CPRC South Africa
CPRC’s work in South Africa is led by the Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) at the University of the Western Cape, and coordinated by Associate Professor Andries du Toit.
- Introduction to chronic poverty in South Africa
- Key CPRC events in South Africa
- Key CPRC publications
- Contact details for CPRC partners
Introduction to chronic poverty in South Africa
South Africa is a middle income country of 44 million people. However, despite a per capita GDP of over $11,000, it scores lower on the UN’s Human Development Index than Bolivia (UNDP 2006). This is an indication of the extent to which the development in the 20th century of an internationally-integrated modern economy, delivering a high standard of living to the white minority, was achieved at the expense of massive upheaval and impoverishment of the black African majority population. It also suggests that the post-apartheid government has struggled with the multiple legacies of this history, coupled with new challenges such as the onset of the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
The apartheid system perpetuated racially-based inequality and made the chronic poverty experienced by millions of South Africans an important issue in the anti-apartheid struggle. Following the formal end of apartheid in 1990 and the first democratic elections in 1994, the ANC government has begun to reverse decades of underinvestment and oppression of the majority of the population. Membership of the elite of society has become more diverse, and overall access to public services has improved, yet many people remain trapped in chronic poverty.
Although national panel data for South Africa as a whole is not yet available, CPRC research in 2001 (Aliber 2001) suggested that nearly a quarter of all South African households are likely to be chronically poor, and that 70% of all poor people live in rural areas. Individuals, households and groups who are particularly likely to suffer chronic poverty include those living in marginal rural areas and urban ghettos, farm workers and other people in insecure or low-paid employment, the disabled and elderly, HIV/AIDS sufferers, child-headed ‘households’, the displaced and refugees, and people subject to exploitative relationships within the mainstream economy.
Public action on poverty and chronically poor people
The South African government has taken a multi-dimensional approach to reducing poverty, with efforts including: promotion of economic growth; delivery of public services to all; transfer of assets to poor people (e.g. land reform); and introduction of a social protection system that covers all South Africans.
The most effective action to tackle chronic poverty so far has been the social protection system. South Africa’s success in reducing the number of people living in poverty, and in raising the incomes of the poorest strata of society, is largely due to the roll-out of cash transfers (Van der Bergh et al 2005) But it is in reducing the depth of poverty that the system appears to have had its greatest impact, reducing the average poverty gap (the amount by which poor households fall below the poverty line) by almost one third, with a greater impact on the very poorest households (Samson et al 2004). The system is not only the largest but also the most directly effective component of public spending on poverty reduction.
There have been significant improvements in delivery of public services to the poorest households, and in their accumulation of assets, the result of a significant redistribution of wealth and shift in public spending from the minority white population to the poorest sections of the population, who were (and are) mostly black Africans (Bhorat and Kanbur 2006). However, the scale of the task is enormous: still the majority of the poorest are without piped water, electricity or secure housing, especially in rural areas (Bhorat et al 2006). The cost of the new services, and a range of issues around quality and control of new housing programmes, have seen township organisations in dispute with local and national authorities (SDI 2006), although there is now some discussion of reforms in the direction of greater community control (Sisulu 2006). Regarding redistribution of assets, land reform has been the highest profile programme. Again, some progress has been made through a system where the state supports land reform through the market (the “willing seller willing buyer” model), but the pace of progress has been slow and below target (Chimhowu 2006).
Action taken to reverse some of the practices of discrimination associated with the apartheid years has created new opportunities for members of previously disadvantaged groups. From the gender balance of parliament to the ethnic origin of business and political leaders, the elite is changing. But these gains have not changed the overall profile of chronic and structural poverty in South Africa. Not only does poverty persist, as pointed out above; inequality may even have worsened. Economic growth coupled with the removal of legal discrimination has not yet been sufficient to enable large numbers of chronically poor people to escape poverty. Growth has not generated the volume and quality of jobs to keep pace with the rising numbers of people looking for paid work, and there has been an increase in ‘informal’ working and unemployment (Oosthuizen 2006). While between-group inequality has lessened somewhat, inequalities within ethnic groups, and within society as a whole, have increased (Bhorat and Kanbur 2006).
The persistence of poverty and inequality is clearly a key concern for government policy. Currently much attention is directed to connecting people in the informal economy, or rural areas – the “second economy” – to the formal, more urbanised, “first economy”. However, chronically poor people’s livelihoods are often already strongly integrated into the national, and even international, economy – for example through work as casual labourers in agriculture, or by providing services to people working in the formal economy. But these occupations are associated with low pay, few rights and few alternative options. Their problem is not so much exclusion as the way in which they are included – what has been called “adverse incorporation”. Addressing this is a fundamental challenge for South Africa’s government and society. The wave of xenophobic violence that has recently gripped South Africa is a direct outflow of this deeply entrenched legacy of structural poverty and marginalisation. And though the South African government clearly sees the need to address this legacy, there is a critical – and unmet - need for creative policy answers.
