{"id":167292,"date":"2020-10-01T13:18:01","date_gmt":"2020-10-01T11:18:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/article\/six-months-solidarity-fund-how-it-doing\/"},"modified":"2020-10-01T13:18:01","modified_gmt":"2020-10-01T11:18:01","slug":"six-months-of-the-solidarity-fund-how-is-it-doing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/six-months-of-the-solidarity-fund-how-is-it-doing\/","title":{"rendered":"Six months of the Solidarity Fund: How is it doing?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"article_body\">\n<p><a class=\"bigger-image\" href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/media\/uploads\/images\/Third%20Party\/solidarity_fund_community_volunteers_at_work.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt data-pagespeed-url-hash=\"1507164591\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/six-months-of-the-solidarity-fund-how-is-it-doing.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\">Solidarity Fund volunteers at work. Photo supplied by Solidarity Fund<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The Solidarity Fund set up to respond to Covid-19 has been going for six months.<\/li>\n<li>It has received R3.1 billion and has spent R1.3 billion so far.<\/li>\n<li>Deputy chairperson Adrian Enthoven expects the fund to continue until November 2021.<\/li>\n<li>Most expenditure so far, over R1 billion, has been on medical equipment including personal protective equipment.<\/li>\n<li>About R130 million has gone to feeding schemes and shelter programmes.<\/li>\n<li>In the next phase food vouchers will likely be the biggest expense.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr>\n<p>The Solidarity Fund which has, in just six months, raised R3.1 billion and so far disbursed nearly R1.3 billion, could be used as a model for future public\/private partnerships to tackle big societal challenges such as food insecurity and gender-based violence.<\/p>\n<p>This is the view of the fund\u2019s deputy chairperson Adrian Enthoven, who predicts that the fund \u2014 \u201ca rapid response vehicle\u201d \u2014 will probably not exist beyond November 2021.<\/p>\n<p>But, he says, a key learning point (and part of its success) has been the fact that the board has functioned so well because they served with a \u201csingular purpose\u201d and with the true spirit of Ubuntu.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt shows that when we come together as a society with a common purpose and intent, the ability to mobilise resources and get things done is remarkable.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt has created a different way of thinking about institutional vehicles that can be used to leverage off capacity which already exists in society.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe had the best procurement people, the best logistics people, unions, ministers, NGOs, churches. The fund brought them together and they did the job for us at no cost,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Enthoven said almost every financial commitment made to the fund has translated into money in the bank, although it was still waiting for R50 million from the British government, to be used to assist 47,000 small scale farmers.<\/p>\n<p>Of the total of R3.1 billion, R2.4 billion had already been committed to projects under the fund\u2019s three pillars: Health, Humanity and the Solidarity campaign aimed at \u201cchanging behaviour\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>He said setting up the fund has taken a massive amount of work. At the peak of the pandemic ,120 people were working full-time, all pro bono, either doing the work free or having been seconded, so almost every cent went directly into the impact investments.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe board was meeting every week as were the sub-committees. There is a war room that was operating seven days a week in the first two months, now it\u2019s down to five days a week,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>As the pandemic struck, the response from funders and donors was \u201cphenomenal\u201d; 2,500 companies and foundations, and 3,000 individuals put their hands in their pockets.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"bigger-image\" href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/media\/uploads\/images\/Third%20Party\/adrianenthoven.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt data-pagespeed-url-hash=\"2577833321\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/six-months-of-the-solidarity-fund-how-is-it-doing-1.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\">Adrian Enthoven, Deputy Chair of the Solidarity Fund. Photo supplied<\/p>\n<p>The fund focussed on its health response and spent about R2 billion on personal protective equipment, testing, medical equipment and ventilators, initially targeting the worst hit provinces of the Western Cape, Eastern Cape and Gauteng.<\/p>\n<p>The fund\u2019s humanitarian projects largely focussed on food security and gender-based violence, which included approval of R100 million for food vouchers, another R100 million to support small scale farmers and about R75 million to support more than 300 community-based organisations dealing with gender-based violence (GBV).<\/p>\n<p>It also committed R60 million to the solidarity campaign in which it works with civil society, churches, work groups, schools, traditional leaders, to drive behavioural changes needed to keep the virus under control.<\/p>\n<p>As the health crisis abates, Enthoven says the fund will enter its next phase, and discussions were underway about future spending, possibly with less emphasis on health and more on the humanitarian and solidarity campaigns.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are looking to continue with efforts to improve food security, but in the next phase it will be through the distribution of electronic food vouchers, rather than food parcels, which are administratively expensive. The vouchers will also allow people to use the money as they wish and support their communities.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe work with NGOs and others to help shape our strategy to ensure it is very targeted and has a meaningful impact.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor example, we are working with the UN to assist migrant families who don\u2019t benefit from social grants, and we are strategising around pregnant moms, who need access to proper nutrition, and the youth in the gig economy who have no income.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Enthoven concedes that the fund cannot tackle issues such as food security and GBV, which existed before Covid-19, alone but worked alongside government and business to \u201cplug the gaps\u201d and tried to have \u201coutsize impact\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>The Solidarity Fund is not a substitute for government. In the first quarter of this year the state\u2019s Covid relief <a href=\"https:\/\/pmg.org.za\/committee-meeting\/30979\/\">expenditure was R18 billion<\/a>, about six times what the fund has received to date. But Enthoven believes that the fund is not just putting a \u201cbandaid\u201d on endemic societal issues; it has \u201cmade an important contribution at a time of crisis and need\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes, national problems have not been solved, but society would be worse off without the fund.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"article-copyright\">\n<p>\u00a9 2020 GroundUp. This article is licensed under a <a href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nd\/4.0\/\" rel=\"license\">Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>You may republish this article, so long as you credit the authors and GroundUp, and do not change the text. Please include a link back to the original article.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/six-months-of-the-solidarity-fund-how-is-it-doing.jpg\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/\">Source: GroundUp<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Solidarity Fund volunteers at work. Photo supplied by Solidarity Fund The Solidarity Fund set up to respond to Covid-19 has been going for six months. It has received R3.1 billion and has spent R1.3 billion so far. Deputy chairperson Adrian Enthoven expects the fund to continue until November 2021. Most expenditure so far, over R1 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":167293,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9928],"tags":[28001],"class_list":{"0":"post-167292","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-groundup","8":"tag-groundup","9":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/six-months-of-the-solidarity-fund-how-is-it-doing.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=167292"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167292\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/167293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}