TransCape NPO, South Africa

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Why we are - Our Mission

The Eastern Cape is one of South Africa’s poorest provinces with, according to statistics from the Department of Social Development, the highest percentage of people living in poverty. The HIV prevalence in the Eastern Cape is among the highest levels in the country, at 29% of the population (1). 

 The O.R. Tambo district, where TransCape operates, is the poorest district in the Eastern Cape in terms of all poverty measures (2).  Our specific geographical area of operation is the Nyandeni municipality. Mdumbi Backpackers is situated in Ward 26 and Canzibe Hospital in Ward 23 

Statistics   

Description Nyandeni Municipality Ward 26 (Mankosi) Joburg
Population 274408 11246 3225301
Female 54% 54% 50%
Male 46% 46% 50%
House Hold Gender Female 60% 64% 38%
House hold Gender male 40% 36% 62%
Black Africans 99.7% 99.6% 73%
Xhosa speaking 99% 99.5% 7.7%
Zulu speaking 0,1% 0,04% 25%
English 0,5% 0,16% 19%
Households 55091 2090 1049485
People / household 5 5,4 3,1
Under 20 years of age 59% 61% 31%
Over 40 years of age 19% 19% 26%
Percentage of people who had no schooling 40% 61% 7.2%
Percentage of people who had a Higher education 3% 0,6% 14%
Households using wood as energy source for cooking 70% 94% 0,3%
Households using electricity for lighting 33% 0,2% 85%
Households using candles as energy source for lighting 54% 63% 12%
Percentage of households with no income 35% 48% 19%
Households earning less than R9600 / year 41% 36% 15%
Without Toilets 62% 93% 3%
Cell-phone per House hold 14% 5% 24%
Living near a public phone 39%   35%
Walking as transport 44% 44% 17%
Minibus / Taxi 2,4% 0,2% 13%
No personal income 81% 87% 59%
Employed 8%   46%
People that are earning but earning less than R800/year 17% 11% 11%
Water source being streams or rivers 53% 74% 0,1%
Pipe 2,8% 0,2% 25%

  1. Estimated HIV prevalence out of antenatal clinic attendees. www.avert.org/safricastats

  2.“It has the lowest Human Development Index (0.45) and the highest poverty gap (2 231 million) in the Eastern Cape.” Statistics obtained from Department of Social Development. www.socdev.ecprov.gov.za/statistics/demographics/or-tambo_area_info.htm.

 HIV/AIDS Statistics for South Africa 

The infection rate amongst pregnant women is as follows: (these figures were released in 2000. For provinces which previously contained homelands, the lack of and poor health facilities should be taken into consideration when looking at these stats. In rural Eastern Cape for instance, the Xhosa culture provides traditional midwifes. Thus, in 2000, very few rural pregnant woman in the Eastern Cape gave birth in a Government medical fasillity where VCT would’ve been possible.)

  • Free Sate 27.9%
  • Mpumalanga 27.3%
  • Gauteng 23.9%
  • North West 23%
  • Eastern Cape 18%
  • Northern Province 11.4%
  • Northern Cape 10.1%
  • Kwa-Zulu Natal 32.5%

Clear statistics for the number of AIDS orphans are not available since AIDS is not recorded as a cause of death on the death certificates of many people who die as a result of AIDS. Estimates are that in the middle of 2001 around 250 000 children had been orphaned as a result of AIDS. This will increase to around 2 million by 2010. Life expectancy in South Africa (the number of years the average person will live) is expected to go down from a high of around 60 years in 1994 to just over 40 years in 2005. Most of the people who are dying from AIDS are women between the ages of 18 and 40 and men between the ages of 30 and 50. This means that the most vulnerable groups are women of child rearing and economically active age and men in their economically productive years. This has severe implications for our economy and our society as a whole.

Poverty in South Africa

In South Africa the poverty line in 2003 was about R1100 per average family per month in income. Percentage of the population living under the poevrty line:

  • Eastern Cape 68.3
  • Free State 59.5 
  • Gauteng 20
  • KZN 50.5
  • Limpopo 60.7
  • Mpumalanga 54.8
  • Northern Cape 54.4
  • North West 56.5
  • Western Cape 28.8
  • National 48.4

Poverty and Inequality in South Africa

South Africa has a small wealthy population and medium sized middle income and poor populations. The differences between the wealthy and the poor are very big and in some ways we have the developed world and the developing world living side by side in one country.

poverty

Some facts about South Africa are:

  • Around half the population is defined as poor and living below the poverty line.
  • Poverty is mainly rural- about two thirds of the country's poor people live in rural areas and more than two thirds of rural people are poor.
  • In urban areas only 28% are poor.
  • Around 56% of black people are estimated to be poor compared to around 36% of Coloured people, 15% percent of Indian people and 7% of white people.
  • 60% of female headed households are poor.
  • South Africa has a one of the highest rates of income inequality in the world. The richest 10% of the population gets almost half the income and the poorest 20% receive only 3,3% of the income.
  • There is also a huge income inequality between provinces where the average income per person in Gauteng is six times greater than the average income in Limpopo.
  • There are extreme differences between races and provinces. If you only take white South Africans, they are ranked 19th out of 173 on a global scale. Black South Africans are ranked 117th out of 173. South Africa as a whole is ranked 76th.
  •  Poverty is much worse in those provinces containing the former homelands with Eastern Cape and Limpopo containing the greatest percentage of poor people. 
  • In 1998 the fertility rate in South Africa was 2.9. As women get better access to education and economic opportunities, the fertility rate will continue to go down.
  •  The South African IMR is 45.4. That means that out of every 1000 children born, 45,5 of them do not live for one year.

Life expectancy is the average years that a person can expect to live in a particular country. There is a difference of about 20 years in the life expectancy of someone living in the US and someone living in sub-Saharan Africa. In South Africa there are warnings from some researchers that our life expectancy of around 60 years may be reduced to just over 40 years in the next decade because of AIDS.

How do we understand these differences in living quality and the factors that cause it? What caused the difference between the developed and the developing world?

Colonialism

Most countries in the developing world used to be colonies of European countries until the 1950's and 1960's. Colonies were used as suppliers of raw materials and food for the rapidly industrialising and fast growing Europe of the last few centuries. There was little infrastructure development in most colonies and almost no democratic government. The main aim of the colonisers was to establish control over the local people so that they could get resources out of the colonies as cheaply as possible. Little was done to develop value-adding manufacturing or the human resources of the colonies.

Africa is the continent that has the most natural resources. This made it a target for colonialism. At independence, most former colonies in Africa were left with little more than railways and harbours in terms of infrastructure that could be used for future economic development.

Economic growth and population

Many writers have argued that one of the reasons why the developing world lags behind is the rapid population growth found in these countries. Developing countries are unable to produce enough food to feed their large populations and they find it difficult to sustain economic growth. Economic growth takes place when the growth in production is bigger than the growth in population.

Adding value to raw materials

The fact that agricultural production and traditional methods of production and farming are still used means that there is very little manufacturing where value is added to raw material before being exported or sold on markets that bring extra money into the community. Developed countries tend to import cheap raw materials from the developing world and add value to it before selling it back as expensive finished products to the developing world.

Globalism

The way we usually measure the size of an economy is by its Gross Domestic Product (GDP). GDP is the value of all the goods and services produced within our borders in one year. This value is equal to the economic wealth of the country, all the things of economic value, which can be bought or sold, that have been produced in South Africa in one year.

 

 

 

 

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