Local economic development and urban poverty alleviation: the experience of post-apartheid South Africa

Urban poverty is a policy issue of growing significance in post-apartheid South Africa. In terms of the new Constitution the developmental role of local governments is given considerable attention. Against a background analysis of the best practice of local anti-poverty strategies in the developing world, this paper reviews the experience of eight case studies of local economic development (LED) initiatives. The case studies review a cluster of research findings from South African metropolitan areas (Midrand, Port Elizabeth, inner-city Durban, Khayelitsha and Winterveld) followed by issues from secondary cities (Nelspruit, Harrismith) and small towns (Stutterheim). A key conclusion from the experience of post-apartheid South Africa is that LED practitioners are currently struggling to find means to integrate their LED initiatives with the task of poverty alleviation.     

Child abuse in South Africa: rights and wrongs

In a country in which human rights feature prominently in our discourse about who we are, as well as in the South African constitutional and legal framework, so many wrongs continue to be done to children. One category of wrongs is abuse, but it is not the only one. Poverty, patriarchy and gender violence, as well as the socialised obedience, dependency and silence of women and children, create conditions in which abuse can occur, often with few consequences. South Africa has extremely high rates of both physical and sexual abuse of children. Progressive, rights‐based legislation exists to protect children, but it is not adequately supported or resourced by services to fulfil their provisions. Child abuse and neglect will not be significantly reduced in South Africa, without simultaneous improvements in the social and economic conditions in which very large numbers of children live. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Critical approaches to private education in the Global South

This article highlights the key themes that animate the critical discourse on private education initiatives targeting poor children in the Global South. Scholars in the field remain skeptical that public-private partnerships, low-fee private schools, and various subsidy and voucher programs are best suited to addressing the underlying issues of equity and quality that plague public education systems in low- and middle-income countries. Most, however, tend to adopt one of two different, though complementary, lines of analysis in drawing attention to the issue. Some scholars, for instance, use empirical evidence to show how low-fee private schools fall short of delivering on promises to address the needs of all children and enhancing basic literacy and numeracy scores in comparison to public schools. Other scholars, however, map networks of people and money to reveal how private education in the Global South is guided by power and profit. The paper outlines the moral and analytic interests that guide these two approaches to the challenge private education presents, while also making the case for an additional mode of analysis that would test the democratic and social justice claims that feature in mission statements of larger foundations and institutions set in vulnerable societies.     

Patterns of Giving in South Africa

Abstact This paper reflects on the results of a national quantitative survey on giving in South Africa. It explores the extent and character of giving; who gives, to whom, with what intention? The survey results revealed that South Africa is richly resourced with a diverse and multicultural spectrum of giving behaviors, which are commonplace in everyday life. The spectrum of giving behaviors is so diverse in shape and form that it contradicts many of the basic assumptions of the philanthropic literature, which locate the act of giving primarily in the domain of the wealthy and powerful.     

Poverty and disability in Eastern and Western Cape Provinces,South Africa

The impact of disability on the living conditions of people living in specifically resource‐poor areas in South Africa has not previously been addressed. This paper presents a comparison of people with a disability and their non‐disabled peers with respect to some key poverty indicators among a sample of Xhosa speaking individuals in resource‐poor areas of Eastern and Western Cape Provinces. A questionnaire on the level of living conditions (household composition and socio‐economic characteristics) and a detailed disability questionnaire that captured more specific details of the disability experience of the individual with a disability were adapted to the South African context and utilised. Despite the improved situation of households with a disabled family member in terms of financial resources (due primarily to the allocation of disability grants), other measures of poverty (education and employment) remain divisive for those with disabilities.     

Pushing the boundaries of our understanding of disability and violence: voices from the Global South (Guyana)

Our knowledge about disabled people’s lives is largely based on research in the Global North. This article considers disability and violence in the Global South, specifically in Guyana. It aims to push conceptual and empirical boundaries of our understanding of violence and disability. Conceptually, it argues for a social model materialist theory of disability attuned to how material barriers to disabled people’s inclusion in society and space are reproduced through processes of exclusion unfolding across geographic scales ranging from the global, to the inter-personal and intra-personal. It argues that Lacanian psycho-analytic theory provides a complimentary lens for understanding why people engage in acts that construct disabled people as ‘deserving’ of violence. Empirically, the article broadens our understanding of disability and violence by focusing on poverty, violence as a cause of impairment and disability, and disabled women’s and men’s experiences of violence in a majority world context.     

Adolescents’ understanding of poverty and the poor in rural Malaysia

The aim of this research was to explore Malaysian adolescents’ perception of poverty and the poor. The data consisted of 79 semi-structured interviews with school children aged 12-13 and 15-16 years old from rural and urban areas in Sabah, Malaysia. According to them, poverty is mainly economic. Their responses about the causes of poverty can be categorised as individualistic, structural, fatalistic and other factors (such as age, geography, land and encouragement). Older respondents from rural and urban areas gave more individualistic and structural attributions compared to the younger respondents. While they believed that government is most responsible to help the poor, other parties such as the poor, public and NGO’s should also work together to alleviate poverty. They suggested that these parties can contribute in terms of donation, infrastructural improvement, education, attitudinal change and job opportunities. Respondents acknowledged that hard work and education are important to improve their standard of living. However, education is regarded as a ticket to seek their fortune elsewhere. These results emphasised the need for the Malay adolescents to learn about not being dependent on the government for employment in order to avoid mass urban migration in the near future.     

