Basic service delivery and fragile regions in South Africa
Abstract
In 1994, the newly elected ANC-led government adopted the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) as its socio-economic policy framework. This policy spelt out key pillars of delivery, including meeting basic needs and developing human resources. It is clear that over the past fifteen years, great strides have been made towards redressing past social inequalities and meeting the RDP commitment. Addressing these challenges will require new approaches. Today, researchers look beyond poverty headcounts and poverty gaps to broader concepts of capabilities and vulnerability. This dissertation examines vulnerability at a sub-national level in South Africa. The general objective of this dissertation is to construct indicators of local fragility using data from South Africa. The aim is to extend the work by Naude et al. (2008) on measures of the fragility of regions in South Africa. It extends the work by Naude et al. (2008) in three ways: data from the recently released Community Survey 2007 are used, the unit of analysis is local municipalities instead of magisterial districts, and the factor scores generated by principle component analysis are used to construct a fragility index. The Breede Valley Local Municipality was found to be the only municipality that remained in the top-5 least fragile regions in 2001 and 2007. In conclusion, this dissertation achieved its objective of constructing an indicator of local fragility.