ROUNDTABLE KICKS OFF ON INITIATIVES TO MOVE YOUTH SOCIAL RELIEF OF DISTRESS RECIPIENTS FROM DEPENDENCY TO ECONOMIC SELF-SUFFICIENCY

By Lesego Ranchu

• The National Development Agency is working closely with experts to help social relief of distress recipients become economically self-sufficient.
• According to Statistics South Africa, 3.5 million youth are not employed nor in training.
• An acceleration plan proposes interventions to maximise the impact of the R1.3-trillion social wage with a holistic integrated approach to poverty alleviation.

Poverty is at an all-time high with unemployment, low education levels and a sluggish economy playing a key role in creating this scenario.

It is against this backdrop that the National Development Agency has set up a roundtable initiative bringing development sector experts together to assist the agency in crystallising an initiative aimed at moving social relief of distress recipients from being beneficiaries to finding economic opportunities.

The engagement, under the theme “Targeting social grants recipients for poverty eradication initiatives”, kicked off in Rosebank, Johannesburg, on 6 March 2025.

The experts provided an in-depth understanding of the landscape.

Deputy Director General at Statistics South Africa (StatsSA), Ashwell Jenecker, indicated that South Africa’s population sits at 63 million people.

Poverty levels are at an all-time high with key drivers being unemployment, low education levels and a slow growth of the economy.

“Of grave concern is the youth population affected by these drivers, especially the 3.5 million youth not in employment and not in training,” Jenecker noted.

“We need to find solutions for this sector, and when they are occupied, we may see a change in numbers and this outlook”.

An acceleration plan on anti-poverty

Deputy Director General of Women’s Economic Empowerment and Poverty Eradication in the Presidency, Namhla Mniki, presented the acceleration plan on the country’s Anti-Poverty Strategy, which aims to deliver a “No Poverty Guarantee” promise.

The triple challenges of poverty, unemployment and inequality cause vulnerabilities in the country, particularly among the youth population, and if they remain where they are, they are likely to stay below poverty lines for most of their lives.

The South Africa Social Security Agency (SASSA) provides a cushion to this.

“Having mapped the overall government spend of R1.3-trillion on poverty interventions, we have identified three reasons why it has not yielded desired outcomes: the small scale interventions by government; extreme fragmentation resulting in the duplication of efforts; and the need to focus on inputs to results and impact,” Mniki said.

Therefore, the acceleration plan proposes interventions to maximise the impact of the R1.3-trillion social wage with a holistic integrated approach to poverty alleviation.

Mniki identified key areas:  social protection and service delivery; housing and settlement; food security and the cost of living and livelihoods; and informal sector.

“The informal sector is the entry point to poverty eradication due its unacclaimed power to improve livelihoods significantly,” Mniki said.

Figures show that South Africa continues to grapple with high unemployment rates, particularly among the youth. According to the StatsSA Labour Force Survey for the third quarter of 2024, released in November, the youth unemployment rate decreased from 46,6% in the second quarter of 2024 to 45,5% in the third quarter of 2024.

To mitigate extreme poverty, the government introduced the Social Relief of Distress, a temporary financial relief mechanism currently set at R370 per month.

However, this amount falls significantly short of the Food Poverty Line defined by StatsSA as R796, making it insufficient to meet basic nutritional needs.

Opening up economic opportunities

Studies indicate that social grants alone are insufficient in enabling long-term economic mobility as recipients continue to face challenges such as skills and educational deficiencies, barriers to entrepreneurship, as well as economic exclusion, a lack of developmental opportunities and inequality.

The National Development Agency, which has been given the mandate to contribute towards the eradication of poverty, is hosting the multi-stakeholder roundtable engagement to seek inputs from other strategic partners.

Panel discussions include representatives from the Presidency, SASSA, the United Nations’ Development Programme, the Young African Entrepreneurs Institute and the Small Business Enterprise Development and Finance Agency. 

Through this event and others to follow, the National Development Agency needs to profile social relief of distress R370 recipients. The agency will examine where they live across the country, their skill levels, the entrepreneurial opportunities available, and the programmes in place to upskill those who need new skills.

Once this has been done, they will be linked to economic opportunities. There will be a pool of strategic partners to assist with entrepreneurship opportunities and an alignment with other initiatives around grants beneficiaries.

The event is an inclusive initiative that will consider other endeavours already happening around this area of work.

“This engagement will culminate in the adoption of a declaration by the multi-stakeholders to collaborate to ensure the successful execution of this vision that will link social relief of distress recipients to sustainable livelihoods,” said the Acting Chief Executive Officer of the National Development Agency Thabani Buthelezi.