Abstract
South Africa adopted a developmental approach to social welfare in line with the United Nations World Declaration on Social Development in 1995 (United
Nations 1996). This African experiment with developmental social welfare is an ambitious one given the country’s complex social, cultural, economic
and political history, which has shaped the character of the welfare system.
The welfare model inherited from the past was inequitable, discriminatory and relied on inappropriate and unsustainable methods of service delivery. It was ineffective in addressing mass poverty and in meeting the basic needs of the majority of the population (Patel, 2005). Social policy was modelled on Western European institutional or ‘welfare state’ policies for whites and a residual system for Blacks.
A new national social welfare consensus was forged in the mid-1990s and the social development perspective to social welfare was adopted and
implemented. The new policies brought together the positive strands of social welfare theory and practice locally and globally which were integrated
with country specific conditions to produce a South African policy that is unique. The White Paper for Social Welfare set the developmental welfare policy
framework and informed the redesign of the system (Department of Welfare and Population Development, 1997). Since the adoption and implementation of the new welfare paradigm, significant changes have been noted in the policy and legislative domain (Patel and Selipsky, forthcoming), in the ending of racial discrimination in access to services and benefits, and in the creation of an integrated social welfare
system. Two key programmes, namely social security and welfare services, are mandated by the policy. The social grants system has been widely acclaimed
as the country’s most effective poverty reduction programme in comparison with slower progress in the transformation of welfare services from a
remedial and social treatment approach to a developmental one.
Despite these positive developments, institutional challenges in the administration of social development continue to hamper effective service delivery.
The gap between policy goals and aspirations and the actual achievement of tangible changes in the quality of the lives of the majority of South Africans
remains a significant challenge. Rising unemployment, food prices and poverty coupled with the escalation of the HIV/AIDS pandemic and increasing
levels of violence, crime and xenophobia place additional demands on welfare organisations to deliver services. The human development situation of
the population as a whole is also impacted by the global economic and national down turn in the economy and by how current political changes in the
society are managed.