Planning Minister Trevor Manuel says the state has failed the poor.
Manuel spoke last night at the launch of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL Africa) in the SA Labour and Development Research Unit at UCT.
J-PAL Africa is part of a global network of economists who specialise in impact evaluations and work with policymakers to make social programmes more effective.
Manuel said that, in some cases, delivery of services to the poor was completely dysfunctional. School performance in poor areas remained abysmal despite education receiving 6 percent of the gross domestic product. It was found that at two schools fewer than half of Grade 6 maths teachers passed a Grade 6 maths test they were given, he said.
Causes of dysfunctional services to the poor included poor oversight in cases where state services were outsourced, and a lack of community interaction in labour intensive sectors such as health and education, Manuel said.
“Delivering quality public services to poor communities is one of our greatest challenges. It goes to the heart of a real poverty reduction strategy that looks beyond simple cash grants. We take these issues seriously because our view of poverty reduction is broad.
“We do not have all the answers as to why we suffer from these problems and neither do we know enough about what works and why it works. If we fail to change the quality of services delivered to the poor, we reduce the state to an ATM, only capable of handing out cash.
“We stand little chance of building capabilities or truly empowering people to take advantage of economic opportunities. Such a prospect would see poverty persist,” he said.
Manuel said research and innovation were essential and he looked forward to J-PAL Africa’s work.
At a one-day conference today, organised by J-PAL Africa, international researchers and development practitioners will report and discuss findings on several social problems in Africa.
In an evaluation, it found that mass deworming of school children offered a cheap answer to the problem of children who missed school because they were constantly sick with intestinal infections.
Since 2009 about seven million people had benefited. - Cape Times