from All Africa South Africa is responding to President Mbeki's war on poverty plan. Mbeki announced the effort last weekend. The plan has it's fair share of critics. - Kaleby Amy Musgrave and Karima BrownJohannesburg - CIVIL society and organised labour have cautiously welcomed the government's planned anti poverty campaign, saying it is scant on detail and that they were not consulted.The campaign, announced by President Thabo Mbeki at the weekend, following the cabinet lekgotla, will be headed by Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka and launched next month.Yesterday, lobby groups welcomed the campaign but said it was difficult to ascertain how it was different from existing anti poverty measures.Mbeki told reporters that the campaign would identify deprived wards and households.A...
from AFP via Google After visits to poor areas last week, the president of South Africa announces a new scheme to fight poverty in the country. - KalePRETORIA — South Africa, the continent's economic powerhouse, will next month launch a nationwide campaign against poverty, President Thabo Mbeki said on Sunday."The war on poverty campaign will be launched in all the (nine) provinces during August. The most deprived wards and households have been identified and will be visited ... to identify needs," he said at a media briefing on the outcome of a cabinet meeting last week."A war-room on poverty has also been established," and the campaign is coordinated by the office of the vice president, he said.More than four million South Africans live below the poverty line, according to government...
from ReutersBy Paul SimaoCAPE TOWN (Reuters) - South African President Thabo Mbeki pledged to tackle poverty and crime, speed up land redistribution to blacks and fight AIDS in a speech on Friday that focused on the country's most glaring social ills.Mbeki, halfway through his second and final term as president, acknowledged the government needed to do more to help millions of unemployed, poor and landless South Africans living on the sidelines of the country's fast-growing economy.He outlined programs to spur employment through expanded public works projects, increase subsidized housing for the poor and implement a broad social security system designed mainly to help low-income workers. "All these economic and social programs form part of our strategies to reduce and eradicate the...