This policy review has been undertaken as part of a broader project conducted by the Studies
in Poverty and Inequality Institute (SPII). The objectives of the larger project are to develop
a monitoring tool to measure and evaluate the progressive realisation of socio-economic
rights (SERs) in South Africa. Integral to this monitoring tool is an analysis of policy which
corresponds to specific SERs. In particular, this project has undertaken baseline policy
studies for each of the SERs to investigate how the policy making process is aligned with the
jurisprudential guidance handed down by the Constitutional Court. It is envisioned that such a
monitoring tool will be a useful instrument for policy makers, for those that exercise oversight
over the executive, including Parliament and Chapter Nine institutions (notably the South
African Human Rights Commission), and civil society.
This paper conducts an in-depth analysis of the policy developments for social security before
and after 1994. This analysis enables an assessment to be made on how far the constitutional
obligation to progressively realise the right to social security and social assistance for those
who can’t provide for themselves has been realised, and the extent to which this obligation
has in fact driven the policy making process.
The paper begins with an analysis of the meaning of the universal right to access social
security as a justiciable socio-economic right contained in the Constitution of South Africa,
including the implications of the internal limitation of the universal right that makes access
subject to progressive realisation within the state’s available resources.
Next, the paper examines the extent and impact of poverty and inequality within South Africa,
locating these phenomena within the context of an extremely high unemployment rate. The
issue of exclusion from the labour market has a direct bearing on the subsequent section
that examines the history of social security policy in South Africa - a policy built around the
assumption of full employment for white males. Prior to 1994 policies emerged that were
constructed to address the needs of cyclical short term, rather than structural and long term,
unemployment or lack of access to wage income. The paper argues that despite the adoption
of the Constitution in 1996, the same broad social security architecture is still in place today,
despite the inclusion of millions of black Africans into the system.
Consequently, the paper then considers some of the guiding policy deliberations and how
they pertain to the development of social security policy since 1994. This includes the
Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP), the Lund Committee Report, the
Welfare White Paper, Growth, Employment & Redistribution (GEAR) program, and the Taylor
Committee report in order to identify to what extent the constitutional imperative of universal
access can be seen to have guided the policy making process. The conclusion of this section
suggests that whilst the language of policy makers and legislation changes to reflect the
terminology of ‘progressive realisation’, the logical result of ‘universal access’ is not reflected.
Thus, in a way, progressive realisation becomes a justification for continued targeting and
exclusions.