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- Description:
- A most unsettling observation is that rural poverty is on the increase, despite decades of rural development. The blame is currently being placed on modes of designing and implementing development programmes, which are seen to have failed to take the basic needs of the poor into account. Further blame is placed on historical factors together with the social structures that have developed from them. The paper examines a selection of current ideas about rural poverty and their implications for the practice and teaching of fieldwork in social development, and points out the issues involved, giving suggestions on how they might be dealt with.
- Date Issued:
- 1987-01-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Journal of Social Development in Africa
- Description:
- This paper attempts to trace the historical development of social security in Zimbabwe and to explore the possible options for developing a comprehensive social security system. The paper postulates that the development of social security in Zimbabwe is inextricably linked to the country's colonial history. Racial discrimination in colonial Rhodesia led to the introduction of fragmented social security schemes (for the non-African population) old age pensions, public assistance and occupational pensions for purposes of income maintenance in cases of involuntary loss of income. The same protection was not extended to Africans because it was assumed that their needs were simple and easily met within the peasant economy. Although attainment of independence brought an end to all forms of racial discrimination, Zimbabwe still does not have a comprehensive social security system. A unique administrative framework could be set up to enable the rural population to participate in a contributory social security scheme and at the same time benefit from a non-contributory social security scheme. The success of such an approach depends on linking it to a strategy of rural development geared towards increasing the productivity of the poor.
- Date Issued:
- 1988-01-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Journal of Social Development in Africa