Dear Friends of SPII and the SADC- BIG

As we draw to the end of 2014, we want to thank you for your ongoing support for our work in various ways, and for the many partnerships that have enabled us to mutually multiply the reach and impact of our work.

This last year has been an extremely productive and fulfilling (and sometimes exhausting) one.  Arising from our five year strategic planning process last year, our three programmatic areas have become embedded as the architecture of our institution.  These are the Socio-Economic Rights Programme, the Basic Needs Basket and Decent Living Level Programme and finally, our Social Dialogue Programme.  Within the first programme are housed our projects on the Socio-Economic Rights Monitoring Tool that we are developing in partnership with the South African Human Rights Commission, the LED Evaton- based Entrepreneurship Pilot Project, and the SADC – BIG campaign.  Many of you are involved in various of these projects with us, and we want to acknowledge your assistance and invaluable solidarity.

We are also very happy to have been able to relaunch our Basic Needs Basket price monitoring, which we are doing in partnership with ACAOSA – the Association of Community Advice Offices of South Africa, whose members collect data on the process of food and other goods on a monthly basis across South Africa.  Our work on the Decent Living Level, that is located within NEDLAC and is being developed with organized Labour and with the support of various other academics, we believe is critical to developing the appropriate messages around poverty, inequality and equality in South Africa.  We believe that this, and the related agreement on the development of a national minimum wage will dominate policy making processes in 2015.

As part of our Social Dialogue programme, SPII has been active on the steering Committee of SASPEN- the Southern African Social Protection Network.  The knowledge that has emerged from the various conferences and workshops hosted by SASPEN and the FES (the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung) has contributed to the growing recognition within the region of the need for and affordability of social protection.  Further bodies on which we serve include the NEDLAC Community Constituency, the Campaign for the ratification of the ICESCR, and we continue to work in partnership with the African Platform for Social Protection.  Finally due in part recognition of the work that SPII plays in hosting the secretariat of the SADC – BIG campaign, SPII was recently affiliated to the SADC Civil Society Forum, which comprises of the main civil society Apex organisations in the region.

Within SPII, we have sadly had to say good – bye to some members of staff but have welcomed on board others.  I want to thank each of them for their high levels of commitment in seeking to effect the change that we believe in for South Africa. Also warm thanks to the trustees of SPII who volunteer so generously of their time and support – thank you, and thank you too to our funders for making our work possible.

Aluta continua, and warm greetings to all of you.