ETD Collection

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Subject: search.filters.subject.Public works--South Africa

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Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
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    Assessing the role of the expanded public works programme national youth service in promoting youth employment
    (2018) Nkuna, Lindiwe
    Youth unemployment and skill shortages poses major challenges to the socio-economic status of South Africa. Making it worse is the fact that the South African youth unemployment landscape is complex and multi-faceted. As such, the country is grappling with a challenge of how to implement employment creation and skills development initiatives that will respond to this multifaceted challenge. This is not withstanding the fact that government is implementing interventions like the Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP) National Youth Services (NYS) programme aimed strengthening youth participation in service delivery and the built environment, whilst helping the youth to gain the work-related skills necessary to access opportunities for a sustainable livelihood (Department of Public Works, 2017). Despite government interventions to address the challenge of unemployment, the majority of young people are concerned that government is not doing enough to create jobs for them. Moreover, anecdotal evidence also suggest these programmes are less attractive to the younger age cohort because they are not well tailored for young people and fail to address their aspirations. While the EPWP has been implemented for years now and there is monitoring of the number of work opportunities created, there is no evidence to confirm the extent to which this programme contribute to youth employment. This paper then proposes to assess the role of the EPWP NYS in promoting youth employment. This paper proceeds by reviewing the literature on the public works programmes in order to get an understanding of the nature of the problem. Secondly, this research establishes frameworks that can interpret the empirical findings on the role of the EPWP NYS in promoting youth employment. Thirdly, based on the literature reviewed a conceptual framework for this study is developed. Fourthly, from data collected, the research analysed the role of the EPWP NYS in promoting youth employment. Lastly, this research has applied the established theoretical frameworks such as the theory of change and capabilities approach framework to interpret the empirical results with conclusions and recommendations for future research made.
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    Protecting and promoting livelihoods of the excluded through the community work programme: a comparative case study of Munsieville and Bekkersdal
    (2018) Masondo, Themba
    The idea of the government acting as an Employer of Last Resort (ELR), commonly known as ‘public works’, has become a prominent feature of the ‘impulse for social protection’ in the global South. The dissertation focuses on a long-term ELR programme in South Africa called the Community Work Programme (CWP) – a distinctively and innovatively designed component of the orthodox Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP). Based on field research involving the triangulation of a survey questionnaire, in-depth semi-structured interviews, focus groups, and ethnographic non-participant observation – this study adopts the comparative case study approach, imbued in the extended case method, to investigate the CWP’s potentialities in protecting and promoting livelihoods of the excluded in Munsieville and Bekkersdal—located in the West Rand region of the Gauteng Province, South Africa The central question posed in this dissertation is whether the CWP has other transformative potentialities beyond its ameliorative role. The dissertation advances three connected arguments. First, the dissertation argues that in addition to protecting livelihoods, the CWP possesses transformative potential in fostering development from below. The CWP participants in Munsieville tended to possess greater autonomous capabilities in adapting the CWP to respond to a myriad of local social challenges. Secondly, the dissertation argues that the mainstream theoretical approaches to livelihood promotion through the ELR tend to ignore cooperative development as a potential vector for promoting livelihoods of the excluded. In this respect, the dissertation presents the case of three nascent CWP-linked cooperatives in Munsieville to illustrate this argument. Lastly, the dissertation argues that the operationalisation of the Organisation Workshop (OW) methodology in Munsieville helps clarify the significant variance in the outcomes of the CWP in the two townships. Key words: community work programme, employer of last resort, organisation workshop, protecting livelihoods and promoting livelihoods.
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    The implementation of the Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP) in Gauteng
    (2016) Mashabela, Boy Johannes
    The high rate of unemployment and poverty in South Africa remains a daunting challenge, which continues to impact on the lives of millions of people who have limited education and lack skills, particularly those in the marginalised and rural communities who have no access to income generation. Gauteng Province due to in-migration is no exception to these challenges. In an effort to address these challenges the government has adopted the EPWP programme, which is a nationwide government-led initiative, with the aim of reducing unemployment by ensuring that the unskilled gain skills so that they are able to gain access to labour market and consequently earn an income (EPWP Five-year report, 2004/5-2008/9). The five-year report states that the programme set the target of achieving approximately one (1) million temporary work opportunities, for people, of whom 40% will be women, 30% youth and 2% will constitute of people with disabilities. This programme hoped to mitigate some of the social exclusion that the society is faced with and contribute to poverty alleviation, through the creation of short-and medium-term jobs for the unskilled and unemployed. Phase 1 EPWP programme has not yielded the significant results it was intended to, particularly the reduction of unemployment, which has remained high. It should be noted that this programme created a great many expectations, in so far as it relates to maximising the spread and skilling of all intended beneficiaries, needed to gain access into the mainstream economy. The five-year report (2004/5-2008/9) identifies four sectors which are critical or have potential for creating employment opportunities within the context of the EPWP. These are described as follows: ii  The infrastructure sector, which focuses on increasing labour intensity for government-funded infrastructure projects;  Environment, which relates to public environmental improvement programmes  The social sector, which relates to public social programmes such as community-based care programmes; and  The non-state sector, which provides and creates work opportunities through collaboration with non-state organisations, as well as strengthening community participation through small enterprise learnership and incubation programmes
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    Implementation and outcomes of the Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP) in Mabopane
    (2017) Mogagabe, Caroline
    22 years into the democracy, South Africa is still struggling with unemployment. Issues such as poor education outcomes, high disease burden, uneven public service performance, corruption and others have been listed amongst issues the country is facing however; poverty and inequality have been identified as the two main challenges facing the country (The National planning commission, 2012). This research attempted to understand unemployment and how the EPWP addresses the unemployment issues at a local level. The EPWP intends to provide temporary employment and provide training to its beneficiaries through skills programmes, learnership and artisan development. The skills and training provided intend to enhance the beneficiaries’ chances of being employable on other projects after exiting the EPWP (EPWP, 2016) Between 1994 and 2014 white labour force has increased with 9 percent, Indian/Asian labour force increased with 45 percent, 5 percent increase of coloured work force and a 95 percent hike of black African labour force (Stats SA, 2014). According to the National planning commission (2012) South Africa has made a remarkable transition from apartheid into democracy. The high growth experienced by the black African ethnic group has been attributed to the number of interventions implemented by the government to eradicate inequality such as Affirmative Action Act (AA). From the stats provided, one is able to deduce that the government has been able to make progress in terms of decreasing inequality and therefore needs to develop employment creation strategies to address unemployment. The literature review conducted in this study indicates a link between unemployment, economic growth, apartheid and skills development. Apartheid has not been pursued as an attribute as strategies to overcome it have become pre-eminent. This research utilised the qualitative strategy and cross-sectional research design. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with interview schedule as a guiding tool for basic questions, the researcher asked further questions when required to do so.