Chronic Poverty

Poverty: Causes, Responses and Consequences in Rural South Africa

Elizabeth Francis, April 2006

Development Studies Institute London School of Economics Houghton St London WC2A 2AE [e-mail]

CPRC Working Paper No. 60

Chronic Poverty Research Centre ISBN: 1-904049-59-1

Elizabeth Francis is a Senior Lecturer in Development Studies at the London School of Economics.

Acknowledgements The research on which the case study is based was carried out as a collaborative project with Colin Murray and Rachel Slater, of the University of Manchester, under the title ‘Multiple Livelihoods and Social Change’, funded by the UK Department for International Development. The project involved comparative research on poverty, livelihoods and social differentiation in North West Province and the Free State, South Africa. I should like to thank Ben Mosiane and Nancy Moilwa, of the University of the North West, who assisted me in the research, and staff at the North West Province Department of Land Affairs.

Abstract This paper examines recent contributions to the analysis of poverty, particularly those emphasising the constraints on the poor posed by social relations and institutions that systematically benefit the powerful. It proposes an analytic framework for study of the causes of poverty, responses to poverty and the consequences of those responses. This framework is then applied to a case study from rural South Africa. The case study underlines the importance of understanding the processes linking poverty at the local level with the regional and national political economy. It also suggests that responses to poverty in this case may be unsustainable.

(i)

Table of Contents Abstract 1. 2. 3. Introduction Understanding Poverty and Livelihoods Poverty in Rural South Africa a) The Causes of Poverty – mapping the institutional landscape (i) Winners and losers in the transition from Apartheid (ii) Agrarian restructuring, rural development and land

