Assessing the relationship between youth capabilities and food security: a case study of a rainwater harvesting project in South Africa

Abstract

Rainwater harvesting presents a viable option for securing water availability in order to increase food production. The study focuses on rural youth in Luphisi and Dwaleni villages in the Mpumalanga Province and considers the relationship between youth capabilities and food security. The study uses qualitative data collected from focus group discussions and quantitative data from a baseline survey within the context of an integrated rainwater harvesting project. The indicators tapped into attributes related to trust, social cohesion, inclusion and sociability, and examined these within the context of the 'capability approach', to consider whether and in what ways these attributes can be linked to food security. Results show that youth have high levels of certain capabilities such as trust, social cohesion and inclusion, co-operation, self-esteem, and meaning. However, in other dimensions there are fewer opportunities, like access to networks, access to knowledge and information and sociability, which are lacking among youth and restrict opportunities for them to engage with issues around food and water security. The Chi-square test was used to investigate the relationship between youth capabilities and food security and at p<0.05 results showed that there was no relationship between youth capabilities and food security in Dwaleni. There were however three capabilities showing significant statistical relationships between youth capabilities and food security in Luphisi: collective action and co-operation, social cohesion and self-esteem. We argue that there are opportunities to build on existing capabilities and that, overall, the potential of youth for engaging in water resources management is not being tapped into.

A systematic review of sub-national food insecurity research in South Africa: Missed opportunities for policy insights

“…Similarly, an investigation into the relationship between food security and attributes of social capital in two villages in Mpumalanga found no relationship between social capital and food security in one village, but significant relationships between food security and collective action and cooperation, social cohesion, and self-esteem in the other (Study 31) [ 94 ].…”

Water, equity and resilience in Southern Africa: future directions for research and practice

“…An alternative framework for thinking about wellbeing, the CA concentrates on the human capabilities or substantive freedoms people value, giving primacy to the ideas of freedom and opportunity, rather than the distribution of material goods. An expanded notion of human wellbeing, associated with the Capabilities Approach [38,[40][41][42], can challenge the way in which we think about social systems and enable new ways of considering the intangible dimensions of resilience, such as emotion, agency and power.…”

“…A "just society" refers not only to the fair distribution of essential material goods such as taps and pipesbut also of non-material "goods", such as the emotions associated with not having access to clean water, safety considerations, or being excluded from decision making opportunities or other forms of social networks. Resilience in this sense would focus more prominently on notions of agency, gender, justice, equity and more equal relations of power as key factors that enable societies not only to cope, but also to thrive in the face of change [40]. We argue that more equitable societies are more likely to be able cope and adapt in the face of change, as the capacities to learn, self-organize, innovate, and transform are more evenly distributed among different groups, as opposed to concentrated in the hands of a few.…”

Why doesn’t every family practice rainwater harvesting? Factors that affect the decision to adopt rainwater harvesting as a household water security strategy in central Uganda

“…presents a massive challenge in a rapidly growing and globalizing world where local needs might not just outstrip local water resources, but where those resources can also 'travel' in the form of physical or embodied exports to other regions (e.g., virtual water export via the global food and horticultural trades, see Allan, 2011;Staddon, 2010). With amplified pressures on water governance through increasing transboundary tensions (explored further by Albrecht et al in this collection), the deregulatory and laissez-faire impulses of the neoliberal Washington Consensus, climate change uncertainties and anthropogenic pressures, the already severe threat to water security in the Global South is continuing to grow (Bakker, 2012;Lovelle, 2016;Owen & Goldin, 2015).…”