Comments and Discussions : Emiko USUI (臼井恵美子)

To reverse the emergency environmental degradation of Ordos, Inner Mongolia, China, the localgovernment enforced a new developing project – Eco-migration, which aims at bothenvironmental restoration and poverty alleviation. Within ten years’ time, more than 400,000 ruralresidents were relocated. Through professional training and labor transportation, the financialcondition was largely improved. The annual income of these eco-migrants was highly raised from0.2 USD a day in 2000 to 3.51 USD a day in 2010. From the environmental perspective, morethan 70 percent of the sandy wasteland was restored. The vegetable coverage jumped up to 75percent, comparing to 30 percent in 2000. Through field study, the feedbacks from theseeco-migrants were collected. Eco-migrants were highly satisfied with the economic andenvironmental improvement. However, there are lots of improvements can be done. In one word,that’s the way the government trying to achieve the goal of sustainable development, whichproviding valuable experience for future.

This research examines the interrelationships between tourism, poverty alleviation, and social marketing. It argues that tourism growth is necessary but insufficient by itself to alleviate poverty. Although tourism has often been connected with poverty under the rubric of pro-poor tourism (PPT), limited research has investigated this from the poor’s perspective. Little is also known of various poverty causes, including poor people’s behaviours in affecting poverty. Although tourism may contribute to alleviating poverty, negative poverty-related behaviours (e.g. depletion of natural resources) are still found in some host destinations. Where behaviour change is considered significant for tourism to help alleviate poverty, social marketing may be important given its potential in motivating voluntary behaviour change. This is particularly necessary for a developing country such as Vietnam, where tourism is encouraged for poverty alleviation. The district of Sapa, Vietnam is chosen as a case study area, which has substantial levels of poverty although tourism has developed for years. This research seeks to answer four main questions: What are the barriers to poverty alleviation identified by PPT projects in Vietnam? What are the roles of social marketing in PPT projects in Vietnam? What are the barriers to poverty alleviation identified by PPT projects as perceived by local people and key informants in Sapa? What are the roles of tourism as a means of poverty alleviation as perceived by the locals in Sapa? This research was designed in two stages. The first involved a content analysis of tourism-related projects in Vietnam, where a systematic search for project documents was conducted. Forty-five projects were found and then analysed against a set of six social marketing benchmark criteria. Twenty-one projects were judged to meet all the criteria, most of which were implemented in national parks (NPs) and nature reserves (NRs) that are home to important resources for tourism. Typical project objectives included preventing or mitigating local people’s dependence on natural resources and promoting tourism as an alternative livelihood. The most popular competing factors identified were local people’s poor perception of conservation needs and traditional dependence on natural resources, stakeholder conflicts, and weak policy implementation. This stage suggested that social marketing might help tourism contribute to natural resource conservation and poverty alleviation. The second stage utilised both qualitative and quantitative methods. Interviews were conducted with 47 poor people and key informants in Sapa. A survey was then administered with 187 local people. It identified that local people perceive poverty as a lack of rice and/or income and attribute it to internal and/or external causes. Tourism holds important potential for poverty alleviation in Sapa. However, this potential is substantially reduced by barriers to business development, employment, and thus benefit distribution within the sector. It is also worsened by the exclusion of poor people from development plans, decision-making processes, and project design and implementation. The non-poor and tour operators are perceived as the main beneficiaries of tourism. Local women often follow tourists to sell handicrafts, resulting in discomfort for tourists and conflicts among community members. More local people consider tourism a contributor to poverty alleviation and wish to participate in tourism. The most critical barriers preventing participation include insufficient knowledge, skills, work experience, funds, and poor foreign language proficiency. Limited capital and farming land is the most important obstacle to poverty alleviation overall. This research suggests that to maintain the long-term viability of tourism in Sapa, social marketing can be used to promote behaviour change in handicraft sellers and forest resource dependents. To this end, alternative livelihoods other than tourism are required. There is a need to put in place a policy framework that entitles poor people to more land in the forest so that they can grow more rice and medicinal fruit and protect their own forestland. Social marketing can also promote changes in the self-interested practices of tourism businesses and relevant forest policies. In addition, an appropriate intervention framework should be established to reduce household sizes and thus mitigate land use pressures. From a local perspective, this research helps planners, managers, and policy-makers in Sapa as well as other similar destinations in Vietnam and elsewhere understand more clearly the barriers to poverty alleviation and the obstacles to poor people’s participation in tourism. It also generates greater awareness among academics and the public in Vietnam regarding the potential of social marketing for alleviating poverty through tourism. On a broader scale, this research enriches and deepens tourism scholars and practitioners’ understanding of the various ways social marketing can help alleviate poverty and protect natural resources. Furthermore, given the centrality of poverty alleviation to the sustainable development agenda, the findings of this research contribute to wider social scientific debate, practical development discourse and, as such, to Vietnam’s society as a whole. This research concludes that only by valuing the perspectives of poor people can meaningful approaches to alleviating poverty through tourism become clearer and more likely to succeed.

