ASSESSING THE ROLE OF UA IN ADDRESSING POVERTY IN SOUTH AFRICA

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ASSESSING THE ROLE OF UA IN ADDRESSING POVERTY IN
SOUTH AFRICA JP Geldenhuys Lochner Marais
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1. AIM

• Overall direction
• UA in Zambia in SA
• Link with poverty reduction
• Urban policy
• The following relevant objectives have been set
  for this report
• To profile UA practitioners and their households.
• To assess the role of UA in poverty reduction and
  as a coping mechanism.
• To identify key policy issues which could assist
  urban policy makers in designing appropriate
  responses.

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2. Methods used for this paper

• South African annual household survey
• The 2007 profile was used to provide as accurate
  as possible an overview of the current situation.
  
• Next, an attempt was made to compare the 2002 and
  2007 data sets.
• A control group with the same attributes as the
  UA practitioners was developed obviously except
  for the fact that the members were not involved
  in UA.
• Identification of UA practitioners in the survey
  2007 (size, traditional units, TA, 3 provinces
  impossible income)

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3. SA economic environment (output and income
growth)
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3. SA economic environment (inflation rates)
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3. SA economic environment (increases in food
prices)
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4. Literature review (LM)

• The post-industrial city
• Problems (competition for land Negative approach
  by authorities water theft)
• Poverty alleviation / food security commonly
  cited as reasons for UA
• UA in South Africa Various conclusion (positive
  and negative)
• Link with welfare grants
• Older people
• Payment for water
• Policy implications
• UA and urban densities / open spaces
• High levels of urbanization
• Implications for urban area
• Elderly?
• Payment for water

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5. Basic profiling (LM)

• Geographic distribution (link to rainfall, and
  lesser degree soil quality)
• Gender female orientated ( more female headed
  household than the control group)
• Population group
• Household size UA families 4.4 vs 3.3 control
  group
• Age (52 vs 44)
• Level of education lower for UA practitioners
  (44.7 of UA practitioners none, some primary of
  primary education versus 31.2)

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6. UA production

• Land tenure (90 claim the own the land in 2007
  compared with 76 in 2002)
• 3/4s field crops livestock 10 Poultry 8
• UA lower levels of services (more likely to use a
  public tap policy link)
• Only 28.8 UA pay for water compared with 62
  control group

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7. UA and poverty (expenditure and income)

• Main source of income
• Urban farmers more dependent on
  non-salary/non-wage income, while share of these
  sources of income increased between 2002 and
  2007.
• Important sources grants and remittances
• Share of sales of agricultural products increased
  markedly, but still only main source of income
  for 7 of households.
• Household expenditure
• Percentage of all households in the bottom two
  expenditure categories decreased sharply between
  2002 and 2007. However, categories were in
  nominal prices those households falling in the
  bottom two categories in 2007 much worse off.
• Urban farmers more likely to fall in bottom two
  spending categories, and less likely to fall in
  the top two spending categories, than are their
  non-agriculturalist counterparts.

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7. UA and poverty (household assets)

• Welfare comparison based on comparison of
  ownership of private assets and access to
  services
• Private assets TV, radio, landline telephone,
  cellular telephone, radio, car access to
  services type of toilet facility, source of
  drinking water, source of energy for heating,
  cooking, lighting.
• Seems that those not involved in UA are better
  off
• More likely to own/have car, TV, landline phone
  more likely to have access to piped water, flush
  toilets and to use electricity as lighting source
  for cooking, heating and lighting.
• Trends in asset ownership and access to services
  over 2002-2007 surprising
• During period of prolonged growth, private asset
  ownership growth (with exception of cellphone
  ownership) essentially flat access to flush
  toilets and piped water declined for both cohorts
  (much more sharply for UA) use of electricity
  for cooking and lighting increased sharply for UA
  households.
• Observed trend in service-delivery growth (cf.
  Bhorat et al. (2006)) possibly due to efficiency
  and capacity problems at local government level.

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7. UA and poverty (Asset index)

• Using factor analysis and a pooled sample to
  construct a common set of weights, an asset index
  was constructed to compare overall welfare of
  households.
• Ownership of given asset
• Overall welfare level
• Asset index value

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7. UA and poverty (results of asset index)

• Scoring coefficients from the first retained
  factor served as weights in the asset index.
• Categories that imply higher living standards
  should have positive weights, and vice versa.
  For water source and type of toilet almost all
  categories have positive weights, but weights on
  the sources of water other than piped water, and
  type of toilet other than flush toilet, are much
  lower than the weights on piped water and flush
  toilet implying that households with piped
  water and/or a flush toilet obtain higher asset
  index scores.
• For 2002, 2007 and for the pooled sample, UA had
  lower asset index scores, implying lower welfare
  levels.
• Between 2002 and 2007, mean asset index scores
  for both cohorts decreased, implying lower
  welfare levels for both cohorts.
• Difficult to reconcile with economic growth over
  the period results from other studies (e.g.
  Bhorat et al. 2006, for the period 1993-2004).

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8. Food security
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9. Quality of life

• UA practitioners were more likely to agree that
• they couldnt do much to change most of their
  difficulties,
• often felt lonely,
• did not enjoy their work and
• that life was so complicated that they almost
  couldnt find their way.

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10. Heath

• Although there is no specific trend, it seems as
  if UA practitioners are less healthy than
  non-farmers. (However, it should be borne in
  mind that they are also considerably older, which
  suggests that they would require medical care
  more frequently).
• What does seem to be significant is that an
  appreciably smaller percentage of UA
  practitioners consulted a doctor (44.9 versus
  56.4).
• At the same time, nearly 40 of the households
  who could not visit a doctor related this to the
  fact that they did not have enough money, while
  only 13.8 of the control group returned this
  response.

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11. Concluding comments

• UA in South Africa largely a coping mechanism
  unlikely to address the MDGs significantly
• Yet, we still do not understand why people get
  involved?
• What the urban policy and policy guidelines in
  general should / should not be?