IRIN Focus on the poverty challenge

Despite the widely-held perception in Africa that South Africa’s streets are paved with gold, the reality is different: According to the latest surveys, South Africa is confronted with persistent poverty, widespread joblessness, low economic growth and a highly inequitable income distribution system. “South Africa is experiencing a deep social crisis,” said Zola Skweyiya, the minister of welfare, population and development. “We are sitting on a time-bomb of poverty and social disintegration.” In fact, Skweyiya added, the country’s welfare system has so far failed those who most need its support. According to figures from Statistics South Africa (SSA), a department of the finance ministry, the poorest of the nine provinces are KwaZulu-Natal, Northern province, Eastern Cape and Northern Cape. The SSA puts the national average annual per capita income at US $1,450. In the poorest region, Northern Province, that figure stands at just US $428. Activists in non-governmental organisations (NGOs) across the country have told IRIN that poverty and joblessness are widespread in all nine provinces. Urban dwellers, especially those in informal settlements and peri-urban areas, also suffer from joblessness and poverty. But, they said, it is the people living in remote rural areas who suffer most. Many of the rural poor depend on remittances from relatives who are employed in urban centres. “There is a weak manufacturing base in the provinces, especially those areas that formed part of the former apartheid-style homelands,” Sarah Hugo of the Eastern Cape NGO Coalition told IRIN. “The retrenchments of more than 100,000 workers in the gold mines over the last 10 years has led to an increase in joblessness in rural areas.” Northern province The finance ministry figures based on a 1994 report, show that unemployment in Northern Province which shares borders with Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Botswana, is the highest at 47 percent. Of those without jobs, women comprise 59.2 percent. Vonani Bila of the Northern province NGO Coalition told IRIN: “The urban poor are at least nearer to opportunities where they can get involved in informal businesses or casual labour. The rural poor, on the other hand, are completely marginalised, with no access to employment opportunities and inadequate access to social services such as health, education and welfare grants.” Bila said the Northern province unemployment rate is widespread among women, children and the disabled. “The disabled are isolated from the communities by being institutionalised while children suffer from malnutrition and kwashiorkor.” Eastern Cape The motor industry is the main employer in the coastal cities, Port Elizabeth and East London. But many families in this province, which is 60 percent rural, depend on remittances from relatives who work outside the province. Hugo said retrenched mining industry workers from mainly the Johannesburg region’s Gauteng Province were returning to rural homes where no job prospects exist, putting a strain on their families. “The welfare system has failed people, mainly due to inefficiencies and bureaucratic red tape,” she said. The result is a social crisis with unemployment the second highest in the country at 45.3 percent, and the per capita annual income stands at US $691, the second lowest after Northern Cape. Northern Cape The sparsely populated Northern Cape, which comprises 29.7 percent of the total area of South Africa, has an unemployment rate of 32.5 percent. Its annual per capita income is US $1,661, the third highest in the country after Gauteng (US $3,210) and Western Cape (US $2,248). But Sharmaine van der Heever of the province’s NGO Coalition said: “Unemployment is very high for a province with a population density of 2.0 persons per square km.” She added that mining, the major employer in the province, has been retrenching workers in large numbers, which has increased poverty. Van der Heever said that many households depend on welfare grants, especially those meant for child maintenance. “One of the social consequences of poverty and joblessness is the large numbers of youths who have dropped out of school,” said Van der Heever, adding that this exacerbated social problems from teenage pregnancies, to crime and prostitution. Eradicating poverty Skweyiya said the government aims to design an integrated poverty eradication strategy that provides direct benefits to those who are in greatest need - women, young people and children in rural areas and informal settlements. “This will take place within a sustainable development approach,” Skweyiya said. However, the NGO Coalition activists, although praising the government’s pledge, remain sceptical of its implementation. “The welfare programme of action needs to be rooted at community levels, otherwise it will remain just a paper plan,” said Bongani Khumalo, an activist in KwaZulu-Natal. The government should encourage self-reliance rather than foster a dependency syndrome where the beneficiaries receive hand-outs every month. “We need to see more infrastructural projects in rural areas and government involvement in the establishment of sustainable business ventures.”