Magister Economicae - MEcon / When the new democratic government in South Africa came to power in 1994, it inherited a legacy of inequality, unemployment and poverty. Mindful of this triple challenge the government’s first socioeconomic policy framework, the White Paper on Reconstruction and Development (RDP) of 1994, stated the commitment to prioritise poverty eradication in South Africa. The Bill of Rights guarantees specific rights, referring to housing, healthcare and social security, to empower the poor. The greatest challenge facing the South African government was to provide the institutional support and to implement appropriate policies to reduce the extent of poverty and unemployment in South Africa. The government therefore established the necessary legislature and institutions and embarked on numerous policy strategies. A fact that complicates policy intervention is that the extent of poverty is very different across provinces. Households in rural areas are in a relatively worse position than households in urban areas and rural woman are in an even worse position. According to official statistics from Statistics South Africa, Limpopo and the Eastern Cape are the poorest provinces. This study investigated the nature of government intervention towards poverty relief. Through the use of various instruments, such as social grants, the delivery of basic services and housing, the government focuses on the relief of income, non-income and asset poverty. The main aim of this study was to answer the question of whether government intervention has made any difference to the quality of life of the poor. The situation of the Eastern Cape was investigated as a case study of the larger poverty problem and focused primarily on income, non-income and asset poverty. As is the position nationally, the majority of the poor in the Eastern Cape live in the rural areas and women and the youth are the worst affected groups. The empirical analysis shows that both income and non-income poverty has declined in Eastern Cape, particularly since 2000. The study also pointed out various instances of government failure and other specific challenges. However, despite the fact that poverty relief has been a policy priority since 1994 and despite numerous policies and programmes, the extent of poverty remains unacceptable.

Poverty and food insecurity are common problems among low-income households in developing countries. Innovative interventions in the agricultural sector are regarded as effective in poverty alleviation and therefore food insecurity. Food insecurity is defined by London and Anupindi (2012) as a lack of access to adequate, safe and nutritious food and is closely associated with poverty. It can ultimately be addressed as part of a broader strategy to alleviate poverty, which would include enterprise-led initiatives, inclusive approaches and value chain adjustments. London and Anuipindi (2012) argued that a study hoping to demonstrate the relevance and reliability of understanding the base of pyramid (BoP) as a catalyst to interdependence–based collaboration, would address the level of agribusiness isolation and individualism, to reap the benefits of shared advantage, followed by addressing the interconnected issues of poverty and food insecurity. This study proposes that small scale farmers can benefit from interdependence-based collaborations (IBC) of key role players from the state, private sector and civil society. Consequently, this is a qualitative exploratory study, aiming to seek new insights into the application of inclusive models based on the IBC within the small farm holding, the private sector, civil society and government, and thus their impact on the capacitation of the small-scale farmer and alleviation of poverty. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / ccgibs2014 / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / MBA / Unrestricted

