Border Rural Committee

The South African Constitution includes a broad-ranging Bill of Rights. To illustrate the extent of the rights covered in this regard, let us consider the following extracts from the Bill.

Over the past ten years, the government has implemented a range of discretionary programmes aimed at promoting rural development. By discretionary, we mean that government has conceptualised its interventions in such a way that it makes decisions about sectoral and geographic resource allocations. Simply put, government decides what money is spent on, and where it is spent. In this regard, government assumes the mantle of rationality and wisdom. It knows best, where people should live and how they should live. However, the implementation of government programmes has not halted, let alone reversed, the decline outlined above. Consequently, it is necessary that we pioneer alternatives to government’s discretionary approach as a matter of urgency.

The basis of the alternative that BRC proposes is that people have a right to a decent life (as outlined in the Bill of Rights) where they currently live. The most realistic way for our society to realise this over-arching right is to transfer decision-making responsibility for the allocation of public resources down to the lowest possible level, here understood to be the village. In order to realise the potentials

inherent in this approach, it is necessary to set up the planning process in such a way that it has the following three key characteristics: it is participatory, it builds local institutional capacity and it is integrated. Once decisions have been taken, implementation can be driven by local institutions, leading to broad-based empowerment.

Consequently, our vision for the upcoming period is as follows:
The poor living in the former homelands of the Eastern Cape act decisively to improve their living standards through rights-based development. Such development is characterised by the following:

Resources are brokered and leveraged in such a way that they are secured at local level.
Planning and implementation is integrated (amongst other things, infrastructure and economic interventions must be complimentary).
Local institutions take charge of planning and implementation processes.

Aspects of the strategic framework are as follows:

     1.1 Securing resources at village level
     1.2 Realising potentials through integrated planning and implementation
     1.3 Building capacity at local level to take charge of development

1.1 Securing resources at village level
It will take considerable resources to undo the legacy of the homelands. Because of the depth of poverty in the former homeland areas, it is clear that considerable resources are required to confront the scourge. These resources need to be sourced externally. In this regard, there are a number of key sources and potentials to explore. These include the South African government, South African donors and overseas donors.

The South African government controls a budget of approximately R300bn. It is thus necessary to identify sectors and areas that have been prioritised in plans and budgets of government. All three spheres of government should be considered.

At local level, focused attention should be given to municipalities' Integrated Development Plans (IDPs). Municipalities have been required by law to produce these plans. Over the past five years, they have become the key mechanism for planning, implementation and monitoring in the local sphere of government. They typically cover all municipal responsibilities (as laid out in legislation).

However, these plans often suffer from a number of serious weaknesses, including the following:

They are informed by a very narrow and conservative spatial approach, which identifies development nodes, zones and corridors, on the basis of what currently exists. This has the effect of consolidating apartheid demographics and economies, rather than transforming them. A consequence of this approach is that marginalised areas remain marginalised, irrespective of the potentials that they have, and without regard to the constitutional socio-economic rights of their inhabitants.
Because they are meant to guide municipal spending, they are subject to considerable contestation between different wards, and between different interest groups and sectors. The manner in which the leadership generally deals with these conflicts is either to shelve them (in which case the IDPs are so general that they are not useful, and the list of projects resembles a wish-list more than anything else) or to require compromise (in which case the IDPs lose coherence and strategic value). Consequently, IDPs are seldom implemented systematically.

Despite these limitations, IDPs remain the most important institutional mechanism in South Africa to achieve decentralised development. It is thus imperative that civil society organisations attempt to input into their formulation, understand their contents and are able to realise potentials that they offer.

In the provincial sphere of government, there are two dimensions that should be considered, namely any overarching plans and those of line departments. In the Eastern Cape, the Office of the Premier has recently formulated a Provincial Growth and Development Plan (PGDP). This plan does make an effort to confront the challenge of overcoming poverty in the province; it has an emphasis on various poverty eradication strategies. However, the PDGP also suffers from similar problems to those that affect IDPs (as described above), except on a larger scale.

Many key developmental programmes are implemented through provincial departments. Included here are education, welfare, health and public works. It is thus crucial to be updated about the priorities and plans of provincial line departments.

