Question NW1448 to the Minister in The Presidency for Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities

Reply:

The department has adopted a step change toward an all-of-government and all-of-society approach to livelihood restoration, wealth creation, poverty and hunger alleviation through special projects that will be rolled out across some of the country’s poorest district municipalities. These projects will have a training element for vulnerable groups in general and youth in particular.

(a) SANDF-led National Service (NS) – To address the current state of poverty, idleness, and general economic inactivity among our vulnerable population in general and the youth in particular, the SANDF led NYS programme is being introduced to build the youths’ character, empower them to serve in their communities, inculcate discipline and a sense of patriotism, train youth in leadership and entrepreneurship; and then provide them with technical capacity building in value chain driven sector specific industries with high absorption capacity. The training streams will range from food and agriculture value chain; oceans economy and maritime skills; engineering, manufacturing, and infrastructure development; digital technologies and platform economies; and defense industries, public safety and security stream. The programme participants will be trained to be resilient and self-sustaining and then linked with job opportunities in diverse sectors.

Cabinet has asked us to work with the following Departments who have the financial capacity to support elements of the National Service:

• Department of Higher Education and Training
• Department of Transport
• Department of Forestry Fisheries and environment
• COGTA
• Department of Basic Education
• Department of Employment and Labour
• Department of Human Settlement

(b) Integrated Farming Value Chain Cooperatives - To address the key challenges of poverty, weakened livelihoods, hunger, limited or no economic opportunities, little to no income as well as inadequate access to resources contributing to the cycle of poverty, the DWYPD is mobilising women, youth, and persons with disabilities, particularly those in poor rural communities to establish integrated farming value chain cooperatives.

Additionally, the department is also partnering with the CSIR in the development of a national goat commercialization pilot project in all the 9 provinces. The goat farming value chain is identified as an initial focus area, because goat farming in South African has been practised since time immemorial, yet this sector has not been fully exploited for optimal economic value.

(c) Community Micro Bakery Training Projects – DWYPD will provide bakery training for women, youth, and persons with disabilities in some of the poorest districts in local municipalities, so that they can participate in this growing industry in order to reduce the impact of extreme poverty, unemployment, create community wealth, raise household incomes, and restore livelihoods as well as basic socio-economic insecurity. Once trained, the programme participants will be supported to become entrepreneurs thus facilitating their economic self-reliance whilst contributing to an all-of-government’s reconstruction and recovery efforts.