Pro-poor initiatives to reduce poverty in southern Africa

Pro-poor initiatives are a common feature of measures to commercialise natural resources in southern Africa. Several pro-poor models have been set up to reduce the gap between elites and marginalised groups, urban and rural populations and the rich and poor. Evidence from the forestry and tourism sectors, however, shows that these strategies have had little significant impact on poverty in poor communities.

Research from the Sustainable Livelihoods in Southern Africa programme looks at case studies from Zimbabwe, Mozambique and South Africa. Examples of forestry and tourism initiatives explore the true costs and benefits to the poor of five different models. These initiatives include Land Restitution, Black Economic Empowerment and Community Based Tourism. The common theme is to promote ‘pro-poor growth’ by encouraging private sector activity in the use of resources and to enhance the benefits to the poor from this. These models are characterised according to the type of land on which they occur:

• Communal land: private investors work with residents who have limited power and rights.
• State-owned land: private investors must meet social and economic criteria in order to receive concessions.
• Private land: a landowner has a relationship with neighbours that may include financial assistance and employment. No decision-making power rests with the community.
• Restituted land: communities hold strong land tenure rights and have a strong negotiating position.
• The spatial amalgam approach: private, community and state land is combined to develop commercial investments.

The case studies suggest that the models are highly varied in their impacts on the poor. There are too many unsuccessful examples to suggest that making markets work for the poor happens easily. Where benefits exist, they are of little economic significance. Elite groups, such as landowners, still receive the most benefits. In other cases, there is no consideration of the complexity of communities, meaning many people remain excluded. The importance of non-financial benefits, such as greater participation in decision-making, is often ignored. Negative impacts, such as the costs of using agricultural land for tourism, are also overlooked.

Whilst these case studies suggest that pro-poor approaches are not having the desired impacts, there have been some successes. There are common features of successful initiatives:

• The key factor is access to assets. For forestry and tourism, this means land.
• Restituted land and state-owned land models with pro-poor conditions are potentially the most successful, but in many cases, external factors have limited benefits.
• In places where introducing these models is not practicable, the objective should be to improve land ownership rights for poor people on communal land and to increase government incentives for private landowners to invest in pro-poor measures.
• Land rights alone are not enough. There must be a focus on increasing access to markets for the poor, through improved negotiating opportunities and practical assistance for getting to markets.

Despite these attempts to help poor people access and benefit from markets, the study found little evidence of change so far. Policies focus on creating direct economic benefits, ignoring the importance of increasing fairness between the private sector and communities. For natural resources markets to help alleviate poverty there needs to be recognition that markets are highly political and easily controlled by elites groups.  The state must intervene in markets and address the issue of equity with land redistribution mechanisms where necessary. For real change to occur, poor people need strong land tenure rights and the capacity to benefit from their forestry and tourism resources.

Source(s):
‘Transforming or tinkering? New forms of engagement between communities and the private sector in tourism and forestry in southern Africa.’ Sustainable Livelihoods in Southern Africa Research Paper 18, Institute of Development Studies, 2003. http://www.ids.ac.uk/ids/env/PDFs/wRP18.pdf

Funded by: UK Department for International Development’s Rural Livelihoods Department Policy Research Programme

id21 Research Highlight: 6th February 2005

Further Information:
Oliver Burch
Sustainable Livelihoods in southern Africa
Institute of Development Studies
University of Sussex
Falmer, Brighton
BN1 9RE
United Kingdom
http://www.ids.ac.uk/ids/env/slsa/

Tel: +44 (0)1273 606261
Fax: +44 (0)1273 621202
Contact the contributor: o.burch@ids.ac.uk

Institute of Development Studies (IDS), UK

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"Pro-poor tourism: putting poverty at the heart of mass tourism"

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