Rural “development” planning under apartheid: Betterment planning in Lebowa, South Africa

An important subject of debate in the Third World is that of the application of alternative strategies of rural development. Critical examination is undertaken of the programme of betterment planning as an agency of rural development in South Africa's impoverished Black Homelands. The rhetoric of “development” obscures the fact that betterment is an important dimension of the political economy of apartheid. A detailed study of betterment planning in Lebowa reveals that the programme is associated with the growth of landlessness, reductions in land available for ploughing, the forced resettlement of large groups of people and major reductions in Africa livestock holdings. Evidence from one case study village shows that the application of betterment may transform formerly self-sufficient rural populations into communities dependent for their existence upon the debilitating migratory labour system.