The measurement of transient poverty: Theory and application to Pakistan

The present paper investigates the measurement of transient poverty when each person's welfare level fluctuates due to exogenous risk. The paper namely characterizes the sensitivity of transient/chronic poverty decomposition with respect to the poverty line and to the expected welfare level so that the decomposition analysis will be based on solid theoretical foundations and be robust empirically. Theoretical results show that poverty measures associated with prudent risk preferences perform better than other measures in assuring that the value of transient poverty increases with the depth of chronic poverty and that the decomposition is not highly sensitive to the poverty line. Poverty measures such as those associated with constant relative risk aversion are thus superior to popular Foster–Greer–Thorbecke (FGT) measures such as headcount, poverty gap, and squared poverty gap indices. These theoretical arguments are confirmed empirically by the application of the decomposition to a two-period household panel dataset from rural Pakistan. The relative magnitudes of transient versus chronic poverty are more robust to changes in the poverty line when poverty measures associated with constant relative risk aversion are used than when FGT poverty measures are used.     

Minimum wages and poverty with income-sharing

Textbook analysis tells us that in a competitive labor market, the introduction of a minimum wage above the competitive equilibrium wage will cause unemployment. This paper makes three contributions to the basic theory of the minimum wage. First, we analyze the effects of a higher minimum wage in terms of poverty rather than in terms of unemployment. Second, we extend the standard textbook model to allow for income-sharing between employed and unemployed persons in society. Third, we extend the basic model to deal with income sharing within families. We find that there are situations in which a higher minimum wage raises poverty, others where it reduces poverty, and yet others in which poverty is unchanged. We characterize precisely how the poverty effect depends on four parameters: the degree of poverty aversion, the elasticity of labor demand, the ratio of the minimum wage to the poverty line, and the extent of income-sharing. Thus, shifting the perspective from unemployment to poverty leads to a considerable enrichment of the theory of the minimum wage.      

Urban poverty,economic restructuring and poverty reduction policy in urban China: Evidence from Shanghai, 1978–2008

This article uses the city of Shanghai as a case study to analyze the changing institutional mechanisms for the new urban poverty stratum in China. Specifically, the article examines urban poverty in relation to economic restructuring and the transformation of the welfare provision system in three stages of market reforms. The article first examines the overall economic growth strategies at the national level, and then examines local government policy outcomes at the city level. The impacts of institutional changes on urban poverty and social inequality are subsequently. Finally, the article assesses the current poverty reduction policies and proposes a “social inclusion” framework to alleviate urban poverty in China.     

On the links between globalization and poverty

This article surveys the evidence on the linkages between globalization and poverty, drawing on a new NBER study that has been completed under the direction of one of the authors. We focus on two measures of globalization: trade and international capital flows. Past researchers have argued that global economic integration should help the poor since poor countries have a comparative advantage in producing goods that use unskilled labor. Our first conclusion is that such a simple interpretation of general equilibrium trade models is misleading. Second, the evidence suggests that the poor are more likely to share in the gains from globalization when there are complementary policies in place.Third, trade and foreign investment reforms have produced benefits for the poor in exporting sectors and sectors that receive foreign investment. Fourth, financial crises are very costly to the poor. Finally, the collected evidence suggests that globalization produces both winners and losers among the poor. The fact that some poor individuals are made worse off by trade or financial integration underscores the need for carefully targeted safety nets. We conclude the article by identifying a number of unanswered research questions regarding the impact of globalization on poverty.     

Breaking down rural and urban bias and interrogating spatial inequality,evidence from South Africa

This article investigates current socioeconomic disparities within rural and urban areas. The empirical analysis is grounded in an examination of urban and rural bias theories, which have often underpinned poverty analysis. This article suggests that poverty analysis can be improved by moving beyond the rural–urban binary and investigating differences across all geographical types (when data are available). Using 2012 household survey data on South Africa, the article sheds lights on substantial differences—in household composition and access to services and assets—that are likely to make households located in particular geotypes far more vulnerable to poverty. Finally, the article discusses how development policy can better address the specific income‐generating constraints that disadvantaged areas face.     

Inequities in health outcomes and access to health care in South Africa: a comparison between persons with and without disabilities

Health is a fundamental human right and if health care is to be universal and equitable it should not be less accessible to some sectors of society than to others. The objective of this study was to compare health outcomes and access to health care between persons living with disabilities and their non-disabled counterparts. The research was based on secondary data analysis of wave 1 of the National Income Dynamic Survey. Results from the study indicated that people with disabilities reported a higher incidence of communicable and non-communicable diseases, lower access to medical insurance and greater use of public health care than their non-disabled counterparts. In conclusion, the findings highlight the inequities in health outcomes and access to health services for people with disabilities and emphasise the need for disability-friendly health care policies that reduce barriers to accessing health care.     

