South Africa tackles social inequities
Some gains, but still a long way to go in overcoming apartheid’s legacy
Six years after the election of South Africa’s first democratic government, significant progress has been made in
bringing better education, health care, housing and other social amenities to the deprived black majority. Yet poverty
is still widespread and income disparities remain enormous, as economic liberalization and tight budgetary policies
complicate efforts to improve living conditions and expand opportunities for the poor. Meanwhile, AIDS is spreading at
an alarming rate.
Country in focus
By Ernest Harsch
F
12
JANUARY 2001
“affirmative action” in favour of blacks, but South Africa remains
an inequitable society. Although disparities have narrowed somewhat, the country’s income distribution is still among the most
unequal in the world. Alongside displays of prosperity rarely seen
anywhere in Africa, millions of South Africans live below the
poverty line, many of them seething with anger and frustration.
Although political violence has subsided considerably, high levels
of poverty and unemployment, combined with the easy availability
of blackmarket firearms, have contributed to an upsurge in crime
and other forms of social conflict. Minister for Social
Development Zola Skweyiya acknowledged in September that
South Africa is sitting on a social “time bomb.”
Many officials blame the limited changes so far on the enormity of the problems inherited from the apartheid era: poor health
and low education caused by the previous discriminatory policies,
a huge backlog in urban housing because many had not been permitted to settle permanently in the cities, and very high levels of
Impact Visuals / Ansell Horn
rom its name, Mandela Village might
sound like a pleasant, relaxed South
African neighbourhood. In reality, it is a
dilapidated shantytown, originally built in
1990 from wood and corrugated iron sheeting
salvaged from a former bus station in the surrounding township of Soweto. In the decade
since then, South Africa has seen dramatic
political changes, with the end of the segregationist apartheid regime and the installation
South Africa
of the first democratically elected government, a shift that brought high social expectations.
Some of the 7,000 residents of Mandela Village are beginning
to lose hope that the end of apartheid actually will improve their
daily lives. Their shacks are tiny, the pathways between them narrow and lined with open gutters. There is no electricity and the
entire settlement has only five
water taps. Perhaps because the
community is well organized
and run by activists of the ruling
African National Congress
Building a
(ANC), its representatives were
rural clinic,
able to persuade the municipal
one of 600
authorities to provide 90
constructed
portable toilets around its
since the
perimeter. Virtually all inhabiend of the
tants are unemployed, according
apartheid
to Eric, who served as a guide
regime.
during an October 1999 visit.
What little income residents
have, he said, comes from the
pension cheques of the settlement’s seniors, from petty trading, and from automobiles
stolen in nearby Johannesburg and sold to a “chop shop” just
across the road from Mandela Village.
By contrast, much of Johannesburg, South Africa’s biggest
commercial centre, remains largely white and quite well-to-do.
The exclusive neighbourhood of Sandton boasts everything that
Mandela Village lacks: large and spacious houses, parks, shopping
malls, corporate headquarters, hotels and a high tax base to support ample amenities and services. The residents — whites and a
few better-off blacks — are protected by walls, electrified fencing
and private security firms constantly on patrol.
The laws may now be formally colour-blind or even speak of
structural unemployment. To these old problems have been added
new ones, most alarmingly the rapid spread of HIV/AIDS, which
has given South Africa one of the highest prevalence rates anywhere in the world (see page 19).
Under the circumstances, “it is going to take decades to correct
many of the wrongs,” says Rev. Motlalepula Chabaku, an elected
legislator in Free State province. In the enthusiasm of the 1994
elections, ANC leaders compounded problems by making promises they simply could not keep, she told Africa Recovery. Among
ordinary people that initial enthusiasm has now waned, reflected in
lower voter turnouts in the 1999 national elections, “because some
have not had personal benefit from the changes that came in our ued to register significant progress. Some of its achievements
country.” Many others have benefited, she adds, pointing to the over the past six years, such as the rapid expansion of housing and
numerous new schools, health clinics, housing projects, water access to clean water, surpass anything accomplished in such a
facilities, training programmes and other amenities.
short period of time elsewhere in Africa — and even in some
Some critics, while acknowledging the heavy legacy of the European countries (see table, page 14). A recent survey
Country in focus
past, also cite more current factors to explain the persistence of conducted by the National Economic Development and
poverty and unemployment. The
Labour Council, a statutory body that mediates
1.8 million-member Congress of
most labour negotiations, found that a majority of
Although disparities have
South African Trade Unions
those questioned felt their lives had improved due
(Cosatu), although politically allied narrowed somewhat, the
to the RDP.
with the ANC, criticizes the gov- country’s income distribution
ernment’s economic policy empha- is still among the most unequal Shifting GEAR
South Africa
Meanwhile, the government’s overall economic
sis on market liberalization and
in
the
world.
