Overview: Social policy and strategic leveraging
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© UNICEF/South Africa/2008/Pirozzi |
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Close to one in two South Africans are poor, with children disproportionately affected. |
The first call for children and women
Poverty in South Africa
One of South Africa’s greatest challenges is breaking the grip of poverty on a large portion of its population. Close to one in two South Africans are poor, with children disproportionately affected. Two-thirds of all South African children live in poverty. Most children living in poverty are found in provinces with the largest number of children – Limpopo, Eastern Cape, Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal. These areas are also the least developed of all the provinces in the country.
Poverty is devastating for children. It denies them their human right to a standard of living adequate for their physical, mental, spiritual, moral and social development. It also robs them of their right to protection from exploitation, violence and abuse. In addition, poverty constrains children from enjoying their fundamental freedoms, now, and when they grow into adulthood. Unless the cycle is broken, children living in poverty become adults who pass poverty onto the next generation.
Children’s vulnerability
Poverty intersects with other causes of vulnerability in South Africa, including the country’s severe AIDS epidemic, high unemployment and the inadequate delivery of basic services in several parts of the country. This creates a web of deprivation for millions of South African families that struggle to provide the basics for children. Child and maternal mortality levels are increasing, and many children living in poverty do not get a quality education.
South Africa has ample resources to improve the quality of life for all its citizens but the poorest municipalities are not able to meet the basic needs of their people. The South African Index of Multiple Deprivation of Children lists 49 of the 284 municipalities where children experience extreme vulnerability. Most municipalities do not have the right expertise to plan, implement and monitor services and are grappling with a massive backlog of service delivery from the past. Moreover, public participation in service provision is weak.
A polarised society
South Africa also has one of the most unequal income distributions in the world. Two economies exist side-by-side, one which is technologically advanced, skilled and prosperous and the other poor, unskilled and largely African. The Gini coefficient of 0.6 shows an unacceptably high level of income inequality. Interestingly, inequality has worsened in spite of higher economic growth in recent years. Closing the gap between the rich and the poor is yet another of South Africa’s challenges.
Reducing poverty
A social safety net to alleviate the worst poverty is implemented through a massive social grants system, a national school feeding programme, a no-fee policy for the poorest schools and free healthcare for pregnant women and young children. The Child Support Grant, which reached nine million children under the age of 15 in 2009, is one of the government’s key interventions for improving the living standards of children living in poverty.
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© UNICEF/South Africa/2008/Pirozzi |
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UNICEF helps to analyse how social and economic policies affect the well-being of children and women. |
What UNICEF is doing
Investing resources to help children and women survive and develop to their full potential is, first and foremost, a moral imperative. But investing in children also yields positive benefits to economies and societies by breaking the cycle of poverty, disease and violence, accelerating the spread of knowledge, promoting fundamental freedoms and enhancing the production capacity of the economy.
For UNICEF, some of the greatest investments in children happen ‘behind the scenes’ at the national level. The UNICEF Social transformation and Strategic Leveraging programme is part of this seemingly invisible yet very important work. It supports the South African government to develop and strengthen policies, budgets and programmes that improve the quality of life for children and women.
Social policy
UNICEF helps to analyse how social and economic policies affect the well-being of children and women. Analytical studies are used to improve the design, implementation and monitoring of child and women-friendly policies. An example is UNICEF’s work on simulating the impact of South Africa’s recession on child poverty and exploring policy instruments that will provide the most mitigating effects.
Tracking public spending
Government priorities are reflected in how it spends on health, education, social welfare, social grants and basic infrastructure. Continuous tracking is required to assess the extent to which these services are prioritised in national, provincial and local government budgets.
UNICEF’s support to expenditure reviews and tracking helps to develop child-friendly budgets which ensure that government funds are properly prioritised as well as progressively distributed to support the most excluded children and families.
An example of UNICEF’s role in the prioritisation of budgets is the groundbreaking study on Public Expenditure Tracking of Early Childhood Development Services in South Africa. This study is expected to contribute to the government’s reform agenda on early childhood development.
Evaluating policies
Part of the search for evidence of what works best for children lies in policy evaluation. In South Africa, UNICEF supports impact evaluations of major social programmes such as the Child Support Grant. This type of institutional support is vital to scaling up and managing large social programmes that benefit millions of children and women.
Institutional support for municipalities
UNICEF is starting a programme to strengthen the capacity of municipalities to provide services for children. The initiative will guide local government in including children’s rights as a key part of their goals, by-laws, programmes and budgets. This will include the right to health, education, water and sanitation, shelter, protection against violence and abuse, as well as children’s right to participate in decision making on matters that affect their well-being.
Working with Parliament
As custodians of the South African Constitution, parliamentarians play a key role in determining how the government invests its resources. UNICEF works with Members of Parliament to improve their awareness, knowledge and capacities so that they are able to pass legislation and exercise oversight over government departments on issues affecting children and women.