A similar scanning exercise should be undertaken that covers the national sphere. The main overarching programme of national government that interests us is the ISRDS. Critical comments about this programme were made above. Despite these weaknesses, it is necessary to remain alive to opportunities that exist or may arise in future in the context of this programme. Also, some developmental issues such as land reform are national competencies. In other words, responsibility for these issues vests with national government. It is necessary for us to develop and sustain an understanding of the plans of relevant line departments in this regard. Given BRC’s history and previous emphasis on land reform, a word on this programme in relation to the above discussion is appropriate at this point. The main limitation of the land reform programme is its very limited budget. This is generally true of land reform and specifically true of redistribution and tenure reform; the only aspect of land reform that has a significant budget is restitution. Thus, if one’s goal is to make an impact on eradicating poverty in a tangible manner in the present, then there is little point to focus exclusively on land reform in general and redistribution and tenure reform specifically.

The above overview pertains to developing a holistic understanding of government’s discretionary spending priorities. However, one should also grasp where potentially-accessible resources are located and how these can be accessed. For example, in BRC’s experience, significant state resources can be released through the restitution programme. Government did not intend or choose to invest R120 million in Keiskammahoek; it was forced to do so through the 2000 and 2002 settlement agreements.

Although the South African government is the most important role-player as far as developmental resource allocation is concerned, it is not the only role-player. In this regard, the vibrant South African donor community is also significant. Over the upcoming period, we will give particular attention to the National Development Agency (NDA) and the National Lotteries Board (NLB), both of which seem to be giving increasing attention to poverty alleviation in rural areas.

Finally, we will look to the overseas donors to play a role. BRC is realistic in this regard. One cannot expect these donors to drive development in ‘a middle-income democratic country’. However, many of these donors prioritise poverty eradication, and the above analysis has shown the extent of poverty in the rural areas of the country and also revealed that the poverty trends are negative. Furthermore, South Africa’s distribution of wealth is one of the most uneven in the world. Thus it is realistic to anticipate that overseas donors would have a direct interest in contributing to initiatives that specifically challenge poverty (as opposed to those that promote development more broadly).

The above analysis has attempted to point to the most important sources of developmental resources. In the struggle to unlock these resources, we should not lose sight of the fact that it is equally important that these resources should be captured for utilisation at the village level. In other words, it is not just about funnelling resources into a few privileged localities. This is not another version of discretionary development. Rather, it about securing resources locally, so that the poor themselves can take charge of their own development. It is giving the poor an opportunity to develop themselves - it is rights-based development.

Empowering people in this manner has a number of consequences. From a point of view of resources, one of these is that it strengthens people’s hand in negotiating for additional resources from the state. For example, experience at Cata has shown that if a community puts up its ‘own’ money then it has considerable bargaining power in negotiating with government for top-up funds.

Return to Aspects of the strategic framework

1.2 Realising potentials through integrated planning and implementation
Securing developmental resources at village level is a necessary condition for the realisation of rights-based rural development, but it is not a sufficient condition in this regard. Because of the scarcity of resources in poverty-stricken areas, it is essential that those which are captured are optimally utilised. In this regard, it is proposed that communities embark on integrated planning and implementation processes.

There are various dimensions of integration that should be considered, two of which are the geographic and sectoral dimensions. We deal with geographic integration first. When conducting local planning, it is crucial to locate the village within its district. One cannot make decisions about spending priorities relating to any aspect of development including infrastructure upgrading or SMME establishment without doing this. For example, in relation to social infrastructure, if there are adequate health-care or educational facilities in a neighbouring village, then the Departments of Health and Education would not support the establishment and staffing of parallel facilities. Similarly, when it comes to small business development, it would be futile to implement a tourism initiative in isolation from established tourist routes or to establish a forestry plantation on 100 hectares without there being a viable forestry industry in the district.

There also needs to be sectoral integration at local level. It is not enough to upgrade a road here, build a clinic there and start a brick-making project around the corner. As Aliber has emphasised, it is imperative that we avoid ‘development by piggeries’ . Rather one needs to consider how to ensure that there is synergy and complementarity between the various components of a plan. More specifically, the infrastructure and economic aspects of a plan should be mutually supportive. If key economic sectors are tourism and agriculture, then it is crucial that there is bulk transport infrastructure to allow for sustainable marketing.

