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The post-apartheid South African government prioritises rural development as a tool for reversing the apartheid government legacies of injustice, poverty, and black people's marginalisation, particularly in the former homelands of Ciskei, Transkei, and Venda land. This is evidenced by the implementation of diverse rural development policies and strategies such as the Land Reform Programme the Rural Development Strategy, and the National Development Plan vision 2030. Despite these efforts, evidence shows that most of the policies, such as the Land Reform Programme, have largely failed to promote rural development owing to specific implementation gaps. Bearing in mind these past failures, this paper seeks to assess the socio-economic conditions in the rural municipalities of the Eastern Cape that fall under the former homelands. This assessment will help to understand the gains and failures made through the rural development currently being implemented, such as the National Development Plan vision 2030. A quantitative cross-sectional survey was conducted among 413 participants who were selected using the multi-stage random sampling technique. Data were gathered through closed-ended questionnaires. The results were obtained using SPSS version 27 and analytical tools such as frequencies, cross-tabulation, and the Chi-square test. Results indicated that despite 28 years of implementing rural development policies and strategies, socio-economic conditions are still unsatisfactory in the study area. This is evidenced by low income levels, high unemployment, and limited livelihood activities. To salvage the situation, policies and rural development strategies that are informed by the voices, aspirations, and needs of local communities are urgently required. More so, livelihood diversification should be at the centre of rural development to increase income levels and standards of living. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The post-apartheid South African government prioritises rural development as a tool for reversing the apartheid government legacies of injustice, poverty, and black people's marginalisation, particularly in the former homelands of Ciskei, Transkei, and Venda land. This is evidenced by the implementation of diverse rural development policies and strategies such as the Land Reform Programme the Rural Development Strategy, and the National Development Plan vision 2030. Despite these efforts, evidence shows that most of the policies, such as the Land Reform Programme, have largely failed to promote rural development owing to specific implementation gaps. Bearing in mind these past failures, this paper seeks to assess the socio-economic conditions in the rural municipalities of the Eastern Cape that fall under the former homelands. This assessment will help to understand the gains and failures made through the rural development currently being implemented, such as the National Development Plan vision 2030. A quantitative cross-sectional survey was conducted among 413 participants who were selected using the multi-stage random sampling technique. Data were gathered through closed-ended questionnaires. The results were obtained using SPSS version 27 and analytical tools such as frequencies, cross-tabulation, and the Chi-square test. Results indicated that despite 28 years of implementing rural development policies and strategies, socio-economic conditions are still unsatisfactory in the study area. This is evidenced by low income levels, high unemployment, and limited livelihood activities. To salvage the situation, policies and rural development strategies that are informed by the voices, aspirations, and needs of local communities are urgently required. More so, livelihood diversification should be at the centre of rural development to increase income levels and standards of living. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa (1996) provides a normative framework for upholding the fundamental human rights of its citizens, day labourers represent one of the most disenfranchised and marginalised sectors of the South African economy and remain entirely at the mercy of prevailing market forces. This paper is based on a qualitative study that was conducted in the city of East London in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa to develop a comprehensive understanding of the precarious circumstances in which day labourers are obliged to eke out a meagre subsistence through short-term employment. A person-in-environment framework was used to evaluate the findings from a thematic analysis of the data that was obtained from individual interviews with eighteen day labourers who had no other forms of income. The findings were used to formulate recommendations for social work practice, specifically with respect to the role of social workers in the formulation and implementation of policies to include day labourers among the vulnerable segments of the population whose well-being the profession is dedicated to improving. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Local Action Groups (LAGs) are a promising development approach that has gained prominence across the world. They are underpinned by participation of all local actors (community-led rural development) as the main precondition for generating and sustaining economic development in rural regions. Despite this potential, there has been a dearth of scientific studies that have investigated the potential role of LAGs as a rural transformation approach in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. Therefore, the current paper sought to identify existing local action groups and explore their role and potential to promote rural development. A concurrent mixed-methods approach was adopted to attain the study objective. Four hundred households were purposively drawn from two rural local municipalities, Amahlathi and Nyandeni, in the Eastern Cape Province. Survey questionnaires and semi-structured interview guides were used to collect data. Results showed that existing LAGs were mainly