Government employment creation programmes

Focus areas

	Evidence-based employment scenarios		Employment monitoring
	Macro-economy, economic bias & employment		Employment-oriented industry studies
	The informal economy		Government employment creation programmes
	Labour markets and social policy		Migration
	Regional dynamics		Social dialogue
	Employment policy network		Food Security, Agriculture and Rural Development

Social development programmes arguably offer one of the more promising opportunities to simultaneously create jobs and career path for low skill workers while meeting a range of basic needs. The Government's Social Cluster Programme of Action commits it to introducing and/or expanding community health and early childhood services. Any expansion of these programmes - which include early childhood education, orphan care, community home based care, basic health care, food delivery and community development services - will require a greater complement of para-professional and community workers.

These services also serve to bolster social service programmes such as education, health, or social grants. These services are financed through both the public and private sectors and are generally delivered by non-profit agencies. However this sector is characterised by uneven quality, fragmentation, weak coordination with social services, and very unreliable financial flows.

Currently, this includes the following project areas

• Institutional Innovations to Support Responsible Rapid Expansion of ECD services to children under age five
• Global and local case studies of delivery to children under age five
• Case studies in Early Childhood Development (ECD)
• The role of the public service in employment creation

Past projects

• Evaluation of the Community Development Workers Programme (SAMDI)
• Leverageing Services for Growth, Employment and Equity: review of social sector EPWP and developmental social welfare programmes.
• Review of Government procurement practices
• Review of developmental social welfare programmes
• Design of monitoring and evaluation approach for the Expanded Public Works Programme (Department of Public Works)

Planned projects

Working closely with the HSRC's Child, Youth, Family and Social Development research programme, we will focus on promoting early child development for children aged 0 - 4, as part of an implementation network. Partnerships will be developed with implementing agents from non-profit agencies and government to introduce demonstration projects with the aim of supporting the scaling up of ECD services.

Research outputs

• Altman, M. et al (2005) Employment through government procurement
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• Hornby, D (2005) A Community Development Approach to Early Childhood: Children – Our Future Communities
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• Hyman, I. , September, R (2005) The Global Context for Social Development Programmes Early Childhood Development, Community Homebased Care, Community Development Workers, Food and Nutrition
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• Luka, S (2005) Increasing Access to Employment Through Government Programmes: Experience with Expanded Public Works Programme and Community Development Workers
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• Plaatjies, D, Nicolaou-Manias, K (2005) Budgeting for Job Creation in Social Welfare Services – Exploring EPWP Opportunities
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• Ramachela, O (2005) The Business of the Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP) in the Social Sector
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