Abstract:
South Africa and Kenya have both adopted a social development approach to shape their
development agendas, as well as national policies in response to drug abuse. The goal of this
study was to compare the content of South Africa’s National Drug Master Plan 2006-2011
(NDMP) and Kenya’s National Drug Abuse Control Policy 2011 (NDACP) from a social
development perspective. A quantitative comparative study was undertaken to compare the
manifest content of these policies. A checklist of five dimensions of social development, with
concomitant themes and indicators, was compiled for this purpose. Both policies emphasise
the dimensions ‘levels of service delivery’ and ‘integrated service delivery’, while paying
limited attention to the ‘rights-based approach’ and ‘capital development’ dimensions of
social development. Lessons learnt from the study are presented in an effort to align drug policies, especially those of developing countries, with a social development approach.
