Proefschrift--Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen, 2007. / Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (p. 211-216).

Over the past two decades, various development approaches and strategies have been devised by policymakers, international development agencies, nongovernmental organizations, and others aiming at poverty reduction in developing countries. Microfinance is a strategy that has become a hot development topic and increasingly popular since the early 1990s. A considerable amount of multi- and bilateral aid has been channeled into microfinance programs in the Third World with varying degrees of success. Microfinance involves providing financial services in the form of savings and credit opportunities to the working poor (Johnson & Rogaly, 1997). The impression left by many of the defenders of this ‘faith’ is that here lies a magic bullet that can help to raise the living standards of the poor and help them climb out of poverty. However, the real world is not so simple and information is scarce and limited to confirm the poverty reduction benefits accrued by microfinance interventions. To this effect, it may be argued that overselling the benefits of microfinance runs the risk of misunderstanding what realistically can be expected from microfinance. This can lead to disillusionment when microfinance fails to live up to its expectations. However, like all development interventions, donors, governments, and other interested parties demand evaluations and impact assessment studies to ascertain the achievements and failures of microfinance programs. This research paper focused on the assessment of microfinance efficacy on poverty reduction. The study employs indicator-based method of evaluation and draws on a new cross-sectional survey of nearly 610 households, some of which are served by microfinance institution. The results unraveled microfinance efficacy on poverty reduction and offer another set of risk management and coping options in times of shocks and disasters. Households that have access to the MFI programs had increased consumption and durable assets than the control group of non clients. The study concludes that microfinance makes a meaningful contribution to poverty reduction, significant improvements in livelihood and enables the participants to escape poverty. Therefore, MFI client households are relatively better off than non clients in as far as poverty levels are concerned.

“All religions emphasize the need to support charity, welfare and the disadvantaged. Obligatory giving is, thus, a manifestation of spirituality. This is why religious communities are capable, like no other sector of society, of mobilizing enormous resources for poverty alleviation and development initiative” (Maharaj & Chetty, 2007:82). Most African countries are faced with serious and worsening poverty (Wogaman, 1986:47), and one of greatest issues that demands our immediate attention within the church and society is poverty alleviation. Wogaman (1986:47) further argues that the increase in production has not served to bridge the great historic chasm between rich and poor. Hence, the church needs to direct its attention and its activity to poverty alleviation so that it becomes an advocate for the poor. Lawrence (2012:1) argued that we are created for fellowship with other people and also depend on God for our survival. Therefore, poverty touches all of God’s creatures and not simply those who experience it directly. Poverty prevents human beings from realizing their potential; it creates barriers of inequality between people, and bars people from experiencing the abundance of God’s creation.

Housing is one of the major problems in North America This problem becomes more acute daily in the urban centers as (1) the population explosion continues; (2) the process of urbanization increases; and (3) new household units are formed in greater numbers. Although in the United States and Canada there is no street sleeping and squatting as there is in India and other countries of Asia and South America, nevertheless, the inadequate conditions of housing of the slums and blighted areas result partially from the pressure for shelter caused by these three demographical factors. The problem of housing is essentially a problem of enabling every citizen to obtain decent accommodation at a price that he can afford. In addition to the demographic factors already mentioned, other dimensions of complexity of this problem are contributed by the fact that housing deficiencies correlate closely with low income levels, inferior employment and educational opportunities, and frequently, racial discrimination. This problem is further compounded by the increasing cost of housing construction. The search for further solutions to alleviate the housing problem, and the realization of the inter-relationship of housing standards, housing costs, and income led to the study hypothesis: That there is a certain family income level below which adequate housing cannot be obtained without assistance. A technological break-through in the housing industry can ease considerably the present housing problem. Of all man's necessities, however, housing has seen the fewest production changes in recent centuries. Until such breakthrough is achieved the existing resources must be used to combat the problem. Since the "New Deal" of the 1930's both the governments of Canada and the United States have actively participated in housing assistance and support programs. These programs, however, have not assisted the low income groups as much as the middle and upper income groups. Of over 73,000 FHA applications in 1967 only 5,000 were for a variety of social purposes which included low-income housing. The housing codes, urban renewal programs, and public housing projects have not yet sufficed to provide every North American family with a home of adequate standards. Governor Otto Kerner of Illinois, head of the Commission on a Civil Disorder, regards poor housing as one of the major causes of the social problems now facing almost every American city. A recent HUD study forecasts a need, greatest among the urban poor, for 22.5 million units of new housing in the next decade. The question is, how can this need be met? This study essentially reviews some of the methods by which government can assist low income families and households in obtaining adequate housing. The review begins with an examination of the nature of the housing problems in which the inter-relationship of housing standards, housing costs, and family incomes are analysed and evaluated. The conclusions from the review were; (1) that the costs of housing increase with the level of standard, and (2) that family income was the primary obstacle to adequate housing. The significant findings have been that a wider choice of methods of housing assistance can be adopted, as well as a wider choice of type and tenure of accommodations. Such range of choice can alleviate many of the present problems in urban renewal and relocation programs and most of all reduce the need for substandard dwelling units. In view of these findings and recognizing that adequate housing is in the interest of the family, the community, and the nation, the thesis investigates some of the ways by which the amount and method of assistance required by the low income groups may be determined if they are to be housed adequately. By means of the case study method the hypothesis was tested and verified. The most significant conclusion drawn from the case study is the substantiation of the validity of the hypothesis: That there is a certain family income level below which adequate housing cannot be obtained without assistance. This income level is established by the cost of minimum standard of socially and officially accepted housing. The measurement of this income level is therefore dependent on two factors: (1) determining what is the minimum housing standard for a family, with due regards to family size, and existing social, cultural, and official attitudes; and (2) determining what is the minimum cost of such standard of housing, with due regards to existing construction methodology and practices, technological skills, and available materials. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Community and Regional Planning (SCARP), School of / Graduate

