The South African Civil Society Information Service
A nonprofit news agency promoting social justice. Seeking answers to the question:
How do we make democracy work for the poor?
A nonprofit news agency promoting social justice. Seeking answers to the question:
How do we make democracy work for the poor?
SACSIS promotes the fundamental right of the poor to services such as clean water, sanitation, waste management, affordable energy, public transport, health, education and social security.
Ebrahim-Khalil Hassen -
The South African dream is that opportunities should not be defined by initial conditions, be they race, gender or class. The Constitution provides the right to education as an important foundational element of reaching this dream. Government has developed an important set of initiatives aimed at improving the school readiness of children, thus potentially providing a fair start for all South Africans. Questions, however, remain as to whether these initiatives will be able to rectify past...
Glenn Ashton -
This year is the first that school students – or learners as they are now known - are to matriculate under the new Outcomes Based Educational system. OBE was adopted as one of the first major policy innovations under the newly democratic government in South Africa, under the ideological guidance of the first minister of education, Sibusiso Bengu.
The demand to meaningfully change the educational system in South Africa was a priority intervention. The old system, irrevocably...
Isobel Frye -
South Africa has arguably one of the most extensive social security systems amongst developing countries. Currently just over 12 million people receive some form of social assistance grant, and in addition we have a number of social insurance schemes, including the Unemployment Insurance Fund and private pension and provident funds which together form a social security system.
The main historical objective of social security is to secure people against vulnerability which arises as a...
Mohamed Motala -
A recent review of the child support grant (CSG) concludes that while the grant is reaching poor households as intended, it could do better by developing better coordination with other social relief programmes.
This finding was supported by evidence collected in an extensive survey of 2 640 households. The survey revealed that households receiving the grant, exhibit characteristics of poverty in relation to access to basic services, education levels, employment opportunities and...
Mohamed Motala -
The emphasis being placed on Transnet and how well its current head has performed has been getting much attention. However, in the midst of all the year to date earnings, positive cash flows and balance sheets that we are being presented with in the press, one issue stands out: the inefficiency of the public train system is being drowned out in the noise of the accolades for the parastatal’s business and leadership performance.
There are no figures to gauge the performance of the...
Langa Mtshali -
One of the legacies of apartheid South Africa and the Bantustan system is the unequal distribution of resources between urban and rural areas, which has created a perpetual divide that even under our democratic dispensation is not being bridged.
The ongoing lack of importance given to rural South Africa in the post-apartheid era, has created a rural backwater where poverty is entrenched and where people are simply abandoned and expected to fend for themselves in the face of what can...
