By Tracy Ledger, with Nonhalanhla Mathibela
South Africa is characterised by high poverty and high inequality. More than half of all households live below the upper bound poverty line and 40 per cent of households live below the lower bound poverty line . Most concerning is that 25 per cent live below the food poverty line. Living below the food poverty line means that the entire income of the household is less than what is required to purchase their minimum daily calorie requirements.
Key government policies have emphasised the importance of eradicating poverty-induced hunger and malnutrition. However, there has been only a marginal improvement in the nutrition status of children over the past 30 years.
Access to basic services supports a wide range of outcomes linked to equitable socioeconomic development. Recognising the linkages between access to basic services and development, one of South Africa’s priority policy goals since 1994 has been to ensure that everyone – no matter how poor they are – can use basic services like electricity and water to improve their lives.
There has never been an attempt to quantify exactly what level of services is required to support a higher standard of living and facilitate new livelihood opportunities, and at what cost these services would be affordable for low-income households. These are the concrete benchmarks that are needed to guide policy in the right direction. This report aims to fill some of that policy gap.