In order to arrive at integrated plans, it is necessary to design the planning process in an appropriate way. In this regard, we must achieve a balance between participatory discussion and decision-making on the one hand, and adequate technical input, on the other. There is no substitute for participatory process because the people on the ground know their needs and their village better than anyone else. But the human development indices (eg levels of education) in the former homeland areas are very low. This translates into limited ability for people to identify and conceptualise the development potentials that exist in their vicinity. It is thus necessary to make use of technical expertise.

Finally, plans must be formulated such that they give impetus to implementation. In other words, an implementation programme should be included in an integrated development plan. Added to this, detailed business plans should be prepared for each development initiative, and such plans should cover spatial, financial and institutional dimensions.

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1.3 Building capacity at local level to take charge of development
One of the most significant constraints to development in the Eastern Cape is the lack of institutional capacity. This is experienced in different ways in different sectors and parts of the province. In the former Ciskei, village-level organisation is weak and fragmented. Generally speaking, there is a civic structure of some sort and a local branch of one or more political parties. But the active membership of such organisations is typically no more than a handful of people, usually comprising new order elites (economic and political). As a result, the vast majority of community members are typically uninformed about development opportunities and government intervention. Consequently, many opportunities are missed and government interventions tend to be top-down and unsustainable. Because of the weak institutional set-ups, these villages are characterised by misinformation and rumour, and factions and cliques. Such conflict often pits vestiges of the abolished headmanship system against the new order elites referred to above. The result is protracted stand-still and pervasive fear; there are no winners, only losers.

A prerequisite for sustainable development is the nurturing of effective, popular institutions at village level. This exercise should be an explicit and central objective of rights-based rural development from the onset of the planning challenge, as described above. In order to facilitate broad-based participation, as well as to ensure that the beneficiaries give direction to the planning process, it is necessary to put a representative development committee in place. Such a committee should be elected at a general meeting, and should be mandated to represent the community at all meetings with third parties (ie both government institutions and private sector service providers).

Once the plan has been finalised, it is useful for a local institution to be established that has overarching responsibility for the implementation phase of development. That is not to say that the institution should perform a hands-on role in the delivery of particular projects, rather that it can ensure that there is both integrated implementation and broad-based community involvement in, and benefit from, project delivery. Of course, part of this responsibility is to facilitate the establishment of small businesses.

In cases where there is land transfer, there is a compelling argument that land holding legal entities should perform the over-arching role. In the mid-1990s, parliament passed the Communal Property Associations Act. This act sought to create the legislative framework for the establishment of democratic and accountable community land holding entities, known as communal property associations (CPAs). It was envisaged that these structures would receive support from the Department of Land Affairs when needs be. Since then, several hundred CPAs have been established and registered around the country. Their performance, however, has been uniformly poor. The main reasons for the problems have been: lack of capacity, absence of support from the Department, and inadequate resourcing of the associations. A typical scenario has been that an association is established for purposes of land transfer only; that is, departmental officials are parachuted into communities to ‘facilitate’ the formulation of constitutions and to oversee the holding of committee elections. Thereafter the associations are registered with the DLA and land is transferred to the CPA. At that point, the CPA is abandoned and expected to take full responsibility for the land rights and land use arrangements on the transferred property. It goes without saying that this is a huge challenge, and it is unrealistic to expect land reform beneficiaries (who are typically inexperienced in managerial issues) to meet this challenge on their own, without any assistance. Furthermore, without resources for basic administration, planning, implementation and management, it is obvious that CPAs are unlikely to be able to execute their responsibilities effectively.

Because of the programmatic choices made by BRC over the past few years and the approaches utilised in these programmes, we have a different vision of the role of CPAs in the development process. Given that a CPA is the owner of community land, it is ideally placed to play a pivotal role in all initiatives that take place on the land. There are different institutional models that can be utilised in this regard. For example, the CPA could rent out the land to an outside business concern, it could establish a joint venture, and so on. Assuming that all adults in a community are members of a CPA, it provides an excellent vehicle for ensuring equitable distribution of dividends and benefits that accrue through development. It is also in a position to define the rules of the game such that empowerment and capacitation are realised.