Magister Commercii - MCom / The research identified Site C area of Khayelitsha, a township in the Western Cape province of South Africa, as the case study. Khayelitsha has an estimated population of 1.2 million people, and has about 22 sub-sections or areas. Khayelitsha is made up of old formal areas and new informal/formal areas. Site C, is an area which was built up around one of the old formal areas, and contains a high number of informal settlements, RDP houses, and informal backyard dwellers. The study’s primary objective is to identify what factors the business owners themselves regard as being critical for their own personal success, as well as that of the business they own. The secondary objectives were to determine what the make-up of these identified success factors were, and what their respective contribution was to the overall success of the business, as well as what interventions (if any) could make these identified success factors more effective. Qualitative data was requested from each of the participants over the various questionnaire development phases, to obtain a basic and detailed picture of each owner and their business, and to enable a detailed descriptive analysis of each participant. During the literature reviews of the Small Medium and Micro Enterprise (SMME) sector in South Africa, many sources identified the possible failure factors. These failure factors had extensive references to studies which focused primarily on the small and medium enterprises versus the micro enterprises component. The level of data available on micro enterprises indicated a significantly lower level of relevant data, than the data available on the small and medium enterprises component. The identification of the success factors is equally important as a valuable contributor to understanding the significant failure rate of start-up businesses within the SMME sector in South Africa. This thesis will consult literature studies that discuss these challenges. It will have an emphasis on the micro enterprise sub-sector within the broader SMME sector. The inequitable number of data between the micro enterprises and the small to medium enterprises is confirmed by the literature review. The core focus of the research is to hear from the established micro entrepreneurs themselves and what they identified over the course of their business existence, as being the key factors that enabled their success to date, as well as moving toward the future. The findings indicated that success factors are indeed identifiable from the entrepreneurs themselves. These factors included the education and training level of the entrepreneur, the entrepreneurial capacity of the entrepreneur, the access to financial resources, the specific business retail mix and the uniqueness of the specific business within its immediate locality. Whilst the owners’ success (and by default the business as well) is the priority of this research, the equally important failure rate of small business initiatives in South Africa is of concern, and are the proverbial other side of the coin. Small businesses are playing a vital part in our global economy and in particular in terms of job creation and poverty alleviation. The two pillars of the governments micro enterprise rollout is through the Department of Social Development via poverty alleviation programs which have at their core, essentially micro enterprise formation. The other pillar is via the Department of Trade and Industry in respect of job creation and empowerment as objectives. In South Africa much emphasis throughout the Integrated Small Business Strategy is placed by national, provincial and local governments on Small, Medium and Micro enterprises (SMMEs), to drive job creation and poverty alleviation. Therefore, an investigation into the factors contributing to the success of SMMEs is of vital importance. Recent changes in statistical data gathering methodologies have enabled greater understanding of the contribution of especially the smaller enterprises in the informal sector. The extensive literature consulted, put this figure as high as 80% of economic activity in developing countries. This by itself makes it critically important as an employment option for the retrenched, school leavers, graduates and the unemployed in general. Only willing participants were interviewed and were randomly selected based on the criterion of being in business continuously, for at least 5 years. This target population’s value is unique because they fall into the 20% category of small businesses who survive the first 3.5 years of business, as well as being in the even more elite and valuable niche of 2.10% of South Africans who are running firms older than 3.5 years. These two features are both exceptional and generates’ a unique further study opportunity. The opportunity is to identify why the other 80% of start-ups failed over the initial 12 - 48 month period since start-up. The specific focus area of this research is to identify the success factors of retail micro enterprises located within the case study area, being Site C Khayelitsha. The broad findings of the study of successful retail micro-enterprise owners in Site C Khayelitsha, indicate that their prior quality of education, the presence of role models in their social circle influenced their motivational aspect to start a business, their personal management skills levels were a significant feature in their success as well their exposure to, and understanding of business and how it works; were all crucial to their success.

