Building social capital? The case of Afesis-corplan in the Eastern Cape Province.
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Date
2011-10-17
Authors
Mudau, Patrick Thingaambi
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Abstract
There has been a belief that conventional approaches to development failed for many years to
reverse the trends of poverty in rural communities. As a result, the focus shifted to the
Sustainable Livelihoods Approach that many development practitioners, policy developers and
other players in rural development see as an alternative.
However, it appears that there is agreement from supporters of SLA that sustainable livelihoods
in rural communities can be more realistically supported when social capital is built or/and
strengthened from within. As a result, many livelihoods support programmes have been
implemented across the world since 1992. Most of these projects were in rural areas of
developing countries in Africa, Asia and South America (such as Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Gambia,
Indonesia, Bolivia, Zambia, and Nepal as well as in South Africa).
In light of the above, the researcher has been prompted to investigate the relationship between
Sustainable Livelihoods Approaches and social capital to find out if indeed the application of
SLA in development programmes can facilitate building and/or strengthening of social capital in
rural communities. Further, the research investigates to what extent the building of social capital
contributes to the reduction of poverty and vulnerability in rural communities and households.
The research was undertaken in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. Two different rural
villages were chosen as case studies because of their poverty levels and also because livelihood
programmes had been implemented in the areas by the organization called Afesis-corplan.
The research concludes that Afesis-corplan has facilitated the strengthening of some social
capital that existed and also built new networks. However, it is still to be seen if the work of
Afesis-corplan will translate into an improved standard of living for those communities.