Section One: Introduction
There are numerous government programmes that seek to address poverty, among these are social grants, provision of basic services such as education, health, housing, water and sanitation and provision of infrastructure (National Treasure, 2004a). Complementing these programmes are targeted interventions such as public works programmes. Public works programmes generally have the following characteristics (Goldin and Adato, 2000):
- Provide short-term jobs using labour intensive methods
- Create or upgrade infrastructure or improve the environment, and
- Wages are set below market rates to avoid attracting people who are in formal or informal jobs
In 2003, government introduced the Expanded Public Works Programme2 (EPWP) which aims to
address unemployment by creating labour intensive jobs through government expenditure (National Treasury 2004a). Conventionally, public works programmes are implemented to mitigate economic shocks or natural disasters such as drought and is therefore, largely short-term in nature. However, in South Africa, public works programmes are being used to address the employment deficit and McCord (2002) argues that it should ideally be of a longer term nature. Furthermore, research conducted by McCord (2003) has found that at their current level, public works programmes are not a significant response to the high levels of unemployment in South Africa.
The increased emphasis by government on the EPWP and the scepticism within broader society about what realistically can be achieved has led to a renewed interest in public works programmes as a poverty alleviation strategy. It is therefore an opportune time to examine these programmes in more depth.
As public works programmes are a poverty alleviation strategy, the various dimensions of poverty need to be considered when examining the efficiency and effectiveness of such a strategy. Poverty in South Africa continues to have gender, race and spatial dimensions. Of the number of poor people, 11.9 million (54.4%) are female, compared to 10 million poor males (UNDP 2003). In September 2004 (Stats SA, 2004, Table 2.3.2), the unemployment rate for women was 48.6% and for men 33.9%3. The unemployment rate for African women was 55.9% and for African men 40.1%, while for white women and men, the unemployment rates were 9.5% and 7% respectively. According to the official definition of unemployment in September 2004 (Stats SA, 2004, Table 2.3.1), the unemployment rate for women was 30.2% and 23.1% for men. For African women and men, the unemployment rate was 36% and 27.6% respectively, while 5.8% for white women and 5.1% for white men. Both expanded and official definitions of unemployment indicate that women face higher levels of unemployment than men. Women who are employed are more likely to find lower paying employment. Moreover women have less time available for employment, as they spend time on unpaid care work.
The Working for Water (WfW) programme is one of the EPWP and is housed within the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry. This paper pays specific attention to a project of the WfW programme, namely the Tsitsikama project. As the EPWP and more especially the WfW programme focuses strongly on the employment of women and given the reality of women’s position within South Africa, this paper conducts a gender analysis of this WfW project. A gender analysis is concerned with the social roles and interactions of men and women in society, their access to resources, remuneration for work, exercise of authority and power, and participation in cultural, political and religious activity (Pearson 2000). It is widely accepted in the discourse on development that the needs of poor women must receive particular attention, i.e. development must be informed by a gender analysis (Pearson
2000). An added level of importance for such analysis of the WfW programme is linked to the uniqueness of this programme in the South African landscape, as it provides an intersection between the environment, poverty and gender.
In conducting a gender analysis of the Tsitsikama project, the paper is structured as follows:
- Section two provides an overview of the Working for Water programme
- Section three outlines the framework for analysing the gender dimensions of a WfW project
- Section four introduces the WfW Tsitsikama project as a case study and applies the gender analysis framework to determine the extent to which gender has been mainstreamed at project level
- Section five highlights critical issues for consideration through brief concluding remarks
Footnotes:
- The author is currently employed as a Director in the Policy Co-ordination and Advisory Services in the
Presidency. The views expressed in the paper are her personal views and do not reflect that of the Presidency. She is also currently a PhD candidate at UCT. The author would like to thank Penny Parenzee who developed the gender framework and provided feedback on the Brief. She would also like to thank T Appelraju, the Social Development Manager at the National Office and the staff and workers of the Tsitsikama WfW Project who hosted the field visit, in particular A Alexander, the Assistant Project Manager.
- The Expanded Public Works Programme is comprised of six national poverty relief programmes and portions of the infrastructure grants and aims to create a million new jobs over a five year period.
- The figures refer to the expanded definition of unemployment
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