PRESENTATION TO THE PORTFOLIO COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC SERVICE AND ADMINISTRATION, LIMPOPO, 5 OCTOBER 2007

The Impact of the Community Development Worker Programme

Background

The Community Development Worker Programme is in its fifth year. The programme is the product of the government’s overarching strategy to democratise social and economic relations and represents government’s commitment to widen access to public services. Initiated in 2003 the first CDW cadres graduated from learnerships in 2005 and began to work as agents of development in their respective communities. A second intake of learners in 2006 (graduating in mid 2007) has meant that to date nearly three thousand CDWs are deployed to well over half the country’s wards. In September a third cohort of learners began their training and they will graduate in 2008. The programme is therefore moving closer towards its target of having a CDW in each and every ward in the country.

The major focus for the CDWs continues to be on social upliftment, but this year there has been a growing concentration on local economic development in the wake of a directive given by the President in his State of the National Address. The President spoke of the imperative to implement detailed programmes to respond to the challenges of the second economy, AsgiSA and the Millennium Development Goals. As a programme that is designed to facilitate delivery of government programmes, the President’s call was heeded. The intersection of economic development with social security is well and broadly understood amongst the cadres. The need to target both economic and social agendas concurrently as a means of reducing the grant culture in the country was strongly expressed at the national conference in June 2007.

The CDWP in each province is located in the departments of local government or local government and housing. The only exception is Limpopo where the coordination of the programme is carried out from the Premier’s office. The overall programme is managed by the national office in the MPSA with the dplg's directorate of public participation providing some oversight.

Impact of the CDWP: An Overview

The CDWP is designed to make an impact in the following ways:

Assisting in the elimination of development deadlocks, including bureaucratic bottlenecks.

Strengthening the democratic social contract and deepening citizenship.

Advocating for the plight of the poor.

Strengthening the government-community network

Assisting in bridging the gap between the first and the second economy as an important part of economic growth and social development.

Depending on capacities of the provincial coordinating units, the CDWP has impacted to a greater or lesser degree.

In order to get a clearer understanding of the overall impact of the CDWP, reference will be made to two baseline studies carried out on the programme during the past year. The studies have been made by the Department of Provincial and Local Government in its national survey on the implementation of the CDWP (covering six provinces - national, provincial and local officials), and the Cape Town-based Foundation for Contemporary Research (FCR) who interviewed CDWs, ward councillors, municipal and provincial officials and CBOs, which investigated the relationships between CDWs and municipal stakeholders in the Western Cape.

The dplg's national survey found that in provinces with a reputation for weaker provincial and municipal authorities, there tended to be more positive perceptions of impact across a wide range of sectors – i.e. where government functions are weak, CDW impact is more noticeable. The FCR’s report found that the relationship between CDWs and other stakeholders in communities were ‘tenuous at best’. Both these findings have validity and draw attention to the deeper structural problems that underpin the programme.

During the incubation phase, inadequate attention was paid to the provision of institutional support, such as further training, technical expertise and developing clear lines of authority and accountability. There has also been insufficient attention paid to securing a common understanding of the programme by all stakeholders. The result of this within the programme is that provincial coordinating units are caught between loyalty to provincial coordinators and the national programme office. These factors have tended to weaken the overall impact of the programme. To counter the prevailing situation, the national programme office is producing a monitoring and evaluation framework with national indicators that is designed to draw all provinces into a centralised, commonly understood reporting framework. The CDWP cuts across the grain of traditional government delivery models. It is for this reason that it has encountered many hurdles. The programme is work in progress, moving from a period of incubation to consolidation.

