Participatory rural appraisal: a methodology to facilitate roots-driven change in rural areas 

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Geographical area of the study

Most of the case studies (Figure 1.1) included in this thesis are located in the North-West Province of South Africa. The North-West Province was proclaimed in 1993 and included some of the geographical areas of the former Orange Free State, Cape and Transvaal Provinces with a large percentage of the Bophuthatswana Bantustan also included. The Province borders Botswana. The North-West has a population of around 3.5 million people, mostly African and mostly Tswana-speaking. It houses about 6.8% of South Africa‟s population (Statistics South Africa, 2012). Although unemployment figures dropped in the last decade, the Human Development Index of the population in the Province dropped from 0.67 in 1993 to 0.60 in 2013 (Table 1.4). By 2013 it is estimated that 39.38% of the people living in the North-West Province lived in poverty. The most important contributors to the economy of the Province come from primary sector activities such as farming and mining. The Province has a rich reserve of a multitude of minerals of which platinum is the dominant mineral. The farming activities in the Province include large cattle farms and crops grown in the area include wheat, maize, citrus and tobacco.
The rural community of Mathopestad is located east of Derby, in the North- West Province, near the city of Rustenburg. The GRCF and the Department of Geography, Unisa, implemented ABCD in the community. This community was selected for research as it was the pilot study area for the development of the community asset mapping tool presented in this thesis. The communities of Skuinsdrift, Koffiekraal, Brakuil and Uitkyk (about 50km from Zeerust) in the Groot Marico, North-West Province, are included in this thesis to illustrate the application of the community asset mapping programme, and the monitoring and evaluation thereof with partnerships between an institution of higher learning, an NPO and a multi-national donor. The latter case study is also in an advanced stage and has presented a number of challenges and successes of the tool to facilitate roots-driven change in rural communities in South Africa.
Feloane Trust Village, located near ThabaNchu in the Free State Province was selected for inclusion in this thesis, as this rural community received training on community asset mapping as a result of an initiative driven of a community member in collaboration with a community development worker. In addition a non-profit organisation was involved in the monitoring and evaluation process after the application of the tool. The Kareedouw case study in the Eastern Cape Province includes four rural communities (Wittekleibos, Guava Juice, Snyklip and Doriskraal), and was selected to test the programme in a Province that had a history of high levels of poverty and inequality.

Post development theory

The thesis is grounded within post-development theory that arose in the mid-1980s as a result of growing critique against the dominant development theory (with specific underlying political and economic ideology) and the development projects of the time. During last two decades of the previous century, the development process was socially constructed and reflected a dominant Western (Northern) hegemony (Escobar, 1995). The ideology of development is a social vision that is entrenched in the ideals of “modernisation”, that assumes (and imposes) western economic structure and society as the universal model that the whole world should copy and follow. This ideology resulted in a discourse that reflected and encouraged the unequal power relations between the West and the rest of the world. During the last half of the previous century, the western influence and knowledge dominated the conception, approach and evaluation of development for the rest of the world.
Post-development theorists such as Escobar (1995), Esteva (1999), Esteva & Prakash (1998) debate the very meaning of development. These activists challenged the general understanding of development which they contend is rooted in earlier colonial discourse that depicts the North as „advanced‟ and „progressive‟ and the South as „backward‟, „degenerate‟ and „primitive‟. Sachs (1998, 2008), contends that the idea of development stands in ruin in the knowledge landscape and the time had come to dismantle the mental structure of this concept, which has resulted in the creation of a hierarchy of developed and underdeveloped nations, where the former were more superior, while the latter were inferior.

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Chapter One: Placing poverty and inequality in South Africa into the global context 
1.1 Global inequality and poverty
1.2 An overview of the extent and spatial distribution of poverty and inequality in South Africa
1.3 Community driven change: the key to facilitate inclusive and sustainable poverty relief and inequality reduction in South Africa
1.4 The aim of the research
1.5 Partnerships involved in the research
1.6 Geographical area of the study
1.7 Post development theory
1.9 Contribution of this research to the discipline of Geography
1.10 Chapter outline
Chapter Two: Participatory rural appraisal: a methodology to facilitate roots-driven change in rural areas 
2.1 The development of Rapid Rural Appraisal
2.2 Development of the Participatory Rural Appraisal Methodology
2.3 Concepts and principles of contemporary Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA)
2.4 Conclusion
Chapter Three: Asset-based community development as a possible tool for wealth creation in South Africa: Mathopestad, North-West Province .
3.1 Asset-based community development (ABCD).
3.2 The Greater Rustenburg Community Foundation application of asset-based community development in North-West Province
3.3 The application of ABCD in Mathopestad (North-West Province)
Chapter Four: The development of CAMP for the rural communities in South Africa: Case study from the Free State Province 
4.1 The four day workshop
4.2 Monitoring and Evaluation
4.3 Lesson learnt in Feloane from and for the Community Asset Mapping Programme
Chapter Five: The development of a CAMP for the rural communities in South Africa: Case study from the Eastern Cape
Chapter Six: The development of CAMP for the rural communities in South Africa: additional case studies from the North-West Province
Chapter Seven: Monitoring and evaluation related to CAMP: case studies in the North-West Province 
Chapter Eight: Community Asset Mapping Programme (CAMP) for roots-driven change in South Africa: a tool for wealth creation in rural South Africa 
Chapter Nine: The role community asset mapping can play in wealth creation in South Africa 
References

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A community asset mapping programme for roots-driven sustainable socio-economic change in rural South Africa

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