History in the new South Africa: an introduction - Det danske ...

KwaZulu-Natal 39.5 39.3 Down 0.2%
Mpumalanga 37.1 37.2 Up 0.1%
North West 33 38 Up 5.0%
Free State 31.5 32.8 Up 1.3%
Northern Cape 24.3 24.3 No change
Gauteng 20.1 20.8 Up 0.7%
Western Cape 14.6 16.7 Up 2.1%
Table 3: Poverty by province 1996 and 2001
Poverty levels also rose, though less steeply, in the wealthiest and most urbanised
provinces of Gauteng (up by 0.7%) and Western Cape (2.1%). In the latter two cases
poverty was also influenced by in-migration from other provinces. For example, the
2001 census enumerated 8.8 million people in Gauteng, almost a fifth of South Africa’s
total population of 44.8 million, and showing the largest increase in population of all
provinces since the 1996 census. Relative to other provinces, Gauteng grew by 1.6% to
include a fifth (19.7%) of the national population.
It is also important to note the startling differences in poverty levels – for both 1996 and
2001 – between the wealthiest and poorest provinces in South Africa. For example, in
1996 poverty in Limpopo was more than 3 times higher than in the Western Cape. In
2001, poverty levels in the Western Cape were less than half those in Mpumalanga and
just more than a third of those in the Eastern Cape. Relative poverty and inequality are
starkly apparent reminders of our past; and of the imperatives that need to shape our
future.
Poverty seemed to be dropping or steadying in the 3 poorest provinces, remaining steady
in a couple more while rising more or less steeply in the remainder. The expectation is
that targeting in the ISRDP and URP have accounted for these trends, which were
occurring before either programme began to be implemented, and which demand more
careful resource allocation decisions than merely targeting the 3 poorest provinces. The
same applies to individual government departments: are resource allocation decisions
within the ISRDP and URP reflecting the changing patterns of poverty, or is it still the
case of the bulk of resources going to the 3 poorest and the remainder fight over what is
left?
Poverty indicators in nodes and provinces
In Table 4 the 1996 and 2001 poverty scores for each node are set out. In some of the
URP nodes (marked with *), demarcation made extracting data for the node particularly
complex and the data should be treated with circumspection for 1996; the 2001 figures
are accurate. Inanda, for example, is an extremely poor urban node; but extracting
locale-specific data from Census 1996 proved very challenging; and thus the % change
in poverty levels in Inanda should be treated with caution.
Node 1996 2001 % change
ISRDP
OR Tambo 65.4 64.3 Down 1.1%
Umkhanyakude 63.8 60.6 Down 3.2%
Alfred Nzo 63.5 65.6 Up 2.1%
Umzinyathi 59.7 58.3 Down 1.4%
39