References: Aliber, M. (2001) ‘Study of the Incidence and Nature of Chronic Poverty and Development Policy in South Africa: an overview’, Chronic Poverty Research Centre, Background Paper, No.3 (2001), available at www.chronicpoverty.org/pdfs/sa.pdf ANC (African National Congress) (1994) The Reconstruction and Development Programme, Johannesburg: African National Congress. Baulch, B. and J. Hoddinott (2000) ‘Economic Mobility and Poverty Dynamics in Developing Countries’, Introduction to a Special Issue of the Journal of Development Studies, 36(6): 1-24. Berry, S. (1986) Fathers Work for Their Sons: Accumulation, Mobility and Class Formation in an Extended Yoruba Community, Berkeley, CA and London: University of California Press. Bevan, P. (2004) Exploring the Structured Dynamics of Chronic Poverty: A Sociological Approach, University of Birmingham, ESRC Research Group on Wellbeing in Developing Countries, Working Paper 06. Bophuthatswana, Republic of (1993) Population Census, Mmabatho, Central Statistical Service. Breutz, P.-L. (1955) The Tribes of Mafeking District, Department of Native Affairs, Ethnological Publications No. 32, Pretoria, Government Printer. Bryceson, D. (2004) ‘Agrarian Vista or Vortex: African Rural Livelihood Policies’, Review of African Political Economy, 102: 617-629. Carney, D. (ed.) (1998) Sustainable Rural Livelihoods: What Contribution Can We Make?, London: Department for International Development. Carney, D., M. Drinkwater, T. Rusinow, K. Neefjes, S.Wanmali and N. Singh (1999) Livelihoods Approaches Compared, London: Department for International Development. Chambers, R. and G. Conway (1992) Sustainable Rural Livelihoods: Practical Concepts for the 21st Century, IDS Discussion Paper No. 296, Brighton: IDS. Cousins, B. (ed.) (2001) At The Crossroads: Land And Agrarian Reform in South Africa into the 21st Century, Cape Town/Johannesburg: Programme for Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape/National Land Committee. De Klerk, M. (1994) ‘Seasons That Will Never Return: The Impact of Farm Mechanization on Employment, Incomes and Population Distribution in the Western Transvaal," Journal of Southern African Studies 11: 84– 105. Department of Minerals and Energy (2005) Minerals: Statistical Tables 1983200, at http://www.dme.gov.za/publications/pdf/directories/b1_statistical_tables _2005.pdf du Toit, A. (2005a) Poverty Measurement Blues: Some Reflections on the Space for Understanding ‘Chronic’ and ‘Structural’ Poverty in South Africa, Chronic Poverty Research Centre, Working Paper No. 55. 20 du Toit, A. (2005b) Chronic and Structural Poverty in South Africa: Challenges for Action and Research, Chronic Poverty Research Centre, Working Paper No. 56. Ferguson, J. (1999) Expectations of Modernity: Myths and Meanings of Urban Life on the Zambian Copperbelt, Berkeley and Los Angeles (CA) and London: University of California Press. Francis, E. (2000) Making a Living: Changing Livelihoods in Rural Africa, London: Routledge. Francis, E. (2002) ‘Rural Livelihoods, Institutions and Vulnerability in North West Province, South Africa’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 28(3): 531-550. Green, M. and D. Hulme (2005) ‘From Correlates and Characteristics to Causes: Thinking About Poverty from a Chronic Poverty Perspective’, World Development 33(6): 867-879. Greenberg, S. (2004) Post-Apartheid Development, Landlessness and the Reproduction of Exclusion in South Africa, University of Natal, Centre for Civil Society, Research Report No. 17, at http://www/nu.ac.za/ccs Guyer, J. and P. Peters (1987) ‘Conceptualizing the Household: Issues of Theory and Policy in Africa, Introduction’, Development and Change, 18.2. Hall, R. (2004a) ‘A Political Economy of Land Reform in South Africa’, Review of African Political Economy, 100: 213-227. Hall, R. (2004b) Land and Agrarian Reform in South Africa: A Status Report 2004, University of the Western Cape, Programme for Land and Agrarian Studies, Research Report No. 20, at http://www.oxfam.org.uk/what_we_do/issues/livelihoods/landrights/dow nloads/land_agrarian_reform_%20sa_status_report_2004.pdf Hulme, D. and A. Shepherd (2003) ‘Conceptualizing Chronic Poverty’, World Development 31(3): 403-423. Kingdon. G. and J. Knight (2001) What Have We Learned About Unemployment from Microdatasets in South Africa? University of Oxford, Department of Economics, Centre for the Study of African Economies (typescript), available at http://www.csae.ox.ac.uk/ resprogs/usam/social%20dynamics%20paper.pdf Laderchi, C.R., R. Saith and F. Stewart (2003) ‘Does it matter that we do not agree on the definition of poverty? A comparison of four approaches’, Oxford Development Studies, 31.3, 243-274. Lahiff, E & Scoones, I. (2001) The Politics of Land Reform in Southern Africa, Cape Town: Programme for Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape. (Sustainable Livelihoods in Southern Africa research briefing.) Lawrence, M. and A. Manson (1994) “ ‘The Dog of the Boers: the Rise and Fall of Mangope in Bophuthatswana’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 20(3): 447-461. Le Roux, P. (2002) ‘Financing a Universal Income Grant in South Africa’, Social Dynamics, 28(2): 98-121. Marcus. T. (1989) Modernising Super-Exploitation: Restructuring South African Agriculture, London: Zed Books. 