Working Paper

2015-05-28

CSSR and SALDRU

University of Cape Town

This paper explores the ability of public works programmes (PWPs) to promote employment and reduce poverty. Public works are a key component of the current social protection framework in South Africa, constituting the only significant form of social support for the able-bodied working age unemployed, and are ascribed considerable potential in terms of addressing the central challenges of unemployment and poverty. Despite this policy prominence, the targeting of public works programmes and their micro-economic and labour market impacts have not been studied systematically in South Africa, rendering evidence-based policy development in this area problematic. This paper attempts to provide some initial responses to these questions in order to establish an evidence base for future policy development, and to identify some of the key policy lessons arising, drawing evidence from two case studies, the Gundo Lashu programme in Limpopo, and the Zibambele programme in KwaZulu Natal. The paper also reviews the policy context, and the characterisation of the unemployment problem in the policy discourse. The paper concludes that while PWPs can offer a partial response to the problems of poverty and unemployment if appropriately designed, the gap between policy expectation and programme reality is significant, and that PWPs cannot offer an adequate social protection response to the growing problem of the working age poor. The paper asserts that there is a need to recognise that PWPs can have only a limited role in the context of entrenched and structural unemployment, and that supply-side interventions are of limited value in response to poverty and unemployment among the low-skilled, given ongoing structural shifts in the South African economy and the delinking of economic growth and employment.

The survey was funded jointly by the UK Department for International Development, the KwaZulu Natal Department of Transport, the Roads Agency Limpopo, and SALDRU in the CSSR of the School of Economics at UCT. The survey was carried out under the auspices of the Public Works Research Project of SALDRU, in collaboration with the Roads Agency Limpopo, and the KwaZulu Natal Department of Transport, and implemented by Khanyisa Integrated Development and Social Research, and African Renaissance Development Consultants in Limpopo, and the Maurice Webb Race Relations Unit of the University of KwaZulu Natal in KwaZulu Natal. The author is grateful to the many Gundo Lashu and Zibambele workers and their families who participated in the survey work, and those who gave up their time to contribute to the focus group discussions in Sekhukhune and Mankweng in Limpopo, and Eshowe and Mapumulo in KwaZulu Natal (see Annex 11 for a full listing of focus group participants). This paper is a shortened version of a paper published by the Overseas Development Institute, Policy Expectations and Programme Reality: The Poverty Reduction and Labour Market Impact of Two Public Works Programmes in South Africa. September 2004, ESAU Working Paper 8, London.