The obstacles are significant. The South African government operates in a highly constrained economic environment, with the economic orthodoxies of the post-washington consensus putting strong limits on what is ‘thinkable’ in policy. Regional economic development is further constrained by a daunting range of crises and challenges, from spiking food and energy prices to the crisis in Zimbabwe. Finally, unresolved tensions within the ruling party seem to be creating gridlock in a wide range of policy, governance and implementation processes. These realities act both as constraints and as opportunities for policy engagement: on the one hand, ‘business as usual’ in the policy and implementation process has been thrown into disarray; while on the other hand, high degrees of flux and uncertainty create opportunities for bold ideas.
CPRC’s work
CPRC’s partner PLAAS’s research on poverty and chronic poverty intends to inform policymaking by grounding debate in a detailed understanding of the livelihood activities and strategies of poor and vulnerable people, and the ways in which those livelihoods are embedded in the broader political economy of South Africa. Its research is directed particularly at understanding the links between chronic and structural poverty. This requires closely integrating qualitative and quantitative research approaches, and linking the analysis of poverty to a thorough understanding of the role played by local history, gender, identity, and the broader economic and institutional context.
PLAAS situates this work within a broader commitment to ‘public sociology’, and aims to strike a balance between scholarly publication, policy advice to government and donor agencies, and intervention in public debates and public education about the causes and dynamics of poverty. In this context, CPRC researchers have engaged with policymakers and the broader public in many cases, including contributing to the development of the Integrated Food Security and Nutrition programme in the Western Cape, a Food Insecurity and Vulnerability Information and Mapping System (FIVIMS) for the Department of Agriculture (DoA), a major study on Vulnerability, Labour Markets and Social Protection (VLMSP) for the South African Treasury, a major international conference entitled ‘Living on the Margins’.
More recently, CPRC partners have been closely involved in the design of a National Income Dynamics Survey commissioned by the President’s Office. In particular, the CPRC has been closely involved in developing ways in which qualitative research can contribute to the insights of the panel study.. Increasingly, CPRC partners’ work in South Africa is focussing on informal self-employment on the margins of the formal economy, where a majority of chronically poor people exist, and identifying ways to overcome the dynamics of social exclusion and adverse incorporation. This research will lend itself both to keeping chronic poverty on the policy agenda and explaining solutions. The long term interest in social grants will continue and the poverty dynamics survey will add weight to policy solutions in this area. They will also contribute to a better understanding of what method and data can and cannot do in better understanding chronic poverty.
Key CPRC events in South Africa
Living on the Margins:
Vulnerability, social exclusion and the state in the informal economy
Cape Town, South Africa
26-28 March 2007
The Isandla Institute and the Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies at the University of the Western Cape, in partnership with the Chronic Poverty Research Centre, hosted a high level conference which brought researchers and the policy making community together to explore a number of issues facing those in informal employment and at the margins of the formal economy.
Read the conference report and visit conference website ... (opens in new window)
CPRC South Africa researchers have also presented work and/or organised other events relating to chronic poverty, including:
Workshops and seminars
PLAAS seminar on Agriculture and Globalization (15 June 2007)
Presentations
Du Toit, A, (2007) In Search of South Africa’s Second Economy: Chronic poverty, vulnerability and adverse incorporation in Mt Frere and Khayelitsha: Lecture for the Harold Wolpe Memorial Trust (25 April 2007).
Du Toit, A, (2007) The Proper Study of Poverty Research is Inequality. Paper presented at the Sanpad Poverty Challenge Conference, 26-29 June 2007, Durban.
Du Toit, A, (2007) Imagining the Margins”. Lecture at the Stanford University Department of Anthropology lecture series on Land and Livelihoods in Sub-Saharan Africa, 13 February 2007
Key CPRC publications
CPRC Working Papers
Du Toit, A. and Neves, D. (2008) In search of South Africa’s Second Economy: Chronic poverty, economic marginalisation and adverse incorporation in Mt Frere and Khayelitsha, CPRC Working Paper 102.
Aliber (2001) Study of the incidence and nature of chronic poverty and development policy in South Africa: an overview, CPRC Working Paper 3.
Du Toit, A. (2004) Forgotten by the Highway: Globalisation, adverse incorporation and chronic poverty in a commercial farming district of South Africa, CPRC Working Paper 49.
Du Toit, A. (2004) Chronic and structural poverty in South Africa: challenges for action and research, CPRC Working Paper 56.
