The Use Of Systems Engineering Principles To Analyse The National Poverty Alleviation System Marita Turpin, CSIR Defencetek, mturpin@csir.co.za Johan Strydom, CSIR Defencetek, jstrydom@csir.co.za Isabel Meyer, CSIR Centre for Logistics, imeyer@csir.co.za PO Box 395, Pretoria 0001 Third Annual Chapter Conference South African Chapter International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE) 16 – 18 August 2005 Abstract. Poverty alleviation in South Africa is delivered through a variety of independent mechanisms. The evolution of the system is organic rather than designed, and the focus of organisations to deliver on their own objectives translates to some extent into the optimisation of the behaviour of individual entities as opposed to the optimisation of the system as a whole. To identify resulting inefficiencies, and to arrive at an improved means of alleviating poverty, the “delivery system” as a whole needs to be studied, and an appropriate approach needs to be employed to do so. A preliminary investigation has been undertaken using Systems Engineering principles to analyse the National Poverty Alleviation System (NPAS). During the project, NPAS objectives, role-players and functions have been studied, and a preliminary systems description has been developed. With the help of a Systems Engineering approach, valuable insights have been gained as to the functioning and performance of NPAS. It was also found that the Systems Engineering approach would possibly have to be supplemented by taking into account “softer” systems approaches in order to provide a suitable framework for analysis of a socio-economic system such as NPAS. Introduction Estimates are that up to 50% of South Africans live under the poverty line (May & Meth, 2004), despite all current efforts to address this national problem. It is believed that the poverty alleviation challenge could benefit from new and innovative approaches towards addressing it. By regarding all current poverty alleviation initiatives as a system, it is possible to investigate ways of making the total system more effective. One approach that could be used to analyse and evaluate the efficiency and effectiveness of a system, is systems engineering. Systems engineering is meant to be used to design and manage technical systems. Yet, a systems engineering perspective towards the poverty alleviation system might add some insights into the functionality of the system in addition to those achieved by traditional methods of social, economic and developmental research. The reported project has applied systems engineering principles to the National Poverty Alleviation System (NPAS) in a limited fashion, in order to assess the feasibility of such an approach. The paper starts with a short overview of evidence that could be found of the application of systems engineering principles to non-technical systems. This is followed by a discussion