Browsing by Subject "poverty"

Now showing 1 - 19 of 19
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    Climate finance to transform energy infrastructure as part of a just transition in South Africa. Research report for SNAPFI project
    (University of Cape Town, 2020-08) Winkler, Harald; Keen, Samantha; Marquard, Andrew
    Prior to 2020, the South African economy was facing major socio-economic challenges, struggling to eliminate poverty and reduce persistent inequality. The COVID crisis has deepened the financial crisis, with the last major agency putting the country’s rating below investment grade, or ‘junk status’. The recovery plan starts with rescue. The climate crisis is longer-term but still needs as urgent action as ever. The country is preparing to enhance its nationally determined contribution in an unprecedented context. Decarbonisation of the electricity sector is a priority – but in the SA context requires careful attention to communities and workers dependent on coal. The just transition transaction (JTT) is being developed in technical detail since 2019 by Meridian Economics (2020) and making the financial deal is work in progress. In brief, the transaction mobilises blended finance to fund the accelerated phase out of coal, thereby accelerating a transition from coal to renewable energy, and a portion of the concessional funds flows into Just Transition fund. This case study reflects on the JTT, seeking to understand its architecture, the potential to catalyse changes in the complex set of challenges in the electricity sector, by funding accelerated phase-out of coal and a just transition in South Africa, with broader implications for international climate finance. The time-scale of developing the transaction is fluid, while implementation of decommissioning would take many years. The purpose of the study is to understand the potential of a just transition transaction to accelerate the phase out of coal-fired power and to fund development projects. The purpose requires a specific focus, and it is important to understand what is included in the scope of this case study, and what lies beyond that scope.
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    Disability and social change: a South African agenda
    (2011) Watermeyer, Brian; Swartz, Leslie; Lorenzo, Theresa; Schneider, Marguerite; Priestley, Mark
    This powerful volume represents the broadest engagement with disability issues in South Africa yet. It covers a wide range of perspectives of disability, from theoretical perspectives on disability, to disability in education, to disability's relationship with and effect on people living in poverty. This text can be used to support students in disability studies especially in the South African context.
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    Education for All Week 3 - What makes a difference
    (2018-06-01) Japtha, Vanessa
    In this video, Vanessa Japtha discusses the role that policy plays in inclusive education. She discusses how policies can promote inclusivity, and how these policies need to be reviewed in order to keep up to the changes in awareness and understanding of inclusivity. She discusses how key policies, such as the admissions policy, any language policies, the school's code of conduct, etc., and how to make these policies more inclusive to diverse student backgrounds and educational needs. She closes by discussing the role of poverty in creating new or exacerbating existing barriers to learning, and the need for school policies (which could include fee exemptions or feeding programmes) to address learner poverty to promote inclusivity.
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    How does AIDS illness affect women's residential decisions? Findings from an ethnographic study in a Cape Town township
    (2009) Bray, Rachel
    This paper explores the nature and consequences of residential decision-making for women on treatment for AIDS illness in a poor urban settlement in South Africa. Drawing on ethnographic data collected over a two-year period, it points to the subtle shifts in ‘householding’ practices and kinship relationships prompted by women's individual experiences and understanding of their HIV status, illness and treatment. Women's decisions to move or to arrange that other family members move can be explained by pre-existing threats to individual wellbeing or family residential security. But an HIV diagnosis can intensify a mother's thoughts and actions in relation to residential and emotional security, in particular on behalf of her children. In a context where extended periods of childcare by rural relatives is common, mothers with AIDS illness may gather all their children in their home to offer direct care, achieve intimacy and facilitate disclosure. They are likely to avoid making frequent contact with, and demands on, their elderly parents. Siblings are favoured as co-residents and confidants in disclosure, but their long-term support is contingent on reciprocity. Partners, where present, are valued for economic, social and emotional security. Women attempt to balance their children's nurturing, in the short and long term, with care of the self. Their efforts do not always succeed and can incur high costs to their wellbeing and relationships with their children.
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    Innovative Finance Week 1 Video 7 - Impact education
    (2019) Ngoepe, Tsakane
    This video focuses on the opportunity that comes from investing in education. We show that education is an investment that can reduce poverty and eliminate gender inequality. We also highlight that there is still a high number of children that are out of school, with Sub-Saharan Africa and Southern Asia accounting for over 70% of the global out of school population. We show that the private sector has an opportunity to strengthen the capacity in the education sector. This is video 7/11 in week 1 of the Innovative Finance: Hacking Finance to change the World course.
