UWCScholar :: Browsing by Author "Neves, David"

Browsing by Author "Neves, David"

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Cash transfers for sustainable rural livelihoods? Examining the long-term productive effects of the Child Support Grant in South Africa
(Elsivier, 2020) Neves, David; Granlund, Stefan
Cash transfers have received increased scholarly and policy attention, as a means of reducing poverty in the global South. While cash transfers are primarily intended to prevent impoverishment and deprivation, several studies suggest they can have 'productive' impacts, contributing to building sustainable livelihoods. However, pilot projects of unconditional cash transfers have often been too brief or too recent to determine how small, but regular, transfers can improve rural livelihoods over time. This paper explores potential long-term productive effects of cash transfers on rural household’s livelihoods. This is done through revisiting, after 14 years, all (273) households in two South African villages included in an extensive livelihood and asset survey in 2002. That survey predated the phasing in of the Child Support Grant (CSG), targeted at impoverished children. When re-surveyed in 2016, some households had cumulatively received significant, while others little or no CSG income. Multivariate regression analysis shows how households that received more CGS income were more likely to invest in productive assets (e.g. small ploughs), and engage in poultry, staple crop and vegetable production. We also found a statistically significant correlation between CSG incomes and growing a larger variety of crops, in an environment generally marked by deagrarianization. However, correlations between receiving more CSG and employment or engagement in informal small-scale trade were not significant. We use data from interviews and observations to explain these processes further.
Cash transfers for sustainable rural livelihoods? Examining the long-term productive effects of the Child Support Grant in South Africa
(Elsevier, 2020) Neves, David; Hajdu, Flora; Granlund, Stefan
Cash transfers have received increased scholarly and policy attention, as a means of reducing poverty in the global South. While cash transfers are primarily intended to prevent impoverishment and deprivation, several studies suggest they can have 'productive' impacts, contributing to building sustainable livelihoods. However, pilot projects of unconditional cash transfers have often been too brief or too recent to determine how small, but regular, transfers can improve rural livelihoods over time. This paper explores potential long-term productive effects of cash transfers on rural household's livelihoods. This is done through revisiting, after 14 years, all (273) households in two South African villages included in an extensive livelihood and asset survey in 2002. That survey predated the phasing in of the Child Support Grant (CSG), targeted at impoverished children. When re-surveyed in 2016, some households had cumulatively received significant, while others little or no CSG income. Multivariate regression analysis shows how households that received more CGS income were more likely to invest in productive assets (e.g. small ploughs), and engage in poultry, staple crop and vegetable production.
Changing livelihoods in rural Eastern Cape, South Africa (2002–2016): Diminishing employment and expanding social protection
(Taylor & Francis, 2020) Hajdu, Flora; Neves, David; Granlund, Stefan
This is evident in South Africa’s former ‘homelands’, the site where this study examined changes in rural livelihoods over a 14-year period. Detailed survey data (collected in 2002 and 2016) from two villages in the Pondoland region of Eastern Cape province, and augmented by in-depth fieldwork, are analysed to explore the drivers of contemporary livelihood change.
