PACSA Director Daniela Gennrich writes:

From 19-23 October PACSA staff and Council members met with our community partners to review the year and plan for any major shifts within our 3-year planning phase (2009-11).

Together we identified these contextual shifts to which PACSA needs to be responsive. The global economic crisis has had a huge impact (though poor communities have always been in economic crisis):

w Prices and unemployment have increased radically (300-500 000 jobs lost). Young people’s hopes for ever obtaining a job have dwindled further.

w Crime now affects rich and poor, and is likely to increase as more youth lose hope.

w CBO members leave as soon as they got work, which affects continuity and leadership.

w Increasing financial pressure increases the chances of domestic violence, transactional sex and HIV.

w Financial uncertainty affects the continued work of PACSA programmes as some donors have already begun to cut contributions and indicated the intention to move out of South Africa. However, PACSA is looking seriously at long-term sustainability initiatives.

Political shifts after the elections:

w ANC has shifted to a more pro-poor discourse. The State seems less open to working with the NGO sector and speaks of working directly with communities – parallel rather than in collaboration.