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    The links between migration, poverty and health: evidence from Khayelitsha and Mitchell's Plain
    (2004) Ndegwa, David; Horner, Dudley; Esau, Faldie
    In the mid-1950s, the City of Cape Town was part of a wider area demarcated as a Coloured Labour Preference Area. The free movement of African people into the city was strictly controlled and the residential areas were segregated along racial lines. In terms of Apartheid’s grand design, an area designated Mitchell’s Plain was demarcated for occupation by Coloured people in 1973 while another designated Khayelitsha was allocated for African people. The two areas were incorporated in one magisterial district, Mitchell’s Plain, in the mid- 1980s. A sample survey of the area was conducted in late November and early December 2000 with a focus on labour market issues. Its aim was to capture occupants of households aged 18 or older. The survey data has been interrogated to describe the connections between migration, poverty and health in a city where recent rapid urbanisation is changing the demographic profile significantly. As a consequence, the need to provide adequate infrastructure, decent housing and employment poses a daunting challenge ten years after the new democracy has been ushered in.
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    Media and National Development Policy
    (2013) Saleh, Ibrahim
    This lecture introduces the role of media in national development. This particular lecture series explores the role of communication in the development of an effective socio-political relationship between the government and its people, and the development of effective information and innovation dissemination models to encourage the development of a national discourse. Part 1 of a series on the role of the media in national development.
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    Motor Development in Children Living within Resource Poor Areas of the Western Cape
    (2007) Ferguson, G; Jelsma, J M
    Introduction: In 1986, Irwin-Carruthers tested 681 Black African babies from the Western Cape and concluded that the South African sample was in advance of the Denver sample both in fine and gross motor behaviour. This study was to determine whether the motor development of isiXhosa speaking children from the same area was still advanced compared to their North American counterparts. Method: The Bayley Scales of Infant Development-II were administered to 86 children attending well baby clinics, between the ages of 1-36 months. Results: The mean motor developmental quotient was 92 (SD=15). Twenty eight percent of the sample was either significantly or mildly delayed. No socio-economic or maternal characteristics were associated with this score. Conclusion: The reasons for the decrease in performance are not clear. The socio-economic situation of the mothers was poor and there were a large number of single mothers whose sole source of income was government child support grants. It is likely that the cause of the decrease is multi-factorial. The mothers are clearly in need of emotional and financial support. It is suggested that the introduction of stimulation programmes might be useful in reducing the long term impact of this delayed development.
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    The post-apartheid distributional regime
    (2004) Seekings, Jeremy; Nattrass, Nicoli
    Public policies affect income inequality both directly and indirectly. The direct effects are most obvious. Redistribution through the budget, with tax revenues spent on public welfare schemes and other social policies (especially education), might serve to mitigate inequality. But public policies also affect inequality through shaping the growth path of the economy and the labour market. Together, these policies constitute what we call a ‘distributional regime’. In South Africa, the Post-Apartheid Distributional Regime includes some very propoor features. Welfare expenditure is very redistributive, especially through the old-age pension, and education and other social spending is pro-poor in that a very high proportion is spent on the poor. But the Post-Apartheid Distributional Regime includes other features, inherited from the apartheid period, that contribute to high or even rising inequality. Policies affecting the growth path and the labour market contribute to rising unemployment, which underpins poverty and inequality. Deracialisation, including ‘black economic empowerment’ and affirmative action, are largely irrelevant to overall levels of inequality. There are weak pressures for more uniformly pro-poor policy because poor voters are deeply loyal to the governing African National Congress and anti-poor policies are often opaque.
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    Production, inequality and poverty linkages in South Africa
    (2010) Ngepah, Nicholas
    The Kuznets inequality-development hypothesis can be tested with time-series data rather than the cross-section analyses found in earlier literature. Single-country time-series analysis cannot be done without addressing endogeneity between output and inequality. South Africa has been under-researched in this area due to a lack of data. Recent data released by the Presidency of South Africa makes such analysis possible. Besides, the use of a single inequality index in such a multiracial society is likely to capture only average effects. This paper jointly estimates production, inequality (decomposed by sub-group) and poverty with 3sls using South African data. The findings suggest that production is affected negatively by between-group inequality. Credit constraints and interracial tensions are possible causes, generating significant adverse effects that stifle economic productivity. Within-group inequality enhances production, possibly due to within-group social capital. There is evidence of an inverted U-shape relationship between per capita income and between-group inequality, but a U-shaped one between per capita income and within-group inequality. However due to the effects of the active post-apartheid policies — which reduce between-group inequality, but increase within-group inequality — it is doubtful if this relationship is capturing a Kuznets process. There is a significant poverty-increasing (reducing) effect of total and between-group inequalities (output). The abjectly poor seem to suffer more from inequality than others do. Policy efforts have to focus on reducing between-group inequality.
