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In 1998, James Midgley issued a challenge for scholars to provide a systematic description and examination of the South African experience in implementing social development. This article attempts to meet this challenge by examining the progress of developmental welfare or social development in the first ten years of South Africa's transition to democracy under African National Congress (ANC) rule. In this article it is argued that because social development marries social and economic goals, one cannot evaluate developmental welfare or social development without examining shifts in economic policy. Thus, it also examines economic policy transitions from development, to growth, to black economic empowerment. It shows how social security has become the major poverty alleviation measure within the developmental welfare system. It acknowledges that it is tough for developmental welfare to succeed in an economic system that promotes gross income disparities and a widening gap between rich and poor. Social development needs widespread institutional support to succeed and this is unlikely to be forthcoming while there is high unemployment, low economic growth and insufficient foreign investment. However, this state of affairs is unlikely to change as long as the government intervenes in the economy, promotes black economic empowerment and centralises decision-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses community development in South Africa. South Africa, which is the most industrialized country in Africa, is often referred to as a first-world country in a third-world continent. In a country in which former apartheid rule served to "under-develop" the majority of South Africa's population while the minority portion held on to power and control through social, political and economic inequalities, the task for the new government was to "reconstruct develop". Poverty is an issue of great concern for all of South Africa. A major characteristic of urban poverty is the emergence of sprawling informal settlements comprising illegal squatters. Social and economic development was needed in South Africa. Many people live in communities with little or no infrastructure and in social conditions which perpetuate the country's problems of violence, poverty, ill health, illiteracy and a plethora of related issues faced by South Africans and the government. Community development is a method that is very attractive because it promotes empowerment and holds the people to be the key factor in their development. The concept of community development requires contributions at each level of development projects. Community development as a capacity-building process is used to help areas become self- sustaining. It involves contributions from a variety of directions.