Defining Lone Motherhood in South Africa
(Institute for Poverty Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS), 2013) Wright, Gemma; Noble, Michael; Ntshongwana, Phakama; Barnes, Helen; Neves, David
The purpose of this document is to define the group of people whom we are considering as part of the project ‘Lone Mothers in South Africa: The role of social security in respecting and protecting dignity’. Setting to one side the group of interest briefly (‘lone mothers’), the project originates from research undertaken for the South African Department of Social Development (DSD) about attitudes to employment and social security (Noble et al., 2008; Ntshongwana and Wright, 2010a and 2010b; Ntshongwana et al., 2010; Surender et al., 2007; Surender et al., 2010). During the fieldwork for that programme of research, participants in focus groups repeatedly made the unprompted point that poverty eroded their sense of dignity. Given that the South African Constitution declares that people have inherent dignity and that dignity should be protected and respected (Republic of South Africa, 1996), we decided to dedicate a separate project to exploring the role that social security currently plays in relation to people’s sense of dignity. Specifically we hoped to explore whether social assistance, as a financial transfer to low income people, serves to help to protect and respect people’s dignity, or conversely whether there are ways in which the country’s social security arrangements serve to undermine people’s dignity. Currently, there is no social assistance for low income people of working age, even though there is a commitment elsewhere in the Constitution to the progressive realisation of access to social assistance for people, and their dependants, who are unable to support themselves (Republic of South Africa, 1996: Chapter 2 section 27). We therefore wanted to additionally explore whether people thought that – in the context of very high levels of unemployment ‐ some additional form of social assistance might be a worthwhile poverty alleviation measure that would help to protect and respect people’s sense of dignity, or whether it might serve to further erode people’s sense of dignity. Although the issues around poverty, dignity and social security could be explored with any subgroup of the population, we selected lone mothers (broadly defined, as elaborated below) for several reasons. First, they embody the societal expectations of caregiver and breadwinner – roles which are difficult to reconcile even if there is financial support from the state (Budlender, 2010; Kilkey, 2000; Lewis, 2010; Mokomane, 2009). As Millar writes: ‘lone parents are a group for whom the concept of the employment‐based welfare, in which all adults are in paid employment, highlights very sharply the potential tensions between time for work and time for care.‘ (Millar, 2008: 4).
Economic informality in South Africa: practice & policy
(2015) Neves, David
SA context: • High poverty & unemployment, yet small SMME sector. • Informal sector: African, low earning, female & retail dominated. • Inhibited by: – Spatial, labour market & ‘human capital’ legacies
Examining livelihoods and reconsidering rural development in the former homelands of South Africa
(Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape, 2017) Neves, David
Persistent poverty and under-development in South Africa’s former homeland communal areas have been little changed by post-apartheid ‘rural development’ policy. Rural development policy has often been characterised by impulses towards topdown planning, a default assumption that agriculture ought to drive rural development, a reliance on resource-intensive income generation projects, and general inattention to the larger economy (including the role of urban linkages, employment and markets). Contested rural governance and weak public administration further inhibit rural development in the communal areas. Against this backdrop, livelihoods-orientated enquiry amongst impoverished rural households contributes to reassessing and rethinking rural development policy. This policy brief draws on qualitative and quantitative enquiry undertaken in a former ‘homeland’ or ‘bantustan’, in the rural Eastern Cape (Neves, 2017). The research combined in-depth household interviews with longitudinal (across time) NIDS (National Income Dynamics Study) and area-based Census 2011 data. Integrating these enables the depth and specificity of household qualitative inquiry to be contextualised in relation to larger (quantitative) dynamics.
In search of South Africa’s second economy: Chronic poverty, vulnerability and adverse incorporation in Mt. Frere and Khayelitsha
(Institute for Poverty Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS), 2007) du Toit, Andries; Neves, David
Since 2003, South African policy discourse about persistent poverty has been dominated by the notion that poor people stay poor because they are trapped in a ‘second economy’, disconnected from the mainstream ‘first world economy’. This paper considers the adequacy of this notion in the light of research conducted in 2002 and 20052006 in Mount Frere in the rural Eastern Cape, and in Cape Town’s African suburbs. It argues that a process of simultaneous monetization, de-agrarianization and de-industrialization has created a heavy reliance on a formal sector in which employment is becoming increasingly elusive and fragile. Fieldwork suggested high levels of economic integration, corporate penetration and monetization even in the remote rural Eastern Cape. Within this context, survival relies on complex practices of reciprocity in spatially extended urban-rural networks, and on widespread, elusive, economically crucial but fragile forms of informal economic activity and self-employment. Rather than being structurally disconnected from the ‘formal economy’, formal and informal, ‘mainstream’ and marginal activities are often thoroughly interdependent, supplementing or subsidizing one another in complex ways. The dynamics of these diverge significantly from those imagined both in ‘second economy’ discourse and in ‘SMME’ policy. Instead of imagining a separate economic realm, ‘structurally disconnected’ from the ‘first economy,’ it is more helpful to grasp that the South African economy is both unitary and heterogeneous, and that people’s prospects are determined by the specific ways in which their activities are caught up in the complex networks and circuits of social and economic power; and rather than ‘bringing people into’ the mainstream economy policymakers would do better to consider ways of counteracting disadvantageous power and supporting the livelihood strategies that are found at the margins of the formal economy.
