> by Leon Schreiber. 15 May 2012
>
> The First Instance of Decentralised Social Policy Innovation in South Africa?
>
> On the 11th of May, Western Cape MEC for Social Development Albert
> Fritz announced the planned initiation of a pilot ‘work-for-food'
> project to be rolled out in the Province from July 2012. As is the
> depressing norm in South Africa, the story was buried beneath
> headlines about corruption and the disgusting racist tweets made by
> two models. However, Fritz' announcement has the potential to have a
> tremendous impact on social policy development in South Africa, and
> thus warrants attention. Here's why.
>
> In my previous blog post, I attempted to illuminate the argument that
> South African social policy has become passive and that it is
> relegating citizens to subjects. I used the case of Brazil as a
> comparison to show that they had achieved tremendous success in
> reducing poverty through the use of innovate social policies, while
> levels of poverty and inequality continue to rise in South Africa. The
> main causes of this deviation are the fact that Brazil emphasizes
> investment in the human capital of its impoverished citizens, and that
> it views them as partners with co-responsibilities, while South Africa
> does neither.
>
> There are two main reasons why Brazil has been able to develop these
> successful programmes. The first is the highly competitive political
> system and the second is the context of decentralisation. Both of
> these factors spur competition between political parties and state and
> municipal governments. The Bolsa Família programme is a textbook case,
> as it grew from two very modest municipal pilot projects. The pilots
> were established during the same week in January 1995, under the
> direction of two different political parties.
>
> The Bolsa Escola (School Grant) programme was launched in the Federal
> District of Brasilia by the Workers' Party (PT) Governor Cristovam
> Buarque, while the Governor of Campinas, José Roberto Magalhães
> Teixeira from the Brazilian Social Democratic Party (PSDB), separately
> launched the Guaranteed Minimum Family Income Programme. By 2012, the
> seeds sown by these two Conditional Cash Transfer Programmes (CTPs)
> had grown exponentially into the Bolsa Família, which currently serves
> 45 million impoverished people and has managed to lift more than 5
> million people out of poverty in only eight years.
>
> It is plain to any observer that South African social policies do not
> operate within the same context of political competition and
> decentralisation. However, there is undoubtedly still space for
> innovation, and the announcement by the Western Cape Government may
> very well be the first example of such innovation. The programme aims
> to task able-bodied unemployed people between the ages of 17 and 45
> with participating in work projects like the clearing of alien
> vegetation, cleaning up their communities and possibly starting
> vegetable gardens and assisting at soup kitchens.
>
> It will initially be piloted in Nyanga and Atlantis, which are both
> part of the municipality of the City of Cape Town. The most exciting
> part of the announcement was that it explicitly cited the Brazilian
> case as an example where similar policies have succeeded in reducing
> poverty and inequality, because it encouraged community members to
> become active participants in social contract underpinning the
> policies.
>
> In Brazil, the Fome Zero (Zero Hunger) programme serves as the
> umbrella for all social policy initiatives. In addition to housing the
> biggest policy intervention, namely the Bolsa Família, Fome Zero also
> includes programmes to encourage family farming, as well as a system
> of low-cost restaurants for impoverished people, commonly known as
> ‘people's restaurants'. Fritz mentioned that the planned project was
> based on this aspect of the Fome Zero programme, and that it ‘came
> about from a meeting between [him] and Brazil's Deputy Social Welfare
> Minister, Romulo Paes de Sousa, in Pretoria last month'.
>
> Even though the scale of the proposed programme will initially be
> modest, scale is not the most important factor it introduces. The
> factor of social policy innovation is what matters. The fact that the
> Western Cape is run by a different party than the rest of the country
> has opened-up space for social policy innovations that simply cannot
> come about in an environment dominated by one political party. As is
> so vividly demonstrated by the Brazilian case, innovative social
> policies, backed-up by the necessary political will, have the
> potential to rapidly expand and can literally assist millions of
> people as they attempt to move out of poverty.
>
> The challenge now is for the Western Cape Government to successfully
> implement this innovation. It needs to prioritise this project and
> manage it effectively, to the point where it is able to eventually
> expand and incorporate many other impoverished areas within the
> Province. It is a perfect example of the type of grass-roots
> interventions which are required to eventually change the dangerously
> unsustainable overall direction of South Africa's social policies.
>
> I believe that there should be a good deal of excitement surrounding
> this project, because it could be the first step in moving South
> Africa away from the chokingly passive social policies which are
> slowly suffocating the country. Of course, what is ultimately required
> is to reach conditions which are more akin to the situation in Brazil,
> namely a competitive political system combined with enough
> decentralisation to promote innovation.
>
> And we are certainly still a very long way from such a situation. But
> this is a very significant first step, and should South Africa
> eventually achieve success with its social policies, we may very well
> be able to point at Fritz' announcement as the point where it all
> began, just as Brazilians are now able to point at the announcements
> made by Governors Buarque and Teixeira during fateful week in January
> 1995 as moment which ultimately improved lives of millions of
> (formerly) impoverished Brazilians.
