Speaker and hon members, the Anti-Poverty Programme is not a stand-alone programme with a set of projects and a budget. Rather, it is about the co-ordination of various interventions in targeting poverty alleviation. Moreover, the programme also encourages a co-ordinated approach to the involvement of stakeholders in poverty alleviation initiatives.
Within this broader Anti-Poverty Programme, the War on Poverty Campaign identifies citizens who are entitled to various government services but who, for some reason, are unable to receive them. The programme has had a special focus on identifying change agents in poor households with the objective of assisting them to spearhead change in the situations in which they find themselves.
Thus, while the War on Poverty Campaign does not focus on empowerment through land tenure and ownership of rural land, it goes without saying that access to land is an important element in ensuring that people have food security. It also further ensures sustainable livelihoods, all of which ultimately results in poverty alleviation. The main programme to empower people in terms of land reform is the Recapitalisation and Development Programme, which provides training and infrastructural support to emerging farmers.
Furthermore, the Comprehensive Rural Development Programme provides support to rural communities through the facilitation of social and economic infrastructure to enable the creation of sustainable livelihoods.
During my visits to some of the poorest districts in the country, I have been encouraged to see that where people have access to land, regardless of its size, efforts are under way to develop community food gardens that not only provide food for the household, but also in some instances create a surplus that is traded or sold on the open market.
These initiatives must be supported and replicated in all poor communities as this advances self-sufficiency and goes a long way towards restoring people's dignity as they can now provide for the nutritional needs of their families. Thank you for your attention. [Applause.]