|
|
|
Background
At the dawn of democracy in 1994, the South African government was faced with a national crisis of unemployment and scourge of poverty, particularly in the rural communities. The situation persisted until government decided to come up with ground-breaking measures to address the legacies of the past that posed instability to the newly found democracy.
In 2000 the National Development Agency (NDA) was established through the NDA Act 108 of 1998 with the mandate to eradicate poverty and its causes.
Since its inception, the Agency has granted funds to more than 2500 social development projects, including emerging farmers, early childhood development, to cross-cutting projects, like health and HIV/AIDS. To keep pace with the enormous needs of the South African society, the Agency adopted a two-way approach, i.e. reactive and proactive. The reactive approach was applied to address the backlog inherited from its predecessor, the Transitional National Development Trust (TNDT). The proactive approach (currently in use) on the other hand, involves identification of poverty-pockets, working with communities to identify projects and in turning these projects into integrated, sustainable programmes and then inviting other development players for infrastructural support.
|
|
|