Alongside
policy approach began to undergo some notable shifts
tight government spending.
in the mid-1990s, in ways that Cosatu and other crit“Society as a whole, particularly displays of prosperity rarely
ics believe have compromised the RDP’s long-term
the working class and the poor, seen anywhere in Africa,
aims. Even before the 1994 election, the ANC had
bear the cost of conservative eco- millions of South Africans live
dropped some of its earlier, controversial policy
nomic policy,” the union federation
below the poverty line.
planks, such as nationalization of large-scale industry
said of the government’s budget for
and sweeping government redistribution of wealth
fiscal year 2000/01.
from whites to blacks. A year after its election, and under presReconstruction and development
sure from both domestic business and the World Bank and
Some of the current bitterness stems from the very high hopes International Monetary Fund (IMF), the ANC came to accept
generated by the Reconstruction and Development Programme privatization in principle and dropped talk of regulating foreign
(RDP). Originally launched in 1994 as the ANC’s election pro- investment. The government gradually eliminated measures to
gramme, it then became the centre of the new government’s man- protect the currency and implemented some facets of trade
date for reform. As defined by then President Nelson Mandela, liberalization even faster than required by its commitments to
the RDP encompassed not only socio-economic programmes the World Trade Organization.
designed to redress imbalances in living conditions, but also instiIn June 1996 — the same year the separate RDP office was distutional reform, educational and cultural programmes, employ- banded — the government adopted a new macroeconomic policy
ment generation and human resources development. The pro- framework, called the Growth, Employment and Redistribution
gramme, Mr. Mandela said, would be “an all-encompassing strategy. The main focus of GEAR, as it is known, is to develop a
process of transforming society in its totality to ensure a better “competitive, fast-growing economy” through tight fiscal and
life for all.”
monetary discipline, significantly increased foreign and domestic
At first, the RDP had a dual aspect. As a policy framework, its investment, further steps to open the economy to international
priorities influenced the targeting of donor aid and guided the gov- competition and a “reprioritizing” of public expenditures. The
ernment’s normal budgetary process, leading to significant shifts Washington-based international financial institutions have praised
in how government revenues were spent. Less went to the military, this approach.
for example, and substantially more was allocated to education,
Responding to critics who detected an overall shift in focus
health, housing and other social spending.
from aggressively tackling social concerns to relying on orthodox
At the same time, the RDP had its own distinct presence. A spe- macroeconomic remedies, Mr. Pundy Pillay, who heads the RDP
cial RDP Fund, of several billion rands annually, financed high- policy unit within the president’s office, insists that the RDP
profile “presidential projects,” such as free medical care for undersix children and pregnant mothers, a school feeding programme,
South Africa:
electrification of poor homes and public works projects for unemployed youths. A separate RDP office also was set up, headed by
poverty, employment and amenities (%)
Minister without Portfolio Jay Naidoo (a former Cosatu union
Classified UnemployAccess
Electricity
Water tap
leader), to administer the fund and coordinate the different facets
as
ment
to medical
in
in/by
of the programme in the various ministries.
poor
rate
services
home
home
In 1996, however, the RDP lost its most visible public face when
Africans
61
42.5
15
31
27
Mr. Naidoo was reassigned to other ministerial duties. The RDP
Coloureds
38
20.9
26
76
72
office was eliminated as a separate entity, with its coordinating
Indians
5
12.2
29
99
98
functions subsumed into the office of then Deputy President Thabo
Whites
1
4.6
78
98
96
Mbeki, now president, who remains directly responsible for the
RDP programme.
Source: Government of South Africa, “National Report on Social Development, 1995-2000,”
May 2000.
