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Collaborative Research Support Program
Possible causes of poverty within a group of land reform beneficiaries in the Midlands of KwaZulu-Natal:
Analysis and policy recommendations
L.H. Shinns, M.C. Lyne
University of KwaZulu-Natal
June 2004
SARPN acknowledges the Development Experience Clearinghouse website as the source of this document: www.dec.org
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Introduction
The ultimate objective of development is to improve the quality of life of people. Developing countries need to identify and implement poverty reducing strategies and to assess the extent and depth of poverty before and after any such strategy (Booker et al, 1980: 19). It is therefore important to distinguish between the causes and symptoms of poverty, as it is the
treatment of root causes rather than the symptoms that will address poverty in the long run. Treatment of the symptoms is however necessary to improve living conditions in the shortrun, and because today’s symptoms often contribute to future poverty.
This study investigates relationships between long-term causes of poverty (such as low levels of human capital) and their symptoms (such as low levels of income and economic wealth) observed in a community of 38 households that benefited from Settlement/Land Acquisition Grants (SLAG) awarded by the Department of Land Affairs (DLA). The beneficiaries pooled their grants and established a Communal Property Association to purchase a 630 hectare grazing farm in the Midlands of KwaZulu-Natal. This paper builds on an earlier study of the beneficiary community conducted by Shinns & Lyne (2003) who demonstrated the effects of alternative welfare programmes on households displaying different symptoms of poverty. Apart from informing policy recommendations aimed at alleviating rural poverty in South Africa, these studies will provide baseline information needed to monitor changes in the level and distribution of poverty within the beneficiary community over time.
The paper begins with discussion of the main causes and symptoms of poverty. Section 3 describes the data gathered, and postulates a discriminant model to explore relationships between possible causes of poverty and membership of the poverty groups identified by Shinns & Lyne (2003). Section 4 presents the results of the discriminant analysis, and section 5 examines their policy implications. Conclusions are drawn in the final section.
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