Disability,politics and poverty in a majority world context

This paper argues that the spread of free market economics throughout the world has generated unprecedented inequalities within and between nation states. This has led to the systematic exclusion of people with perceived impairments from the mainstream of economic and community life in almost all societies, the generation of an international disabled people’s movement, and their demand for legal frameworks with which to address the multiple deprivations encountered by people viewed as ‘disabled’. It is argued that the poverty and exclusion encountered by disabled people and other oppressed groups in all societies will not be eliminated without fundamental structural change at the international level.     

Earning Their Keep and Keeping What They Earn: A Critique of Organizing Strategies for South Asian Women in the Informal Sector

It is now widely understood that the needs of women workers in the informal sector are not met by the conservative practices of labour organizations and trade unions. While the contribution of women to the economies of developing countries is critical, women rarely find employment in the regulated unionized sectors of these countries, and are found instead in overwhelming numbers in the sector that is variously termed ‘unorganized’, ‘unprotected’, ‘unregistered’ or ‘informal.’ This article addresses the situation of women in the informal economy in South Asia. The author explores the major challenges and opportunities facing women in their efforts to organize and mobilize for change. She also provides a critical analysis of the different types of interventions adopted by the state and civil society organizations in South Asia to empower women in the informal sector. The author concludes with an attempt to identify the mix of interventions and strategies most needed for different social, political and economic circumstances.     

The Individual Deprivation Measure: measuring poverty as if gender and inequality matter

As inequality deepens globally and within countries it is vital that we know how poverty shapes, constrains, and often destroys the lives of women and men. We know from decades of research that poverty is experienced differently by women and men, yet existing mainstream measures of poverty have been blind to gender. This article focuses on the Individual Deprivation Measure (IDM), a multi-dimensional measure of poverty and inequality designed to illuminate rather than obscure gender differences. Developed over the past five years by an inter-disciplinary research team based at the Australian National University, the IDM is grounded in research with women and men across 18 sites in six countries. Unlike most mainstream measures of poverty, the IDM takes the individual, rather than the household, as the unit of analysis. As a result, the IDM is able to capture gendered differences in the ways poverty is experienced, and also differences according to other markers of identity or social status, such as age, ethnicity, or geographic location.     

Urban poverty,ethnicity, and personality development

There are multiple factors which contribute to the development of the individual's personality. Many of these factors have been amply discussed in traditional theories of personality formation. An area that has been neglected in these discussions has been the role that poverty and ethnic and cultural factors may have in this regard. This paper offers a discussion of these issues with special emphasis on cultural, ethnic, and socioeconomic factors which tend to characterize the lives of Latino and Black individuals. Recommendations are made for a re-evaluation of the traditional theories of personality when applied to poor and minority individuals.     

Exploring the relationship between poverty,childhood adversity and child abuse from the perspective of adulthood

A recent Australian study of people experiencing poverty, involving in‐depth interviews with 20 participants, suggests that a complex process leading to poverty in adult life can stem from abusive and adverse experiences in childhood. It is considered that these experiences of abuse and adversity may begin a process of ‘negative chain effects’ (Rutter, 2000) resulting in a pathway into poverty caused by ‘accumulated adversity’ (Seth‐Purdie, 2000). The development and maintenance of human capital, defined as the sum of a person's physical, psychological and economic capabilities, are strongly influenced by the extent of adversity experienced over a person's life course, particularly experiences of adversity in early childhood (Seth‐Purdie, 2000). In this paper, the experiences of childhood abuse and adversity reported by the interviewees will be outlined and discussed in the light of theory and research related to development during childhood and adolescence. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Interactions between birds, fruit bats and exotic plants in urban Hong Kong, South China

I observed the use of exotic plant species by native birds and bats in 8 km² of urban Hong Kong. Twenty-nine plant taxa were used repeatedly. Five species accounted for most interactions with birds: Cinnamomum camphora (10 bird species), Ficus religiosa (6), Livistona chinensis (7) and Pyracantha crenulata (6) provided fruits, while Bombax ceiba (6) supplied nectar. Panicum maximum (2) and C. camphora (1) provided seeds for granivorous birds and Leucaena leucocephala is host to a psyllid consumed by small insectivores in winter. Most trophic interactions between exotics and fruit bats involved the fruits or flowers of Syzygium jambos, while Livistona chinensis provided roosting sites for Cynopterus sphinx. The fruiting phenologies of the exotic species differed from the local flora, with fruit of some species available for the majority of the year. Fruit characteristics for the most commonly eaten species are within the range for native fruit species, although most are larger and have a lower seed load than the medians for native species. Seed dispersal by birds and/or fruit bats is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for the naturalization of fleshy-fruited plants in Hong Kong, but S. jambos is the only naturalizing exotic species that needs vertebrates for pollination.