- Title
- Making the Invisible Visible: Ameliorating Poverty through Natural Resource Commercialisation
- Creator
- Shackleton, Sheona E
- Date
- 2009
- Type
- text
- Identifier
- vital:6618
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1016226
- Description
- [From Introduction] The majority of households in South Africa, especially those in the rural communal areas, live in abject poverty. Some 70% of rural households can be classified as poor, while 18-24% fall into the chronically poor category. Unlike many other developing nations, South Africa's rural communal areas are characterised by relatively poor availability of agricultural land, with only about 40% of rural households involved in field cropping. This results in high levels of integration and dependence on the cash economy. Unemployment levels are amongst the highest in the world at about 30%. Unemployment amongst women tends to be greater than amongst men resulting in a poverty rate amongst rural female-headed households of over 60%; double that of male-headed households. The scourge of HIV/AIDS is devastating already poor households' ability to cope. More than half of HIV/AIDS affected households have insufficient food (UNDP 2003). Impacts of the pandemic include not only the loss of income, but also increased expenditure particularly on medical care and funerals. The need to care for ill household members or orphaned children also limits the choices of occupation that other household members can pursue, and may restrict labour availability for food production. Household assets are often sold for cash eroding the few safety nets people have. HIV/AIDS is expected to contribute to a chronic impoverishment of 26-33% more households than would be the case in its absence (Aliber 2003).
- Description
- Endnote: This policy brief is based on the original brief made available for a workshop in August 2006. It is derived, amongst other sources, from the findings of nine case studies of local natural resource commercialisation undertaken as part of a project funded by the South Africa-Netherlands Programme on Alternatives in Development (SANPAD), BP South Africa and the National Research Foundation (NRF). Case studies on woodcraft, furniture production, weaving, broom production and the sale of wild foods and traditional marula beer were completed by Zwoitwa Makhado (UWC), Sibongile Mavimbela (Rhodes), Taryn Pereira (Rhodes), Sheona Shackleton (Rhodes) and Jabulile Sithole (WSU). CIFOR with support from SIDA, provided the funding to share these findings with key stakeholders. The opinions expressed in these policy briefs are those of the author and research team and should not necessarily be attributed to funders and partner institutions.
- Format
- 6 pages, pdf
- Publisher
- Rhodes University, Faculty of Science, Environmental Science
- Language
- English
- Relation
- Shackleton, S (2009) Ameliorating poverty in South Africa through natural resource commercialisation. Department of Environmental Science, Rhodes University. Policy Brief no. 5, 2009., Department of Environmental Science - Policy Brief
- Rights
- Rhodes University
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- Visitors: 865
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Collections
RU Department of Environmental Science
Shackleton, Sheona (Prof)
RU Department of Environmental Science: Policy Briefs
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