Given the energy intensive nature of the South African economy and the country’s dependence on fossil fuels, the reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions poses a serious problem to poverty alleviation, economic growth and employment. This study assesses the inter-industry and macro-economic impacts of carbon dioxide emissions reduction in South Africa. A monetary energy input-output table was developed using data from supply and use tables and a physical energy-emissions input-output table was developed from the national energy balance and the country’s GHG inventory. Both tables were used to develop the energy-emissions input-output model. Carbon dioxide taxes and energy subsidy reform were selected as potential economic policy instruments for analysis in South Africa. The energy-emissions input-output model was used to analyse the implications of the selected policy scenarios in terms of their effect on gross domestic product (GDP), employment, household consumption, energy consumption and energy emissions reduction. According to the energy-emissions input-output model developed in this study, financial and community services, construction and accommodation and machinery and equipment have the largest final demand and value added while nuclear energy, natural gas and biomass have the smallest final demand and value added. Renewable energy is labour intensive but not energy intensive as this energy sector has the highest labour to value added and the lowest energy to labour and energy to value added ratios. The petroleum products sector is the least labour intensive and the most energy intensive as it has a low labour to value added ratio and high energy to labour and energy to value added ratios. For every one unit increase in biomass, renewable energy and nuclear energy results in the largest increase in output, income and employment while machinery and equipment, natural gas and gold and other mining sectors have the lowest increase in simple and total output, income and employment multipliers. There is not much movement between natural gas, nuclear energy, renewable energy and biomass and the rest of the economy. Coal and crude oil have a relatively moderate impact and are moderately impacted on by other industries in the economy. Although almost all other industries in the economy depend heavily on electricity and petroleum products, these two industries are not as heavily dependent on other industries. Coal is responsible for the largest direct primary energy emissions followed by crude oil while natural gas; nuclear energy, renewable energy and biomass have a low direct impact. The electricity sector accounts for the highest indirect impact on coal emissions and petroleum products have the highest indirect impact on crude oil emissions. The petroleum products sector has the highest indirect impact on natural gas emissions. The electricity sector is largely responsible for the direct impact on coal emissions in terms of total economic output and the petroleum products sector accounts for all crude oil emissions from output. Natural gas, renewable energy, nuclear energy and biomass have no effect on direct emission output ratio. The iron and metals sector has the largest direct impact on electricity emissions per output and transport and communication has the highest direct impact on petroleum products emission per output. The largest indirect coal pollution per output impact is in the electricity sector, followed by petroleum products and iron and metals, while machinery and equipment has the smallest indirect impact on coal emissions per output. Petroleum products have the largest indirect crude oil pollution per output and the petroleum products sector is the only sector with an indirect impact on natural gas emissions per output. The iron and metals sector has the largest indirect electricity emission per output followed by household consumption and financial and community services while natural gas has the smallest indirect electricity emissions per output followed by machinery and equipment. Nuclear energy, renewable energy and biomass have no indirect petroleum products emissions per output. Machinery and equipment and crude oil have the lowest indirect petroleum products emissions per output. Inter-industry analysis indicates that the tax on coal results in the largest decrease in total output in the electricity and petroleum products sectors while output in the petroleum products and gold and other mining sectors decreases the most with the tax on oil. The tax on electricity has the largest negative impact on the iron and metals and financial and community services sectors and the tax on petroleum products results in the largest decrease in the transport and communication and financial and community services sectors. The electricity and coal mining sectors suffer the largest decrease in output as a result of energy subsidy reform. Macro-economic impacts were analysed according to real and marginal decreases. Real changes were used to assess the impact of each policy in terms of direct changes to each specific variable. Marginal decreases were calculated as a ratio of decreasing GDP for each variable hence marginal employment equals change in employment as a ratio of change in GDP and marginal household consumption equals change in household consumption as change a ratio of change in GDP. Marginal excess burden of taxes was calculated as changes in tax revenue, as a ratio of decrease in GDP. In terms of decreasing GDP, employment and household consumption, the lower the marginal burden the better the policy. Although the tax on coal offers the highest reduction in real energy emissions, this scenario also results in the highest reduction in GDP, employment and household consumption. Therefore the coal tax is not considered as the best option for carbon dioxide emissions reduction in South Africa. The electricity tax offers a moderate reduction in real energy emissions, GDP, employment and household consumption. It is concluded that the electricity tax could be an option for carbon dioxide emissions reduction in South Africa. However energy subsidy reform offers higher energy emissions reduction and a moderate reduction in GDP, employment and household consumption. This scenario is recognised as the most efficient option for carbon dioxide reduction in South Africa in terms of real changes. The tax on coal indicates high marginal decreases in employment and household consumption, moderate marginal tax revenue and moderate marginal decrease in energy consumption and energy emissions reduction. The tax on crude oil indicates low marginal decreases in employment and household consumption, low marginal excess burden on taxes, low marginal decrease in energy consumption and a moderate marginal decrease in energy emissions. The tax on petroleum products indicates low marginal decreases in employment and household consumption, low marginal excess burden on taxes and a high marginal decrease in energy consumption and energy emissions. Energy subsidy reform offers moderate marginal decreases in employment and household consumption, low marginal excess burden on taxes and a low marginal decrease in energy consumption and energy emissions. The comparison of marginal burdens of energy emissions reduction policies indicates that energy subsidy reform offers the best option as this scenario has moderate marginal decreases in employment and household consumption, low marginal excess burden on taxes and a low marginal decrease in energy consumption and energy emissions. The tax on crude oil is selected as the second best alternative as this scenario has low marginal decreases in employment and household consumption, low marginal excess burden on taxes, low marginal decrease in energy consumption and a moderate marginal decrease in energy emissions. Therefore in terms of real and marginal reduction in energy emissions, energy consumption, GDP, employment and household consumption, energy subsidy reform proves to be the best policy instrument in terms of energy emissions reduction, energy consumption, poverty alleviation, economic growth and employment. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Agricultural Economics, Extension and Rural Development / unrestricted