Despite the RDP’s lower profile, the programme has continJANUARY 2001
13
remains an important component of government policy. “It is not
at all incompatible with GEAR,” he maintains. “The two policies
require each other to work.” The GEAR strategy document does
acknowledge the need for “redistribution of income and opportunities in favour of the poor.” However, it places the main
Country in focus
emphasis on achieving this through high economic growth,
to generate more jobs and higher incomes.
Although the initial GEAR strategy avowed that its
market liberalization policies would “catapult” the South
African economy to new levels of high growth, the results
so far have remained disappointing. During 1996-99,
South Africa’s gross domestic product (GDP) grew in real
South Africa
terms by an average of only 2.1 per cent annually, below
the population growth rate and well short of the 3.8 per cent average that GEAR deemed essential. In early November, Finance
Minister Trevor Manuel revised downward the growth projections
for 2000, from 3.6 per cent to 2.6 per cent — less than half the 6
per cent target GEAR had originally set for the year. Factors have
included a disappointing growth in investment (both foreign and
domestic) and the slide in the world price of gold, one of South
Africa’s chief exports. So instead of many new jobs being created, slow growth has worsened unemployment, contributing to
urban poverty in particular.
Trapped in poverty
A Finance Ministry budget review document, released along with
the 2000/01 budget in February, was quite frank about poverty’s
continued persistence. “South Africa,” it acknowledged, “remains
one of the most unequal countries in the world, with the poorest
40 per cent of households still living below the minimum household subsistence level.”
Using more recent data and an alternative measure of poverty,
a government report on social development released in May found
that 65 per cent of South Africans live below the poverty datum
line. Almost all are black — Africans, Coloureds and Indians, as
they were categorized in the apartheid era, racial designations that
still are in common use (see table, page 13). Of these poor, 19 million people (46 per cent of the total population) appear “trapped in
RDP achievements, 1994-2000
Water:
Housing:
4 million more people
given access to clean running water
900,000 units completed,
1.1 mn housing subsidies allocated
Electrification:
1.5 mn new connections
Telephones:
4.2 mn new connections
Poverty relief:
Health:
R3 bn allocated
600 new clinics, free health care
for pregnant women and children under 6
Public works:
Land:
1,500 kilometres of roads built
68,000 families resettled on farming land
Source: RDP Development Monitor
14
JANUARY 2001
poverty,” living at or below R353 ($55) per month.
The continuing racial gap comes despite a modest redistribution of income between whites and blacks. Between 1991 and
1996, Africans’ share of total income rose from 29.9 per cent to
35.7 per cent, while that of whites
declined from 59.5 per cent to 51.9
“Society as a whole,
particularly the working per cent. The shares of Indians and
Coloureds rose marginally. A
class and the poor, bear Pretoria economic consulting firm,
the cost of conservative Wefa Southern Africa, has reported
economic policy.”
that while whites on average
— Congress of earned 15 times more than blacks
South African Trade Unions in 1970, the gap had declined to 9
times by 1996.
Some gaps widen
This reduction has come in conjunction with a striking widening
of the social gap within the races, however. Much of the decline
in the white share of total income was the result of a loss of tens
of thousands of jobs, with the scrapping of the previous government’s job protection policy toward whites. But many blacks also
have lost jobs as numerous established industries have retrenched
or shut down.
In contrast, skilled black workers saw their average earnings
increase, with those of Africans rising by 8 per cent between 1991
and 1996, according to the government’s budget review. But it was
the middle and upper classes — those earning more than R72,000
a year — who benefited the most. The number of such African
households grew by a remarkable 78 per cent, with their share of
total income rising from 9 per cent to 14 per cent. The number of
Coloured middle and upper class households increased by 36 per
cent, and of Indians, by 35 per cent.
Such sharply widening inequalities among blacks “is not the
kind of redistributive path the country wants to continue on,”
observed the Wefa Southern Africa report. “The poor did not
enjoy any benefits of the redistributed wealth. In fact they are
even worse off.”
A gender gap also exists. There has been some notable progress
in advancing women in public life, with a number holding senior
government positions and women comprising more than a quarter
of elected parliamentary representatives. Less has changed in the
economic and social conditions confronting poor women, however. According to the government’s May social development
report, 48.2 per cent of adult women are poor, compared with
43.7 per cent of adult men.
