New York – South Africa’s Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini says South Africa has done well in reducing poverty and hunger over the past 20 years.
The Minister said this as the United Nations meets in New York to discuss progress on the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which lists eradicating extreme poverty and hunger as the top priority.
Minister Dlamini has been crucial in assisting the South African delegation to report back on Goal 1 of the MDGs.
Even though she acknowledged some challenges, Minister Dlamini ranked South Africa highly compared to other countries in meeting this particular goal.
“Social protection has done a lot to improve the quality of life for our people, particularly girls and women. Most of the time when you talk about poverty, the first people that get affected are women,” she said on Monday.
“When you talk about social protection, you talk about access to health services and access to school, so you reduce poverty all round and improve a life. That is what we have done as a country.”
According to statistics, the poverty rate in South Africa dropped by 11% between 2009 and 2011 as government expanded welfare grants.
The number of beneficiaries of social grants in South Africa grew from two million in 1994 to about 16 million in February 2013. Of these, an estimated 11 million are Child Support Grant beneficiaries.
“Grants have proved to be very helpful in eradicating poverty and keeping children in schools. What I want to see now is for women to be empowered so they can contribute towards the development of their children and themselves,” said Minister Dlamini.
The UN says 1.2 billion people around the world still live in extreme poverty, even though poverty rates have been halved between 1990 and 2010 and the MDG target has been met.
In 2012, a quarter of all children under the age of five years were estimated to be stunted, having inadequate height for their age. This represents a significant decline since 1990 when 40% of young children were stunted.
However, it was unacceptable that 162 million young children are still suffering from chronic undernutrition, says the UN. – SAnews.gov.za
