HSRC Integrated Annual Report 2018/2019

and including the perspectives of multidisciplinary teams. Apart from the HSRC and UCLA, meaningful contributions were made by the Sweetwaters community, the many UCLA Business students who worked on this project over the years and Unjani. First State of South Africa’s Fathers Report Sonke Gender Justice (Sonke) and the HSRC launched the inaugural ‘State of South Africa’s Fathers Report’ on 12 July 2018 in Pretoria, South Africa. The launch coincided with an important milestone, where for the first time key amendments through the Labour Laws Amendment Bill allowed South African fathers to take better parental leave. The ‘State of South African Fathers Report’ highlights the importance of paternal involvement, irrespective of marital or residence status. Moving away from the deficit model of absent fatherhood, the report focuses on the involvement of non-resident biological and social fathers in parenting and caregiving. This inaugural edition provides explanations on the benefits to children, mothers and fathers of men’s involvement in the first thousand days of a child’s life, and recommends key intervention points for policymakers to improve fathers’ involvement in childcare. The report documents that: • Most children are cared for by women (usually biological mothers or maternal grandmothers) as their primary caregivers; • 36% of children in South Africa live in the same household as their biological father; • More than a third of children live in the same household with another man who is not their biological father; • Biological father non-residency does not necessarily equate to fathers being uninvolved. These fathers are involved in paying for school fees and groceries; • When fathers are the primary recipient of the Child Support Grant, they use it for the same childcare expenses that mothers do; and • Despite high levels of father non-residency, reported violence and neglect by men, the role of caring fathers in the lives of children and families is very important and undisputed. African Youth Inclusion: Paying Attention to the Second Decade of Life and Monitoring the Transition to Adulthood – a Review of the African Youth Charter HSD received a research grant fromthe Ford Foundation to conduct a review of the implementation of the African Youth Charter in ten selected countries since 2006: Algeria, Ethiopia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Kenya, Mauritius, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa and Zambia. The review focused on policies that enabled the development of young people in the second decade of life and transitions into adulthood. Various youth policies that African governments have developed to improve education, health, skills development, gender equality and women empowerment, and participation draw from the principles of the Charter. Youth policies are intended to provide young people with opportunities for employment and participation and to ensure they receive coordinated support from governments and development partners. The review established that gaps in young people’s development, health and wellbeing as they transition into adulthood are largely due to unfavourable policies or poor policy implementation and cultural norms that fail to advance the rights of young people to quality education, health especially reproductive health, equal participation and citizenship. HSRC INTEGRATED ANNUAL REPORT 2018/19 / 39