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Most of South Africa’s children are poor. In fact, as many as 75% of children live under a poverty line of R430 per month. The severe effects of poverty on children’s well-being, development and access to opportunities are well documented. In this context, the issue of targeting government programmes is critical to ensure that poor children’s needs are addressed, and that their socio-economic rights are realised.
South Africa does not have an integrated poverty alleviation strategy despite the government’s commitment to eradicate poverty. Instead, poverty alleviation programmes are conceptualised and implemented separately by different government departments.
The Means to Live, a joint project of the Child Poverty and Child Rights Programmes, aims to evaluate the targeting mechanisms used by the State to alleviate poverty and to ensure the realisation of socio-economic rights of poor children and their families. Targeting is a way of identifying people who ought to receive support from the government, and putting systems in place so that they can access benefits while others do not.
The research focuses on six national programmes that are very important to children and key to realising their rights. They are all poverty alleviation interventions:
- the Child Support Grant (right of access to social security)
- the Free Basic Water Policy (right of access to sufficient water)
- free primary health care and free health care to pregnant women and children under the age of six (right to basic health care services)
- the Housing Subsidy Scheme (right to shelter)
- the Primary School Nutrition Programme (right to basic nutrition)
- the School Fee Exemption Policy (right to a basic education)
The project evaluates the way in which these programmes are targeted by using a child rights framework. The first phase, now completed, comprised a set of discussion papers on the programmes and their targeting components. Primary research will be conducted at two sites later in 2005 to investigate the implementation of these programmes at local level.
The evaluation will finish with a report on how well targeting is working for children. This will include conclusions on the appropriateness of the targeting mechanisms, their effectiveness in reaching targeted beneficiaries, and the costs associated with access. We will pay particular attention to the consequences for children and their caregivers, and how all these different programmes fit together. The research results will be used to inform Government of the dire need to improve poverty alleviation for South African children.
If you would like to receive the Means to Live discussion papers (available on CD-ROM), please contact Charmaine Smith or watch out for them on the CI web site.
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