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Title: Cover, publication data, content, advertisement
Date: 1999
Collection: Journal of Social Development in Africa

Title: Rural folks - the neglected lot of Zimbabwe
Creator: Chikwanha-Dzenga, Annie Barbara
Date: 1999
Collection: Journal of Social Development in Africa
Description: The majority of Zimbabwe's population (70%) resides in harsh subsistence economic conditions in the communal rural areas. Their main preoccupation is basic survival and their efforts are concentrated at producing food for consumption. All the determinant factors: access to land, water, credit and energy are largely absent, yet they are critical for one to meet the basic needs of survival. In the immediate post-independence period, the government assumed wrongly that its local government...
Show moreThe majority of Zimbabwe's population (70%) resides in harsh subsistence economic conditions in the communal rural areas. Their main preoccupation is basic survival and their efforts are concentrated at producing food for consumption. All the determinant factors: access to land, water, credit and energy are largely absent, yet they are critical for one to meet the basic needs of survival. In the immediate post-independence period, the government assumed wrongly that its local government institutions would deliver development to the rural areas, but due to a lack of strategic planning and foresight, development has not taken place. The task to cater for the welfare of the rural poor was thus shifted to the Non-Governmental Organisations. The government's neglect of the rural poor can be attributed to its failure to perceive poverty as a national problem as evidenced by the absence of poverty eradication strategies in the national development plans.
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Title: The centrality of a historical perspective to the analysis of modern social problems in Sub-Saharan Africa : a tale from two case studies
Creator: Munyae, Margaret M.
Date: 1999
Collection: Journal of Social Development in Africa
Description: This paper advances the view that the analyses of the origins and persistent growth of the social problems affecting most sub-Saharan African countries today must proceed from a historical perspective. It is argued that for sociologists, social workers, political scientists, policy makers, administrators and social scientists in general to provide well-rounded accounts of thebirth and spread of social problems and develop well-informed policies for the alleviation of the same, they must not...
Show moreThis paper advances the view that the analyses of the origins and persistent growth of the social problems affecting most sub-Saharan African countries today must proceed from a historical perspective. It is argued that for sociologists, social workers, political scientists, policy makers, administrators and social scientists in general to provide well-rounded accounts of thebirth and spread of social problems and develop well-informed policies for the alleviation of the same, they must not overlook the role played by history. The authors utilise the cases of ethnicity and corruption to demonstrate that historical forces, particularly those associated with the process of colonisation, are pertinent to the understanding of social problems in the African continent. The outcomes of the social, economic and political restructuring accompanying colonisation such as the policy of divide and rule, the creation of a new economic order, the discriminatory allocation of resources and the emergence of a new political culture are considered to be central to the comprehensive explanation of ethnic tensions and conflicts and/or corruption. Because such outcomes have a legacy that has been extended to the neo-colonial period, it is concluded that these and/or other related factors are essential components in the explanation oftoday's social problems.
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Title: Social development issues
Date: 1999
Collection: Journal of Social Development in Africa
Description: Advertisement for journal Social development issues

Title: List of books received, notes for contributors
Date: 1999
Collection: Journal of Social Development in Africa

Title: Informal security systems in Southern Africa and approaches to strengthen them through policy measures
Creator: Benda-Beckmann, Franz von
Date: 1999
Collection: Journal of Social Development in Africa

Title: Social costs of poverty : the case of crime in Nigeria
Creator: Odumosu, Olakunle
Date: 1999
Collection: Journal of Social Development in Africa
Description: Poverty in Nigeria, like in most developing nations of Africa, is widespread and seems to be on the increase by the day. When poverty is coupled with high levels of economic and social aspirations, the stage is set for criminal activities - particularly official corruption, robbery and dealing in illegal goods and services. People who are thwarted in attaining desired social and economic goals legally, may seek to obtain them illegally. This paper, using anomie theory, analysis how poverty,...
Show morePoverty in Nigeria, like in most developing nations of Africa, is widespread and seems to be on the increase by the day. When poverty is coupled with high levels of economic and social aspirations, the stage is set for criminal activities - particularly official corruption, robbery and dealing in illegal goods and services. People who are thwarted in attaining desired social and economic goals legally, may seek to obtain them illegally. This paper, using anomie theory, analysis how poverty, resulting from unemployment and inflation, increases criminal activities in Nigeria. The discussion stresses that poverty is a social problem that deserves serious attention. It noted that the social problems which afflict Nigerians as a people are the result of the faulty strategy of development which has prevailed in the country, the particular set of economic and social policies to which that strategy has given rise and the particular structural arrangements which have produced and sustained both the strategy and the policies. It recommends a drastic modification of the development strategy, both at the macro and micro levels.
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Title: Book review : Social work in mental health
Creator: Matimba-Masuku, Violet
Date: 1999
Collection: Journal of Social Development in Africa
Description: Uri Aviram (ed). Social work in mental health. New York: Haworth Press, 1997

Title: Journal of social development in Africa
Date: 1999
Collection: Journal of Social Development in Africa
Description: Advertisement for Journal of social development in Africa