Some wonder whether such social disparities are in part reinforced by the government’s economic liberalization programme. “I
worry about GEAR,” says Ms. Felicity Gibbs, national manager of
Operation Hunger, a non-governmental organization that works
extensively in poor communities. “On one hand, we need to be
economically viable. We need to have a good economic policy, we
need to sell our goods,” she acknowledged during an interview
with Africa Recovery at the group’s Johannesburg headquarters.
“On the other hand, it appears to enrich the already rich. The way
it is being implemented possibly, the poor people are remaining
where they are, and in fact are getting worse.”
Unemployment and ‘labour flexibility’
For the residents of Mandela Village and other urban areas, the
greatest problem is the lack of secure, regular employment. Estimates of private sector job losses between 1994 and 1999 range
around 500,000. The government judges that during the 1990s, an
average of 50 per cent of the potential labour force was unable to
secure a formal sector job, with employment in manufacturing
stagnant overall and job cuts hitting mining and agriculture especially severely.
Some of those losses now are being reversed through the creation of new jobs, Minister of Trade and Industry Alec Erwin told
Africa Recovery. In 1994, the survival of automobile assembly was
very much in doubt, he recalled, but now employment is rising
again, with about 3-4,000 new jobs created in recent years.
Similarly in clothing and textiles, each of which lost 20-30,000
jobs, employment also is picking up following “deep restructuring.”
Some of this new job creation is of “extremely high quality,”
Mr. Erwin adds, with decent wages and high skill levels, in companies and sectors that appear to have a secure future.
Nevertheless, he acknowledges that it may take another 10 years
before overall unemployment can be brought down considerably.
In addition to wage levels, which in some industries remain relatively low, employment has been a central concern of the labour
movement over the past few years, with more strikes around job
issues. In 1998, nearly half of the 323,000 workers involved in
strike actions were in manufacturing, one of the sectors hardest hit
by closures and retrenchments. Most recently, in May 2000,
Cosatu organized a nationwide strike and public demonstrations
by tens of thousands of workers to protest job losses.
Country in focus
Private employers often complain that labour laws —
won by the unions after years of struggle against the repressive apartheid regime — give workers too many rights and
make it harder for businesses to survive in increasingly
competitive international markets. About 400 businesses,
employing 400,000 workers, already have applied for
exemptions from the provisions of the Basic Conditions of
South Africa
Employment Act, which regulates labour standards. Some
government officials echo arguments that such regulation is too
rigid, while the GEAR strategy document itself urges “greater
labour market flexibility.”
This has stirred alarm among unionists that the further implementation of GEAR may lead to big job losses in the public sector
as well, especially as large state enterprises move toward privatization. Their fears were heightened when the Department of Public
Service and Administration drafted plans in April calling for the
elimination of 125,000 unskilled “auxiliary personnel” in the public sector, some by “outsourcing” services to private companies
and some by outright retrenchment.
Subsequently, the government proposed reforming labour laws
to make it easier for private employers to retrench workers, lift
ceilings on overtime and eliminate premiums for working on
Sundays. Union leaders currently are negotiating with the government to try to limit the scope of the proposed changes.
Impact Visuals / Eric Miller
Economic ‘empowerment’
With the contraction of regular salaried employment, South
Africa’s informal sector has grown considerably. There are no
accurate estimates of its true size, but the proliferation of petty
trading in the poor townships and even along the streets of downtown Johannesburg is very visible. Thousands of small-scale businesses, from service enterprises to crafts manufacturers, also have
sprung up. Some of those involved are retrenched workers trying
to make a living any way they can.
More than a simple survival mechanism, however, the informal
and small-business sector also is providing new opportunities for
some blacks to operate businesses of their own — an opportunity
that was denied to most under the old apartheid system. Now
licences and credit are much easier to obtain.
While some blacks have emerged as prominent shareholders
and executives in large, mostly white-owned corporations, development experts argue that the growth of small local businesses
probably will have a greater impact on advancing “black economic
empowerment.” Mr. Erwin stresses that 30-40 per cent of his
ministry’s spending on industrial programmes is devoted specifically to
Clothing and
small and medium-scale business. “And
textile workers march
in Cape Town to protest there the target is on black people.”
