ISS TODAY: South Africa set up to fail? Challenging how we think about policy By ISS Today issafrica
As followers and users of social media, it’s hard not to be overwhelmed by the persistent and collective sense of failure in South Africa that is fuelled by, among other things, daily reports of violence.
. Attributing a one-dimensional analysis and a one-dimensional response is insufficient and misguided. Since 1994, we have done this in South Africa in various ways – through study tours to other countries, or researchers recommending best-practice examples to inform its laws and policies, for example. Solutions have been imported without appreciating or understanding the cultural, social, economic and political conditions that enabled the ‘solution’ to work where it did.
But perhaps our biggest failure has been not to question why things have worked in one place or another, and to make sure that the conditions match those in South Africa. By not doing so, we have set ourselves up for failure. Complex systems have been created that camouflage our lack of capability, by creating the illusion that all the requirements of functionality have been met.
that laws and policies were comprehensive but the human and financial resources to make them work was lacking.R80 billion a year on policing, but less than 10% of that on services to violence survivors and programmes to disrupt the cycles of violence. The government and NGO workforce is also so overburdened and affected by trauma and violence themselves that they can’t provide quality care. Weak and inconsistent leadership from government and parliament hasn’t helped.
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