Submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Library and Information Science at the University of Zululand, South Africa, 2012. / The use of tools for development has evolved from the industrial revolution in the late 18th and 19th centuries that saw the increased use of machines and developments in the mining industries, to the increased use of information and technology in the 20th century and major breakthroughs that sparked the evolution into the information and knowledge society of the 21st century. The basis of the information and knowledge society revolves around technology’s increased assimilation and diffusion in human society, particularly information and communication technologies and their rapid growth and use in the exchange of information and knowledge. This society offers many opportunities and benefits to people in terms of the facilitation of information creation, distribution, diffusion, access and use for growth and development in various spheres of life. Information and communication technologies are thus regarded as tools for the advancement and development of communities, and this includes rural, illiterate, marginalized and poor communities and the female entrepreneurs in the informal sector who are the subject of this thesis. The aim of this study was to examine information and knowledge society and its impact on poverty alleviation and the economic empowerment of informal sector women entrepreneurs in South Africa and develop a model for utilization of information and knowledge in the informal sector. Both qualitative and quantitative approaches were employed for triangulation, although the qualitative approach significantly outweighed the quantitative in this study. The absence of a comprehensive list of informal activities in KwaZulu-Natal led to the decision to use snowball, purposive and haphazard sampling techniques to select the sample for the study. Focus group discussions, interviews, observation and content analysis were used to collect data from 118 women entrepreneurs from the informal sector, 17 women leaders, and 4 officials from the Hlabisa Local Municipality in KwaZulu-Natal.

Poverty alleviation is a key item on the agenda of both government and non-governmental organisations. The use of indigenous knowledge to embark on small and medium size enterprises (SMEs) such as handicraft making has shown that it has a potential to yield the desired outcome in many areas. The research addressed the question: to what degree are handicrafts made in the Lowveld region of Swaziland and to what extent do these handicrafts contribute towards the livelihood of rural households? The data was collected using questionnaires and observations. Findings revealed that the production of handicrafts is the second most important livelihood activity for most respondents. Even though the income received from these activities is small, its significance lies in the timing at which it is received; and on its role in supporting existing livelihood activities. Sustainability of the business is, however, threatened by inaccessibility of resources, lack of organisation and trading challenges There is a need to promote the cultivation of natural resources, continuous training workshops and for women to form cooperatives or groups. Further research is needed that would focus on the following areas: a comparative study done in urban areas which shall also investigate the impact of handicraft on urban poor households; a study which will focus on handicraft marketing and consumption and lastly on the youth and handicraft. / Agriculture, Animal Health and Human Ecology / M.Sc. (Human Ecology)

Income generating projects represent one strategy adopted by the Department of Social Development to alleviate poverty and foster sustainable development. The purpose of this study was to investigate the perceptions of beneficiaries of income generating projects regarding these projects and whether the income generating projects run by the Development Centres in the Sedibeng Region, Gauteng Department of Social Development were perceived to be making any impact and were responding to the needs of the poor. The research design for the study could be classified as qualitativedescriptive. A sample of 20 participants was drawn from two Development Centres. The sampling method for the study was partly purposive and partly availability sampling. Data were collected via semi-structured interviews and responses obtained from the interviews were analyzed using descriptive statistics and thematic content analysis. The main findings that emerged from the study were that participants appeared to have a clear understanding of the fact that income generating projects represented a government strategy to fight poverty, create jobs and uplift the standard of living of the poor. However, most participants were dissatisfied with the lack of clearly defined expectations, planning and monitoring on the part of the Department of Social Development. Despite the fact that there were challenges and limitations encountered by beneficiaries during implementation of the projects, the Development Centre was perceived to be an effective service delivery model for alleviating poverty and enhancing the quality of life of beneficiaries. The conclusion drawn was that income generating projects conducted at the two Development Centres seemed to be achieving their aims even though there would seem to be room for improvement in terms of knowledge and skills imparted and participation of beneficiaries in decision-making. These findings are discussed in terms of their implications for Development Centres, the Department of Social Development, social work practice and future research.

Thesis (M. Dev.) -- University of Limpopo, 2002

Thesis (M.Dev.) --University of Limpopo, 2013 / The research study investigated the contribution of community development projects towards poverty alleviation in Thulamela Local Municipality of Limpopo province. This research study seeks to investigate the factors that hinder community development projects from contributing positively towards the improvement of the lives of rural communities in the area of the study. This study is also concerned with the development of effective strategies that will enhance the capacity of community development project managers and change their perception and that of other stakeholders with regard to the implementation of community development projects. The literature review established the relationship between community development project and project management. In this regard, the study showed that community projects run by project managers with proper knowledge of and skills in project management impact positively on the improvement of the lives of the rural communities. In this study, a mixed research design approach was used in the investigation of the factors that hinder community projects to contribute positively towards poverty alleviation in Thulamela Local Municipality. Questionnaires and structured interviews were used to collect data from the target population. The findings of the study suggest that most managers of the community development projects lack training in project management.They also revealed that there were inadequate resources; there is a lack of community participation in decision-making, and shortage of funds hampered the sustainability of community development projects. To conclude, it is expected that the recommendations of this research study will highlight the strategies that could be put in place to improve the management of community development projects in order to improve the livelihoods of people in the Thulamela Local Municipality.

