Development: An Antidote For Poverty And Inequality?

Book excerpt: For more than a century, development discourse and practices have been central to initiatives to change and improve the human condition in response to poverty, deprivation, oppression and inequality. It has informed public policies and shaped the public institutions charged with its implementation and its relations with various forms of associational life. Development: An Antidote for Poverty and Inequality? Reflections on Governance, Planning, Impact and Accountability in South Africa circa 1994 to 2020, is an attempt to examine the extent to which this has occurred in South Africa, an environment that has been impregnated by burgeoning corruption since 1994, the 2008 global economic crises and most recently the COVID-19 pandemic. The pursuit of public policies such as the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP), the National Development Plan (NDP) as well as other related sectoral policies and legislation all envisaged the development of institutional capacity to facilitate planning and implementation. This institutional capacity and resource mobilisation would be enhanced by the formation of partnerships with the private sectorcivil society. However, challenges remain in ascertaining progress through the measurement of performance and the evaluation of impacts nationally and in selected regions and local areas. This book documents and outlines these challenges.