NALEDI Policy Bulletin asked Dr Neva Makgetla, head of COSATU’s Policy Unit how she thought NGDS outcomes will promote sector strategies and job creation.

On June 7, 2003, government, business, labour and community, as the NEDLAC constituencies reached agreement which make them responsible for various actions aimed at improving employment opportunities.

Some of the issues they agreed to tackle include paying particular attention to sectors that can have a strong impact on overall employment creation, sustainable livelihoods and communities, equity and economic expansion.

The following are only some of the issues they agreed to:

* Effective strategies require a process that empowers government, business and labour, and where appropriate community, to identify strategic interventions required to achieve sector goals and to develop sector collaboration and partnerships.

* There must be sufficient commitment by all major stakeholders in terms of resources and time, including strong teams and mandating structures. Constituencies may use the Department of Trade and Industry Sector Partnership Fund to support capacity in sector strategies.

* Constituencies in a sector process may jointly use the Fund for Research into Industrial Development Growth and Equity (FRIDGE) funding at Nedlac to ensure that policy proposals and strategies are informed by credible evidence.

NALEDI: Do you think that the NGDS agreement will assist Labour in bringing Government and Business to the table to discuss jobs at the sector level?

NM: Certainly the NGDS agreement reflects growing agreement in government and amongst

organised business that sectoral strategies are critical for long-term growth. That was, of course, the experience in South East Asia.

The main problems are:

* lack of capacity in government both to develop transformatory strategies, to negotiate them and to ensure co-ordination around implementation.

* weak organisation of business in many sectors, and a common attitude that business should engage on policy issues only to lobby for specific concessions especially in regulations, rather than on strategic approaches – obviously, the lack of capacity in Labour.

NALEDI: Do you see the agreement on sector initiatives as acknowledgement from Business and Government that unemployment needs to be tackled primarily at a sector level?

NM: We feel that sector strategies are critical because they are the only way to restructure the economy toward job creating growth.

NALEDI: While the agreement focuses primarily on sector initiatives as a means of job creation, what are some of the other issues that you would want to tackle at a sector summit?

NM: We see the commitment to expanded public works and to restructuring procurement to

support local production as important. The problem around public works, though, is that the critical element was agreement to create jobs through community services – only there is no structure to drive that, and goverment seems happy to fall back on public works in the narrow sense which is worthwhile, but hasn't been largescale enough to make much difference