EDITORIAL 
THIS ISSUE INDICATES the preoccupation of many African scholars today 
with two overriding problems: poverty and the effects of globalization. 
Remedies proposed will be as multifaceted as the phenomenon itself, 
since poverty is the result of many overlapping causes. The complexity 
of the problem requires an immediate attack on all fronts but the sad 
irony is that each remedy requires quantities of money and vast numbers 
of effective administrators. These, it appears, are the very resources 
we most lack. 
This leads to globalization and the degree to which this contributes 
to the impoverishment of sub Saharan Africa? Dr Makoa provides an 
overview of the characteristics of globalization in East and southern 
Africa. The democratization process in Africa is best understood as a 
capitulation of economic and thus, political self-determination, in which 
domestic economies are subordinated to the needs of global capitalism. 
A third characteristic of African scholarship today is the increasing 
attention paid to children and women. Stella Nana-Fabu of Cameroon 
suggests that empowering women by giving them the political, economic 
and social means to control their own fertility will have immediate 
positive repercussions on the whole attempt to control poverty. In another 
study Victor Muzvidziwa describes strategies adopted by poor 
urban women to maintain their independence in town while securing 
their future long-term prospects in the village. Dr Muzvidziwa recommends 
that women be included, in their own right, in any programme 
involving land distribution and ownership. 
In a very different vein, Kwaku Osei-Hwedie and Alice Hobona examine 
the extent to which teachers are aware of the emotional abuse of 
children by adults. They conclude that while there is some awareness, 
this needs to be developed. 
Two articles deal directly with poverty in quite different ways. Gladys 
Bindura-Mutangadura's study of the ways in which poor urban households 
cope with the death and illness of household members leads her 
to recommend strategies for strengthening informal support mechanisms 
already being tapped by these households. She argues that 
VOL 16 NO 1 JANUARY 2001 JOURNAL OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT IN AFRICA 3
development must mean more than increasing national income at the 
macroeconomic level. Instead, an innovative enabling environment 
should be put in place to help people conduct the informal businesses 
upon which they depend when struck by household income shock. 
Resources should be directed to helping the poor succeed in the informal 
sector and existing voluntary societies could serve as a model for 
the disbursement of social protection funds. 
Philip Rono and Abdillahi Aboud analyse the reasons why rural 
communities do not perform as well as hoped during community development 
programmes such as building schools and wells. The authors 
point out that the active attempts to encourage community spirit have 
been countervailed by individualism. As a result of their survey they 
show that the socio-economic profiles of the individuals have an effect 
on their willingness to participation in community programmes, and, in 
particular, suggest that the religious orientation of participants plays an 
interesting role. 
Finally, Dr Gecau provides an account of audience responses in rural 
Zimbabwe to a film intended to encourage the education of girls. A 
lesson to be drawn from this article, as from others in this issue, is that 
development agents must take much more seriously the intellectual, 
cultural and economic resources, the experiences, desires and hopes, 
that the subjects of development bring with them to the development 
process. The recipients of the development thrust must be understood 
and their structures, such as voluntary societies, respected. They must 
therefore be taken as partners in the process, not tabula rasa on which 
the development agency can write what they will. As many of this issues 
contributors say in different ways, African policymakers and other 
development agents should look to African realities and African resources 
for the problems that beset us. 
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 
The editor thanks the following for their help as referees and consultants for this 
issue: Mr Chipoyera, Knox Chitiyo Mrs Gumbo, Dr Kadenge, Dr A Kambuzdi, 
Mrs Kanyowa, Ms Mate, Nhamo Mhiripiri, Titus Moetsabi, Mrs Sondo and Dr 
Norman Reynolds. 
4 JOURNAL OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT IN AFRICA VOL 16 NO 1 JANUARY 2001