African Journals Online
Journal of Social Development in Africa
Vol
18 No 1 2003
Abstracts
Changing land tenure regimes in a matrilineal village of South Eastern Tanzania
Stephane Dondeyne
Naliendele Agricultural Research Institute, Mtwara, Tanzania
Els Vanthournout
Centre For Africa Research, Catholic University Of Louvain, Leuven
John A.R. Wembah-Rashid
Rural Integrated Project Support Programme, Mtwara, Tanzania
Jozef A. Deckers
Institute For Land And Water Management, Catholic University of Louvain, Leuven
ABSTRACT
Social and cultural factors governing access to land in a village of matrilineal peoples of South Eastern Tanzania were analysed through group interviews and the life stories of 13 women. Land has become scarce with increasing population density. Access to land is mainly obtained through family relations, where people from clans claiming first occupancy of the area have access to more and better land. When relatives cannot provide land, clan members or village government officials are approached. Although clan membership is still defined by maternal line of descent, inheritance happens according to a bilineal pattern and marriages tend to be patrilocal. Women and men have equal rights of ownership, but it is harder for women to keep control over their land when marriages are patrilocal. With the new land law, which recognizes customarily-obtained land as fully legal, jurisdiction over land is vested in the village government. This raises the concern that socio-economically weaker people may further lose control over land. However, the new land law could prove positive for sustainable land management by better securing land rights of better-off people.
Social exclusion and social security: the case of Zimbabwe
Edwin Kaseke
School of Social Work, Harare, Zimbabwe
ABSTRACT
The paper examines the problem of social exclusion in the provision of social security in Zimbabwe. After sketching a historical perspective of the problem of social exclusion in Zimbabwe, it is argued that social exclusion emanates largely from the orientation of social security which places emphasis on protecting persons employed in the formal sector. The reality in Zimbabwe, however, is that those employed in the formal sector constitute a small percentage of the population. Consequently, the majority are excluded from social security coverage. The paper also observes that there is a gender dimension to social exclusion as women are largely excluded from contributory social security schemes. The paper ends by calling for appropriate interventions in order to achieve inclusiveness in social security coverage.
Agricultural extension in Ethiopia: the case of participatory demonstration and training extension system
Kassa Belay
Department of Economics, Alemaya University, Ethiopia
ABSTRACT
This paper examines the participation of farmers in the Participatory Demonstration and Training Extension System and looks into the principal barriers to the adoption of modern agricultural inputs. The paper is based on a review of the literature and an analysis of data collected from 1482 household heads selected from 16 sites in four regional states, namely, the Amhara National Regional State, the Oromia National Regional State, the Southern Nations, Nationalities and People’s Regional State and the Tigray National Regional State. The historical review reveals that extension programmes and policies have been formulated without due consideration to the farmers’ opinion and traditional knowledge system. The various extension approaches have been biased against the livestock subsector and research and extension activities have been carried out by different organizations without proper co-ordination which, in most cases, has led to redundancy of effort and wastage of resources. Both the historical review and the survey results reveal that extension service coverage in the country has been very low, the research–extension linkage has been very poor and extension agents have been involved in different activities which are not related to their normal duties. The study also makes it clear that a host of factors, some of which are policy related, were responsible for the low rate of adoption of modern agricultural inputs in the country.
Redefining kin and family social relations: burial societies and emergency relief in Botswana
Barbara Ntombi Ngwenya
Department of Social Work, University of Botswana
ABSTRACT
This paper discusses the provision of financial relief to members’ households by women-centred local institutions known as burial societies (diswaeti) in the event of death. In burial societies, mortality occupies the centre stage, not as a final defeat of human effort but as an inspiration for individual and collective responsibility. The omnipresence of death and dying in Botswana (due to the AIDS pandemic, social victimization, road-related carnage and so on), does not necessarily precipitate despondency; instead it underwrites commitments by members of burial societies to new sensibilities and to imaginative interventions that regenerate, rather than wear out, kin relations. By providing emergency financial and non-financial support, burial societies find practical ways to minimize social tensions and reduce animosity between individuals, family and kin relations. In the burial society community therefore, the social process of providing emergency financial and non-financial relief is more than an instrumental task: it is a nuanced cultural process that redefines kin and family social relations.
Assessing the reliability of the 1986 and 1996 Lesotho census data
Chuks J. Mba
United Nations Regional Institute for Population Studies, University of Ghana, Legon, Ghana
ABSTRACT
The present study attempts to assess the quality of reported age–sex distributions of Lesotho’s 1986 and 1996 censuses using conventional demographic techniques. First, the data presented in single years are examined to identify patterns of digit preference and then Whipple’s, Myers’ and Bachi’s indexes are computed in order to furnish a clear picture of the magnitude of deficiencies that might have occurred. The findings show that there is a tendency to prefer even numbers and avoid odd numbers in census enumeration in Lesotho. Also, the Whipple’s index declined from 115 in 1986 to 106 in 1996, while the Myers’ and Bachi’s indexes respectively declined from 11 and 7 in 1986 to 9 and 6. These results suggest that there are deficiencies in the Lesotho data. A closer assessment of the data is undertaken by curtailing part of the erratic fluctuations in single year age distribution via grouping the data in quinary ages and applying the age–sex accuracy index. The index yields a value of 35 for the 1986 census and 32 for the 1996 census. The findings show that, though there are some distortions in the reported age–sex distributions of Lesotho, the data are fairly accurate and point to a modest improvement in quality over the decade.
The participatory development approach under a microscope: the case of the poverty alleviation programme in Malawi
Blessings Chinsinga
Department of Political and Administrative Studies, Chancellor College, University of Malawi
ABSTRACT
In the wake of democratization most developing countries have had to reorient their characteristically top-down development strategies to embrace a participatory development philosophy in a bid to reinvigorate their rural development efforts. This article argues that the professed commitment to participatory local planning, as a hallmark of contemporary grassroots development intervention, is largely rhetorical. The exogenous nature of the drives to reform forces developing countries to pretend they are committed to the reforms merely to appease the West. These reforms can only be genuine and sustained if the will to do so springs from within developing countries with external stakeholders playing simply a facilitatory role. The recognition of the voices, aspirations and fears of the poor in development efforts requires a pre-existing democratic structure and policymakers who are sympathetic to the basic interests of the rural poor.
Vulnerability across a life course: an empirical study: women and criminality in Botswana prisons
Tirelo Modie-Moroka
Department of Social Work, University of Botswana
ABSTRACT
The number of women in prison in Botswana has grown over the past ten years. This is due, in large part, to rising numbers of women offenders admitted to prison for property and drug-related offences. The purpose of the study presented here was to assess the relationship between their life events and the subsequent offending of incarcerated women. Data were collected through in-depth interviews with 80 women inmates at six prisons in Botswana in 1997. Using a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods, respondents were asked about their backgrounds, criminal histories and relationships with significant others, together with the reasons for their current offending. Results show that women in prison are predominately poor, young and uneducated, who report high levels of victimization, substance abuse, familial disruption and high-risk behaviour and suffer from a host of physical and mental disorders. High rates of child and adult abuse, neglect and abandonment were also reported. These histories were strong predictors of poor physical and mental health. The findings of this study force us to examine the interplay of the cultural, ideological and structural factors affecting women’s lives from a gender, class and relational analysis. This paper ends with a discussion on the findings of the study, under themes that emerged with specific reference to lifetime socialization for gender roles and the structural perspective of deprivation, stress, victimization and survivorship.
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