Formulating and implementing socioeconomic policies for children in the context of HIV/AIDS: South African case study.

摘要

This article examines how South African policies related to financial and other care for children have been formulated since the mid-1990s. The article focuses on issues relating to the content of the policies, the process through which they were developed, and how process and content influenced each other. The study focuses on three policies: the child support grant, the Children's Act and Amendment Bill and the foster care grant. The policies differ widely in terms of the stage of the policy process, as well as the way in which policy has been developed. What is common across these policies is that they are large-scale interventions involving significant amounts of money. What is also common is that they were not designed specifically to address HIV/AIDS-related issues. The article thus examines the extent to which 'mainstream' policies related to poverty relief and basic services address the needs of children affected by HIV/AIDS.