Capacity-building, Communications and Research

CAPACITY-BUILDING

Efforts to develop the capacity of constituencies to effectively engage in the Nedlacprocess continue and are of critical importance to Nedlac. Funds in the Nedlac budget areset aside for constituency support, and additional funding has been secured from donors,bringing the total amount of funds leveraged for capacity-building to more than R5 millionin the past three years.

Most of these funds are managed directly by Nedlac itself: R1,85 million has come fromNedlac's capacity fund, and R2 681 000 from the Solidarity Centre (formerly theAfrican-American Labour Centre) for trade union education on the Labour Relations Act.

Money has also been allocated to capacity-building activities by the WorkplaceChallenge project and the JGF.

The Nedlac capacity fund has been used to build the administrative capacity of theparties, including financial support for staff and other resources. While such support isessential for constituencies, developing the technical skills of participants is of equalimportance. In view of this, future capacity-building activities that are being plannedinclude a macroeconomics course as well as training to develop facilitation andnegotiation skills. Specific programmes to build capacity in the Trade and Industry andPublic Finance and Monetary Policy chambers are also being developed.

Labour

The labour constituency received R320 000 from the Nedlac capacity fund in 1997. Themoney has been used to fund a national labour secretariat to coordinate the participationof Cosatu, Fedusa and Nactu in Nedlac.

Small business

Nafcoc and Fabcos have received R160 000 in financial support for administrativeinfrastructure in 1997.

Community

The community constituency has appointed an administrator to manage its participationin Nedlac using funds from Nedlac. R320 000 in constituency support was made available tothe community constituency in 1997.

Support has been given to an initiative that culminated in the launch of the SAYC inAugust 1997. The SAYC is provided with office space on Nedlac's premises.

A process has been initiated by the NRDF to broaden the scope of the rural sector'srepresentation in Nedlac. Logistical support was lent to two workshops in 1997, attendedby various national rural organisations, to consider the establishment of a nationalcoordinating structure.

Logistical support was also provided to a women's summit convened in February 1998 bythe WNC under the auspices of the Masakhane campaign.

Such support is provided only upon request from a constituency and if the resources areavailable to assist.

The Labour Relations Act education project

This project, which commenced in 1996 and continued in 1997, was administered byNedlac, with each trade union federation responsible for designing and running its ownprogramme after receiving money from Nedlac.

In total, approximately 20 000 workers received training on the Labour Relations Actbecause of the project, and many more were reached through the various videos, trainingmanuals and other materials produced.

In 1997, further training sessions for shop stewards, organisers and officials wereheld in each of the provinces. Train-the-trainer workshops were again used to equip seniorunion members to facilitate the training of members at local level.

Funds were also made available in 1997 to Ditsela, a trade union education and traininginstitution, for Labour Relations Act education projects.

LRA training in 1997

COMMUNICATIONS

Nedlac needs to communicate with its delegates, member constituencies and the media.The demand for information continues to increase from all quarters.

Communications tools already in place have been strengthened and, where needed, newones have been introduced.

The database of contacts that was set up in 1996 has continued to grow in size and nowcontains 7 000 entries.

The Nedlac homepage on the World-wide Web of the Internet (www.nedlac.org.za) has grownin importance as a communications tool in 1997, with an average of 11 000 hits per month.

The South African Labour Bulletin's regular two-monthly "Focus on Nedlac"gives details on progress with Nedlac issues, and examines the different stances of theNedlac parties to an issue.

Nedlac News Update, a monthly newsletter, provides brief reports on the latestdevelopments on key issues and on other Nedlac activities and events.

A new publication, Dialogue, was introduced in 1997. This quarterly publicationprovides more in-depth coverage of issues discussed in the Executive Council. Dialogueaims at giving readers more insight into the debates about issues on the Nedlac agenda.

Throughout the year regular news releases to the media are issued. A special supplementon Nedlac appeared in Business Report in July 1997.

RESEARCH

Nedlac's research activities fall into two categories : research projects, which arein-depth studies aimed at providing new insight into or knowledge of an issue; andbriefing papers, which are aimed at providing an overview of a topic and summarisingexisting research on an issue.

A social and economic overview is published annually and provides an integratedoverview of socio-economic trends that can be easily accessed by policy-makers whoparticipate in discussions at Nedlac, as well as by rank-and-file members of the Nedlacconstituencies. The 1997-98 report includes an overview of other participative structuresin South Africa that contribute to building a culture of participation in economic andsocial decision-making. Also included in this report is a comparison of South Africa withother middle-income countries on a range of indicators related to employment, growth andequity.

A number of research projects were completed in the 12 months under review:

Research projects completed:

• JGF cluster studies on footwear, ceramics and electronics.
• JGF study on benchmarking for labour-intensive development.
• Investment in social and economic infrastructure: a quantification of government spending on various forms of infrastructure.
• State of delivery in primary health care.
• State of delivery in primary and secondary education.

Briefing papers completed:

• International experience of the period of appointment of Labour Court judges (Labour Market Chamber).
• International debate on labour standards and trade agreements (Trade and Industry Chamber).
• An overview of proposed changes to South Africa's water laws (Development Chamber).
• Status report on housing delivery (Executive Council).
• Employment levels by sector and by skill level (jobs summit technical committee).
• Assistance was provided to parties in the clothing industry to embark on a project to study wage differentials in the industry.

Workshops were held to examine research on the following topics:

• The implications of South African trade reform for employment, using macroeconomic and sectoral experiences.
• Local economic development in areas experiencing large retrenchments.

Research projects are currently underway on strategies for raising the rate ofhousehold savings in South Africa and on a survey of infrastructure delivery.

Jubilation at the election of the first president of the SAYC in August 1997. Nedlacsupported the process of reconstituting the youth constituency in Nedlac, which culminatedin the launch of the SAYC.