Policy Effectiveness in South Africa and Zimbabwe - Case Study Example

Policy Effectiveness in South Africa and Zimbabwe Name Institution Course Lecturer Date According to Townsend & Gordon (2009, p 14), Poverty is deficiency in peoples’ capabilities. There are many forms by which it manifests itself which includes the way people access basic services, important assets like land, Income, social capital and social network. Poverty is a major cause of economic growth and result as well. On the other hand as Merolla, Hunt & Serpe, (2011, p 256) explains, economic inequalities refers to a state of affairs in a country where assets income or wealth is unequally distributed among the citizens. It stands for the gap between the rich and the poor. This is a major hindrance to growth in many African countries. This is because any return from the country’s economic growth will just favor the well connected, the organized, and skilled .This paper will use two nations as the case study. The two Nations, South Africa and Zimbabwe share in poverty and inequalities, matters in that in both countries, these are classified in racial lines. This paper will briefly look at these challenges and deeply scrutinize the strategies or policies put to deal with them and then compare the effectiveness in the two cases and finally how each one of them can borrow from the other It is good to note that South Africa is among the 35 largest economies in the world and one of the wealthiest Nations as well. Despite that, it is 16th largest among the 67 nations for which poverty measures are regularly reported and position five in Sub Sahara Africa. On inequality matters, the country inherited a big legacy of in year 1994 from an Apartheid regime. Most of the resources at that time were in the hands of foreigners who occupied key job positions and land to the advantage of the indigenous who were poor with a good number being illiterate. The government has done a number of things to address the problem (Gelos, Sahay & Sandleris, 2011, P 45). As Worden (2011, p 24) observes, there are a number of strategies that South Africa has employed to deal with the challenge of inequalities and poverty levels. The government has over time formulated policies that will see the eradication of poverty in the country. Some of these strategies include Economic interventions in the effort to expand employment opportunities and self employment specifically in the improvement of the nation’s capacity in leading in job creating industrial development. This has been seen in a number of ways; Provision of high quality education skills and health care more so to the poor communities Promoting all levels of social cohesion Promoting access to assets, social capital included There is still many other poverty eradication policies contains I strategies employed through what is referred to as TOWARDS AN ANTI-POVERTY Strategy. Another key measure adopted is increasing amount of funds allocated to different social related initiatives. All these, measures were well outlined in the 1994 white paper. The issue of inequalities in South Africa remains a big challenge. Though the poverty levels have decreased, it still remains racially defined with the poor being 10% colored and 90% Africans (Worden, 2011 p 45). Unlike South Africa, Zimbabwe remains one of the poorest Nations in Africa and in the world. Until year 2009, the country had experienced a serious problem of hyperinflation .During that period, One US dollar was worth approximately 9686 Zimbabwean dollars in year 2007 and in year 2008, a Stunning pound was worth 430972.7 Zimbabwean dollars. Over 72% of the total population of Zimbabwe lives below the poverty line. Both local and international measures have been taken in reducing poverty especially among the vulnerable citizens. The Zimbabwe United Nations Development Assistance Framework (ZUNDAF) is a body composed of UN and Zimbabwe agencies as well as Breton Wood institutions. Various development initiatives were proposed by the body .At a local level, the country has adopted a number of policies to mitigate poverty and inequality levels. One such issue used by the government in dealing with poverty issues is land reforms. It was meant to deal with the issue of inequalities and poverty levels (Jackson & Collier, 2009, p 32). In 1981, growth with equity policy was enacted and implemented with an objective of attainment of economic growth that could be distributed to all citizens Later on. The Poverty Alleviation Action Plan was implemented from 1994 is one such measure enacted by the country Deininger & Squire (2011, P 245) explains, In Zimbabwe, inequality is greatly attributed to the racial dominance particularly the white settlers as in the way that the national scarce resources are accessed and distributed among different groups in the post colonial period. This mainly pertains to access to provision of basic social services and land resource and labor market. This state driven reform has its genesis in 1997 to 2004.The issue took the centre stage in the country’s economy and politics and land policy at the national and international level. The poverty and inequalities eradication measures by Zimbabwe seem to be ineffective in a certain degree as poverty rate has not been declining over years but increasing over time. According to the World Bank survey forecast, to a greater extent question the policies by the country with the country GDP expected to decline in the next there years. This is centrally to what is happening in other countries in the sub- Sahara area who’s GDP is expected to increase at an increasing rate. Zimbabwean policies lack what it takes to