Public Works and Infrastructure Minister Dean Macpherson will tomorrow host the Minister in the Presidency from the United Republic of Tanzania.
The Minister will be accompanied by his delegation on a collaboration engagement focused on South Africa’s largest poverty alleviation programme, the Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP).
“This flagship programme which is currently being enhanced to make more meaningful impact is receiving more recognition on the continent of Africa and globally,” the Department of Public Works and Infrastructure said in a statement.
According to the department, the Tanzanian delegation will include senior government officials, the private sector and academia, which will gather under the theme: “Transformative impact of the EPWP through entrepreneurship and skills development”.
The EPWP was established and mandated by Cabinet to create work opportunities according to the set targets and across all its four sectors, namely infrastructure, non-state, environment and culture and social sectors.
One of the prescripts of the EPWP is to use labour-intensive methods which allow the drawing of a significant number of participants into the programme to do the work.
The EPWP Unit in the department prepared a strategic review of the first phase of the EPWP which was presented to Cabinet in June 2008.
This review was based on extensive evaluations of the first phase of the programme and made a number of key recommendations for the second phase of the programme in order to increase the scale and impact in the second phase.
While the EPWP achieved its target of one million work opportunities one year ahead of time, some constraints were identified that limited its further expansion. – SAnews.gov.za
