By Mandisa Tselane

Interview with Mr Frank Meintjies:  Expert in Public Private partnerships

In August of this year KT undertook a study to determine how disadvantaged communities had coped with the COVID-19 lockdown and restrictions. The findings of this study will form the basis of and inform future policy development and strategies for both government, civic and community initiatives with a view to assist in strengthening community resilience into the future.

Frank Meintjies, who has worked extensively in the field of public, private and non-profit sectors, was called in by Kagiso Trust to consult on this study.  Mandisa Tselane spoke to Meintjies recently to discuss what he saw as the key outtakes of this study and potentials for the way forward.

MT: How do you define the concept of resilience within the context of a community?

FM: This concept comes to us from the area of psychology and has now come into the world of organisations and community. It’s the ability to bounce back in the face of obstacles and setbacks, a form of elasticity. It’s about using the learnings from these experiences to help shape the way forward. It’s important in a developing society, which never has enough resources to meet the needs of everybody. These are basic needs such as food, water, shelter, but also the next tier of needs like health and education.

The State ought to mobilize those resources in a substantial way, however, we do need complimentary participation from the communities. Governments response through the lockdown was uneven and patchy and in fact there were large areas and districts that did not receive any Government assistance at all. This meant that communities had to turn to community-based organisations and NGOs. KT, for example, is active in all of the districts included in this study contributing things like food, sanitary and PPE items and equipment.

MT: What do you feel to be the main outtakes of the study?

FM: It was NGOs, private companies, community organisations and individuals who were most involved in addressing the various needs of the communities. We reached out to about 190 small groups and individuals in the course of this survey and found out that they had assisted their communities through a combination of pooling financial contributions in groups or through individual financial contributions. This was a significant finding for us.

In development, one has to proceed on the understanding that no-one has nothing. There are always assets, even in under-resourced communities. Part of work in development is getting everyone to identify these assets and organise and pool them together. Of course, those assets and resources can be exhausted.

Another important take-out is the linkages that were made between affluent communities and disadvantaged communities. If you take the CAMs (Community Actions Networks), they started off collecting cans of food donated by people from supermarkets and distributing them to disadvantaged communities. These networks grew to included faith-based organisations and NGOs. What was encouraging and noteworthy was that when people in more affluent communities became aware of the plight of disadvantaged communities and were able to plug into the efforts of the CAMs, it became a significant source of aid. We need to build on this mechanism going forward.

An important factor not often understood is that South Africa has more than enough resources to assist disadvantaged communities. It is just that either the will or infrastructure is lacking to direct resources to where they are needed. A simple example of this being where supermarkets, instead of dumping their past sell-by date food, which is for the most part is perfectly good for consumption, channelled it to various agencies who then distributed it to needy communities.

There is a lack of information and data on where help is needed most, what is needed and what mechanisms or networks are available to source and distribute it.

One of the positive developments and learnings during this time was that doners allowed grantees a greater amount of flexibility in how they allocated or dispersed grants and donations. This meant that grantees could effectively respond to changing needs on the ground – this is a development which will undoubtably assist development efforts going forward.

Another insight is the need for a percentage of doner funds to be spent on putting in place the structures and infrastructure necessary to ensure that future efforts don’t have to overcome the same hurdles again and again. It’s development strategy and planning with a view to the future that needs to happen rather than just dealing with the immediate short-term solutions.

We asked NGOs how the learnings from the COVID-19 lockdown would become a part of their ongoing operations. Their response was that:

1. They’re going to be more present in communities. They will become more involved on the ground, rather than sitting in head offices in town.
2. That they will network more on all levels, including coming together in forums or workshops.

MT: What are some of the biggest concerns within these communities?

FM: Unsurprisingly, one of the most important concerns is food security going forward.

The second major concern is the issue of youth entrepreneurship opportunities, or rather lack thereof. There is a need to implement entrepreneurship development programmes at a community level. This problem will only be exacerbated with a large number of youths coming onto the job market as a result of the COVID-19 school interruption.

Probably the biggest concern though is that of education. Education will probably not return in the format that it was prior to COVID-19. It is looking pretty clear that going forward education will take the form of a hybrid between in class lessons and online tuition. This raises issues of how NGOs or CBOs might be able to assist parents with home schooling and infrastructure issues such as computers/tablets/smartphones and data? There are two other issues being tabled by NGOs: free data and a basic income grant. But these are for another discussion.

MT: What are your final thoughts?

FM: I’d like to talk to two points; Social Capital and Social Compact. These are two fundamental issues that underpin all development work in disadvantaged communities in SA.

Social Capital is the idea of a community’s resilience, kinship and networking ability in rural areas. This way of working together for the community’s benefit in rural structures is still in place today. It operates even when a community member has moved out of the community to work in the city, for example. He/she still considers themselves to be a part of the community and remains committed to its well-being. This dynamic needs to be not only maintained but used positively for development initiatives.

Then there’s the Social Compact which speaks to the way government and the people relate to one another. Currently this relationship is fragmented and frayed, and it needs to be restored.  If we look at the early days of COVID-19 after the Presidents announcement, there was a good deal coming and working together. However, a few months later this positive attitude and degenerated into protesting and a lack of faith in Government’s integrity and efforts.

So, we need to build on community Social Capital and repair the damaged Social Compact.

This study has shown clearly that it is the CBOs and NGOs that have got communities through the challenges of COVID-19 and all indications point to them remaining as the mainstay of future community resilience.