The CDW is a cadre of a special type. This means that as a public servant, a CDW is not linked to an office, a department and a desk, but is expected to carry out work that cuts across all departments and all spheres of government. For this reason, the relationships that CDWs have with fellow public servants at all spheres of government become an important area of focus if they are to deliver on their mandate as agents of development. Reports provided show clearly that there is insufficient intergovernmental awareness of the programme and as a result, CDWs find themselves often being poorly treated by service delivery officials who have little or no understanding of their role.
The lack of intergovernmental awareness means that CDWs feel excluded from existing structures where they quite rightly feel that they should be feeding community ‘intelligence’ into the service delivery system. It is for this reason that the national programme is embarking on a ‘Know your CDW’ campaign that aims to grow awareness and understanding of the programme by targeting government officials. The campaign will also focus on the programme’s core constituency – disadvantaged and vulnerable citizens - so as to draw attention to the programme and its services to as many citizens at the lower end of the economy as possible.

The dplg’s national survey reinforced the reports that at the local level, there are tensions in all the provinces that were surveyed. These tensions are to a lesser degree caused by financial issues (ward councillors are not paid, whilst CDWs are salaried) but to a greater degree about limited understanding of the roles of the CDW, whom councillors often perceive as officials who are deployed to ‘ take work away’ from them and their counterparts in local government. The FCR report found that the majority of stakeholders felt that CDW-ward councillor relationships were extremely poor. Both surveys said that the absence of a formal introduction by the local executive of CDWs as ‘a new cadre of public servant’ has not assisted the assimilation process. Where such a process has happened, there are reports of much better relationships. The FCR report took this further to say that the absence of a ‘local sectoral drive’ to introduce CDWs into the local developmental landscape has also contributed to negative perceptions on the ground. A basic lack of understanding of the programme therefore at local government level and in civil society has meant that issues such as reporting lines, transparency, accountability and the perceived independent unmonitored activities of the CDWs impact on their effectiveness in their communities. CDWs are not able to work in a vacuum and so the relationships that are created and strengthened at the community and municipal levels determine their effectiveness.

With the uneven nature of CDW acceptance by local government structures, impact determination is evidently going to be patchy and there will be patterns. The national survey for example asked its survey population whether the programme had had a positive impact on the lives of ordinary citizens. The Western Cape and Eastern Cape presented a less positive view whilst Limpopo and Mpumalanga offered very positive responses. But all provinces were clear that to a greater or a lesser degree, CDWs have made a considerable difference to the lives of ordinary people through their door-to-door services, providing information about government services, assistance with disaster mitigation and promoting government campaigns (ID and tax amnesty). The survey found that where the programme is sufficiently operational, the CDWP does have an impact on the lives of the marginalised and vulnerable. The impact the survey found had two dimensions: Normal functions of government (social development issues) and specific community projects under, or assisted by the programme.

CDWs, government services and service delivery

Despite the negative perceptions regarding the relationships that CDWs between experience in their respective communities, the DPLG national survey had some surprising findings in the area of actual facilitation of government services and service delivery. A clear majority of respondents felt that the impact of the CDWP is significant. What was more interesting is that respondents at the ward level provided very similar perceptions to those at national and provincial levels with the only two provinces being extremely skeptical being Gauteng and the Western Cape. This positive perception was carried through to the questions of whether CDWs are helping communities better communicate their needs and aspirations, the fast tracking of basic service delivery in special circumstances and enhancing the effective participation in local governance. In the latter case, Gauteng respondents were particularly vocal carrying the view that participation in integrated development planning has strengthened as a result of the CDWP.

There was also the point expressed that citizens have become more confident to engage government as a result of their interaction with CDWs.

CDWs and social development

The greatest focus for the CDWs to present has been social development. The impact therefore of this major focus as the national survey has found, can be broken down from highest to lowest, into the following four sectors: social welfare, child security, education and food security. Social welfare typically includes old age pensions, child support grants, housing, and assisting citizens to access government services. Child security includes getting orphaned households registered and receiving benefits and assistance from social workers. Education includes bringing the plight of schools to the attention of relevant authorities and supporting community members to set up child care centres. Food security includes the creation and ongoing support for food gardens as well as the registering of the indigent and the most vulnerable for food parcels. In these areas, CDWs have made more than considerable strides countrywide. The case study booklet gives an insight into their activities in the social development arena.

