Government-funded programmes and services for vulnerable - Unicef

Department of Home Affairs
all of which are critical tools for gainful employment and engaging in commercial life,
both for children once they leave school and for their families.
Overarching policy responses to the importance of enabling documents
The fundamental importance of enabling documents, especially birth certificates, for
vulnerable children is recognised in three of the most important overarching policy
frameworks designed to address the needs of vulnerable children in South Africa.
HIV and AIDS and STI National Strategic Plan, 2007–2011 (NSP)
The NSP recognises enabling documents as critical to ‘mitigate the impact of HIV/AIDS
and create an enabling environment for care, treatment and support’ (Goal 8), specifically
in the context of orphaned and vulnerable children (OVCs). Goal 8.1 of the NSP is to
strengthen the implementation of OVC policy and programmes, and it identifies a core
intervention in this regard as the need to ‘increase the proportion of children obtaining
vital documents such as birth and death registration’. Not surprisingly, this intervention is
complemented by the need to ‘increase the proportion of vulnerable children accessing
social grants (child support, foster care and care dependency), benefits and services’
(DoH 2007a: 83).
Policy Framework on Orphans and Other Children Made Vulnerable by HIV
and AIDS South Africa, 2005
The OVC policy framework recognises the DoHA as one of the many critical role-players
that must work as part of a coordinated effort to realise the rights of orphans and other
children made vulnerable by HIV/AIDS, their caregivers, families and communities
through the promotion, facilitation and provision of birth, death, marriage and identity
documents and by providing mobile units to ensure greater accessibility of these services
to targeted vulnerable communities.
National Integrated Plan for Early Childhood Development in South Africa,
2005–2010 (‘the NIP for ECD’)
The NIP for ECD, like the previous two frameworks, provides guidance as to the
essential services that are necessary to ensure the holistic well-being of young children.
It recognises that the well-being and optimal development of young children depends on
early and easy access to birth registration and birth certificates.
Key policies
● Policy Framework on Orphans and other Children Made Vulnerable by HIV and
AIDS South Africa, 2005
● The National Action Plan for Orphans and Other Children Made Vulnerable by HIV
and AIDS, 2009–2012
● The National Integrated Plan for Early Childhood Development in South Africa,
2005–2010
● The HIV and AIDS and STI National Strategic Plan, 2007–2011
● Department of Home Affairs Strategic Plan 2010–2013
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