Greater Good South Africa

Children’s Act services: research by the Community Agency for Social Enquiry and the Children's Institute points to the need to grow funding pool to ensure child care and protection services reach all vulnerable children.

The new research, completed by the Community Agency for Social Enquiry in collaboration with the Children's Institute at the University of Cape Town, shows that government and Official Development Assistance donors (foreign governments) are the main funders of the services required by the Children’s Act. Other international and South African donors (philanthropic and corporate) also make a smaller but vital funding contribution.

Not enough
However, the combined funding from government and all the donors does not come close to what is needed to deliver child care and protection services to  all children in need.. Both the government and donor pools of funding therefore need to grow in the coming years if we are to realise children’s rights to care, development and protection. With the evidence showing that some of the larger bi-lateral donors (foreign governments) may with withdrawing their financial support in the medium term, there is a need for South African government, and corporate and philanthropic donors to increase their funding of child care and protection services.

> Get a summary of the research

> Download the full research report

The way forward
Leaders from government, civil society and donors recently met at a conference at National Treasury in Pretoria to discuss the research findings and to strategise on how to increase the funding to implement the Act. A number of areas for collaboration were identified including:

• Drawing attention to the critical importance of child care and protection services (together with health and education) to achieving South Africa’s key development goals and  working together to ensure that child care and protection services become a national strategic priority.
• Ensuring that the draft National Policy on Financing of NPOs takes full cognisance of government’s obligations under the Children’s Act to provide and fund a comprehensive range of social services for children, and that it is finalized in consultation with NPOs.
• Establishing a forum for donors where government and civil society can keep donors informed of priorities with regards to Children’s Act funding, and to enable better monitoring and reporting on trends in donor funding.
• Holding a priority setting and budget workshop for the National Child Care and Protection Forum towards developing a consolidated national and provincial budget bid for increased Children’s Act funding.

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Key partners who have steered and supported the research and/or the conference include the South African National Treasury, the Department of Social Development, United States Agency for International Development, United Nations Children’s Fund South Africa and LINC.

Article supplied by The Children's Institute at the University of Cape Town.