Du Toit, A. (2005) Notes on CPRC Policy Engagement in South Africa, In Policy Influence and Media Engagement Resource Pack
Chimhowu, A. O. (2006) Tinkering on the fringes? Redistributive land reforms and chronic poverty in Southern Africa, Working paper 58.
Click here for
Book contributions
Du Toit, A (forthcoming) ‘Poverty Measurement Blues; Beyond ‘q-squared’ approaches to understanding chronic poverty in South Africa’ in Poverty Dynamics: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, Edited by Tony Addison, David Hulme and Ravi Kanbur. Oxford: Oxford University Press (forthcoming).
Journal articles
Living on the Margins: the social dynamics of economic marginalisation. Special edition of Development Southern Africa Vol 25, no 2 (June 2008) (in press)
Du Toit A and Neves D., (2007) In Search of South Africa’s Second Economy: Chronic poverty, vulnerability and adverse incorporation in Mt Frere and Khayelitsha, accepted for publication in Africanus 37(2) pp 145-174.
Du Toit, A., 2007. Living on the Margins:The social dynamics of economic marginalization, editor’s introduction for a special edition of Development South Africa Vol 25, no 2 (June 2008).
Du Toit A., Kruger, S and Ponte S., (2008) De-Racialising Exploitation: ‘Black Economic Empowerment’ In The South African Wine Sector, Journal of Agrarian Change Vol 8 (1).
Research reports
Bolwig, S; Ponte S, du Toit A, Riisgard, L and Halberg N, (2007) Integrating Poverty and Environmental Concerns into Value Chain Analysis: A Conceptual and Strategic Framework. Research Report. Danish Institute for International Studies; Copenhagen.
Riisgaard, L, Bolwig, S, du Toit, A, Matose F and Halberg N, (2007) A Toolbox for Action Research with Small Producers in Value Chains
Du Toit, A and Neves D, (2007) Understanding Self-Employment at the Margins of the South African Economy: Findings from a Pilot Study on Qualitative Approaches to Self-Employment. A Report for the National Income Dynamics Study Steering Committee: Cape Town.
Neves, D. (2007) Researching self employment at the margins of the South African Economy: Methodological recommendations from a pilot study on qualitative approaches to self-employment. A Report for the National Income Dynamics Study Steering Committee: Cape Town.
Neves, D. and Du Toit, A., (2007) The dynamics of household formation and composition in the rural Eastern Cape. Report for RBF-CSSR. PLAAS: Cape Town.
Neves, D. (2007) The impact of illness and death on migration back to the Eastern Cape. Report for CSSR. PLAAS: Cape Town.
Neves, D. (2007) The consequences of AIDS related illness and death on households in the Eastern Cape. Report for CSSR. PLAAS: Cape Town.
Other publications
SPII (2007) The Measurement of Poverty in South Africa Project: Key issues. A discussion document. SPII Working Paper no.1. Available at http://www.treasury.gov.za/publications/other/povertyline/SPII%20document.pdf
Du Toit, A and Neves, D., (2007) Concept Note: Terms of reference for Qual-Quant integrated research on social and structural aspects of self-employment on the margins of the South African economy. Concept note presented to the National Income Dynamic Study (NIDS) steering committee. PLAAS: Cape Town.
Other reading and references
Bhorat, H. and Kanbur, R. (eds) (2006) Poverty and Policy in Post- Apartheid SA, HSRC Press, September 2006
Bhorat, H., Naidoo, P. and van der Westhuizen, C. (2006) Shifts in Non-Income Welfare in South Africa: 1993-2004, Working Paper 06/108, Development Policy Research Unit, University of Cape Town, May 2006.
Oosthuizen, M. (2006) The Post-Apartheid Labour Market: 1995 -2004, Working Paper 06/103, Development Policy Research Unit, University of Cape Town, February 2006.
Samson, M., Lee, U., Ndlebe, A., MacQuene, K., van Niekerk, I., Gandhi, V., Harigaya, T. and Abrahams, C. (2004) The social and economic impact of South Africa’s social security system: summary report, prepared by the Economic Policy Research Institute for the Directorate: Finance and Economics, Department of Social Development, Government of South Africa.
Shack/Slum Dwellers International (2006) Bulletin 4: The challenge of engagement. http://www.sdinet.org/bulletins/b17.htm accessed 01.02.2007
Sisulu, L. (2006) Keynote address to the International Slumdwellers’ Conference held at the Cape Town International Convention Centre, 19–21 May 2006, http://www.sdinet.org/reports/rep84.htm#_Toc145492982 accessed 17.11.2006
UNDP (2006) Human Development Report 2006, UNDP: New York.
Contacts
| Andries du Toit, South Africa Coordinator and Researcher, Adverse Incorporation and Social Exclusion | |
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David Neves, Researcher, Empirical Approaches to the Intergenerational Transmission of Poverty Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies
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