Even taking into account the many
jobs lost because of
small enterprises that fail, the net
cheap foreign imports.
increase in the number of registered
JANUARY 2001
15
businesses is about 18-20 per cent each year. And this does not
include all those who never register (usually to avoid taxes and regulation). Nevertheless, Mr. Erwin acknowledges, black entrepreneurs still are at a serious disadvantage. Whites, because they have
more skills and capital to begin with, have been in a better
Country in focus
position to set up viable businesses. They also have easier
access to credit at reasonable interest rates. “It’s been much
more difficult for black people,” says Mr. Erwin. “But it’s
happening, it’s certainly happening.”
One problem, argues Mr. Alistair Ruiters, directorgeneral of the Department of Trade and Industry, is that
small businesspeople do not have a strong voice to make
South Africa
their concerns heard. “At present only big business has
the ear of government in an organized form,” he said in an interview with the RDP Development Monitor, an independent
watchdog publication.
Slow land redistribution
Rural folk are not well organized either. Nor is their poverty as
visible as that of urban residents. But much of South Africa’s
countryside remains highly
impoverished. According to
government estimates, 72 per
cent of the poor live in rural
areas, where the poverty rate
reaches 71 per cent. Few jobs
are available in the countryside, and the best agricultural
land was long ago taken by
white farmers.
Although the RDP programme has helped extend
access to clean water to 4 million more people, many others
still are waiting. Minister of
Water Affairs Ronnie Kasrils
estimates that more than
8 million rural people still do
more than 3.5 million rural people were forcibly uprooted from
their homes as part of the apartheid regime’s policy of removing
rural “black spots.”
To redress this historic injustice, the ANC places a major
emphasis on land reform, with the RDP identifying land as “the
most basic need for rural dwellers.” It pledged to redistribute about
30 per cent of farmland to blacks
To redress the historic through a variety of methods.
Redistribution got off to a slow
imbalances in land
start, however. At the urging of the
holdings, the govern- World Bank and other donor instiment emphasizes land tutions, the ANC declared it would
not expropriate land for redistribureform since land is
tion. Instead it would enable indi“the most basic need viduals and communities to buy
for rural dwellers.”
land from the current owners.
However, state subsidies and other
assistance were so limited that even groups of people had difficulty
raising enough money to acquire a viable piece of land. By the end
of 1997 the number of households benefiting from redistribution
reached 25,000, and the number now stands at around 68,000.
Another process is “restitution,” that is, the return of land to
individuals and communities from which it had been forcibly
seized by the apartheid authorities. As of January 2000, a total of
some 63,455 land-restitution claims had been filed. But the underfunded and understaffed land claims court had been able to settle
only 785 of those cases, returning 14,900 families to their traditional lands.
One of the best-known cases was Mogopa, where residents
were expelled from their homes in 1984, but returned in 1989 in
open defiance of the authorities. In 1996 they at last secured legal
deeds to their old land. But like other rural blacks who have succeeded in acquiring land, they needed more than just title and ownership to secure their futures. They also needed better housing,
water, farming implements, seeds, livestock, agricultural extension
services and credit, all of which have been coming at a painfully
slow pace, if at all.
Impact Visuals / Eric Miller
Health and education
Electronics worker
in Johannesburg:
Some new jobs are being
created in high-skilled sectors.
not have access to safe water. “People, mainly women, have to
trek every day in search of a few buckets of water and carry it
home on their heads,” he told parliament in June. He also
expressed alarm that at the current pace, it would take 20 more
years to bring clean water to all South Africans, instead of by the
target year of 2007.
Under apartheid, 87 per cent of South Africa’s total land area
was legally available only to whites or owned by the government,
with only the remaining 13 per cent — often the poorest and most
desolate land — designated as African “homelands.” After 1960,
16
JANUARY 2001
Responding to the need to extend essential social services to sectors of the population that previously had been excluded, the ANC
government has drastically altered the old patterns of budgetary
spending. Between 1994 and 1997, central government expenditures on social services increased by 34 per cent. Since then, there
have been further annual increases in nominal terms.
