Most of the arable land in the lowlands of Lesotho including Maputsoe is under
infrastructural development of residential settlements, large scale industries, roads and
slum settlements which includes shacks and roadside spaza shops. These settlements have
large human populations that derive their livelihood through wide range of activities.
These activities comprised of subsistence agriculture in the form of crop production,
livestock and vegetable production, formal work in both primary and secondary labour
market, informal work such as niche markets in the service sector, petty commodity
production and others.
This thesis attempts to shed light on the impact of urban development on household
livelihood strategies in the lowlands of Lesotho with specific focus to Maputsoe town.
Although literature review indicates livelihood and urbanisation as two broad subjects
that need special research on their own, the aim of this research focuses on impact of
urbanisation on livelihood strategies. To achieve this the study looks at the activities
entitled to households to generate livelihood as well as social and economic
characteristics determining household livelihood strategies.
To determine whether urban development has an effect to household livelihood
strategies, the study compares household livelihood strategies in urban household sample
(Maputsoe) to rural household sample (Fobane). The basis for choosing these two
settlements was based on the understanding that household perceptions and opinions on
impact of urbanisation on livelihoods will be different since Maputsoe is located in urban
and Fobane in the rural area.
To gather household perceptions, survey was conducted in both urban and rural area.
Survey questions were formulated so as to determine factors affecting livelihood
strategies as well as activities entitled to households to generate livelihood strategies. The analysis of results suggests three mam points influencing household livelihood
strategies (they include household characteristics and social structure among both urban
and rural households in the sample. They further include opportunities to employment
among urban and rural households in a sample as well household assets among both
urban and rural households. They show that both two samples are liable to less diverse
livelihood strategies but due to conducieve environment favouring urban location.
Maputsoe narrowly has more livelihood strategies per household than did Fobane. The
results further prove the contention that urban development is likely to affect household
livelihood strategies negatively or positively. / Thesis (M.Sc.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2001.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:ukzn/oai:http://researchspace.ukzn.ac.za:10413/4530 |
| Date | January 2001 |
| Creators | Monts'i, Daniel Ratlala Palo. |
| Contributors | Macdonald, C. |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Detected Language | English |
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