alleviate poverty in the country due to the ineffectiveness of policies. This is quite worrying considering the tough, social political and economic challenges that the country has experienced in the recent years (Chandy & Gertz, 2011, p 23). The curve below shows the forecast in the next three years Sources: world Bank Records The situation in Zimbabwe is likely to get worse with the accumulation of foreign debt. In this year 2014, the World Bank and IMF rejected the bid by the country application for a loan before clearing its arrears. The high debts that the country owes mean that the country will be cut off from many external financing public finance international (Chikova, 2013, P 24). The trend in poverty seems to be increasing over time. As per the UNDP human poverty index, the percentages of the households living below food poverty stood at 26% in 1991, this rose to 35% in 1995, at 63% in 2003 and to a high extreme of 88% came year 2008. On the human development index ranking, the country moved from a respectable position of 52 in 1990 to 108 in 1992 and 129 in 1997. (Hanker, 2012, P 44) Though the land reforms were intended to alleviate poverty and inequalities in the country, the way that it was carried out left the agricultural sector in a big harm. Agriculture fell from 18% of the total composition in the economy to 14%.Despite that, the agricultural sector has been rising slowly with tracts of land in the hands of Africans. To some, the policies employed by the country have been yielding good fruits. According to Leibbr (2010), these policies have seen a modest decline in the poverty gap with an average gap falling from 32% to 28% from1993 to 2008(Hanke, 2012, P 44). The country has not been able to deal with high levels of unemployment. After 2000, the country has experience unemployment as high as 80% and 95% in some years ranking as the world’s largest case. Despite many policies enacted, the level of poverty and inequalities among the citizens has persisted On the other hand, South Africa has made some positive moves in the poverty reduction than its South African neighbor Zimbabwe. According to the survey carried out in the country by the general household survey, the number of individuals going hungry on has been on the decrease over years. As can be seen in the fig below, there has been a drop in the cases of self reported hunger from 30% in 2002 to 13% in 2011.This is a positive drastic change showing workability of various poverty reduction policies (Van Der Berg, S. (2011,p 130) The survey further depict how the poverty gap has dropped over years in south Africa, from 26.7 in 2006 to 19.6 in 2011.The decline in poverty depth is a clear indication that on addition to reducing the poverty line of the citizens, the government has succeeded in decreasing the gap of the individuals who remain poor. The smaller the gap, more easy it is for the group to graduate from poverty as they are more closer to the poverty line than before as the gap indicates how far an individual is from the poverty line( Barbarin & Richter, 2013,p 11). This decline in poverty tells us that the strategies and programs that have been implemented by the in poverty alleviation efforts have positive impacts on the poorest in the country. The survey also gave a very important insight in the poverty levels among male and female. There was a huge reduction in the same season. About 6 from ten females (59.7) in 2006 were living in poverty as compared to male who stood at 54.6%.By 2011; the level of poverty among women had dropped to 47.1 and 43.8 in males. The level of poverty among females was quite higher as compared to that of Male. However, despite the decline in the poverty levels in the country, inequality still remains a big challenge to the nation. The share of the national consumption between the poorest and the richest in South African still remain stagnant. The richest that compose of 20% of the total population in the country account for 61% of the total consumption. This was an improvement but not up to the satisfactory. It represents a drop from 64% in 2006. Still with that, there are a number of loop holes that need to be addressed. Lack of the systems, capacity and also standard and norms in the implementation has inhabited the achievement of the set objectives. (Barbarian & Richter, 2013, p 11) In conclusion one can see a lot of similarities on poverty and inequalities in the two countries. The imbalance in the resource distribution among the Africans and the former colonial masters is a major issue that can be blamed on inequalities in the two countries, while the issue of Apartheid was the main issue in South Africa, Land ownership by white settlers is what has raised issues in Zimbabwe over years. The two matters seem to be settled and coincidentally, other economic issues like unemployment seem now to take ownership of these problems. One can conclude that main issue that is making the whole difference is the efficiency of the policies that are being implemented by the two countries. Zimbabwe has a lot to learn from its South African counterpart, the Republic of South Africa that has been making positive steps in overcoming these challenges References Townsend, P, & Gordon, D Eds 2002 World Poverty: New policies to defeat an old enemy p 3 Bristol: Policy Press Merolla, D M, Hunt, M O, & Serpe, R T 2011 Concentrated disadvantage and beliefs about the causes of poverty: A multi-level analysis Sociological Perspectives, 542, 205-227 Gelos, R G, Sahay, R, & Sandleris, G 2011 Sovereign borrowing by developing countries: What determines market access? 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