The above section of the document outlines the core components of BRC’s vision of rights-based rural development. In this section we explore the way in which BRC will seek to realise this vision. In short, we establish BRC’s mission for the upcoming period. We do this by identifying core institutional roles and approaches.

The mission of the organisation for the forthcoming period is summarised as follows.

The organisation will deliver this work though a value-driven and balanced institutional approach that seeks to:

In the sub-section above called ‘unlocking resources’, we identified the main sites of developmental resources, in South Africa (both state and non-state) and abroad. Over the coming five years, we will monitor unfolding opportunities in all these arenas and move to maximise these, in partnership with the rural poor. In the short-term there are two main strategies that will be utilised in this regard, namely to advocate for the extension of the restitution programme into the former homelands, and to embark on fund-raising for the implementation pro-poor projects in communities. Each of these short-term strategies will now be briefly explained.

BRC began exploring ways of effecting a re-opening of the lodgement process for victims of betterment dispossession in mid-2002. Since that time, considerable progress has been made:

Despite these advances, cabinet has not yet agreed to meet the campaign demand. It seems that that there is one over-riding precondition that must be met in order achieve the required breakthrough. That is, a critical mass of affected people must understand their respective histories of betterment dispossession as well as the manner in which they were prejudiced during the claim lodgement period from 1995 to 1998. This can only be achieved through a systematic and broadly-based programme of information dissemination and institution building. The key question is: how many people, or how many communities, need to be reached in order to constitute the ‘critical mass’ that is needed? We do not know the answer to this question. We know that 4000 people, or 40 communities, is not enough, but we do not know how many people would be sufficient.

Despite our limitations in this regard, we have enough experience to plot a strategic way forward. Elements of this strategy include the following:

We are confident that implementation of this strategy will yield a favourable result - in other words, cabinet will grant a six-month lodgement window for affected communities in the province. It will then be crucial for BRC to ensure that there is an adequate information dissemination and support campaign to ensure that all eligible communities lodge their claims at this time.

The explicit campaigning will be supplemented by other advocacy strategies including engagement with the restitution programme to push out its boundaries and to expose the unfairness of the cut-off date in relation to betterment claimants. This work will be carried out in the greater Mbems area, which spans southern Keiskammahoek and northern Middledrift. The people of Mbems lodged a land claim for a large area of land spanning the south-western corner of Amahlati Municipality, the south-eastern corner of Nkonkobe Municipality and the north-western corner of Buffalo City Municipality. Provisional research has shown that approximately twenty five communities living inside the claimed area have potential claims. The former provincial commissioner Tozi Gwanya told us in early 2003 that all these claims should be settled through a single, consolidated settlement agreement. There are a number of compelling reasons why BRC will prioritise the resolution this claim. These include:
The need to set a favourable precedent for cases involving the dispossession of quitrent rights through the implementation of betterment .

In pursuing the resolution of the greater Mbems claim, which is vast and complicated, BRC will have to bring all the experience gained in Keiskammahoek in the early 2000s to bear. More specifically, we will conceptualise the resolution process in such a way that claimant participation is maximised and we will set up information and administration systems to be able to cope with the volume of data and documentation that will be generated in the process.

BRC will aim to raise and administer development funds, especially for initiatives aimed specifically at poverty eradication. The way in which we will go about this is by identifying types of intervention that have a pro-poor impact. (This approach is preferred to one that requires the selection of beneficiaries – the poor – prior to project conception. This route has the potential to divide communities and it under-estimates the complexity of the phenomenon of poverty in rural areas.) This means that BRC will prioritise interventions such as the irrigation of community gardens, which will improve food security. In attempting to raise funds for the implementation (through partnerships with community based organisations (CBOs) – see below), we will target national and international donors. Also, it should be noted that this strategy will be pursued in isolation of other development initiatives. In other words, BRC will select those localities where developmental restitution is being implemented or where municipalities are committed to decentralised development initiatives, and we will ensure that pro-poor projects are properly integrated into the broader development process. The reason for this approach is that we recognise that poverty is systemic and multi-dimensional; we will attack it holistically.

Closely linked to fund raising is the opportunity to broker additional state and other resources into communities that have managed to secure an initial ‘tranche’ of resources at local level. Experience tells us that communities that can demonstrate a significant contribution to their own development are in an excellent position to negotiate with third parties for ‘top-up’ resources. In this regard, it is very important to have a clear understanding of government plans in all three spheres. For example, if a municipal IDP promises the upgrading of sanitation in a particular locality, then the target community should hold the municipality to the commitment laid out in the plan.

It should be emphasised that these are the two key short-term strategies that will be pursued by BRC. We will be responsive to any new opportunity that arises to unlock resources into the former homeland areas such that these are captured at village level.

BRC will offer a full range of services to rural communities that have secured developmental resources, and to those who are targeted through innovative decentralised initiatives, to assist them to implement the integrated planning and implementation approach outlined above. These services include facilitation and institution building at community level, support and advice to those government institutions directly involved in development, and management of planning and implementation processes (including co-ordination and brokering). It should be noted that BRC will integrate interventions relating to gender as well as HIV/AIDS into this package of services. This will be done in a specific, measurable way.

Some of the steps that we will go through with these communities are as follows:

As outlined above, in the short-term, one of BRC's key strategies to unlock resources into the former homelands is to advocate in relation to restitution. This work aims to build on the successes already achieved in Keiskammahoek. In this regard, implementation of the integrated development plan for Cata is underway, and the planning process for all other claimant villages in the district has finally commenced, after protracted delays. There is a clear understanding within BRC that these development processes are crucial, on at least two levels. Firstly, they will determine the extent to which poverty will be eradicated from, and to which economic growth will be generated, in the ten affected villages. Quite simply, if the development opportunities are maximised, then significant poverty reduction and economic growth will be achieved. If the opportunity is missed, the existing trend of consistent, unabated decline will continue. For this reason alone, it is not only justifiable, it is absolutely necessary, for BRC to give support to the development process. Secondly, success in Keiskammahoek will present an actual, living example of the benefits to be gained from developmental restitution. This will model will be utilised by BRC to add impetus to the Vulamasango Singene campaign.

ADM’s LRSP is widely acknowledged as one of the most significant and innovative experiments in decentralised land reform in South Africa. There are significant similarities between developmental restitution projects and those being pursued under the framework of the Land Reform and Settlement Plan. Three of the key similarities are:

Because of the synergies between these categories of projects and the unique opportunities that prevail in the Amatole District, and in the light of the organisation’s ongoing commitment to supporting decentralised land reform initiatives and bolstering municipal capacity in this regard, BRC will continue to support the implementation of the LRSP. Municipalities within the Amatole district (known as Category B municipalities) lack the capacity and systems of the district municipality, but some of them do attempt to implement rural development. Where these are adequately substantial, BRC will offer support.

Municipalities are not the only important institutions at local level that can play a pivotal role in land reform. In the Eastern Cape, the Provincial Council of Churches has committed itself to formulating a policy for its members on how land owned by the church should be managed and utilised. It has decided to implement pilot projects as a mechanism to gather practical understanding of some of the issues to consider in formulating a policy. The Council has approached BRC for assistance in both the pilot and policy components of the endeavour.

Again we should emphasise that the focus on implementing developmental restitution and decentralised land reform are selected for the short-term. Over the course of the period 2005 – 2009, BRC will scan the environment so that we can make informed decisions about retaining or changing these focus areas as we move forward. Our over-riding criterion in this regard is impact in facilitating pro-poor development.

For an organisation that is committed to poverty eradication, it is crucial to develop capacity to monitor one’s progress and impact in this regard. A starting point here is to establish a baseline of information against which to measure changes. The first section of this document amounts to an initial attempt to consolidate a baseline of information against which to measure impact. BRC will have to conceptualise, and then implement, appropriate monitoring and evaluation tools. We will consider two possibilities, namely utilising existing data generated by third parties (for example census data) or by generating our own data.

For example, see Sustainable Livelihoods in Southern Africa team, Decentralisations in practice in Southern Africa, 2003, Cape Town: PLAAS; and Department for International Development, Land Issues Scoping Study: Communal Land Tenure Areas, 2003.