Title: 1999 International Year of Older Persons
Date: 1999
Collection: Journal of Social Development in Africa

Title: Privatisation policy and the delivery of social welfare services in Africa : a Nigerian example
Creator: Adejumobi, Said
Date: 1999
Collection: Journal of Social Development in Africa
Description: The paper examines the underlying conceptual and theoretical logic of the policy of privatisation in the area of social welfare services, and its unfolding empirical manifestations in Africa, with a Nigerian example. The hegemony of the neoliberal economic orthodoxy in the global arena has evoked market principles and policies, including the privatisation policy, as the dominant means of economic management and service provision and delivery. The privatisation policy is believed to make for...
Show moreThe paper examines the underlying conceptual and theoretical logic of the policy of privatisation in the area of social welfare services, and its unfolding empirical manifestations in Africa, with a Nigerian example. The hegemony of the neoliberal economic orthodoxy in the global arena has evoked market principles and policies, including the privatisation policy, as the dominant means of economic management and service provision and delivery. The privatisation policy is believed to make for efficiency, rationality, cost management and optimal resource allocation in the provision of public goods. The paper argues that the theoretical basis of the policy with respect to the provision of social welfare services is tenuous and rests basically on a foundation of sand. The privatisation policy, like the market policy of structural adjustment programmes (SAPs), isa fundamentalist economic project, rather than a sanguine economic policy, which can promote societal welfare. It seeks to reconstruct the object, nature and basis of social welfare services, from a social and public orientation, to a private one, which has implications for the issues of allocative efficiency, social and class inequities, access to the provision of those services and societal development The net-benefit of the policy is less to society and may be dysfunctional to it, but is more to the interest of capital.
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Title: Book review : Cutting the gordian knot
Creator: Hall, Nigel
Date: 1999
Collection: Journal of Social Development in Africa
Description: Review of: Ann Cotton & Richard Synge (eds.). Cutting the gordian knot. Cambridge: CamFed in association with African Studies Centre, University of Cambridge, 1998

Title: Informal sector development : a strategy for alleviating urban poverty in Zimbabwe
Creator: Dhemba, Jotham
Date: 1999
Collection: Journal of Social Development in Africa
Description: The World Bank, quoted in Mhishi (1998) estimated urban poverty in Zimbabwe in 1990/91 to be 12%. The 1995 Poverty Assessment Study found that urban poverty was now 39%. What is evident from these statistics is that urban poverty is increasing at unprecedented levels. What is also evident from studies that have been carried out is that those caught up in urban poverty resort to the informal sector as a survival strategy. Of concern also is the likelihood of more people living in cities than...
Show moreThe World Bank, quoted in Mhishi (1998) estimated urban poverty in Zimbabwe in 1990/91 to be 12%. The 1995 Poverty Assessment Study found that urban poverty was now 39%. What is evident from these statistics is that urban poverty is increasing at unprecedented levels. What is also evident from studies that have been carried out is that those caught up in urban poverty resort to the informal sector as a survival strategy. Of concern also is the likelihood of more people living in cities than in rural areas in the next millennium. The past eight years of "structural adjustment without growth" unleashed massive retrenchments in both the public and private sector, and as we embark on the second phase of the reform programme, there are indications that the formal sector will shrink even further. It is therefore evident that the only sector with potential to create more jobs is the informal sector. It is against this background of increasing urban poverty, urbanisation and declining formal employment opportunities that his paper puts forward some suggestions for promoting the growth of the informal sector.
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Title: Index, volume 13 (1998) and volume 14 (1999)
Date: 1999
Collection: Journal of Social Development in Africa

Title: Child abuse and child labour across culture : implications for research, prevention and policy implementation
Creator: Ike, Chris A.
Date: 1999
Collection: Journal of Social Development in Africa
Description: The article presents an overview of the global problem of child abuse and child labour, with emphasis on the implications of the issues for research, prevention, and policy decision. It is argued that for the definition of child abuse and child labour to be meaningful, the definition should be culturally relevant. As evidenced by many empirical studies, child labour is experienced by millions of children in Africa (Nigeria, in particular in the context of this article) and other developing...
Show moreThe article presents an overview of the global problem of child abuse and child labour, with emphasis on the implications of the issues for research, prevention, and policy decision. It is argued that for the definition of child abuse and child labour to be meaningful, the definition should be culturally relevant. As evidenced by many empirical studies, child labour is experienced by millions of children in Africa (Nigeria, in particular in the context of this article) and other developing countries. Ithas many deleterious consequences for most of the children. Recommendations for the prevention of child labour syndrome are summarised in terms of action research, education and public enlightenment, legislative measures, structural adjustment, and adjustment in value orientations that generate poverty and promote merchandisation and exploitation of children.
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Title: Editorial
Date: 1999
Collection: Journal of Social Development in Africa

Title: Book review : Tales from family therapy
Creator: Hall, Norma (Of Harare)
Date: 1999
Collection: Journal of Social Development in Africa
Description: Review of: Frank N. Thomas and Thorana S. Nelson (eds.). Tales from family therapy. New York: Haworth Press, 1997

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