On the surface, the 2011 national budget seems to provide rather slim pickings for the young children. In previous years we have seen express priority given to ECD as an apex priority. This year ECD is not given express special mention; it does, however, feature implicitly.

A closer view of the budget reveals significant potential benefits for young children and their caregivers due proposed structural interventions that go to the heart of child well-being, and hence development more broadly.

42% of young people between the ages of 18 and 29 are unemployed. Not only is this catastrophic for the youth of today, but looking to tomorrow, this is catastrophic for the development prospects of our next generation of youth and adults. The unemployed youth are the parents of our next generation. We know that for women youth, the primary caregivers of today and tomorrow, especially black young women in rural areas, the prospects of escaping their state of unemployment is especially bleak.

Therefore the following are a welcome relief: the emphasis on job creation; job creation for the youth through the soon-to-be-mooted youth employment subsidy; an Expanded Public Works Programme; more extensive community-based projects and social programmes; and the promotion of rural development. What is even more encouraging is that the budget gives priority to improved employment prospects through community-based projects. There is much potential for exploring community-based early childhood development projects within the expanded EPWP initiative.

Increased ring-fenced funding to local government in the form of infrastructure grants holds potential to address some of the key service delivery barriers located at local level, such as poor roads and transport.

The fact that the biggest slice of the pie goes to the education budget is not necessarily news: this has been a consistent trend in the past. What is new, however, is that accountability for expenditure of the increased funds, especially on education infrastructure lies with the national Minister of Basic Education rather than at provincial level. Herein lies an innovation that allows for bypassing the debilitating corruption and mismanagement that has plagued a number of provincial departments of education.

Further funds have been allocated to Health to ensure realisation of the 10 point health reform plan. The proposed foundation that the budget envisages being laid in the coming year places a strong emphasis on improved health care for pregnant women, infants and young children in making provision for:

• family health care teams;
• improvements in the quality of health care facilities;
• improved district-based maternal and child health services;
• Office of Standards Compliance to inspect and certify hospitals;
• institutional management reforms;
• revitalising health infrastructure; and,
• expanded capacity to train more nurses and doctors.

In addition, the budget allows for expanding access to ARV’s from 1, 2 to 2, 6 million by 2013/14.

On the safety, security and justice front the budget makes provision for improved access to justice through the building of additional courts; and improved security through the employment of more police.

Rural development and agriculture will be bolstered by focussing on rural job creation whilst expanding agricultural production and improving food security.

Improved access to affordable and safe transport is given high priority in the way of improved infrastructure and improved local transport systems.

Housing and water infrastructure is set to improve in informal settlements.

Stronger measures are planned to combat fraud and corruption in the procurement process.

In short, the 2011 budget promises to deliver interventions that will see the remedying of deeply entrenched structural service delivery blockages and causes of inequity and sluggish development in South Africa. Barriers that have been with us for as long as we can remember – barriers which have served to prejudice the most marginalised of vulnerable communities and groupings, especially women, young children, children living in poverty, children with disabilities, and children in rural areas and those living in the former homelands – are confronted headlong in the budget. These include: lack of access to transport and inaccessible roads; rural underdevelopment; poor access to clean water and sanitation; high levels of unemployment amongst women and in rural areas; poor and inequitable maternal and neo-natal health services; poor access to quality education for all; and high levels of household poverty.

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The Minister of Finance’s budget speech