Thesis (M. Dev. (Development Studies)) -- University of Limpopo, 2016 / This study examines the way cooperatives operate and particularly how these poverty alleviation projects impacts on poverty in Lepelle-Nkumpi Local Municipality (LNLM). The study also assessed the significance of government interventions contributing to the role the cooperatives play in alleviating poverty in LNLM. The research methodology used for this study involved both qualitative and quantitative research approaches. Data was collected using questionnaires whereby the researcher conducted one-on-one interviews to administer them. The interviewees were composed of officials from the three spheres of government and the members of the cooperatives in the chosen area of study. The various international and local literatures relating to cooperatives were reviewed. The key findings of this study revealed that cooperative enterprises in the municipality can alleviate poverty especially leveraging on interventions, such as training, specific funding and skills development for the cooperatives which will assist the cooperative to grow and to be more sustainable. It has also shown that members in cooperatives have been able to support their families to meet their basic needs despite the pressing conditions under which cooperatives operate. Some of the key recommendations proposed include: firstly, that government should create awareness amongst cooperatives on what are the national funding,and how this funding operates; secondly, that government should market the funding opportunities and clearly explain to the cooperatives how the schemes work and how they will assist in the operations of the cooperatives in order to avoid misconceptions; and thirdly and most importantly, the monitoring and evaluation by the state on cooperatives funding programmes should be conducted on a regular basis.

Foreign private capital flows, portfolio investment and foreign direct investment (FDI), have been important external sources of financing growth and investment around the world. Since the start of the new millennium, FDI has become a major source of external finance for many developing countries mainly due to the economic benefits associated with this investment. Developing countries have been jostling for FDI in an attempt to resolve some of their structural problems, such as poverty. Poverty is a sensitive and persistent issue in most developing countries. More recently, FDI into the financial sector (FSFDI) has increased significantly, reshaping the sector significantly. The widely-held perception is that FSFDI is associated with financial development, job creation and skills transfer which are critical factors in alleviating poverty. In spite of the significant inflow of investment, new estimates of poverty in the developing world are disconcerting.Foreign private capital flows, portfolio investment and foreign direct investment (FDI), have been important external sources of financing growth and investment around the world. Since the start of the new millennium, FDI has become a major source of external finance for many developing countries mainly due to the economic benefits associated with this investment. Developing countries have been jostling for FDI in an attempt to resolve some of their structural problems, such as poverty. Poverty is a sensitive and persistent issue in most developing countries. More recently, FDI into the financial sector (FSFDI) has increased significantly, reshaping the sector significantly. The widely-held perception is that FSFDI is associated with financial development, job creation and skills transfer which are critical factors in alleviating poverty. In spite of the significant inflow of investment, new estimates of poverty in the developing world are disconcerting.The main objective of this study was to evaluate the impact of FSFDI on poverty alleviation in developing countries. Linear regression analysis was done to determine the relationship between FSFDI inflow and other variables that were viewed as reducing agents of poverty, namely financial sector employment, employee training and financial access. The sample data used for this research represents South Africa and a convenience sampling technique was utilised. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

This research was designed to provide insight into South African financial companies’ activities among the poor or the BOP (Base Of the Pyramid). South African businesses should build resources and capabilities with a strategic intent to create and exploit the traditionally under serviced markets while delivering goods and services that are of value. In doing so, managers, marketers and business leaders should view the South African adult population as households and not individual decision makers. The aim of this study was to determine the applicability of an equal partnership model for the BOP engagement in the South African economy. In the investigation of the equal partnership model, it was found that the participants (including the BOP as producers or consumers, business, local community members, nongovernmental organisations and local government) could derive mutual value. This mutual value can be described as the enhancement in growth for the business, raising the BOP out of poverty, involving the poor in the economy and boosting national economic growth (through job creation, tax revenue and investment). Findings of this research supported the aspects of resource commitment, experiential preparation, innovation and technology use in product or services together with mutual value creation for all partners (especially the poor). In addition, there was support for the different levels of risk taken by the partners, responsibilities expected from participants, the sustainability of the collaboration and the required depth of understanding of BOP circumstances. Bank managers responded positively to there being value at the level of the poor (such as profits, poverty alleviation and improved reputation). The collectivist nature of the poor in South Africa (in that the poor carry out financial decisions at the household level) was not established in this research and needs further investigation. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted