10TH ANNIVERSARY POVERTY HEARINGS

10th Anniversary Poverty Hearings to kickstart this July

8 July 2008

African Monitor has initiated together with various partners  in South Africa  an anti-poverty campaign called the National Poverty Hearings.  This campaign aims to hold poverty hearing in the 9 provinces in South Africa in order to provide an opportunity for people living in poverty to ‘Speak Out’ against poverty and begin a dialogue for change with decision makers.  This process is a follow up to the National Poverty Hearings that were held in South Africa in 1998, where over 10 000 people participated.  The poverty hearings will address issues of income poverty, deprivation, exclusion, and also link these issues with the recent unfortunate xenophobic attacks,  and the upsurge in food and oil prices in South Africa.  African Monitor recognizes the poverty hearings as a legitimate and effective form of grassroots advocacy and campaigning, because through this process communities have an opportunity to make their voices heard.

The views, testimonies and advocacy messages that come out of this process with be taken to local, provincial and national government for action.  They will also be linked to a wider continental and global campaign against poverty through GCAP and the Millennium Campaign.  The outcomes of the hearings will feed into various international processes, especially the Third High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness which will be hosted in Accra in September, the African Heads of State meeting in New York, as well as the subsequent the UN Extraordinary Summit on MDGs.

The actual visits to the nine provinces will take place this July. Dates and venues are being finalised and will be published in the media and on this website soon. For further information, please contact Bridget Katundu at African Monitor; bridget@africanmonitor.org or call her +27 21 713 2802