members are resourced for more active participation and are able to support their elected ward councillors to better serve their communities. There has been on-going capacity building of Community Development Workers (CDWs) and evaluation of the implementation of the CDW Programme, which begun in 2013. In addition to this, the implementation of the CDW Master Plan at both national and provincial levels in 2013 enhances the effectiveness of the programme. During the current reporting period, social dialogue through the NEDLAC processes has also continued to provide the much needed platform for dialogue among social partners – government, labour and business on socio-economic and capacity development challenges. Besides the intervention of social partners through NEDLAC, which led to adoption of a Framework for South Africa’s Response to the Global Economic Crisis, as was indicated in the previous report, a strong social contract has now developed and involves broader crossconstituency negotiations in troubled sectors such as mining and agriculture. The main goal is to improve inclusivity and preparedness of the partners to enter into “genuine conversation” about the problems afflicting South Africa. Recent labour unrest in the mining and agricultural sectors, especially the tragic killing by the police of 34 miners during a violent mineworkers strike at Lonmin’s Marikana mine on 16 August 2012, have rekindled the desire among organised business, civil society, labour and government to work on a more effective process of social dialogue. For instance, soon after the Marikana crisis, the NEDLAC community constituency (civil society at NEDLAC), together with business, government and labour, set up a task team that came up with proposals to support distressed mining communities. Among issues addressed was how to improve human settlements in the mining sector in South Africa. Currently the task team is working on the modalities of how to improve human habitation in and around the mining communities. There has also been an increased interest in the retraining of police officers on how to handle violent situations in protests and public demonstrations. Media and civil society organizations (CSOs) have in the reporting period become more outspoken on corruption, inefficiencies in government, and threats to press freedom, thus raising welcome public scrutiny of government. This has also helped stimulate public debate about desired improvements in government and in its relations with business, labor and citizens. But this dialogue has been limited to mainly sections of the middle class with access to technologies and telephones to participate. There has also been an over exaggeration of problems and an under-reporting of responses to them. The Rainbow Index, developed by the South African Institute of Race Relations (SAIRR) to track the country’s performance on ten social, economic, and political indicators that reveals that South Africa’s score on the pillar on vigilant media and civil society decreased from 61% in 2009/10 to 56% in 2010/1113. This seems to be due, to “the hostile rhetoric by government officials, the adoption of the Film and Publications Act, the pro-ANC bias of the SABC”, and “latent threats (renewed in June 2011) to withdraw state advertising from critical newspapers. The implementation of the Protection of State Information Bill and the proposed media tribunal could see the country downgraded again”14. However, the same downgrading 13 Institute of Race Relations Survey – 2012 Survey: Politics and Government, p? Ibid, p. 819. 14 36