Social Development

1. The Western Cape Department of Social Development has implemented the following targeted measures to address the growing levels of food insecurity among vulnerable households:

• Cooked meals 5 days a week provided at Community Nutrition and Development Centres (CNDCs);
• Cooked meals provided by community-based kitchens from two (2) to four (4) days a week;
• Food parcels for emergency food relief to beneficiaries who are unable to access other forms of food relief;
• Funded humanitarian relief organisations for first response food relief to persons rendered food insecure by disasters;
• Encouragement of household-based food garden services to provide households with own vegetables.

In addition, the challenges and impact of hunger and malnutrition are too big to be addressed by a single department like DSD. The challenges require collaboration and partnership amongst stakeholders to give effect to this objective. As such DSD collaborates with other departments/ stakeholders as follows:

• The Department participates in an interministerial task team on food security established by the Western Cape Cabinet
• The Department works with the South African Social Security Agency, which, inter alia, provides social relief grants to assist in reducing extreme poverty and food insecurity among beneficiaries;
• Western Cape Education Department (WCED) that provides school nutrition services to school children in targeted public schools and ECDs;
• NPOs that provide food (cooked or dry ingredients) in communities funded by non-government donors;
• Humanitarian relief organisations that provide food in vulnerable communities; and
• Municipalities, faith-based organisations and private sector donors distributing food in communities.

2. The Department has monitoring and evaluation officers, who routinely visit funded NPOs to ensure that their services are in line with the Transfer Payment Agreements signed with them and ensuring that the funded services reach the intended beneficiaries. All funded CNDCs and NGO partners are required to submit quarterly performance reports, which include data on the number of meals served, beneficiaries reached, and types of services rendered. Site visits and audits are conducted to verify reported outputs.
3. All quarterly reports are subject to assessment to verify reported outputs and performance.