Journal of Social Development in Africa (1996), 11,1,97-109 
Book Reviews 
State of the Environment in Southern Africa, a Report by the Southern African 
Research and Documentation Centre in collaboration with the World Conservation 
Union (IUCN) and SADC, Andrea Booth, John McCullum, James Mpinga & 
Mutizwa Mukute, edited by Munyaradzi Chenje and Phyllis Johnson. Harare, 
SARDC, 1994, ISBN 0-7974-1374-X, 332p. 
Why is it that books on the environment tend to be so much better presented than 
books on, say, politics, gender, or other social issues? This, the first offering of 
SARDC's environment resource centre, is no exception. It represents a major 
departure from SARDC's previous publications, and it also gives the institution as 
a whole a more concrete image and direction. 
The book is presented in three parts. Part One sets out background information 
on Southern Africa, its physical environment and the way it has been managed 
throughout history to the present. The first chapter in this section gives a regional 
overview in the context of related socioeconomic issues, such as population growth 
and economic development, which affect people's interaction with the environment 
The chapters on history and policy deal respectively with traditional 
environmental management techniques and the laws, policies and institutions that 
regulate the Southern African environment today. The next chapter describes the 
different ecozones in the region - large natural units which are controlled by a set 
of common processes, mostly climatic, and dominated by life-forms with similar 
physical adaptations to those processes. The chapter on climate reviews the role of 
weather patterns, particularly drought, as an important context for understanding 
environmental issues. 
Part Two sets out a series of environmental issues of interest to Southern Africa. 
The issues covered here are the most topical, selected (as the introduction states) 
after discussions with: 
"...literally hundreds of people in the environmental field throughout 
southern Africa...mentioned as foremost during visits to all 11 countries, 
and further highlightedat a conference of environmental personnel from all 
countries in the region...". 
The issues discussed range from soils and land use, woodlands and forests, and 
wildlife and protected areas, to freshwater and marine resources, pollution and 
armed conflict.
98 Book Reviews 
The last section of the book, Part Three, looks toward the future. The chapter on 
global atmospheric changes considers the possible impact on the region of global 
warming and depletion of the ozone layer, and reviews the actions being taken, 
regionally and internationally, to contain this. The final chapter on regional trends 
and scenarios takes the major trends identified in the overview and projects them 
into the future. These scenarios were developed at a workshop which considered 
the region's en vironmental strengths and weaknesses, opportunities and problems. 
As a librarian, I was interested in the book as a process, emanating from the 
S ARDC environment resource centre and its databases. This process offers endless 
possibilities to other documentation centres, as to how the invaluable information 
they contain can be made available to people in an easily-consumable format. This 
work goes a long way to solving the librarian/documentalist's problem of how to 
make people use the information they store. 
As mentioned before, the presentation of this book is excellent - dare I say 
perfect? It uses illustrations, maps, and above all, boxes, somewhat like the UNDP 
and World Bank reports, to great effect, all forming a highly readable and 
interesting product The linkages between chapters is a most useful innovation, 
arising no doubt from the book's inception in a database. 
It also does great service by starting with a clear definition of what, exactly, 
sustainable development actually is. 
The purpose of the book is stated to be "...a tool for decision-makers to use in 
developing appropriate agendas for action...", but "...not a policy study". The 
level of the language in which it is written would be highly appropriate for a school 
textbook, and I for one would recommend that it be adopted in the secondary school 
syllabus. But the level and depth of discussion might be a little too simplistic for 
the decision- or policy-maker. 
It would have been nice to see the issue of gender and the environment awarded 
a chapter in the book rather than the occasional box. In Southern Africa women are 
the principal users of and dependers on natural resources in their daily lives: they 
are the fanners, the drawers of water and collectors of firewood, and also the main 
victims of pollution, drought and deforestation. 
In its final chapter, the book does address some policy issues and future 
scenarios, and in earlier chapters advocates the use of indigenous/traditional 
solutions to environmental problems, but it offers no radical new solutions. As Prof 
Mugadza recently stated, we may need to change our entire economic base in the 
region in order to confront the problems of drought and depletion of natural 
resources. Perhaps we should be looking at developing new industries as an 
alternative to agriculture so that we can import food that we can no longer grow 
ourselves.
Book Reviews 99 
Following this valuable overview of the environment in Southern Africa, we 
look forward to other products from SARDC's resource centre and congratulate 
them on this one. 
Reviewed by Anne Derges, Librarian, School of Social Work. 
Social Policy and Administration in Zimbabwe, School of Social Work, Harare, 
Zimbabwe, Journal of Social Development in Africa, ISBN: 0-7974-1468-1 
(1995), 212pp, Price: Z$60, US$25 (p/b). 
The book discusses the history of social policy in Zimbabwe from the pie- 
Independence period up to the present time. The book looks at major factors - 
ideological, cultural, political, availability of resources and regional and international 
organisations which determine the direction of social policy. The book also 
considers poverty and inequality in developing countries with particular emphasis 
on Zimbabwe. One result of poverty has been that "..increasingly great numbers 
of peasants annually drift into urban squatter compounds and swelling the ranks 
of the unemployed" (p 40) This trend does not apply to Zimbabwe alone, but other 
African countries are also going through. Different aspects of social policy and 
administration in Zimbabwe are also discussed. These are rural development, 
social welfare, social security, health, housing and education. The last chapter is 
an overview of the above topics. 
During the pre-Independence period, social policies regarding the above 
aspects were discriminatory to blacks. Not only were the social policies discriminatory, 
they also forced blacks to lose some of their traditional practices. For 
example, health policies discouraged the indigenous people from using traditional 
healers. The policies transformed formerly self-sufficient medical practices and 
made them dependent on foreign medical practices which the people scarcely 
understood and which were, in any case, largely inaccessible (especially to those 
who lived in rural areas). All other aspects of life were similarly affected. It was 
sadly noted that during the pre-Independence period, when the country had more 
resources, the quality of life for whites was much better than that for blacks, and 
it was only after Independence that the quality of life for blacks began to improve. 
Unfortunately the economy then started to go down, hence the introduction of the 
structural adjustment programme. The programme has resulted in a low quality of 
life again for black people, and up to now, Zimbabwe is still going through this, 
with its negative consequences for the majority. 
The authors did well by starting with the definition and analysis of social policy. 
This is vital because definitions of concepts vary from one scholar to another. It 
discusses factors which shaped the development of social policy in Zimbabwe