[South Africa] Govt, Religious Community Partner to Fight Poverty And Immorality

from All Africa

Government and the religious community are to roll out "practical and comprehensive" programmes targeted at reducing poverty and anti-social behaviour in the country.

Chairperson of the South African National Religious Leaders Forum (SANRLF) Ashwin Trikamjee was addressing the media here today, following the Religious Working Group meeting at the Union Buildings.

The working group met President Thabo Mbeki to give feedback regarding the implementation of a memorandum of understanding government and the religious leaders signed in May last year.

Mr Trikamjee said meeting had agreed that it was time the partnership started implementing joint programmes to address social problems in the country.

In attendance was also Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, several Cabinet ministers, directors-general from various departments, and members of the SANRLF.

Mr Trikamjee said they had already established a management committee, comprising key government officials and religious representatives, to oversee and monitor progress in the implementation of the projects.

Among the identified priorities were early childhood development, social housing, social cohesion, skills development and community and home-based care.

Mr Trikamjee explained the partnership was imperative in that "it seeks to combine resources of the government and the capacity of the churches for the benefit of poor communities".

In addressing anti-sociality, he said two partners had agreed to merge the government-led Moral Regeneration Movement's programmes with their Moral Bill programmes.

"There was a procedural problem, due to that we were running similar programmes which caused confusion...however that has been clarified, and now the moral regeneration and Moral Bill will work as one," he explained.

According to the progress report presented at today's meeting, the Management Committee will hold a workshop, to establish joint task teams that will be tasked with the implementation of the identified programmes.

The committee has already taken a decision to follow a dual approach in implementing the projects.

It will first consider strengthening existing projects and then explore joint new projects in partnership with other religious networks.

Among other resolutions taken at today's meeting are that SANRLF members should submit proposals on existing projects to the organisation's development arm - the National Religious Association for Social Development (NRASD).

This must be before the end of July to enable speedy implementation, and an audit of these projects must have been completed before the end of this year.

Today's meeting follows a string of strategic meetings between the government and the religious sector since 1997 to date, aiming to find a collaborative way to fight socio-economic ills in the country.

The committee is expected to meet again at the end of the month, to discuss these and other related matters.