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    Raw life, new hope: decency, housing and everyday life in a post-apartheid community
    (UCT Press, 2010-09) Ross, Fiona C
    The book has been designed to demonstrate social science concepts in action. Its narrative is lively and engaging, and materials can be adapted for any level of study. Raw Life, New Hope is the stoy of one community's efforts to secure a decent life in post-apartheid South Africa. For residents of The Park, a squalid shantytown on the outskirts of Cape Town, life was hard and they described their social world as raw. Efforts to get on with the messy business of everyday life were often underut by cruel poverty. Despite inhospitable conditions, they sought to create respectable lives. The opportunity of formal housing fired them with enthusiasm as they saw the possibilities of living respectably with stable families, decent work, enduring social relations and the trappings of consumerism. The book traces their experiences as people struggled with sense-making in a complex world. Based on nearly two decades of research, Raw Life, New Hope examines how everyday lives are fashioned through relationships, reciprocity and language. It offers a rare glimpse into the complex and contradictory ways of life of people living on the margins of society.
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    Rural electrification in Zimbabwe reduces poverty by targeting income-generating activities
    (2007-04) Mpako Maxwell; Prasad Gisela
    National electrification programmes are given priority in many developing countries and the level of electrification is generally seen as one of the key indicators of development. Utilities find rural electrification programmes a challenge because the returns on the investment made in grid extension are minimal given the usually low levels of power consumption in rural areas. An approach, adopted in Zimbabwe that promises to address this problem is to target income-generating activities, mainly the small and medium scale enterprises (SMMEs) in the areas where the electricity grid is extended. This will have the benefits of potentially increasing the return on the utility’s investment by also stimulating small-scale commercial and industrial activities in the areas reached by the grid. It is however important to understand the SMMEs and their needs in order to tailor any support appropriately. When extending the grid to the growth points the Rural Electrification Agency may also provide loans and deliver to site electrical machinery like grinding mills, irrigation equipment and welding machines that entrepreneurs may order. This paper discusses the findings of recent case studies among small enterprise beneficiaries of rural electrification in the arid southwest of Zimbabwe and highlights key lessons learnt.
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    Sex, poverty and HIV
    (2008) Nattrass, Nicoli
    UNAIDS has recently been subject to a series of attacks for supposedly kowtowing to political correctness by overplaying the risks of generalised HIV epidemics and failing to concentrate on the risky behaviours of key groups (notably men who have sex with men, sex workers, and injecting drug users) for fear of stigmatising them and causing offense (e.g. Chin 2007; Pisani, 2008). It has also been taken to task for highlighting gender inequality and poverty as social drivers of the HIV epidemic in Africa rather than facing the challenge of addressing the multiple concurrent sexual partnerships which really fuel it (Chin, 2007: 54; Epstein, 2007). UNAIDS officials responded by defending the institution’s record on prevention and by emphasising that the challenge is to know the local epidemic and its drivers, and to craft interventions accordingly (De Lay and De Cock, 2007; De Cock and De Lay, 2008).
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    The significance of meaning-making, agency and social support: a narrative study of how poor women cope with perinatal loss
    (2012) Sturrock, Colleen; Swartz, Sally
    Perinatal loss (stillbirth or the death of a neonate) can result in considerable psycho-social disruption for mothers. As women grieve, they try to make meaning of the death of their baby. In contexts of social and economic deprivation, perinatal loss often occurs alongside other difficulties which may affect and limit women's ability to make meaning. A narrative approach was used to explore how meaning-making functions in such contexts. In-depth interviews were conducted with 15 women who had experienced perinatal loss while attending a state maternity hospital. Narratives which the mothers constructed of the event were examined in order to understand what meanings they derived from the loss, and how these were (or not) achieved. These narratives were often linked to other stories of pervasive life difficulties. Despite their difficult contexts, the bereaved mothers engaged in meaning-making in similar ways to those described in previous studies in more affluent settings: they attempted to integrate the loss with their identity and goals, they affirmed the baby as a real person to be mourned and they searched for reasons for the loss. The effect of their contexts on meaning-making was mediated by social support and personal agency. Where one or both of these were present, the bereaved mothers were able to find meaning in their loss; women who had neither seemed unable to do so. Those who portrayed themselves as agentic were able to reflect on their experience and make decisions to change their lives. Mothers with strong social support made meaning through conversations, social validation of the loss and social help which mitigated against the sense of helplessness engendered by their loss and circumstances. It is recommended that hospital and counselling services implement practices which help to build or consolidate personal agency and social support to facilitate successful meaning-making following perinatal loss.
