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This research examines the relationship between poverty and social capital, based on the experiences of current and former welfare recipients in the Chilesolidario Programme. Poverty is conceptualized as the lack of social relations that, acting persistently and permanently over time, restricts the transfer of economic and non-material resources to disadvantaged people. Qualitative research was carried out in Villa San Luis 3, Maipú, Chile, which included 42 interviews conducted with welfare recipients, social workers, local public administrators of the Programme, and experts and academics on poverty. Three aims are addressed in this research. Firstly, the study looks at the types of social relations enjoyed by participants within Villa San Luis 3 and outside it. This thesis contends that familial relations are the basis for social interactions. It finds that beneficiaries of the Programme maintain only a few social relations beyond the family, whilst friends, acquaintances and contacts do not have the capacity to help in creating better social networks for recipients. Secondly, this thesis investigates whether or not the Programme successfully enables people to reduce poverty. It shows that there are no significant differences between current and former beneficiaries in terms of social relations enjoyed, income received, or capacity to generate social capital, and therefore the programme does not produce an effect in the long-term. Thirdly, this thesis suggests that self-employment is of limited use in reducing poverty, because Chilesolidario participants do not demonstrate the use of this means to deal permanently with their every day needs, and such independent work is not useful in the long-term. Overall, this research tends to support Bourdieu's theory of social capital and social inequality, suggesting that poor people in Villa San Luis 3 engage in few social relations, and these do not produce or reproduce social capital so as to reduce poverty. In this respect, the Chilesolidario Programme is not an aid to reducing poverty, and seed capital is not an appropriate instrument to be used by a group of people without the skills or social relations required to maintain self-employment in the long-term.

Thesis (M.Dev.) --University of Limpopo, 2011 / The government poverty alleviation programme in the form of social welfare support grants and free basic services have been going on over the past decade. This prompted the research into the study which is aimed at the investigation of the implementation of the government social welfare support and free basic services in the Mapuve village, in Greater Giyani, Limpopo Province. The study was designed as a case study within a qualitative framework. The simple random method, which is a probability type of statistical sampling approach, was used in the selection of respondents. Closed and open-ended questions were used to solicit information from the participants in the study. The study discovered that the implementation of government social welfare grant and free basic services in disadvantaged communities represented the realisation of their socio-economic rights as enshrined in the South African constitution. Mapuve village is one of the villages with a huge backlog of service delivery in Greater Giyani Municipality. The municipality „s inability to provide every applicant with an RDP house is the major contributing factor to the different views and perceptions that people held towards the allocation of RDP houses. The assessment of the key level of services in the dwelling of respondents painted a deplorable situation in the village. None of the respondents had free basic services; that is, water, sanitation and refuse removal in their dwellings and in the communities. Electricity as one of the free basic services is found in one portion of the village. The perceptions of community members towards the government social welfare grant and free basic service at Mapuve Village point to frustration, anger and dissatisfaction towards the services of the government although to some extent, the social welfare support has contributed to poverty alleviation. In view of the absence of free basic services in the village the respondents complained that the social grants are inadequate in meeting their needs because they also use the grant buy paraffin/electricity and water which are supported to be free basic services. Therefore they called on the government to increase grants to people in areas where free basic services are inadequate.