Abstract
This article provides a detailed and critically reflective ‘insider’ account of the
origins and development of a Community Work Programme as a public
employment programme intervention. The article explores the significant
potential of such a Community Work Programme to reduce unemployment and
improve socio-economic livelihoods for programme participants, and its
potential to model public/private alignment across sectors that complements
what can be accomplished within the budgetary constraints of the central
government alone. It also describes the challenges of programme
implementation as a social policy intervention, arising in part from the difficulties
of scaling up successful pilots to create a nationwide programme. The article
demonstrates real achievements but also the difficulties of engagement with the
state by non-profit organisations, and the difficulties of forging sustainable
partnerships between communities and government around shared.