>
> The First Instance of Decentralised Social Policy Innovation in South Africa?
>
> On the 11th of May, Western Cape MEC for Social Development Albert
> Fritz announced the planned initiation of a pilot ‘work-for-food'
> project to be rolled out in the Province from July 2012. As is the
> depressing norm in South Africa, the story was buried beneath
> headlines about corruption and the disgusting racist tweets made by
> two models. However, Fritz' announcement has the potential to have a
> tremendous impact on social policy development in South Africa, and
> thus warrants attention. Here's why.
>
> In my previous blog post, I attempted to illuminate the argument that
> South African social policy has become passive and that it is
> relegating citizens to subjects. I used the case of Brazil as a
> comparison to show that they had achieved tremendous success in
> reducing poverty through the use of innovate social policies, while
> levels of poverty and inequality continue to rise in South Africa. The
> main causes of this deviation are the fact that Brazil emphasizes
> investment in the human capital of its impoverished citizens, and that
> it views them as partners with co-responsibilities, while South Africa
> does neither.
>
> There are two main reasons why Brazil has been able to develop these
> successful programmes. The first is the highly competitive political
> system and the second is the context of decentralisation. Both of
> these factors spur competition between political parties and state and
> municipal governments. The Bolsa Família programme is a textbook case,
> as it grew from two very modest municipal pilot projects. The pilots
> were established during the same week in January 1995, under the
> direction of two different political parties.
>
> The Bolsa Escola (School Grant) programme was launched in the Federal
> District of Brasilia by the Workers' Party (PT) Governor Cristovam
> Buarque, while the Governor of Campinas, José Roberto Magalhães
> Teixeira from the Brazilian Social Democratic Party (PSDB), separately
> launched the Guaranteed Minimum Family Income Programme. By 2012, the
> seeds sown by these two Conditional Cash Transfer Programmes (CTPs)
> had grown exponentially into the Bolsa Família, which currently serves
> 45 million impoverished people and has managed to lift more than 5
> million people out of poverty in only eight years.
>
> It is plain to any observer that South African social policies do not
> operate within the same context of political competition and
> decentralisation. However, there is undoubtedly still space for
> innovation, and the announcement by the Western Cape Government may
> very well be the first example of such innovation. The programme aims
> to task able-bodied unemployed people between the ages of 17 and 45
> with participating in work projects like the clearing of alien
> vegetation, cleaning up their communities and possibly starting
> vegetable gardens and assisting at soup kitchens.
>
> It will initially be piloted in Nyanga and Atlantis, which are both
> part of the municipality of the City of Cape Town. The most exciting
> part of the announcement was that it explicitly cited the Brazilian
> case as an example where similar policies have succeeded in reducing
> poverty and inequality, because it encouraged community members to
> become active participants in social contract underpinning the
> policies.
>
> In Brazil, the Fome Zero (Zero Hunger) programme serves as the
> umbrella for all social policy initiatives. In addition to housing the
> biggest policy intervention, namely the Bolsa Família, Fome Zero also
> includes programmes to encourage family farming, as well as a system
> of low-cost restaurants for impoverished people, commonly known as
> ‘people's restaurants'. Fritz mentioned that the planned project was
> based on this aspect of the Fome Zero programme, and that it ‘came
> about from a meeting between [him] and Brazil's Deputy Social Welfare
> Minister, Romulo Paes de Sousa, in Pretoria last month'.
>
> Even though the scale of the proposed programme will initially be
> modest, scale is not the most important factor it introduces. The
> factor of social policy innovation is what matters. The fact that the
> Western Cape is run by a different party than the rest of the country
> has opened-up space for social policy innovations that simply cannot
> come about in an environment dominated by one political party. As is
> so vividly demonstrated by the Brazilian case, innovative social
> policies, backed-up by the necessary political will, have the
> potential to rapidly expand and can literally assist millions of
> people as they attempt to move out of poverty.
>
> The challenge now is for the Western Cape Government to successfully
> implement this innovation. It needs to prioritise this project and
> manage it effectively, to the point where it is able to eventually
> expand and incorporate many other impoverished areas within the
> Province. It is a perfect example of the type of grass-roots
> interventions which are required to eventually change the dangerously
> unsustainable overall direction of South Africa's social policies.
>
> I believe that there should be a good deal of excitement surrounding
> this project, because it could be the first step in moving South
> Africa away from the chokingly passive social policies which are
> slowly suffocating the country. Of course, what is ultimately required
> is to reach conditions which are more akin to the situation in Brazil,
> namely a competitive political system combined with enough
> decentralisation to promote innovation.
>
> And we are certainly still a very long way from such a situation. But
> this is a very significant first step, and should South Africa
> eventually achieve success with its social policies, we may very well
> be able to point at Fritz' announcement as the point where it all
> began, just as Brazilians are now able to point at the announcements
> made by Governors Buarque and Teixeira during fateful week in January
> 1995 as moment which ultimately improved lives of millions of
> (formerly) impoverished Brazilians.
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