In search of South Africa’s ‘second economy’: Chronic poverty, economic marginalisation and adverse incorporation in Mt Frere and Khayelitsha
(Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape, 2007-11) du Toit, Andries; Neves, David
Since 2003, South African policy discourse about persistent poverty has been dominated by the notion that poor people stay poor because they are trapped in a ‘second economy’, disconnected from the mainstream ‘First- World economy’. This paper considers the adequacy of this notion in the light of research conducted in 2002 and 2005/06 in Mount Frere in the rural Eastern Cape, and in Cape Town’s African suburbs. It argues that a process of simultaneous monetisation, de-agrarianisation and de-industrialisation has created a heavy reliance on a formal sector in which employment is becoming increasingly elusive and fragile. Fieldwork suggested high levels of economic integration, corporate penetration and monetisation, even in the remote rural Eastern Cape. Rather than being structurally disconnected from the ‘formal economy’, formal and informal, ‘mainstream’ and marginal activities are often thoroughly interdependent, supplementing or subsidising one another in complex ways. The dynamics involved diverge significantly from those imagined both in ‘second economy’ discourse and in small, medium and micro enterprise (SMME) policy. Instead of imagining a separate economic realm, ‘structurally disconnected’ from the ‘first economy,’ it is more helpful to grasp that the South African economy is both unitary and heterogeneous, and that people’s prospects are determined by the specific ways in which their activities are caught up in the complex networks and circuits of social and economic power. Rather than ‘bringing people into’ the mainstream economy, policy-makers would do better to strengthen existing measures to reduce vulnerability, to consider ways of counteracting disadvantageous power relations within which people are caught, and to support the livelihood strategies that are found at the margins of the formal economy.
Informal social protection in post-apartheid migrant networks: Vulnerability, social networks and reciprocal exchange in the Eastern and Western Cape, South Africa
(Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape, 2009-01) du Toit, Andries; Neves, David
This paper considers the dynamics of informal social protection in the context of chronic poverty and vulnerability in post-apartheid migrant networks. It argues that in poor and marginalised households in South Africa, the indirect impacts of social grants cannot be adequately understood by focusing simply on either individual or household decision making. Instead, the paper concentrates on the central role of the elaborate and spatially extended network of reciprocal exchange within the informal social protection systems.
Livelihoods & social differentiation in ‘post-agrarian’ South Africa
(2017) Neves, David
• Legacy: Settler colonialism & migrant labour • Industrialization & proletarianisation • Dichotomous agrarian landscape • Rural poverty, esp. former homelands • Longstanding deagrarianisation
Lone Mothers in South Africa - The role of social security in respecting and protecting dignity.
(Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape, 2013) Wright, Gemma; Noble, Michael; Ntshongwana, Phakama; Neves, David; Barnes, Helen
The purpose of this document is to define the group of people whom we are considering as part of the project ‘Lone Mothers in South Africa: The role of social security in respecting and protecting dignity’. Setting to one side the group of interest briefly (‘lone mothers’), the project originates from research undertaken for the South African Department of Social Development (DSD) about attitudes to employment and social security (Noble et al., 2008; Ntshongwana and Wright, 2010a and 2010b; Ntshongwana et al., 2010; Surender et al., 2007; Surender et al., 2010). During the fieldwork for that programme of research, participants in focus groups repeatedly made the unprompted point that poverty eroded their sense of dignity. Given that the South African Constitution declares that people have inherent dignity and that dignity should be protected and respected (Republic of South Africa, 1996), we decided to dedicate a separate project to exploring the role that social security currently plays in relation to people’s sense of dignity. Specifically we hoped to explore whether social assistance, as a financial transfer to low income people, serves to help to protect and respect people’s dignity, or conversely whether there are ways in which the country’s social security arrangements serve to undermine people’s dignity.