In the 2000/01 budget, combined national and provincial
spending on education, health and other social services reached
R109 bn ($17.8 bn), or more than 44 per cent of total government
expenditure. However, a trade-union review of the budget noted
that recent spending increases actually have been quite modest
after inflation is factored in. Thus real health spending rose by an
annual average of only 0.9 per cent from 1997 through 2000, while
education spending in fact declined by 1.3 per cent per year.
Only part of this social spending is targeted toward basic needs,
even though more resources have been directed toward the poorer
provinces and poorest sectors of the population. South Africa
currently allocates 14.8 per cent of its total spending to basic social
services — primary health, education and nutrition. The government nevertheless subscribes to the 20 per cent goal adopted at the
1995 UN World Summit on Social Development. Finance
Minister Manuel estimates that if current (somewhat optimistic)
growth projections bear out, an additional R21 bn can be budgeted for social expenditures over the next three years.
One of the largest single allocations in the current budget,
R50.7 bn, is for education, from pre-primary to university levels.
By 1997, the net enrolment ratio in primary school had reached
87.1 per cent, one of the higher rates in Africa, with only a small
gap between boys and girls (87.9 per cent and 86.3 per cent,
respectively). Since formal enrolment was relatively high even
before the change in government, the increases in crude numbers
have not been very dramatic, rising from 7.7 million primary
school students in 1994 to 8 mn in 1997. With the introduction of
a policy of compulsory education for all children between the ages
of 7 and 15, the goal is to reach full enrolment.
The greatest change in education has been in reducing the
fragmentation and disparities fostered by the apartheid
Country in focus
regime, which kept the quality of education in black
schools very low. The Schools Act of 1996 created the first
national school system in the country’s history, eliminating
the separate systems for whites, Indians, Coloureds and the
different African language groups. Racial divisions have
been prohibited, and all education institutions are now
legally open to everyone. Expensive private schools generSouth Africa
ally remain predominantly white, but they can no longer
bar someone on the basis of his or her race. Provincial government funds are allocated to schools on the basis of poverty and
From shacks to new houses
Impact Visuals / Eric Miller
by the UN Development ProAfter decades of apartheid-enforced
gramme, US Agency for Internaevictions and residential constraints,
tional Development and South
millions of black South African families
Africa’s Ministry of Housing),
live in shacks and other sub-standard
most of the labour and financing
housing, making them particularly
is their own.
keen to secure a home of their own.
Almost all the families, overSince 1994, the provincial governwhelmingly headed by women,
ments have provided more than 1 mn
were previously evicted from
grants of R16,000 each to help poor
various other shantytowns and
communities and families build new
settlement sites. Thanks to a
houses. According to Minister of
request by the UN Development
Housing Sankie Mathembi-Mahanyele,
Programme, the Durban authorisome 900,000 units had been comties agreed they could settle on
pleted by mid-2000. This fell somemunicipal land in Newlands, with
what short of the original target under
the city installing water taps.
the Reconstruction and Development
Housing construction project in Northern Cape:
Then a few families at a time
Programme (RDP) of 1 mn new
Nearly a million new houses have been built across the country.
began putting up houses,
houses by the end of 1999, but neverfinanced largely by their own
theless has been “outstanding in intersavings. After choosing the floor
national terms,” notes Ms. Mathembi- to individual families, rather than to developers.
Beyond
the
RDP
programme,
a
number
plan
they
prefer
and purchasing building supMahanyele. Another 2 million families, or
about 12 million people, still need access to of other schemes for low-cost housing also plies in bulk, groups of women then work with
are under way, some with support from non- each other to mix and pour the cement
livable housing.
Given the sheer scale of the problem, the governmental organizations and donor agen- foundations. They then pay three construccies. So far, however, “the banks are still not tion workers R50 each to put up the walls
RDP, during its first few years, tended to
playing their role fully,” complains Ms. Math- and roofs, a process that usually takes three
emphasize quantity over quality. Many of
embi-Mahanyele, reflecting a broader prob- days per house.
these “RDP houses” were poorly built, in
lem poor blacks have in securing credit from
Compared with the RDP houses, the
part because of inadequate monitoring of
the banking system.
