Measuring South African social development: a case study of praxis in the Eastern Cape.
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Date
2021
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Abstract
In South Africa, present levels of poverty and inequality are intolerably high, and there is both an
incontestable imperative to enact, and an expressed commitment by the state to facilitate, social
development. There is, however, little evident evaluation of how effective this undertaking has been. The
aim of this research is to quantify and assess the social development praxis - ideology, process, and
practice combined - of the mandated government Department of Social Development. The enquiry
investigates the case of the Eastern Cape province, exploiting the public availability of the Eastern Cape
Department of Social Developmentās Annual Reports.
The research first determines the scope of the Eatern Cape Department of Social Development activity by
the measure of financial resource allocation across the categorical channels of Department of Social
Development activity for the financial years 2007/2008 to 2017/2018. This enables in the second instance,
establishing the changes in targeted social development outcomes by measuring the change in provincial
inverse, multidimensional poverty over the study period. This was achieved using the data generated by
all five waves of the National Income Dynamics Survey, and by computing a novel Multidimensional
Poverty Index for the Eastern Cape using the Alkire-Foster metho.
Utilizing a fractional response probit model to determine an empirical association between the
explanatory variable of changes in Eastern Cape Department of Social Development financial resource
allocation, and the changes in the outcome variable of targeted social development outcomes represented
by the regional Multidimensional Poverty Index, the study estimated an empirical - but negligible -
association between Eastern Cape Department of Social Development spending and the regional
Multidimensional Poverty Index. This infers a limited impacty of Eastern Cape Department of Social
Development praxis on multidimensional poverty.
The research concludes that there is an evident insufficiency in the scope of the mechanism of state-led
social development interventions as practiced in the Eastern Cape province and that redress of long-term
deprivations and inequity of access to vital social goods, such as quality education, employment stability,
and appropriate healthcare, has been inadequate. While this case evidence is not necessarily generalisable
to the country, it is recommended that further investigation iteratively evaluates the outcomes of social
development praxis in the other provinces.
Description
Masters Degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban.