The research problem is to investigate the causes and consequences of poverty in the rural areas of South Africa. The main aim of development is poverty eradication and poverty lines can be used to measure poverty. Therefore, development is measurable in terms of how poverty levels have been reduced and if there’s been an improvement in the lives of people in the rural areas. There are 27-million people, about half of the country, that live below the poverty line of R779 per person per month” (Inforgraphic: Poverty in South Africa, 2015) There are South Africans that are more impoverished than others and these groups include blacks, the less educated, females and the unemployed.
In the pre-1994 South Africa, the white minority state focused on the development of welfare of the small proportion of the white population and deliberately impoverished the black majority (Ramutsindela, 2006).The restructuring of the
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Figure 1 shows that the poverty rates in the various provinces ranged from 33% in Gauteng and 35,4% in the Western Cape and the two provinces with the highest poverty rates being the Eastern Cape with 70,6% and Limpopo with 78,9%. The Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) was the first tool used for broader socioeconomic transformation by the new South African government. Ramutsindela (2006) states that the main objective of the RDP was “to improve the quality of life of all South Africans, and in particular the most poor and marginalized sections of the society”. This programme referred to land reform as the basic need for rural residents. The state had to develop a new legal framework for land redistribution which was not easy because it faced
For nearly forty-six years whites ruled South Africa with licit supremacy under Apartheid laws. With roots in its history, the segregation of races reigned from its colonization by the Dutch to the late 1900's when it was weakened by social unrest and financial burden, and finally abolished by Nelson Mandela. The impact of apartheid stood after apartheid's abolition, as non-whites still had unresolved feelings towards those who supported apartheid, but with Mandela's election and the renouncement of apartheid laws, the country could move forward toward creating a "rainbow nation."
Whether if it’s millions of homeless people, or countless underpaid hard workers, poverty is a major issue in the United States. We cannot propose to solve any issues, without the discussion on poverty and how important it is to find solutions to this dilemma. Poverty is the source for many problems the U.S. face, and ignoring it, is only making it worse. My proposal to solving this growing problem is to increase minimum wage, improve government funding and work support programs, and lower the cost of tuition to colleges and universities.
Over one billion people are living in poverty, lacking safe water, housing, food, and the ability to read. There is a high concentration of communities in poverty in Africa; particularly Central Africa. States that are considered in Central Africa are the following: Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo, Central Republic of Africa, Chad, Equatorial Guinea and the Congo. The majority of these Central African states’ economies are dependent on agriculture. As a result of this dependency, natural disasters, droughts and wars can displace subsistence farmer from their land resulting in poverty becoming even more prevalent and harder to come back from. Also with a history of dependency on farming there tends to be the trend of education not being a primary focus for the youth which is another factor into the stagnant poverty trend in Central Africa.
Coster, P., & Woolf, A. (Eds.).(2011). World book: South Africa’s Anti-Apartheid Movement, (pp. 56-57). Arcturus Publishers: Chicago.
However, Patel & Hochfeld (2012) in their study in South Africa identified significant difficulties with micro-economic development interventions and they discovered that social workers felt ill-equipped and ineffective in these areas. When it comes to economic concepts social workers are blank. Other participants in this study questioned whether economic development was indeed a social work role. They indicated that they are not economists (Patel & Hochfeld, 2012). But being closely associated with the poor and vulnerable in society, social workers are key social partners and change agents in development and should therefore play an important role in the nation-wide effort to reduce inequality and eliminate poverty (Lombard,
African nations regularly fall to the bottom of any list measuring economic activity, such as per capita income or per capita GDP, despite a wealth of natural resources. The bottom 25 spots of the United Nations (UN) quality of life index are regularly filled by African nations. In 2006, 34 of the 50 nations on the UN list of least developed countries are in Africa. In many nations, the per capita income is often less than $200 U.S. per year, with the vast majority of the population living on much less. In addition, Africa's share of income has been consistently dropping over the past century by any measure. In 1820, the average European worker earned about three times what the average African did. Now, the average European earns twenty times what the average African does. Although per capita incomes in Africa have also been steadily growing, and poverty falling, measures are still far better in other parts of the world, such as Latin America, which suffers from many of the same disadvantages that Africa has.
Poverty is one of the greatest problems facing South Africa. South African families live in very unsatisfactory conditions. The South African government works hard to bring down the rate of poverty but it also seems to increase as they try.
Growth in Africa is not enough for its people to grow, which is leading to poverty and hunger in Africa. Today Africa is one of the leading countries having poverty and economic problems. One half of the Africans live below the poverty line which leads to low human development in Africa. The main cause of poverty in Africa is a problem in its economic system and environmental factors. Because of poverty people of Africa remain hungry as they don’t have enough money to buy their food and their basic needs. Some of the African countries have less poverty rate than others due to good government and economic system in those countries. Most of the African is facing challenges to survive and keep their family healthy.
South Africa really began to suffer when apartheid was written into the law. Apartheid was first introduced in the 1948 election that the Afrikaner National Party won. The plan was to take the already existing segregation and expand it (Wright, 60). Apartheid was a system that segregated South Africa’s population racially and considered non-whites inferior (“History of South Africa in the apartheid era”). Apartheid was designed to make it legal for Europeans to dominate economics and politics (“History of South Africa in the apartheid era”).
South Africa’s racial problems began when the white people came and discovered South Africa with its black population. The white people wanted power because there were many fewer whites than blacks. The only way to achieve that was to change the government around so that only white people had political power. The three terms that were used to describe racial groups under the system of apartheid were European, Native and Coloured.
As developed countries quench their thirsts for petrol, developing countries around the world are left behind, force to watch on without any help from the outside community. Being poor means to be disadvantaged in every single way. It means not being able to support yourself or your family or have the basic necessity to life. Without substantial help for these helpless people then we should be feeling guilty that we are living lives far better than what others are experiencing. Poverty may because by wars, disease or lack of education and infrastructure and the resulting consequences may be hunger, starvation, crime and ultimately death. If poverty is not eradicated then injustice will continue, increasing death tolls and lives.
The majority of South Africans are unemployed and therefore can’t satisfy their needs and wants, and also their children’s needs and wants, thus more than half of South Africa’s children live in poverty.
To begin, there are two main types of poverty in the world, non-income and income poverty (ZPRP). Non Income Poverty is when people may have money, but only a little to keep themselves alive (ZPRP). They don’t have the money to afford physical services and social events such as schooling, work, medicines, health care, sanitation, and transportation (ZPRP). The best way to condense the cause of non-income poverty is to make sure that individuals have access to inexpensive and exceptional social services, that they feel safe when in their homes and that they have family and friends to protect them when needed (ZPRP). Income poverty is when people are living on less than 1 dollar a day, which is far from the normal amount a family can survive on (ZPRP). They tend to not have fresh food and water, medicine, live in poor houses, sometimes no houses, and have dirty and ragged clothes (ZPRP). Just as there are many types of poverty, there are many effects to it to.
Old South Africa is best described by Mark Uhlig, “The seeds of such violent conflict in South Africa were sown more than 300 years ago, with the first meetings of white settlers and indigenous black tribes in an unequal relationship that was destined one day to become unsustainable” (116).
The apartheid was a very traumatic time for blacks in South Africa. Apartheid is the act of literally separating the races, whites and non-whites, and in 1948 the apartheid was now legal, and government enforced. The South African police began forcing relocations for black South Africans into tribal lines, which decreased their political influence and created white supremacy. After relocating the black South Africans, this gave whites around eighty percent of the land within South Africa. Jonathan Jansen, and Nick Taylor state “The population is roughly 78 percent black, 10 percent white, 9 percent colored, and l...