Africa-Press – South-Africa. The Solidarity Fund – which was set up to focus on a rapid response to Covid-19 – is wrapping up its operations, with a complete closure scheduled for the end of September, it said on Thursday.
The Solidarity Fund is a public-benefit organisation, which was created in March 2020 by businesses and other organisations in response to the pandemic.
Spokesperson Didi Masoetsa said the decision to close the fund follows a resolution taken by the board in February.
“The Fund was established with a very specific and limited mandate and was never intended to be a long-term solution, but rather an urgent, interim, impactful and significant intervention in augmenting government’s response to the unfolding Covid-19 crisis,” Masoetsa said.
As of 16 March, just under R3.8 billion in Covid-19 relief funding had been received by the Fund, with just under R3.3 billion disbursed, including R2.3 billion for health response, R429 million for humanitarian support and R458 million for behaviour change and communications. R100 million was transferred to the Solidarity Fund’s Humanitarian Crisis Relief Fund.
After the July unrest in 2021, just shy of R500 million was donated to the Solidarity Fund, along with R100 million of internal resources that were transferred. Of this amount, R573 million has been disbursed.
The balance of the funds have been allocated to programmes, leaving R1 million available.
Priority areas also included vaccination rollout, hospital support, support to various non-profit organisations, and essential equipment, Masoetsa said.
But according to the statement, while Covid-19 remains a threat, the vaccine rollout has changed the nature of the pandemic. “South Africa, and the world, are out of the crisis phase […] and entering a stage where the approach to [Covid-19] needs to be normalised and managed alongside many diseases in society,” it said, adding that many organisations had realigned their response to match an “endemic” rather than “pandemic” phase.
The fund believes it has fulfilled its mandate, with funds effectively fully allocated or disbursed, Masoetsa added. No further fundraising, active or passive, will take place, Masoetsa said.
All remaining funds are in the process of being defined, allocated and aligned to the fund’s closure timeline.
Most of the formal process to close the fund will take place from now until July, with final plans and processes continuing from August to September. External audits for 2022 and 2023 will follow, along with impact and close-out reports.
The business entity of the fund will continue to exist in a dormant state, able to remobilise if another national crisis emerges, the statement said.
Solidarity Fund CEO Tandi Nzimande described the Fund’s role as the “privilege of a lifetime”.
Earlier in the week, South Africa’s state of disaster was extended for another month to 15 April, stretching it past the two-year mark. The state of disaster was first announced in March 2020.
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