Newlands buildings are both larger (four and
the developers contracted to implement the
Through organization, hard work and
schemes. Many houses also are tiny, some outside assistance, a number of com- a half rooms each) and cheaper (R12,500
spawning countless jokes: “The RDP houses munities are overcoming such obstacles instead of R16,000). The key ingredient,
are so small that if you lie down to sleep, through their own initiative. On a hillside in community leader Thembelihle Mkhize told
your feet stick out the front door.” “They are Newlands, just outside the port city of Dur- a group of UN visitors in October 1999, is
so small that you have to go outside to ban, dozens of families are building their own the women’s ability to mobilize their “sweat
change your mind.”
houses. Members of the nationwide South equity.” Their success, she said, could help
More recently, legislation has been passed African Homeless People’s Federation, they inspire homeless people elsewhere in South
to ensure minimum standards for RDP are developing some 155 houses. Although Africa. “Why should we live in backyards, or
houses, and a new housing strategy currently they receive technical assistance from the under bridges?” she asked. “Let us stand
in preparation will direct more of the subsidies People’s Housing Partnership Trust (funded up and also be counted.”
JANUARY 2001
17
Impact Visuals / Abdul Shariff
need, helping ensure that the quality of education for black youth Africans did not receive social benefits of any kind. In line with
the new constitution’s provision that all citizens are entitled to
gradually improves.
In the health sector, there still are glaring disparities. Nearly social security, the government soon established a very extensive
welfare system, catering for the
two-thirds of South African doctors are in private practice,
aged, disabled, children in need,
serving some 9 million people, while the remaining The government has
Country in focus
foster parents and many others
third work in public hospitals and clinics, serving
established an extensive
too poor to meet their basic social
25 million people. About 19 million South Africans,
nearly half the population, have no health insurance. welfare system for the aged, requirements. Among developing
countries, it is unique, in that it is
For the poor, therefore, government health services disabled, children in need,
“non-contributory,” with grants,
are crucial, with spending reaching R32.3 bn in foster parents and others
allowances and other support
2000/01, up from R24.8 bn four years earlier.
too poor to meet their basic based on need, not recipients’
As in education, there is an effort to focus more
South Africa
prior contributions.
on basic services, such as primary and preventive requirements. But many in
Social security payments are
health care, including the Ministry of Health’s widely need still are not covered.
made to about 5 million South
praised immunization campaigns. Yet conditions in many
Africans annually, including
facilities, especially in the countryside, remain poor. Nearly
a third of rural hospitals have no access to clean water. One in five 70 per cent of the aged, half of those with disabilities and 15 per
have no electricity or emergency oxygen supply. A quarter have no cent of children under the age of 7 (the target is 30 per cent). But
medicines for tuberculosis, which has reached epidemic levels. many in need still are not covered by these programmes, and
Only 35 per cent of rural clinics and 77 per cent of urban clinics even those who are sometimes experience difficulties. In 2000,
pensioners in Transkei staged raucous protests after they were
are able to test for HIV.
Currently, much funding for social services passes through the dropped from the provincial welfare rolls, and the Eastern Cape
provincial governments, with about 95 per cent of their revenue administration was obliged to restore grants to 30,000 disabled
coming from the central government. In future, there will likely be people it had previously stricken. The former Department of
more pressure on the provinces to raise more of their own rev- Welfare (now renamed Social Development) was rocked by
enues, from various fees and levies. Some officials have floated scandal over its failure, three years in a row, to actually spend
the idea of higher school fees and health service charges. more than a third of its budgetary allocation.
A committee of inquiry set up by the cabinet is currently
Parliamentary deputies, worried that such user charges could place
an undue burden on the poor, adopted legislation in 1998 stipulat- investigating ways to make the social security system even more
ing that any family with a total income less than 30 times the cost comprehensive. The aim is to fill the gaps in the existing system
of its school fees would receive partial exemption, while those and to reach AIDS orphans, children older than 7 and workers not
covered by unemployment insurance (currently 60 per cent of the
with incomes less than 10 times would be fully exempt.
workforce). The committee’s work is particularly important, says
Social safety nets
its chair, Ms. Vivienne Taylor, because it takes place “in the
Before President Mandela took office in 1994, millions of South context of globalization, with increasing job losses . . . and the
devastating effect of HIV/AIDS and
deepening poverty.”
