Author Description

The present study presents the findings of an in-depth research project carried out at the International Institute for Labour Studies from 2002 to 2005, designed to better understand how civil society organizations, working within participatory governance structures, may contribute to the goals of the ILO decent work agenda. The author examines the South African experience. Since the mid-1990s, South Africa has become a centre of innovation in public policy making and implementation, and it is hard to find a country in either the developed or developing world that has gone further in the institutionalization of participatory policy-making processes in a range of different fields. This study focuses on three areas, all relevant to the decent work agenda: Employment creation and poverty alleviation, health care and HIV/AIDS, and child labour, and examines the participatory processes set up at the national level in order to formulate and implement policies in these areas. It draws on both a literature review and the perceptions of key policy actors active in these three areas.