CHAPTER FIVE:
RECOMMENDATION AND CONCLUSION
5.0. Introduction
Chapter Four analysed the outcomes of my fieldwork in
two different ways: firstly, it provided details on diverse initiatives
undertaken by the Johannesburg CSOs to improve the quality of life and the
living conditions of FMs in the inner city. These initiatives showed that they
do have the power and the capacity to challenge the government, as well as the
city's exclusionary policies and decisions about FMs; they also are
capable of facilitate greater social justice for FMs. Secondly, based on my
personal review of the procedures used by the city's CSOs to facilitate greater
social justice for FMs, I attempted to reveal the strengths and
the weaknesses of these organisations.
After taking into account the strengths and weaknesses of the
CSOs, my purpose here is to formulate recommendations for the CSOs, the City
of Johannesburg (CoJ), and the national government (NG) for greater social
justice for FMs.
5.1. Recommendations for CSO
Proposed recommendations for CSOs will be based on
their strengths and weaknesses, presented in Chapter Four. Their strengths
will reveal what kind of potential they do have and what should be done in
order to maximise this; while their weaknesses will emphasise their limits
and formulate recommendations that will help them to make their
actions more responsible.
5.1.1. Views on the Strengths of the inner city's
CSOs
Some authors of the literatures reviewed on civil society,
defined and portrayed civil societ y
as:
- «Vehicles of social justice», dealing particularly
with the causes of the marginalised people
(Marris, 1998; Douglas and Friedmann, 1998); but also, as a
«way of thinking about power
and the state» for having the capacity to mobilise people
and governments, and monitoring the
implementation of policies in countries (Marris, 1998).
According to Marris, to achieve such goals, CSOs employ the skills
associated with the planning profession, namely, applying knowledge to
action, defining issues, mobilising participation and recognising
conflicts, evaluating the potential of policies and their performance,
and designing a framework for collaboration (Marris, 1998).
- They also regard CSOs as organisations that seek to
address the social needs of all those residing in cities; or, as
collective actors in the public domain, particularly in the urban
domain, which is the planning domain (Friedmann, 1998);
- CSOs are also viewed as any organisation acting for `social
transformation' by facilitating
the social inclusion of marginalised people, their
self-development, as well as a form of social justice that acknowledges the
priorities of different groups of the societ y (ibid., 1998). According
to Friedmann (1998), civil society's politics aims to remove barriers
or artificial obstacles that limit each person's chance to develop
her/his innate abilities to the fullest possible extent (ibid., 1998).
All the above-mentioned elements summarise, in general,
the features of civil society. It is now important to look at the
Johannesburg inner city CSOs in order to see which potential and power
they do have, and what they must do to increase their capacity to promote
social justice.
a) What kind of potential exists in the Johannesburgs
CSOs?
Based on the outcomes of my fieldwork, Johannesburg's
CSOs possess most of the
characteristics above-listed; they do also have the potential to
bring social transformation in the city through their ability to:
- Lobby around shared interests of FM communities by organising
the awareness campaigns about the violation of their basic rights, such as the
right to study, work and access the health
care;
- Challenge the state policies (and decisions), and to
influence the national government for
their amendment;
- Address the social needs and services of the FMs
(social grants, education, and bank accounts), and negotiate with the local
and national governments for their provision;
- Act in the public/urban domain and for the social inclusion of
the inner city's FMs by asking the government to give them social grants, and
exemption fees for refugee children;
- Present the needs of FMs to the government without
compromising the priorities of local communities as, for example, when
they asked the national government to start providing social grants to
disabled FMs, and;
- Finally, to fight for the removal of obstacles that prevent
FMs from accessing health care, getting work and participating in the life of
the city.
b) What should be enhanced by the CSOs
Considering the many initiatives taken by the
Johannebsurg's CSOs, the recommendations
listed below may further enhance their efforts.
- Regarding the way they should think about power and
the state, I recommend them to intensify their efforts in challenging by
using, sometimes, radical and more rebellious means, such as protest marches,
which should gather all the city's social movements, FMs and local
communities.