One proposal under the committee’s consideration is to allocate an
“income grant” of about R100 per
Fetching
month to everyone who is unemwater in an
ployed, an idea originally raised by the
arid northern
Cosatu union federation. Other
province:
groups, such as the National Labour
Although
and Economic Development Institute
4 million more
(Naledi), have made similar recompeople have
mendations for some form of “social
gained access
to clean water, wage.” Such a wage, noted a Naledi
report, would not only make it possianother
ble for the poor to ensure their basic
8 million still
necessities, but would also improve
do without.
South Africa’s prospects for stability
by providing “a central mechanism to
maintain social cohesion during the
consolidation of democracy and the
■
vagaries of globalization.”
18
JANUARY 2001
South Africa’s mounting AIDS toll
Impact Visuals / Eric Miller
Limited access to health services, low educational levels speed the disease’s advance
By Ernest Harsch
A
Impact Visuals / Eric Miller
long one of the main roads in Soweto, South Africa’s largest
black township, sits the Othandweni Children’s Home. It has
about 300 residents, ranging in age from just a few days up
to 18 years. They all ended up at Othandweni because they were
orphaned or abandoned, many by parents who are seriously ill
from AIDS or have already died. A few of the more curious children come out to stare at the visitors, but passively, with no sign of
excitement. “No one wants to adopt them,” says a guide, since a
big majority are themselves HIV-positive.
Othandweni is but one face of South Africa’s enormous — and
growing — AIDS crisis. About 500,000 South Africans already
have died from AIDS-related causes, and projections based on the
current growth rate of HIV prevalence suggest that as many as 10
million may succumb over the next 15 years. Young black women
are at greatest risk. In 1998, 22.8 per cent of women attending
post-natal clinics in public health facilities were found to be HIVpositive. About 5 per cent of the child population already is infected. By 2010, a quarter of the general population may be infected,
lowering average life expectancy from a pre-epidemic high of 65
to 48 years or less.
Because of the impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic on production and the costs of fighting the disease, South Africa’s economy
may be 17-20 per cent smaller in the year 2010 than it might be
without the syndrome, according to a study by two US economists,
Mr. Jeffrey Lewis of the World Bank and Ms. Channing Arndt of
Purdue University, presented at a conference in Johannesburg in
September. A May 2000 government report on social conditions in
South Africa emphasized the linkages between poverty and
HIV/AIDS. It estimated that HIV/AIDS will worsen poverty, while
at the same time noting that limited access to health services, low
educational levels and patterns of
labour mobility within South Africa
AIDS orphans (above)
and the region tend to speed the disand HIV-positive mother
ease’s advance. In this way, it com- (right): Young black women
mented, “South Africa’s legacy of
are at greatest risk.
apartheid and inequalities are contrib-
utory factors to the rapid rate at which HIV is spreading.”
Country in focus
Some comments by President Thabo Mbeki stressing the
role of poverty and questioning whether HIV actually causes AIDS stirred considerable dispute in the media and scientific community. Despite the controversy, the government
has an extensive programme to combat HIV/AIDS. In addition to its “Partnership Against AIDS” campaign to mobilize various sectors of society against the disease, the govSouth Africa
ernment has budgeted R450 mn over the past three years
through the departments of health, welfare and education to directly treat those with the virus and to raise public awareness of how
to avoid it. In addition, the 2000/01 budget allocates an extra R75
mn to fight HIV/AIDS, a figure that is set to rise to R125 mn next
year and R300 mn in 2002/03.
South Africa also has been in the forefront of international
negotiations to ensure that developing countries gain access to
more affordable anti-AIDS and other medicines. Legislation
adopted in 1997 provides both for imports of commercial medicines through third countries at lower cost and for the licencing of
domestic producers of generic versions of the drugs. Although
World Trade Organization regulations allow both practices under
certain conditions, US pharmaceutical companies threatened to
take South Africa to court. Under public pressure, the companies
have since backed down. In December 2000, the US drug giant
Pfizer donated $50 mn worth of a medicine used against several
AIDS-related maladies, enough for free distribution through public clinics for two years. The government, which previously had
been reluctant to approve distribution of anti-HIV medicines, is
now talking with another company for a similar donation of a drug
■
that impedes mother-to-child transmission of HIV.
JANUARY 2001
19