The Presidency has requested the Southern Africa Trust to facilitate the mobilisation of civil society to participate in this process and to gather input on the government's Anti-Poverty Strategy (APS).

Provincial civil society representatives from different sectors including nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), community-based organizations (CBOs), faith-based organizations (FBOs), trade unions, business, social movements, research organizations, youth organizations and traditional leaders will be present at the event.

This important process will consolidate meaningful engagement between government and civil society on poverty eradication and allow voices of the poor to be heard in a dialogue with the Deputy President and several key Ministers working in the Cabinet's anti-poverty cluster.

The conference marks the culmination of a series of provincial consultations between civil society, labour and business to obtain input from stakeholders on the national Anti-Poverty Strategy and on mechanisms for engagement.  The workshops and consultations held this year in all nine provinces between the 8th and 26^th October - involving more than 190 organizations - were a consolidation of provincial anti-poverty hearings that were first held in 2008, whose outcomes were taken into the process of developing the draft anti-poverty strategy.

The Southern Africa Trust is an independent non-profit agency that supports deeper and wider regional engagement to overcome poverty in southern Africa.

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For more information on attendance as well as interviews please contact Grace Kadzere of Red Flag Design & Marketing on (011) 447 8283, grace@redflag.co.za