Lone Mothers in South Africa - The role of social security in respecting and protecting dignity.
(Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape, 2013) Wright, Gemma; Noble, Michael; Ntshongwana, Phakama; Neves, David; Barnes, Helen
The purpose of this document is to define the group of people whom we are considering as part of the project ‘Lone Mothers in South Africa: The role of social security in respecting and protecting dignity’. Setting to one side the group of interest briefly (‘lone mothers’), the project originates from research undertaken for the South African Department of Social Development (DSD) about attitudes to employment and social security (Noble et al., 2008; Ntshongwana and Wright, 2010a and 2010b; Ntshongwana et al., 2010; Surender et al., 2007; Surender et al., 2010). During the fieldwork for that programme of research, participants in focus groups repeatedly made the unprompted point that poverty eroded their sense of dignity. Given that the South African Constitution declares that people have inherent dignity and that dignity should be protected and respected (Republic of South Africa, 1996), we decided to dedicate a separate project to exploring the role that social security currently plays in relation to people’s sense of dignity. Specifically we hoped to explore whether social assistance, as a financial transfer to low income people, serves to help to protect and respect people’s dignity, or conversely whether there are ways in which the country’s social security arrangements serve to undermine people’s dignity.
Mapping Obesogenic food environments in South Africa and Ghana: Correlations and contradictions
(MPDI, 2019) Krol, Florian; Swart, Elizabeth Catherina; Annan, Reginald Adjetey; Thow, Anne Marie; Neves, David; Apprey, Charles; Aduku, Linda Nana Esi; Agyapong, Nana Ama Frimpomaa; Moubarac, Jean-Claude; du Toit, Andries; Aidoo, Robert; Sanders, David
In sub-Saharan Africa, urbanisation and food systems change contribute to rapid dietary transitions promoting obesity. It is unclear to what extent these changes are mediated by neighbourhood food environments or other factors. This paper correlates neighbourhood food provision with household consumption and poverty in Khayelitsha, South Africa and Ahodwo, Ghana. Georeferenced survey data of food consumption and provision were classified by obesity risk and protection. Outlets were mapped, and density and distribution correlated with risk classes
Money and sociality in South Africa's informal economy
(Cambridge University Press, 2012) Neves, David; du Toit, Andries
This article examines the interplay of agency, culture and context in order to consider the social embeddedness of money and trade at the margins of South Africa’s economy. Focusing on small-scale, survivalist informal enterprise operators, it draws on socio-cultural analysis to explore the social dynamics involved in generating and managing wealth. After describing the informal sector in South Africa, the article elucidates the relationship between money and economic informality. First, diverse objectives, typically irreducible to the maximization of profit, animate those in the informal sector and challenge meta-narratives of a ‘great transformation’ towards socially disembedded and depersonalized economic relationships. Second, regimes of economic governance, both state-led and informal, shape the terrain on which informal economic activity occurs in complex and constitutive ways. Third, local idioms and practices of trading, managing money and negotiating social claims similarly configure economic activities. Fourth, and finally, encroaching and often inexorable processes of formalization differentially influence those in the informal sector. The analysis draws on these findings to recapitulate both the ubiquity and centrality of the sociality at the heart of economy, and to examine the particular forms they take in South Africa’s informal economy.
Poverty erodes dignity: perspectives of low income female caregivers in South Africa
(Institute for Poverty Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS), 2014) Wright, Gemma; Noble, Michael; Ntshongwana, Phakama; Neves, David; Barnes, Helen
Dignity is a foundational value in South Africa’s Constitution and is also experienced as a psycho-social phenomenon. Dimensions of dignity were explored with almost two hundred low income female caregivers and the impact of poverty on dignity was examined.
Poverty erodes dignity: perspectives of low income female caregivers in South Africa
(Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape, 2014) Wright, Gemma; Noble, Michael; Ntshongwana, Phakama; Neves, David; Barnes, Helen
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights introduces the recognition of the inherent dignity of all people as a foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world. Dignity plays a prominent role in South Africa’s Constitution, both as a foundational value and a right. Dignity can also be considered as a psycho-social phenomenon and at times these two notions of dignity (‘dignity as principle’ and ‘dignity in practice’) can seem disconnected. In this study we explored the linkages by investigating the impact of poverty on dignity, and in particular the extent to which dignity is experienced as violable.