- With regards to their capacity to mobilise people and the
government, particularly in their awareness campaigns, I recommend them
to enhance their presence in media (television, radio, and newspaper) to
inform people and increase the government awareness on challenges facing FMs
in Johannesburg. They may also create programmes on television
channels, in which they will start diffusing information on FMs and
inviting different social actors to debate on forced migration issues
in the city. Regard the issues of research, I recommend them to
develop strong partnerships with the Forced Migration Department of Wits
University
which, under the initiatives of Professor Landau, carries
out quality academic research on
Johannesburg's FMs. This kind of partnership could further help
them to improve their ability
to evaluate the potential impact of policies relating to FMs.
- Finally, regarding community mobilisation, Friedmann (1987)
argues that `the problem of social mobilisation, of opposition, needs
planners who are social change experts» (Healey,
1991: 31). The inner city' CSOs cannot play such a role alone.
This is why I will encourage CSOs to collaborate with the community
and city's planners. I will turn to this recommendation after in
this chapter.
5.1.2. Addressing Some of the Weaknesses of the Inner
City's CSOs
In Chapter Four, I listed several weaknesses of the Johannesburg
CSOs, including their poor
ability to mobilise and encourage South Africans to
join them in their struggle for social transformation. I also mentioned
the lack of `radical' actions to challenge the state, and the financial
dependency of some of them on the state that that may prevent them from
remaining autonomous in order to challenge the government. This is why, for
example, Mr Jacob from
the Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR) emphasised that his
organisation's budget comes from external donors because he prefers it to
remain autonomous vis-à-vis the state, in order to challenge the
government policies and decisions anytime.
Considering the above-mentioned weakness, the recommendations are
that CSOs should:
- Include sometimes `radical' social mobilisation, such as public
protests, as a way of exerting pressure on the government to improve the
quality of life for FMs;
- Develop long-term and more credible partnerships with
international organisations (the Human Rights Watch, the United
Nations Children Funds, UNHCR and church organisations), which may
plead for them to the international donors for funds. In return, they should
adopt the practice of accountability and good governance in
their financial management to keep their credibility vis-à-vis
the international donors; because, in many African countries, CSOs have
been accused of mismanagement and lack of transparency and
accountability in the financial management of the projects for
poor and marginalised people.
Apart from the recommendations formulated on the basis of
the weaknesses of the CSOs,
other recommendations are listed below.
- In my interview with Nzuzi (see Chapter Three) from
the JRS, it emerged that this organisation used to provide
microfinance supports to jobless FMs, particularly women, to allow them
to survive and take care of their families; but, currently this programme does
not exist because of the lack of money. For this reason, I recommend CSOs to
enter into dialogue with the Economic Development Unit of the city of
Johannesburg to ask the local authorities
to set up `similar microfinance opportunities' for FMs, or to
facilitate the re-opening of this programme by capacitating the JRS financially
(Winkler, 2006:302). Thus, FMs will be able
to make money which will allow them to take care of themselves,
as most of them are jobless.
- With regard to the facilitation of the social cohesion
between South Africans and FMs, the CSOs may influence the local
government authorities to set up intercultural programmes (activities),
in which the city will encourage both local people and FMs to
interact and to entertain through cultural activities such as music, dance,
poetry and so on. Thus, both South Africans and FMs will progressively
learn how to live together despite their differences. These
intercultural programmes will also contribute in the city's fight
against xenophobia, especially if such programmes are aired on television and
radio channels.
- Regarding the issue of health, my research findings showed
that Johannesburg Hospital, as a provincial hospital, excluded unilaterally
asylum seekers from the free access to the health care in this
facility. To end such exclusionary behaviour, CSOs should influence the
city's Health Unit (HU), as well as the provincial government of
Gauteng, to set up policy and legislation that will prevent such
behaviour and impose sanctions against all institutions, which attempt
to exclude FMs from the health care facilities. This would
alleviate discrimination against the FMs.
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