In the world today and in Turkey, poverty and its alleviation has become an important issue. As a result, detailed studies for the identification of poverty need to be done. In the recent years, the spatial aspect of the multidimensional character of poverty is gaining significance. For this purpose, in this thesis, spatial aspects of poverty are tried to be analysed using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in the case of Ke&ccedil / i&ouml / ren District in Ankara. Firstly, a digital map of the spatial distribution of the urban poor living in Ke&ccedil / i&ouml / ren is made and linked to the database to analyse the spatial distribution. The poverty database used in this study is based on the data collected by the Social Assistance and Solidarity Foundation in the district. It includes state of poverty and some sociodemographic characteristics of the households who applied for social assistance. The analyses with respect to the methodology of this study aims at finding the common characteristics of poor settlements and the areas/households which are the poorest of the poor in Ke&ccedil / i&ouml / ren. The maps obtained as a result of spatial data analysis indicate the dense living areas of the poor, clusters of poor households, neighbourhood level poverty analysis and poor areas within neighbourhoods. There are also additional analyses which compare the characteristics of the geographical distribution of the poor with other aspects, such as land values, roads and building conditions. Such a study can be helpful to re-allocate the poverty alleviation efforts more efficiently by determining priority areas.

This study aims to contribute to the poverty studies in Turkey in terms of the capability approach introduced to the scientific literature by Nobel Laureate thinker Amartya Sen. The approach is closely connected with the idea of justice and particularly with the Rawls&rsquo / s model of social justice. This study&rsquo / s perception of justice is based on the idea that justice is the virtue of the institutions, but not that of individuals. Although the Rawls&rsquo / s justice analysis is approved in terms of making institutional analysis, his perception regarding to the rights are criticized since these are perceived as &ldquo / ends&rdquo / but not the &ldquo / means&rdquo / of individuals&rsquo / welfare. Therefore, it is claimed in this study that holding certain sets of rights are not significant by themselves, but how they can be converted into personal wellbeing is crucial as well. In this framework, poverty is considered as capability deprivation and it is claimed that poverty analyses based on commodity ownership are not satisfactory. As the case of this study, General Directorate of Social Assistance and Solidarity organized as the main state institution so as to alleviate the poverty in Turkey has been chosen and the question of whether the relief programs of the institution are designed to alleviate poverty by enhancing individuals&rsquo / capabilities is raised. It has been concluded in this study that (1) income centred poverty perception of the institution does not take into account the variations in needs, (2) the reliefs are designed to increase economic productivity of individuals but not the valuable capabilities and (3) the operational logic of the institution is based on managing poverty, but not alleviating it.

Through the globalization of economy, alleviating poverty has become one of the pivotal issues within social policy arrangement agendas for many countries all over the world. One of the primary and rifest instruments of the alleviation process is social assistance programs. It is an apodictic fact that the proportion of social assistance disbursements within general budgets of the states have been gradually increasing during the recent years. This situation is also true for Turkey. In this context, to what extent citizens steer away from poverty as the result of all these assistances and to what extent social assistance programs are effective on reproduction of poverty becomes a major question. . The basic objective of this study is to search for and understand the impact of social assistances provided by the state in Turkey on behalf of reducing the poverty conditions of the beneficiaries. The study is based upon a qualitative analysis of semi-structured interviews with beneficiaries of Altindag Social Assistance and Solidarity Foundation in Ankara, Turkey. As a result of the study, it is observed that even though distributed assistances are found insufficient by beneficiaries, they have some significant impacts on reduction of poverty. It is understood that the distribution process itself reveals some key problems of the social assistance program of the state such as inefficient defition of poverty and the poor and creating a feeling of dependency for the beneficiaries. The socio-economic factors creating poverty of the beneficiaries are not well defined in Turkey. . In line with this finding one striking inference is that the assistances may cause a kind of culture of poverty for a group of beneficiaries. Besides, assistance may have more impact on women&rsquo / s poverty as the women beneficiaries have a higher tendency to identify social assistance as a vital part of their survival while men beneficiaries identify social assistance as support to family. In terms of cash and /or goods transfers the beneficiaries identified transfers of coal, food and cash as very effective and essential for their survival, though the amount especially of cash transfers was less than required. All in all, as a concrete policy suggestion social assistance programs in both cash and in goods are effective for the reduction of poverty of the poor groups however it is not a total solution to create a take-off effect for the beneficiaries out of their poverty condition. The thesis suggests that social assistance programs should be improved in terms of accessibility and defition of poverty and the poor.

Diss. (sammanfattning) Göteborg : Göteborgs universitet, 2008. / 4 uppsatser.

This research is focused on evaluating the UNDP—GEF Small Grants Programme support in Ethiopia. It involves SWOT strategic analysis of outcomes in projects addressing three of the GEF focal areas mainly biodiversity conservation, abatement of climate change and prevention of land degradation. To this end, the study evaluated how the grant presented to the beneficiary communities short-term and long-term opportunities to undertake nature-based sustainable livelihood activities, alleviate poverty as well as impact national policies pertaining to rural economies and the protection of natural resources. In general, the study highlights that the crucial factor for the success of SGP’s service delivery is not only the provision of the support and the subsequent completion of the projects. Most importantly, how local communities equitably benefit from project outputs and maintain sustainability of developments after project completion were identified to be foundational to the developmental causes the grants have been provided.