The DUSA, HSRC and UNDP recently released a report entitled "Overcoming Underdevelopment in South Africa's Second Economy", which includes a review of the Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP).

The report argues that the EPWP has been incorrectly conceptualized because it is designed to create temporary employment rather than sustained employment, which would be more appropriate in the context of the chronic nature of the unemployment problem in South Africa.

However, the arguments in the report are based more on analysis of rhetoric about the programme than on a thorough review of the official published information about the EPWP, which would reveal that it has in fact been designed to train unemployed people for sustained employment or income wherever possible. In the social sector of the EPWP, government is focusing on training unemployed people for sustained employment in early childhood development and home community based care (which involves caregivers providing basic social and health services in the home, particularly to people living with HIV and AIDS). In the economic sector, the focus is on developing and training emerging small businesses to become sustainable competitive enterprises in the longer-term. In addition, longer-term work opportunities are being created where possible in the infrastructure and - environmental sectors of the programme.

For example, the government is currently expanding KwaZulu Natal's Zibambele road maintenance programme to other provinces. This road maintenance programme provides sustained employment to local households by allocating them contracts to carry out repetitive labour-intensive maintenance activities on lengths of roads near their homes.

Some of the common criticisms of public works programmes internationally are that they are inefficient and unproductive and that they have high opportunity costs because they divert scarce resources away from other urgently needed services. The EPWP has been designed to avoid these pitfalls by focusing on using mainstream government expenditure on prioritised services in which there is potential for creating more work opportunities coupled with training for lower-skilled people in particular, either through expanding the service or through -introducing more labour-intensive delivery methods. In the latter case, the EPWP does not require any reprioritisation of budgets or redirection of funds. Because the programme involves mainstream budgets, public bodies have an incentive to implement labour-intensive projects in a cost-effective manner to avoid a reduction in Service outputs, which remains the main objective from the perspective of the public body.

The design of the EPWP is not based on the belief that the unemployment problem is cyclical rather than structural, and the government has not deliberately designed EPWP work opportunities to be short-term in nature. Where work opportunities are temporary, it is because of the nature of the work and the industry (such as once-off construction projects), not because of the design of the EPWP. The challenge for society is to find as many ways as possible to provide everyone who is willing and able to work with opportunities to experience the world of work, to obtain at least a modicum of training, and to make a contribution to reconstruction and development, including through temporary work opportunities.

The EPWP is efficient and productive because it emphasises the cost-effective delivery of quality services as much as it emphasises the creation of work opportunities. For this reason, the EPWP puts great emphasis on developing the capacity of implementing agents (contractors, NGOs and CBO's) to manage labour-intensive work activities efficiently and effectively. For example, the Department of Public Works, the Construction Sector Education and Training Authority (CETA), the Independent Development Trust, ABSA Bank, and provincial departments and municipalities have formed a partnership to develop the capacity of l000 emerging contractors and 2000of their supervisory staff by the end of 2006. To date, more than 500 emerging contractors: and more than 1000 of their supervisory staff are undergoing leaderships involving combination of classroom training and on-site training projects allocated by 31 different provincial departments and municipalities. The learners will graduate with National Qualifications Framework (NQF) qualifications a credit card with ABSA bank, -successful construction track record. These learners stand a good chance of earning a: sustainable income from the management of labour-intensive projects on behalf of the public sector. Labour-Intensive construction methods are suitable for small and emerging because contractors they enable access to the industry without having to invest heavily in construction machinery.

The report also argues that the scale of chronic unemployment requires a much more large-scale intervention. However, public works programmes will not solve unemployment on their own - the magnitude of the task of creating a nation at work requires as many initiatives as possible, and the EPWP was one of a wide range of growth and employment initiatives agreed to at the Growth and Development Summit. To date, the EPWP is on track to meet its initial five-year targets, with over two hundred thousand work opportunities having been created in the first year of the programme. Although the initial five-year targets are fairly modest relative to the scale of unemployment, the EPWP is a long-term programme, and the intention is to accelerate implementation and to motivate for increased budgets for EPWP programmes which prove to be successful. The immediate challenge for government is to ensure that all departments and spheres of government put in place the capacity required to manage larger public works programmes.

Sean Phillips