CDWs and LED

Where CDWs are not yet making sufficient impact is local economic development, assisting with labour disputes and environmental protection according to the DPLG National Survey. All three of these sectors have cross cutting implications and it is for this reason that the CDWP is in the process of developing a master plan, an inclusive process that will draw all government stakeholders together to map a way forward for both the programme and the stakeholders so that CDWs are optimally activated in their communities. The desired outcome of the master plan will be to define the parameters and mechanisms of CDW engagement with departments and agencies who are rolling out poverty eradication and economic development programmes.

It is critical to emphasise that the CDWP is a developmental programme that facilitates and communicates our government’s service delivery strategies. It is not meant to duplicate or recreate projects and programmes, it is meant to work transversally with departments and agencies to contribute towards meeting the targets of our overarching developmental imperatives and to help government become more responsive.

Despite the modest impact that CDWs are having in the LED arena, there are some notable examples that are worth providing. This year, there has been collaboration between the Programme and the Department of Trade and Industry (the dti). In the first instance, the collaboration has seen nearly 300 CDWs learning about cooperatives and how to implement them. They in turn have been tasked to train their counterparts in their respective provinces. In the second instance, the dti led by Deputy Minister Thabete has been working closely with CDWs to take economic opportunities facilitated by the department to the people. This is an ongoing initiative that will cover all provinces and that will ultimately form part of the developing CDWP master plan.

An outcome of the cooperative training has seen CDWs across all provinces working to develop cooperative businesses. In some provinces there have been more successes than in others – the Eastern Cape is a case in point where 29 cooperatives have been registered this year. As registered entities, they qualify to apply for government tenders which represents an important stage on their way to becoming economically viable entities.

As a means of institutionalising LED in the programme, Limpopo has led the way by including local economic development as a key performance area in CDWs’ performance agreements. This will have the effect of raising the profile of LED as a lead activity amongst the cadres and will encourage the mobilisation and stimulation of economic development projects in their communities.

What the CDWP reveals about government processes

CDWs cannot perform in a vacuum. The development oriented programme has certain strengths that must be nurtured by a functioning, cooperative governing system. One of its strengths lies in the way its cadres (mostly drawn from marginalised communities) are able to work at the site of the most vulnerable and carry out interventions that make a real and meaningful difference to individuals. Another strength is the programme’s collective deep understanding of the needs and aspirations of the most vulnerable. In order to take these attributes and shape them into a powerful instrument that acts on behalf of all spheres of government, however, political championship is critical.

The CDWP has clearly revealed shortcomings in intergovernmental operability, and the need to strengthen clear lines of communication and information running vertically and horizontally in government, carrying the kind of messages that are needed to build and consolidate responsive government. In the Western Cape, the FCR research found that officials and councillors feel threatened by the CDW’s direct line of reporting to provincial and national government. This finding speaks to the lack of ‘joined-up’ government. Because CDWs work at the coalface, but are based in provincial departments, communities according to the FCR report believe that they are having to manage the impact of a lack of coordinated planning between the provincial and local spheres of government.

Other factors lessening impact

One of the most fundamental aspects for CDWs to be able to work optimally in their communities - an enabling environment – has yet to be realised. At present, no provinces except Gauteng are providing the cadres with official cellular telephones and airtime, computers or secure work stations. Although the departments of communications and provincial and local government are aware of this, the matter has not been resolved to date. As mobile development agents a lack of connectivity represents a serous constraint to the progress and evolution of the work of the programme. Without connectivity their inputs are limited because they are unable to have direct access to their stakeholder community – government departments and agencies. The situation as it stands creates complications and puts unnecessary energy consuming obstacles in their way. The Minister for Public Service and Administration has contacted all Premiers to champion a project that will provide CDWs with connectivity.

These hurdles facing the programme reflect the very nature of the programme – one that straddles and cuts across all of government – the programme for example does not easily fit neatly into the expenditure framework. There are no easy solutions, but for the programme to be a sustainable instrument of government that assists in improving and ensuring rapid, effective and efficient service delivery, bold decisions need to be taken.