Policies and poverty in Southern Africa

Abstract

Paper presented at the 4th Annual SPMA International Conference on Public Administration, at the University of Pretoria, 17-18 February 2011, Pretoria, South Africa. Policies can address poverty, but policies are not a guarantee to eradicate poverty. Many factors figure into the poverty policy scene. Government’s understanding of the poverty, the particular type of poverty and the environment will naturally determine the nature of the policies. In some instances policies are blamed for the failure to address poverty, but at the same time the type of poverty makes it cumbersome for government to address all types of poverties with a single policy. This paper is going to take an overview of policies and poverty in a Southern Africa context. Poverty remains one of the biggest challenges in Africa. The poorer one is, the more difficult it is to escape poverty, despite the policy of government. There are quite a number of different policies addressing poverty, but there still seems to be a lack of a single holistic policy to address poverty in all its facets. The question is whether our poverty policies are overly optimistic or is poverty just too vast a problem.