Reconsidering rural development: Using livelihood analysis to examine rural development in the former homelands of South Africa
(Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape, 2017) Neves, David
‘Rural development’ as concept and focus of public policy is comparatively new, having emerged in the post-war period. Much of the impetus for ‘rural development’ arose in the context of newly decolonised, low-income countries, where particularly development economists mooted the ability of the smallscale and subsistence agricultural sector to proactively contribute to national economic development. Early efforts to promote rural development were, therefore, not driven simply by the promise of increasing rural employment and food production. Instead, it was believed that rising agricultural productivity would drive national development by freeing up a marketable surplus, attracting foreign exchange, and providing a market for domestic industrial production.
Research Report to Programme to Support Pro-Poor Policy Development in South Africa (PSPPD)
(Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape, 2011) Neves, David; Aliber, Michael; Mogaladi, Jan; du Toit, Andries
This report documents research conducted on small-scale informal self-employment at the margins of the South African economy. Despite high levels of poverty and unemployment South Africa has, by developing country standards, comparatively low levels of informal economic activity. Economic informality is therefore not only an issue of theoretical interest, but also one of significant public policy salience. The research combined qualitative and quantitative inquiry to understanding the contribution of informal self-employment to the livelihoods of impoverished households, along with factors that enable and constrain informal it. These empirical questions were examined in relation to current state policies and programmes targeted at the informal sector. The report concludes with policy recommendations intended to enhance the ability of policy makers to support the livelihoods of impoverished South Africans.
The role of social security in respecting and protecting the dignity of lone mothers in South Africa: Final report
(Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape, 2014) Wright, Gemma; Noble, Michael; Ntshongwana, Phakama; Neves, David; Barnes, Helen
This is the final report of a project entitled ‘Lone Mothers in South Africa: The role of social security in respecting and protecting dignity’. The project was inspired by research undertaken for the South African Department of Social Development (DSD) about attitudes to employment and social security (e.g. Noble et al., 2008; Ntshongwana, 2010a and 2010b; Surender et al., 2007; Surender et al., 2010). During the fieldwork for that programme of research, participants in focus groups repeatedly made the unprompted point that poverty eroded their sense of dignity. Given that the South African Constitution declares that people have inherent dignity and that dignity should be protected and respected (Republic of South Africa, 1996), we decided to design a project dedicated to exploring the role that social security currently plays in relation to people’s sense of dignity. Specifically we hoped to explore whether social assistance, as a financial transfer to low income people, serves to help to protect and respect people’s dignity, or conversely whether there are ways in which the country’s social security arrangements serve to undermine people’s dignity. Currently, there is no social assistance for low income people of working age unless they are entitled to claim the Disability Grant. There is however a commitment elsewhere in the Constitution to the progressive realisation of access to social assistance for people, and their dependants, who are unable to support themselves (Republic of South Africa, 1996: Chapter 2 section 27). It therefore seemed relevant to explore in addition whether people thought that – in the context of very high levels of unemployment ‐ some additional form of social assistance might be a worthwhile poverty alleviation measure that would help to protect and respect people’s sense of dignity, or whether it might serve to further erode people’s sense of dignity.
The Role of Social Security in Respecting and Protecting the Dignity of Lone Mothers in South Africa: Summary of Findings and Recommendations
(Institute for Poverty Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS), 2014) Wright, Gemma; Noble, Michael; Ntshongwana, Phakama; Neves, David; Barnes, Helen
This study explored lone mothers’ experiences of social security in South Africa in terms of whether it protects and respects their dignity. Interviews were undertaken with almost two hundred low income lone mothers and the impact on dignity was examined. Interviews were also held with senior policy makers in government, and social attitudes were explored more broadly in relation to dignity, poverty and social security using data from the South African Social Attitudes Survey.

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