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2.1.3 Achieving policy impact

Over the upcoming period, BRC will retain the central maxim that guided our work over the past five years, namely that advocacy should be based in community struggle, or restated, that it should emerge from field experience. There are many sound reasons for this, one of which is that it facilitates effective mass action when this is required to achieve a policy or implementation objective. If advocacy is not rooted in community struggle, then it is impossible to mobilise people into action without resorting to ‘rent-a-crowd’ tactics.

Although there will be continuity in this regard, this does not imply that it will be ‘business as usual’. There are two aspects of implementing this approach that will be improved. First, BRC will strive to enhance its ability to pick up on a full range of issues requiring advocacy attention, for all our projects. In other words, advocacy should become a fundamental and core component of all (not only some) BRC projects. This will ensure that the impact of BRC’s work is not confined to our project sites, but is extended to many communities in a similar position, through changes in policy (which could relate to institutional transformation as much as legislative development).

Second, we will develop capacity to link these issues to broader debates relating to rural development and broader political and economic issues. In this regard, we will have to enhance our sense of the continuum of micro and macro issues across a range of social and geographical spaces. The key point here is that poverty eradication is a massive challenge; poverty is a multi-dimensional, deep-rooted and systemic problem in the former homelands of the Eastern Cape. Therefore, to confront it and beat it requires multi-dimensional and broad-based strategy. The battle must be waged on many fronts. Thus it is crucial for us to make the necessary advocacy linkages.

Our analysis of how to effect improvements in these two aspects is to enhance our organisational capacity to reflect and to learn. In order to achieve this, we will attempt to institutionalise a range of changes to what we do and how we it. Most of these institutional changes will be very practical. For example, we intend to introduce a ‘strategic’ component to all field reports. This will require staff to analyse and reflect on their experiences in the field, and not merely describe ‘what happened’. Also, these reports will serve as source material to use for the identification of advocacy issues. Furthermore, in order to develop broad advocacy capacity, we will encourage all staff to develop these issues, and BRC’s position in relation to them, into articles to be published in local newspapers. There are also practical ways to enhance our ability to link micro issues emerging from BRC projects to macro issues. For example, we will attempt to establish an ethos of debate and discussion in the organisation. It is crucial for BRC to have clear and informed positions about matters ranging, for example, from provincial government’s distribution of food parcels to the proposed basic income grant.

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2. 2Approaches

2.2.1 Overall institutional approach

BRC was incorporated in terms of Section 21 of the Companies Act (ie as a ‘not-for-profit’ company) in 1998. Over the past nine years, this arrangement has facilitated improvements in many aspects of institutional functioning, especially accountability. Understandably, however, it has not all been plain sailing. The area that has been the most challenging and dynamic has been membership. Some of the issues that we have grappled with in this regard include an appropriate composition of membership (stakeholders, communities, funders, staff), effective mechanisms to engage members in the work of the organisation, and how to keep the membership committed over the medium- to long-term. During the first few years of this strategic cycle, the organisation concentrated on increasing the proportion of it members drawn from client communities in order to enhance our direct accountability to the rural communities of the Amatole area. We have made considerable progress in this regard, and will continue to explore ways of enhancing the role of members in BRC advocacy and other initiatives.

Over the past few years, the Board of Directors has functioned very well. Continued emphasis will be placed on this crucial aspect of the institution. This will ensure that high standards are maintained in areas of work such as financial management, AGM organisation, programme planning, and conditions of employment and organisational policies.

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2.2.2 BRC mechanisms for delivery (permanent staff, contract staff, partnerships, outsourcing)

The organisation’s strategic plan sets BRC on a course that will require considerable application, capacity and resources. In order to undertake this work effectively, BRC continues to pursue the same mix of delivery mechanisms that have been at our disposal over the past few years. That is, we should deliver through permanent and contract staff, establishing and nurturing partnerships, and contracting in the private sector when needs be.

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2.2.3 Working in a broader civil society context

In order for BRC to be able to carry out its mission, it will be necessary for us to harness the capacities and interest of civil society more broadly.

There are however, various constraints to this endeavour. Principally, there is a serious lack of institutional capacity in organised civil society. It is not an exaggeration to assert that the NGO and other civil society sectors in the province are in a parlous state. However, there are some key institutions either that operate effectively in the central region of the province, or that have considerable influence on socio-political processes. These include the University of Fort Hare, the Eastern Cape NGO Coalition (ECNGOC) and the Eastern Cape Provincial Council of Churches (ECPCC). There are distinct advantages to working with organisations such as these. First, one can broker services in to target areas that would otherwise not be available. Second, through effective networking, the potential for broad-based advocacy is maximised. Third, one contributes to building the capacity and stature of civil society in the province.

Other than the focus on provincial networking, BRC also networks at the national level through its partnership with SANGONeT. BRC is the SANGONeT’s land reform and rural development content partner. BRC also intends to develop networks at national and regional (ie southern Africa) levels. It is proposed that we utilise different strategies to establish the desired networks at the three levels.

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2.2.4 Engagement with government: getting the balance right

Over the past five years, debate has raged about how NGOs should relate to government. Critical partnership? ‘Ultra-left’ style opposition? Service provider? Various camps have formed, based on the way that different organisations have positioned themselves in relation to government. Unfortunately, interaction between these camps has been less than cordial, leading to further weakening of the already fragile civil society sector.

For BRC there are a number of points to take into consideration in this matter. On the one hand, we recognise that the South African government is democratically elected, that the institutions of the state provide for checks and balances and accountability, and that the South African constitution is progressive. Also, we note that the ruling party, the African National Congress, enjoys the support of the overwhelming majority of the South African population. Finally, we view the budget of the South African government, which totals over R300 billion, as the key to poverty eradication in the country. When we take all these and other issues into consideration, we arrive at a conclusion that it would be short-sighted and counter-productive not to work with government. This is the mistake that some NGOs have made during recent years. These organisations have chosen to prioritise being ‘politically-correct’ (read 'as radical as possible') above having a pro-poor impact. Hence it is no surprise that they have developed into quasi-political parties, positioned on the extreme left of the political spectrum. Their impact on the political landscape has been negligible to date, and this looks set to continue. As Everatt wrote in November 2003 in Interfund’s Development Update: “Those critics who are irredeemably hostile to the ANC often fail to generate the analytic frameworks that help us to understand the situation or improve it.”

In order to maximise our influence on government decisions, we will engage constructively with it. But it is necessary to unpack and elaborate on our understanding of what that engagement should consist of and how it should be pursued. In this regard, we note that the government operates under serious constraints, some of which are self imposed (eg conservative macro-economic strategy). These limit the extent to which government is able and willing to prioritise poverty eradication as a key objective. Also, at the more localised level, many government institutions are staffed by people who demonstrate little interest in implementing pro-poor programmes effectively.

Because of this situation, it is clear that the engagement between government and BRC will be most effective if it is issue- and performance-based. In other words, we will not adopt a generally positive or a generally negative attitude to government. Rather, we will deal with government on particular issues, assess its performance in relation to these issues and develop strategies accordingly.

It should be noted that this approach is slightly different from that employed by BRC over the period 2000 to 2004. During that time, the main advocacy issues pursued by BRC were firstly to overturn the policy position outlined in the 1997 White paper, that excluded people dispossessed through betterment from the restitution programme, and secondly to motivate for a re-opening of the lodgement period. These objectives were pursued sequentially, and they demanded that we exercise a high degree of discipline and caution. Explained more practically, we could not have won Keiskammahoek without having first won Cata; it would have been very unwise for us to have motivated for re-opening without having first secured Keiskammahoek. Furthermore, the ultimate objective of securing a re-opening was deemed to be adequately significant to be the sole consideration in determining our approach to government. However, we have now reached a different point, which requires a different approach. Our ultimate demand, to re-open lodgement and settle all betterment claims under restitution, and thereby bring about R12 billion into the province, is now in the public terrain. The behind-closed-doors negotiations have been concluded. We are now fighting the issue in public: in the streets, in the media, and so on. Therefore, there is no reason for us to sustain an approach to government that is publicly uncritical. This is true irrespective of whether or not government accedes to our re-opening demand. Rather, we propose to implement a strategy that will be characterised by vigorous engagement with government.

At no point, however, will we lose sight of the over-riding reason for our existence: to make a pro-poor impact. This consideration will determine the day-to-day choices that we will make in implementing our ‘critical partnership’ with government.

Everatt, D., "The politics of poverty" , Development Update, Vol 4 No 3, November 2003.

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