مدیریت دانش برای ریشه کن کردن فقر: چشم انداز آفریقای جنوبی Knowledge management for poverty eradication: a South African perspective

Introduction Poverty remains one of the world’s greatest challenges, and neither the industrialised nor the resource-rich countries have succeeded in its total eradication. Such eradication remains an integral part of the developmental agendas of individual nation states and of the world at large. Eradication of extreme poverty was goal number one of the millennium development goals (MDGs), which lapsed in 2015, and it is currently goal number 1 of the 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) that seek to eliminate poverty by 2030. Knowledge is an essential element for the achievement of the SDGs (World Bank, 2017). Sachs (2005) argues that poverty can be eradicated by 2025 through carefully planned development aid. The Constitution of South Africa (1996) recognises the importance of eradicating poverty, and, in this regard, Sections 27, 28 and 29 reiterate the rights of access to social security, social services and education. To this end, since 1994, the post-apartheid government has implemented a number of policies, pieces of legislation, plans and strategies to deal with poverty, ranging from the Reconstruction and Development Programme (African National Congress, 1994) to the National Development Plan, which seeks to eliminate poverty and reduce inequality by 2030 (National Planning Commission [NPC], 2011, 2013). Some of the policies have been criticised for being top-down handouts and temporary relief measures through the provision of social grants, free houses and free social services, which, taken together, have resulted in a perpetual dependency mentality (Williams, 2006; Moyo, 2014). In addition, some of the policies do not provide for monitoring and evaluation of the poor in terms of who they are or in terms of the trends in poverty, and there is also a lack of an interdisciplinary analysis of poverty and a lack of a link between poverty assessment and other instruments of planning (Maxwell and Conway, 2000; Mbuli, 2008). Above all, ineffective knowledge-sharing and the lack of proper coordination among government agencies in pursuit of effective problem-solving remains a challenge. As the debate around moving towards an integrated poverty strategy in the knowledge economy continues, emphasis is being placed on the role of knowledge management for poverty eradication (World Bank, 1998; World Bank, 2007; United Nations Development Organisation UNDP, 2014). A World Bank “Voices of the Poor” study based on interviews with 60,000 men and women concluded that people want access to knowledge and opportunities, rather than charity, to fight poverty (Nath, 2000). This paper explores poverty eradication within the context of knowledge management and advocates for a contextualised strategy tailored to specific poverty intervention projects and communities. It raises awareness among policy- and decision-makers as to the importance of knowledge management as a tool for poverty eradication. To consolidate the line of thought, secondary data sources, in the form of journal articles, policy documents and newspaper articles, were consulted along with internet sources.