published_or_final_version / Asian Studies / Master / Master of Arts

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in Community Work in the Department of Social Work, at the University of Zululand, 2005.

No abstract available. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Durban-westville, 2003

Submitted in partial fulfilment for the requirements for Masters of Arts in Development Studies by coursework and research report In the Graduate School of Social Sciences, Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, 2016 / Social cash transfer programmes on the African continent have more than doubled in the last decade, and this signifies a transformation in the perception of social cash transfers as ‘pity handouts’ to how they are seen today, as ‘productive investments’ in human capabilities. Southern Africa has been a pioneer in social protection growth in the last twenty years, but often accounts of these histories focus on pension schemes in places such as South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, and Lesotho. There is little incorporation of Mozambique’s social protection history, and most histories do not detail that Mozambique ranks fourth chronologically, in introduction of cash transfer programmes in Sub-Saharan Africa. This research puts forth that the Mozambican case of an early adoption of cash transfers in 1990 is a positive and unique example of a state’s active role in social protection despite neoliberal constraints. The state-led adoption of cash transfers in response to rising inequality and economic instability is unexpected at a time when these programmes were unpopular development interventions and when the state was supposedly rolled-back and confined because neoliberalism and the civil war. Tracing the history of Mozambican social cash transfers in the last 25 years illustrates two consistencies of the Mozambican government: 1. A supportive political position towards state involvement in welfare programmes, despite the government’s own political and development sector transformation from Marxist-Leninist orientation to welcoming of privatization; and 2. State financial and political support of social protection throughout a period when cash transfers in Sub-Saharan Africa went from unpopular hand-out interventions during crises, to lobbying for permanent social protection as a mechanism to address chronic poverty. / GR2017

In 1974, the Housing and Community Development Act replaced traditional antipoverty programs with block grants, decentralizing decisions about federal funding, ostensibly to give more control to local administrators. Despite the pretense of providing greater flexibility, the focus of block grants on developing the city's physical environment circumscribed the options of local planners hoping to pursue comprehensive community development. Community Underdevelopment traces the struggle of government officials in New Orleans to fulfill the dual aims of alleviating poverty and spurring economic growth in a time of fiscal crisis. Armed with new social science techniques, planners believed that with accurate data collection and systematic planning, they could achieve these ends simultaneously. However, coping with an increasingly regressive tax regime and an anemic economy, they soon discarded this vision. Instead, block grants were used as stopgap measures in low-income communities while the city pursued economic development strategies that administrators acknowledged would do little to improve conditions in those neighborhoods. By the end of the decade, the hope that the private sector could achieve what the public sector could not led the city to shift federal funds away from antipoverty measures and toward boosting private-sector involvement. Low-income communities in New Orleans struggled to resist this movement, but their efforts to do so went unsupported by local officials who feared that supporting resource redistribution would jeopardize relationships with private developers. Consequently, by the end of the 1970s, local urban development strategies had largely abandoned antipoverty aims. Rather than read this period solely as the precursor to President Ronald Reagan's unprecedented cuts to urban aid, Community Underdevelopment explores a steady shift in policy and ideology that created a political climate conducive to such dramatic reductions. Moreover, my focus on this period reveals that the movement to undercut antipoverty programs did not originate with the rise of the Reagan Revolution. Instead, it was from its inception a bipartisan assault.

Thesis (MPA.) --University of Limpopo, 2015 / Refer to the document