grant funding, capacity building and skills development, mentorship and market linkages for their services and products are provided on a continuous basis. Working with a range of partners, the self-help groups are supported to develop their own project plans and proposals for investments, funding, training, mentorship and governance to ensure that they can assist themselves to move out of poverty into sustainable income generation projects.
Formal structures
The NDA uses integrated direct support to ensure that self-help income generation developmental activities move people out of poverty. These formal structures help the poor to do business, generate income for themselves and their households, and expand and sustain their activities to achieve poverty eradication when aggregated into economies of scale. These are classified into:
Mobilisation and assessment – Identifying the resource and capabilities, interest and available opportunities for the poor to actively engage in income generation community economic activities. This is for planning interventions appropriate to the people to generate full participation and commitment of the group, to a common purpose and goal. It is also part of the entry for impactful developmental interventions as they are directed by the people — poor individuals determining their pathways out of poverty.
Formalisation – The community-based organised self-help groups need sustainability and expansion to grow their income. These groups are supported by the NDA to formalise and register themselves as community developmental-based organisations that can attract investments and trading with the public. The NDA has nurtured these community-based groupings into registration as cooperatives and self-help income generation NPOs. This approach has resulted in many of these organisations becoming viable cooperatives and income generation groups that are able to get themselves out of the poverty trap and reliance on the social security system as their main source of income.
Capacity building interventions – The NDA provides interventions, in collaboration and partnerships with a range of institutions, including local civil society organisations that have skills and experience in the area of interest of the group. The aim is to develop, nature and enhance institutional management capabilities, product or service production capabilities, sustainability and growth capabilities.
Grant funding and investments for growth and sustainability – Financial resources are the cornerstone for community-based development interventions aimed at the eradication of poverty. Without funding and attracting financial investments in these projects, their chances for survival are slim. The NDA provides grants to these self-help community-based projects owned by poor people to create a base for sustainability and growth, with the aim of attracting investments from government and the private sector to support these projects. The funding of these projects is an important variable in the eradication of poverty. Crowdfunding is an effective solution to get such projects off the ground and provide sustainable livelihood pathways for the poor in South Africa.
Linkages to markets – Most of the local self-help income generation cooperatives need support to access the markets of their products in the community. The majority of the NDA supported cooperatives are producing agricultural and food products or garment-making products such as school uniforms, traditional attires and shoes, while some have ventured in confectionary products, brick making and furniture making. All these products are basic consumables for the poor, which has a market in the local communities. The NDA assists and supports these groups to sell their products locally. Food products are sold within the community and local retailers sign off on agreements; we have also linked those producing school uniforms to local schools. These markets need to be expanded and target social security beneficiaries to spend on these locally produced products, thus strengthening their local economies.
NDA efforts in poverty eradication for the poor
The developmental interventions of the NDA have, over the past few years, contributed to the process of poverty eradication, with 24 783 new self-help income generation community-based organised structures that have been mobilised, assessed and classified according to their needs across the nine provinces in South Africa. Of these, 2 714 have been formalised and assisted to register as NPOs or cooperatives across the country to engage in a range of income generation projects benefiting them.
The NDA has built capacities of 20 764 of these organised self-help groups through training, mentoring and support through NDA Development Officers, capable local CSOs, partnerships with relevant government departments and training institutions. We have also provided grant funding to 560 of these organised groups to initiate their income generation projects; in addition, 5 273 were linked to funding by government and the private sector, and non-financial support such as technical skills and market linkages were provided.
Given the competing needs and the South African economy’s health, government is forced to rationalise its spending to keep the economy attractive to investment. However, sustainable economic growth will not be achieved if there is no proportional investment to the poor to get them out of poverty, through increasing the numbers of the poor actively participating in gainful community-based economic activities that benefit them directly. To respond to this, the NDA is not only relying on the government allocations of about R200 million per year, but intensifying its efforts to mobilise resources to fund and support these community-based poverty eradication groups.
The NDA has managed to raise about R329 million from third-party funding (government, private sector and other funders) to fund projects and programmes implemented for poverty eradication, with the aim of increasing these investments from all spheres of government and the private sector to focus on funding these types of initiatives. It is for this reason that the NDA believes that winning the war against poverty and ultimately eradicating its causes needs cooperation from all sectors of the economy. The District Development Model is a framework that has the ability to bring everyone together in a coordinated and collaborative effort to focus on one thing — poverty — as the enemy we have to defeat at all cost.
Conclusion
The NDA efforts are aimed at the eradication of poverty and all its causes. To achieve this vision, it will not alone be able to achieve its mission of breaking the cycle of poverty. It needs all the instruments of the state, government, private sector and civil society working in a coordinated and integrated manner to focus on those classified as poor, who reside on the fringes of developed and affluent locations throughout the country.
The focus is on those who have only one source of income — social grants — who are located in underdeveloped and resource-constrained areas such as rural areas, townships and informal settlements. It includes the unemployed youth, women and those living with disabilities. The challenge we have is to turn around these population groups into their best potential, which all of them possess. It requires investment from every sector for the poor to fully and actively participate in creating the future they want, the quality of life they aspire to have and the South Africa they want to live in.
About the NDA
The NDA has a national footprint, with offices in all the provinces.
Phone 011 018 5500 or write to [email protected].
The Resource Mobilisation and Stakeholder Management Office can be reached at [email protected]
Visit: www.nda.org.za