Pretoria – The country’s social protection policy seems to be on the right track, according to the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s (UKZN) preliminary report on Project Mikondzo.
Project Mikondzo is the Department of Social Development’s service delivery improvement programme aimed at responding quicker, more effectively and innovatively to social challenges in the country’s poorest wards.
“Through research, Project Mikondzo has established that as a country we are not naïve in the welfarist, social protection approaches that we have adopted, and that there is a concerted effort to balance social protection measures with a developmental approach,” said UKZN’s Professor Pearl Sithole.
The UKZN was roped in by the department as a research partner in Project Mikondzo. The university has provided preliminary insights that can be used in the further roll out of the Project and in informing ongoing policy formulation.
According to the university’s preliminary report, Project Mikondzo is based on quantitative and data analysis, including use of national data sets, Ministerial Izimbizo and qualitative research, which show that government’s social protection measures have made a significant difference in people’s lives.
In terms of this initiative, the department, South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) and National Development Agency (NDA)’s administrative staff are be based in the communities doing fieldwork to ensure that access to services is enhanced and that government is adequately responsive to immediate socio-economic challenges facing communities.
The name Mikondzo is a Xitsonga name referring to footprints. It refers to the department’s aim to expand and leave a positive service delivery footprint by bringing all its services to the people. Mikondzo teams have already started working in Mpumalanga, Limpopo, Eastern Cape, North West and Gauteng.
Project Mikondzo focuses its services delivery improvement interventions on the department’s five priority areas of early childhood development, child youth development, substance abuse, gender based violence and the strengthening of the non-profit organisation sector.
Project Mikondzo enters second phase
Project Mikondzo has entered its second phase of implementation, which will have a strong focus on improving government integration in the delivery of services. The second phase of the project will extend its reach to over 1 700 wards.
Some of the recommendations put forward by the university to achieve improved delivery of social services going into the second phase of Project Mikondzo, include a need for improved coordination in developing an inclusive and responsive social protection system.
The report also stressed the need to find ways to instil awareness of social development approaches in local government in line with their spatial realities, as spatiality issues have a bearing on infrastructure and economic development.
Since its launch in September 2013, by Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini, Project Mikondzo has been rolled out in more than eight hundred wards across the country. The first phase of the project involved collecting data on the service delivery needs of each ward, while also offering immediate social interventions where necessary.
Over the past year, the department has uncovered and intervened in a number of social challenges facing communities.
These include offering support to disabled children and their parents; strengthening and expanding the delivery of early childhood development services; identifying and providing support to child and youth headed households and hunger and malnutrition interventions. – SAnews.gov.za