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    The relationship between multidimensional psychological well-being and poverty
    (2019) Oaker, Brandon; Keswell, Malcolm
    Evidence from various academic fields indicates that mental health and income are correlated. Additionally, evidence exists that an increase in income improves psychological well-being and evidence that poor psychological well-being negatively impacts income. The difficulty is that there is no definitive work pinpointing the direction of the causal relationship between income and psychological well-being, but studies are attempting to find out. Hence, this paper attempts to contribute to ongoing work with an IV estimation approach to determine the causal effects of psychological well-being on poverty. Using data provided by Haushofer and Shapiro, this paper finds evidence that an increase in income causes a reduction in depression and stress levels, along with increases in happiness and life satisfaction of the study participants. Additionally, it is found that these improvements in psychological well-being lead to increases in monthly household expenditure, especially health care. Furthermore, these findings indicate that when women receive a cash transfer, a significant proportion of that transfer is devoted to health care. All the estimates presented in the paper indicate that an improvement in economic well-being leads to an improvement in the mental health of the poor, which causes them to spend more and focus more on their health care.
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    What is childcare really about? An ethnographic analysis of care relationships in a resource-poor community
    (2005) Bray, Rachel; Brandt, René
    The main aim of this paper is to examine critically the nature of childcare, including ideals and practices, in a resource-poor community through close ethnographic analysis of three sets of data generated over the course of two years. We argue that childcare in Masiphumelele should be conceptualised as having an emotional component that operates in parallel with, and is as important as, material provision and practical action. Further, the analysis reveals the extent to which childcare is shaped by poverty and must be thought about in relation to broader physical and social mobility, and the continuities within such movement. We also show that HIV can further shape childcare by challenging existing cultural practices, such as those pertaining to communication between children and adults regarding death. Future work on childcare would benefit from the conceptual approach adopted across this work, one which views children and their carers in a series of interrelated and dynamic contexts that include both kin and non-kin, and extend from the household to the broader family and friendship networks which support these multiple individuals.
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    Youth employability in ghetto neighbourhoods: The role of personal agency in reproducing or transforming social structures
    (2018) Ince, Merlin Ince; Crankshaw, Owen
    This thesis explores variations in employment outcomes among youth living under similar structural conditions of poverty and unemployment in ghetto neighbourhoods. It challenges structuralist accounts that ignore the role of personal agency and hold that structures alone determine action. The critical realist framework offers a helpful understanding of social structures as both material and cultural since human agency, or action, is influenced by circumstances that are both materially objective and culturally subjective. By probing the interaction of agency and structure this research shows that individual agency is a response to cultural beliefs and competing cultural norms. The ensuing worldview informs decisions and actions of youth which, under different cultures and material family structures, either reproduce or transform their educational and employment prospects in ghetto neighbourhoods. Ten case studies are analysed from youth in Manenberg, Cape Town, a neighbourhood that was historically segregated through the apartheid system of forced removals and resettlement. In-depth interviews provide evidence from life histories, experiences of education institutions and of looking for work. Further information is gathered from interviews with secondary participants, apart from participant observation in family and community activities through an ethnographic approach. Findings reveal that the culture of disengaged parenting leaves youth exposed only to the influence of low education and employment expectations such that they despondently relinquish career aspirations by dropping out of school, remaining unemployed and underemployed as a result. By contrast, consistent mentoring from parents entails a culture that competes with the negative influence of gangs and enables resilience among youth to pursue tertiary education. Youth thereby transform, rather than reproduce, their position in the labour market as unemployed or underemployed unskilled manual workers. Similarly, social networks beyond the neighbourhood provide youth with job information, supportive resources, and cultural capital, which enable them to conceptualise ideas of professional careers. This transforms the historical and contemporary material structure of ghetto neighbourhoods with socially isolated networks that limit youth to low-skilled employment opportunities. Such networks do not support personal agency towards alternative employment and youth resort to cultural practices of gangsterism, irregular and informal work.