Foster safe and enabling environments.

Our work must appreciate the intersection between the human development outcomes we seek and the context in which a life is lived. The influence that household and societal factors have on child development is well researched and profound. A compelling and growing body of scientific research indicates that children living in unusually stressful situations (such as not having enough food to eat or living in unstable housing) may experience chronic stress levels severe enough to damage the developing neural connections in their brains, impeding their ability to succeed in school and develop the social and emotional skills they will need to function well as adults. Exposure to violence has also been shown to contribute to mental health problems during childhood and adolescence. 34 five-year aim:

Similarly, a lack of access to basic services like clean water and good sanitation is a health risk and impacts access to education. Tsantsabane Local Municipality, for example, has been having water issues for a number of years now, owing mainly to the debt the municipality is struggling to pay to the Sedibeng Water Board. 35 This has a direct effect on ECD centres, playgroups and schools that are forced to close when water supply is shut off. Another challenge is that when water is provided, it is not clean. people from these communities have to boil water before use; in schools, children often drink the water straight from the tap and get sick. In Tokologo Local Municipality in the Free State, theft of water infrastructure has resulted in issues with water supply and the same knock-on effects on schools can be observed.

Another important contextual element that we need to manage is population trends. The population in Tsantsabane Local Municipality has grown by 66% since 2001, or 3% annually. South Africa’s annual population growth rate is 1.2%. One can attribute this higher-than-average growth in population to the mining and renewable energy activity in the area. As a consequence, schools are overcrowded and some families struggle to find a place for their children in school. Other infrastructure challenges include the unequal access to safe communal facilities like community halls, multi-purpose centres from which programmes can run, as well as ECD centres. Some neighbourhoods are better serviced than others. DGMT cannot afford to build new schools and should not pay off municipal debts. But we also cannot ignore these very real threats to the human development outcomes that we are committed to. The Lesedi and Letsatsi strategy is broad, which means we need to effectively prioritise and think creatively about how we mobilise other funding pockets around priority areas.

› Collaborate effectively with community stakeholders, government and other funders to drive positive social and environmental change.

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