21 May, J., H. Attwood, P. Ewang, F. Lund, A. Norton, W. Wentzal (1997) Experience and Perceptions of Poverty in South Africa (synthesis report for the SA-PPA), Durban: Praxis. McLaughlin, B. (2002) ‘Proletarianisation, Agency and Changing Rural Livelihoods: Forced Labour and Resistance in Colonial Mozambique’, Journal of Southern African Studies 28(3): 511-530. Meth, C. and R. Dias (2004) ‘Increases in Poverty in South Africa, 1999-2002’ Development Southern Africa 21(1): 59-85. Murray, C. (2001) Livelihoods Research: Some Conceptual and Methodological Issues, Chronic Poverty Research Centre, Background Paper No.5. Murray, C. (2002) ‘Livelihoods Research: Transcending Boundaries of Time and Space’, Journal of Southern African Studies 28(3): 489-509. Murray, C. and G. Williams (1994) ‘Editorial: Land and Freedom in South Africa’, Review of African Political Economy 61: 315-24. Nattrass, J. (1981) The South African Economy: Its Growth and Change, London: Oxford University Press. Pycroft, C. (2000a) ‘Integrated Development Planning and Rural Local Government in South Africa’, Third World Planning Review 22(1): 87102. Pycroft, C. (2000b) ‘Democracy and Delivery: the Rationalization of Local Government in South Africa’, International Review of Administrative Sciences 66(1): 143-159. Ravallion, M. (2002) How Not to Count the Poor: a Reply to Ravallion and Pogge, Washington, D.C.: World Bank. Reddy, S.G. and T.W. Pogge (2002) How Not to Count the Poor, New York: Barnard College. Russell, M. (2004) Understanding Black Households in Southern Africa: the African Kinship and Western Nuclear Family Systems, University of Cape Town, Centre for Social Science Research, Working Paper No. 7. Samson, M. and G. Standing (eds.) (2003) A Basic Income Grant for South Africa, Cape Town: University of Cape Town Press. Schirmer, S. (2000) ‘Policy Visions and Historical Realities: Land Reform in the Context of Recent Agricultural Developments’, African Studies 59(2): 143-167 Scoones, I. (1998) Sustainable Rural Livelihoods: A Framework for Analysis, IDS Working Paper 72, Brighton: IDS. Seekings, J. and N. Nattrass (2005) Class, Race and Inequality in South Africa, New Haven, C.T. and London: Yale University Press. Seiler, J. (1999) ‘Bophuthatswana: a State of Politics’, in J. Seiler (ed.) Transforming Mangope’s Bophuthatswana: Towards Democracy in North West Province, Johannesburg: Daily Mail and Guardian. Sender, J. (2002) ‘Women’s Struggle to Escape Rural Poverty in South Africa’, Journal of Agrarian Change 2(1): 1-49. Solesbury, W. (2003) Sustainable Livelihoods: A Case Study of the Evolution of DFID Policy, ODI Working Paper No. 217, London: Overseas Development Institute. 22 StatsSA (1998a) Unemployment and Employment in South Africa, available at www.statssa.gov.za StatsSA (1998b) Labour Statistics: Employment, Salaries and Wages: Mining, Quarrying and Manufacturing, Construction and Electricity, available at www.statssa.gov.za StatsSA (1998c) Population Census, 1996, available at www.statssa.gov.za StatsSA (2000) October Household Survey 1999, available at www.statssa.gov.za StatsSA (2003) Labour Force Survey September 2002, available at www.statssagov.za StatsSA (2005a) Gross Domestic Product, Annual estimates: 1993-2004, available at www.statssa.gov.za StatsSA (2005b) Survey of Employment and Earnings, available at www.statssa.gov.za StatSA (2005c) Labour Force Survey 2005, available at www.statssa.gov.za Surplus People Project (1983) Forced Removals in South Africa, Vol. 5, The Transvaal, Cape Town: Surplus People Project. Trapido, S. (1971) ‘South Africa in a Comparative Study of Industrialisation’, Journal of Development Studies, 7.3: 309-320. UNAIDS (2004) Report on the Global AIDS Epidemic, at www.unaids.org. UNFPA (2002) Population and Housing Censuses: Strategies for Reducing Costs, Population and Development Strategies Series, No. 4, at http://www.unfpa.org/upload/lib_pub_file/24_filename_pophousingcens us.pdf Wade, R.H. (2004) ‘Is Globalization Reducing Poverty and Inequality?’, International Journal of Health Sciences 34(3), 381-414. Wood, G. (2003) ‘Staying Secure, Staying Poor: The “Faustian Bargain”, World Development 31(3): 455-471. Wood, G. and S. Salway (2000) ‘Introduction: Securing Livelihoods in Dhaka Slums’, Journal of International Development 12(5): 669-688. World Bank (2000) World Development Report 2000/1: Attacking Poverty. Washington D.C.: World Bank. 23