Poverty and the people's contract: reaping the post-apartheid dividend?

Meeting the South African election promises

Published by: Centre for Policy Studies (CPS), 2006
Via: Eldis

The ANC's 2004 electoral campaign centred around the concept of a peoples' contract - a promise to ensure employment opportunities and to fight poverty for the average South African citizen. This paper investigates both the meaning and content of the people's contract, and discusses how its possible impact upon the eradication of poverty. The authors find that, while South Africa has established a regime of liberal rights and opportunities, the concept of a peoples' contract requires a strengthening of democracy so to employ genuinely pro-poor growth policies. These should specifically provide strategies for targeting the poor both in the rural setting and in the urban areas. The reduction of inequality must be seen as an important means of reducing poverty alongside economic growth. Such growth must be shared and/or redistributed, rather than accruing to a specific group. In addition the authors point out that society needs to deliver its part of the social pact:

• businesses must invest and create jobs in the local economy and promote the country as an investment destination in the wider world community
• citizens must monitor and report corrupt and unproductive civil servants, public representatives and government officials
• citizens must acquire the necessary skills needed by the economy to grow so that the country is able to create a skilled human resource pool able to fulfil the employment needs of a growing economy.

(http://www.cps.org.za/cps%20pdf/pia19_6.pdf)