Oxfam's work in South Africa in depth

Oxfam’s work in South Africa began in 1956 with a grant of ₤250 allocated to feed poor children in the country. These feeding programmes continued throughout the 1960s, with more than ₤90,000 allocated to various agencies involved in a number of feeding projects. The programme gradually expanded as a network of contacts was established, mainly with church representatives, and included a range of development activities in townships and rural areas.

Today, Oxfam's focus is on gender justice, rights in crisis, essential services, economic justice and climate change. Our approach is to strengthen and support South African civil society through advocacy and campaigning.

The context

South Africa is a country of vast contrasts, with the second most unequal distribution of income in the world. World-class health-care systems cater for only 16% of the population, while the majority of people have to rely on an under-funded, under-resourced and inefficient state health-care system. The education system is failing learners, with less than 50% of students passing their final year in school. The country is experiencing an influx of refugees (estimated at 5 million people or about 10% of the national population), mainly from other African countries. These illegal immigrants hope to eke out a living in the economic engine of Africa, only to be shunned by society and ignored by state institutions, leading to violent xenophobic attacks.

While the economy might be growing, one in every four people in the country is HIV-positive, and gender-based violence cripples the social fabric of the society. Although South Africa is classified as a middle-income country, more than 47% of its population live below the poverty line. Most people of this Rainbow Nation are excluded from reaping the benefits of a land endowed with vast natural resources, world-class legislation, and a democracy that should be protecting the poor and vulnerable.

How Oxfam is helping

Oxfam works with partners and allies to campaign and advocate for the rights of the poor and marginalised to be recognised and enforced.

We work very closely with South African civil society organisations, supporting them in making their voices heard. It is key for Oxfam to allow local civil society to drive the agenda, identifying the important issues and how change needs to happen.

Oxfam also provides financial support to a number of partner organisations in the country. These organisations work with communities and groups to: secure the rights of immigrants; achieve equitable health care for all South Africans; promote dignity and support for those infected and affected by HIV and Aids; ensure equality for all men and women; and improve the ability of the poor to contribute to the growing economy and reap the benefits.

Oxfam's work is delivered through four main programmes:

Gender Justice

The Gender Justice programme in South Africa focuses on two areas: gender-based violence; and women’s political and economic leadership. The programme has a special focus on women’s rights and aims to ensure that women are at the centre of all Oxfam programming.

• Gender-based violence: The programme supports civil society work that focuses on providing health services and support to victims of gender-based violence, engages with the criminal justice system, and uses information-based strategies to improve rates of reporting. In addition, Oxfam supports civil society work in implementing strategies that address deeply rooted and culturally ingrained beliefs about violence against women, so as to provide opportunities for long-term sustainable change at individual, institutional and societal levels.
• Women’s political and economic leadership: The aim is to ensure that women are able to exercise critical leadership in processes, issues and structures that further their needs and interests, and address unequal power relations between women and men. This work focuses on ensuring that women have the urgency and ability to access and exercise the rights available to them.

Rights in Crisis

The Rights in Crisis programme focuses on South Africa’s role in conflict prevention and humanitarian relief in the country and elsewhere in Africa. It includes Oxfam meeting emergency humanitarian needs when duty bearers are failing to respond.

A core strategy is to help build the capacity of organisations and strengthen the voice of the most vulnerable, particularly people living with HIV. 

Oxfam GB works with other Oxfam affiliates and offices in the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) and on the continent to influence South Africa to play a more effective role in dealing with the movement of people across borders. Oxfam, together with its partner CORMSA (the Consortium for Refugees and Migrants in South Africa), is lobbying the government to deal internally with the human security issues of migrants and refugees and to act as a key regional player, engaging with SADC and the African Union.

To maximise its effectiveness, Oxfam will explore the possibility of linking its work around human security issues with other Oxfam regional and international advocacy and campaign initiatives.

We are working closely with CORMSA to develop a long-term strategy to improve security for non-nationals living in South Africa. This includes a communications and media strategy as well as a rights awareness programme for non-nationals.

We are also working with partners to explore opportunities to campaign and lobby the South African government on its wider role in peace and security issues in Africa and beyond - including its role in global and continental peacekeeping processes, particularly in Zimbabwe, the DRC, Sudan, and other countries where there is conflict or crisis, as well as at the African Union and United Nations levels.

Essential Services

Oxfam’s Essential Services programme in South Africa aims to ensure that people living in poverty, particularly marginalised groups and women, are able to realise their rights to essential services and live dignified lives. The programme highlights government delivery of essential services as key to South Africa’s achievement of the Millennium Development Goals, and engages policy makers and political leaders to implement their development commitments in line with the country’s Poverty Reduction Strategy.

The programme focuses on promoting universal access to efficient public health services that are responsive to South Africa’s high disease burden, particularly HIV and AIDS, and rising maternal and child mortality rates. It works in partnership with a broad range of civil society actors to develop national health campaigns and advocacy initiatives that empower active citizens to demand their constitutional right to health and to participate in democratic health policy making.

The programme also links grassroots health-based programming and advocacy by South African partner NGOs and social movements to Pan-African and global campaigns, including Oxfam’s Health and Education For All campaign and its Fair Play for Africa campaign, to urge governments to reach their health Millennium Development Goal targets by 2015, and to allocate an increased proportion of their national budgets to health-care provision so that health for all becomes a reality.

Economic Justice

The Economic Justice programme aims to ensure that resource-poor people are able to access the necessary resources to make a positive contribution to their own lives and break the chains of poverty that marginalisation from the economy has shackled them with. The Oxfam Economic Justice programme works closely with local NGOs and civil society organisations to identify the key economic barriers and collectively engage with government and the private sector to determine what can be done to overcome these issues. The programme looks at two main areas to ensure that resource-poor people can access and benefit from the growing South African economy.

• Land and water: This focal area promotes the rights of women and men to gain access to the necessary support to make an economic success of their land, and examines the impact of large-scale government initiatives on the ability of resource-poor people to access land and water.
• Access to markets: What are the barriers that prevent small-scale producers from accessing markets in a meaningful manner? South Africa has so many good laws and policies aimed at helping small-scale producers, yet little progress has been made to improve the conditions within which these people operate. Another area of interest is the role the South African retail sector plays in providing access to markets for small-scale producers, both within South Africa, and in other African countries where South African retailers operate.

A sub-programme under Economic Justice is Oxfam’s work on Climate Change. Although there are many different views on the causes of climate change, almost everyone agrees that it is happening. In Oxfam, we believe that those who will be affected the most by climate change are resource-poor and small-scale producers who depend heavily on the weather for the production of food.

The Climate Change programme in South Africa focuses on the ability of these vulnerable people to adapt to a changing world. We work with NGOs and community-based organisations to determine the potential impact of climate change on their livelihoods, and what they are already doing to try to cope with these stresses.
With our partners we engage with policy makers to raise awareness that tackling climate change is not only about a reduction in greenhouse gases, but is vital in helping to overcome poverty.

 

Last updated: January 2011