Clerical improvement training course, career information centre: students' mid-term evaluation.

Mid-term evaluation of the Careers Information Centre (an independent, non-racial and non-profit making organisation in Durban) Clerical Improvement Training Course

Linking safety nets, social protection, and poverty reduction

"In Africa and elsewhere, safety nets were promoted in the 1980s as a response to the (presumably short-term) adverse effects of structural adjustment. Though some safety nets had a developmental component, safety nets are still largely associated with the idea of a short-term buffer. “Social protection” is a newer term that incorporates safety net programs but also includes a role for renewed state involvement, emphasizes a longer-term developmental approach, includes social assistance and social insurance, and is often advocated as a right rather than a reactive form of relief. Social protection policy addresses not only programs aimed at reducing the impact of shocks and coping with their aftermath, but also interventions designed to prevent shocks and destitution in the first place. Most societies have private interhousehold, intrafamily, and intrahousehold transfers that promote resilience to shocks, mitigating their negative effects. However, in countries or communities where people are universally poor, there is less to share, particularly in times of shocks that affect all or many in the society (such as drought, floods, AIDS, or widespread structural unemployment) — which is precisely when the need for help is most critical." from TextSafety nets ,Social protection ,Transfers ,

Employment status, security and the management of risk: A study of workers in Kwamsane, Kwazulu-Natal

The study investigates the concept of security in relationship to work and employment. Work has conventionally been seen as the pathway to economic security; however, the growth in the numbers of people in the informal economy and in atypical forms of formal work has led to work being a source of risk and vulnerability for some categories of workers. We propose that security has separate components: income, health, education, employment and skill reproduction, place of work, demand, capital, and the ability to manage risk. We use eighteen indicators for the wage employed and six for the self-employed to estimate the extent of formality of employment, and use these to assess the components of work-related security for those in different employment statuses. This framework was applied to data collected in Kwamsane, KwaZulu-Natal in 2003. As expected, the self-employed were generally more vulnerable than those in wage employment, and there was clear gender segmentation in the labour market. However, differentiating the wage employed into three clusters based on the degree of formality of their employment revealed a more complex and nuanced picture

Welfare as a catalyst for development: A case study of a rural welfare programme

One of CORD's activities is the welfare programme, which started four years ago. It has two features which make it particularly interesting. First, it has introduced a level of welfare into rural areas which has not been there before. Second, it is based on a broad, developmental and holistic approach to welfare — which is what most people agree is needed, but very few actually manage to do. Welfare projects are often well meaning but small in scale, without the ability to help people out of the poverty in which they are trapped. We believe that this welfare programme acts as a catalyst for other development activities — it shows that welfare can be a wedge, a point of entry, for broader community development. It is one model for a more appropriate welfare system for the future. Compared to health, there is very little written material about alternative welfare provision. There have been fewer attempts at model building than there have been in health. And it is possible that some small projects have not been written up for others to learn from. A key aspect of innovative work in the social service and development fields is the training of new kinds of workers. This is almost always based on a recognition that existing professionals (for example, doctors, social workers, irrigation engineers, physiotherapists) •are expensive to train • are difficult to move from city-bases, and • are not necessarily good communicators with the people they are meant to serve. The South African government and the South African Council for Social Work (the body that finally controls professional social welfare) have agreed that there is a need for a new category of welfare worker — an assistant or auxiliary. The rules surrounding their training and supervision are such that, although it is a step in the right direction, it does not go nearly far enough. For example, every two assistants must be supervised by one social worker. In most rural areas there are no social workers, so there can be no assistants. When new categories of workers are trained, they often meet with strong resistance from two sides — existing professionals, and people in communities. In the welfare field, the strongest resistance will probably come from the professionals. We think that this welfare programme shows how the work of the professionals can mesh together with the work of people with less formal training, so that they can help each other to deliver better services to more people. The welfare context The welfare programme needs to be set against the context of existing welfare services in South Africa. The South African welfare system is inappropriate and inadequate — this is recognised by people in government, people working in the private welfare sector, and is certainly recognised at community level. The problems that are very evident are: • welfare spending and social services have been biased in favour of white provision • the system has not been properly planned • there is a heavy bias in favour of urban areas, and a serious neglect of rural welfare • where social work posts do exist in rural areas, they are difficult to fill. • the privatisation of welfare which is being encouraged by government (along with the privatisation of health, education, transport and other social goods) will mean that the well-off people will be able to buy better private services, but poorer people will have less access to even poorer public services. There is an emerging consensus across the country that if the welfare system is to have a contribution to make to the 'new South Africa' it will have to become: • more developmentally oriented • more appropriate to the conditions in which the majority of people live • more concerned with the welfare of the very poor, especially in rural areas • more accessible to people who need the services, and particularly by women and children. These principles are accepted internationally as guidelines for the provision of social services such as heath, welfare and education. In the field of primary health care in South Africa, we have many examples of model schemes which have tried to learn how to provide appropriate, affordable, accessible health services. Many of these have been written about; some indeed are known internationally. All these case studies are vital to the development of better health services in future. In most rural areas, and in the majority of peri-urban informal settlements, we are not talking of a situation where services could be improved by adding more professionals — we have a situation where there is virtually no access to welfare services at all. The interview that follows is presented as a case study of an innovative welfare programme

Social protection, citizenship and the employment relationship

This paper addresses the issues of social protection, citizenship and the employment relationship through the lens of South Africa. All ideologies of welfare have at their heart assumptions both about the nature of the relationship between the state and citizens, and about the role of employment in contributing to lifelong security for workers and their families. Beveridge's model of the welfare state was introduced in Britain in the late 1940s at the same time as the National Government came to power in South Africa. The model was built on assumptions about family life and the role of employment in meeting families' needs: that most people would be married, that men would be head of household, that wages earned would be enough to cover the family, and that work would be the chief source of economic security over the lifetime. The wage would be enough to meet present needs, and the family was covered if the main breadwinner had an accident (workers compensation covered costs of accident and wage) or died (widow's allowance)

Cornell-SEWA-WIEGO 2008 Dialogue - Ahmedabad and Delhi Compendium of Personal and Technical Notes

Food Security and Poverty, International Development, International Relations/Trade,

INFORMAL SECTOR AND SOCIAL POLICY Compendium of Personal and Technical Reflections Cornell-SEWA-WIEGO Exposure and Dialogue Program Oaxaca, Mexico

Food Security and Poverty, International Development, International Relations/Trade,