WISE 4 Afrika Introduces ERAP Report Card

Johannesburg, South Africa - Wise 4 Afrika (aka The Wise Collective) introduces the Emergency Response Action Plan (ERAP) on Gender-Based Violence and Femicide (GBVF) Performance Report Card. The Wise Collective finds no pleasure in issuing this report card, however. This is the first in a series of performance reviews the organization intends to conduct to assess the effectiveness of efforts to wrestle and arrest the scourge of GBVF in the country. In doing its work, WISE 4 Afrika is guided grounded in the principles of being solution-based and effecting the necessary interventions to prevent and end gender discrimination, especially the GBVF pandemic.

The methodology for this assessment was based on the report submitted to the President on 30 April 2020 which was meant to track progress on interventions and relevant indicators that were agreed upon and supported by the R1.6 Billion budget reallocation to be implemented from 01 November 2019 until March 31, 2020. “We found it prudent to review the performance assigned government departments in the plan to assess the impact of this initiative due to its popular perception as a robust intervention with a R1.6 Billion allocation. It is important to also note that these funds were not awarded to any entity, not even the Interim Steering Committee as commonly assumed, the R1.6 billion was a budget reprioritization within government departments,” says Advocate Brenda Madumise-Pajibo, Director of Wise 4 Afrika.

ERAP, a complete Failure - F

• Wise 4 Afrika has given the ERAP an overall grade of F, for failure and/or total inaction on many interventions, with a need for urgent corrective action. To highlight some of the problems with the ERAP, here are a few challenges we found:
• No Reports Submitted - Some departments did not bother to submit a single report throughout the entire six (6) months period, while others submitted incomplete reports that did not address required indicators. Departments assigned to lead on specific indicators that failed to report in full include - Justice, Social Development, Health, and SALGA.
• Unmet Deliverables - Many interventions and indicators were simply not met with no evidence of any action taken towards accomplishing them. For example, a DNA forensics laboratory had been in the plan to be delivered in Eastern Cape within the period of the ERAP, there is no evidence of a lab built nor report on what was achieved towards this.
• Extremely Slow Processes - Failure to create an enabling environment, through emergency regulations, to ensure speed and agility in government processes, such as the recruiting, training and onboarding of urgently needed professionals in the social worker and police corps, resulted in incomplete interventions and/or unmet indicators.

Lastly, The Wise Collective notes that while delays due to Covid-19 Lockdowns may be identified in the ERAP report, we do not accept this as a cause for delays given that the lockdown commenced only four (4) days before the scheduled deadline for all deliverables.

As the government has adopted the National Strategic Plan (NSP) on GBVF, it is The Wise Collective’s hope that lessons will be learned from this non-performance and that earnest effort with deserving leadership and accountability structures will be put in place to ensure its success. Most importantly, the NSP must be funded adequately and treated as a parallel pandemic, that requires utmost dedication and commitment, in order to win the war on violence against womxn.