burial societies, cooperatives, farmers associations, women's organisations, and financial saving schemes. The main roles of these LAGs were to enhance food security, boost income generation, and foster social cohesion. However, despite their contribution, LAGs have not reached their full potential as a conduit for rural development owing to the limited involvement of relevant rural development stakeholders. Therefore, adequate targeted support is required from both the public and private sectors to unlock the potential of LAGs as a catalyst for rural development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social exclusion is a pervasive phenomenon in the lives of visually impaired individuals. This paper discusses the causes of exclusion as well as strategies for dealing with it. The qualitative in-depth interviewing design was used for the study. Convenience and purposive sampling methods were used in order to select the most relevant participants in the study. Thirty visually impaired individuals from Kwa-Nobuhle Township in the Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipality, together with twenty Community Development Workers from the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA), participated in the study, which took place from June to November 2020. The findings of the study revealed that the causes of exclusion were a lack of independence, a lack of adequate education and skills, a lack of reasonable accommodation, and a lack of community awareness. Potential empowerment strategies for minimising the exclusion of the visually impaired individuals were also presented. They included awareness campaigns, increasing platforms for information sharing, workshops and trainings, improved monitoring and evaluation, and the establishment of more rehabilitation centres for visually impaired individuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Local Action Group approach has gained recognition in South Africa in the last decade as a solution to rural development challenges. Although rural development has shown relative success in the Eastern Cape Province, poverty remains a major concern. Yet, the challenges hindering the success of these groups as a facilitator of rural development are not well documented. Thus, the goal of this study is to document the challenges facing Local Action Group initiatives in the small-scale agribusiness and non-farm enterprise sectors and provide context-based solutions. The paper took a mixed methods approach, using purposive and snowball sampling techniques to select 400 households. Questionnaires and semi-structured interview guides were concurrently utilised to collect data. The results show that financial inadequacy, lack of markets, lack of community cooperation, drought and lack of business management skills. Thus, there is need for upscaling stakeholder mobilisation and instilling a sense of project ownership and cooperation among community members. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Democracy in the post-apartheid era South Africa has a culture of violent service delivery protests epitomized by the chanting of liberation songs. The usage of liberation songs during protests in South Africa's Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Municipality is examined in this article (in the Eastern Cape Province). Protests have become a sign of discontent among people in the new South Africa's poor communities, and they are usually violent. The authors discuss the topic of violent protests as well as the study of isiXhosa liberation songs performed by protestors. The paper is qualitative in character, and it examines critically liberation anthems in service delivery protest actions using a narrative approach and a literature review assessment. Symbolic interactionism theory and psychoanalysis theory are used on a theoretical level. Political science, sociology, and development studies have not looked at the topic under question in this work. As a result, this research adds something new to multidisciplinary discussions about the relationship between struggle songs and violent service delivery protests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper articulates the patterns and feel of graduate underemployment in Mthatha, a South African town in the Eastern Cape Province. Foregrounded on Peter Blua's Social Exchange Theory, this study adopted a quantitative approach. A sample of 60 respondents was drawn from underemployed graduate population through a combination of stratified and random sampling techniques. Data collected from survey (questionnaire) were analysed with appropriate tools in the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences. The study found that majority of underemployed graduates are between 21 and 25 years of age, married, hold bachelor's degrees in Social Sciences. Gender, qualification type and level of qualification have no significant influence on determining underemployed graduates' choice of occupation as single and combined variables or factors. While only very few (5%) of the underemployed graduates are never happy at work, femaleness, older graduates, Africans, higher qualification, higher basic salary and longer years of underemployment best predict happiness at work, although not at significant level, except for basic salary. A majority of graduates (73.3%) do sometimes consider leaving their current jobs, even when there are no alternatives. This is influenced by maleness, older graduates, being Whites, higher qualification, lower basic salary and lower years of underemployment. Lack of networking was found to be the most important factor in graduate underemployment, followed by lack of experience and gender not being significant. This study recommends policy intervention by state, where there is legislation that provides for entry level jobs that may not require previous experience. Also, there should be another legislation that protects the underemployed through salary regulation and incentivising of employers that engage workers in such capacity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]