2

Community achievement: toilets built by communities in Limpopo ready for distribution for the needy families...

Government moves to provide sanitation and water to rural areas in South Africa
Rural development is one the major priorities announced by the President during his State of the Nation address in 2011. Since the year 2007, various ministries have prioritised rural development. In 2010, National Treasury established Rural Household Infrastructure Programme (RHIP) and directed the National Department of Human Settlements to manage a total R1.2 billion in order to provide on-site sanitation and some water facilities to rural communities. The allocation of R1.2 billion has been allocated as follows: over the 2010 MTEF i.e. R100 million for 2010/11, R350 million for 2011/12 and R750 million for 2012/13.

The programmes empowers communities through skills development and project management

Empowering communities to lead RHIP and by so doing creating jobs for the unemployed in the rural areas

Involvement of communities in the rural household infrastructure programme a job creation programme
The programme also gives beneciaries an opportunity to be involved in the implementation of the Programme so as to have a sense of ownership, getting training and a viable movement towards sustainable communities. The programme also emphasizes the need to use CBOs, NGOs, and Public Entities to maximize community participation. The most important ingredient of this programme is community participation and training. The strategic goal of this programme is to promote and facilitate hands on involvement of beneciaries in order to inculcate the spirit of ownership.

Helping municipalities to reduce backlogs

The RHIP is designed to help municipalities to reduce backlogs in sanitation and water supply. It is implemented in seven provinces except in Gauteng and Western Cape where there are no rural backlogs in sanitation. The other important facet of the programme is to alleviate poverty by implementing programmes through labour intensive methods. Since the gazetting of the programme, the National Sanitation Programme Unit (NSPU) under the NDHS has secured the services of two Service Providers i.e. the Mvula Trust and the Independent Development Trust (IDT). Sixty percent (60%) of the RHIP projects have been awarded to the IDT (with a budget of R52 million) and forty percent (40%) of the RHIP projects have been awarded to Mvula Trust (with a budget of R36 million) in 2010-2011 nancial year.

Women are the priority target group for the benets of RHIP in the rural areas

Progress per province

Region Target Not completed 1 012 300 2 094 2 858 15 8 137 Completed units with top structures 1 555 100 1 582 742 435 392 691 5 497

Eastern Cape Free State KwaZulu-Natal Limpopo Mpumalanga Northern Cape North West Total

2 567 400 3 675 3 600 450 400 828

RHIP beneciaries in Limpopo have now built more than 750 toilets and are targeting to built 3 600 by the end of nancial year 2011-2012