Sociology

1. Introduction
This study is concerned with the problem of poverty in sub-Saharan Africa and its alleviation. After several years of stabilisation and adjustment programmes by the World Bank and other non-governmental organisations in the sub-Saharan African low-income countries, poverty remains a critical concern and a redoubtable challenge facing these countries. This study seeks to critically analyse poverty reduction strategies for sustainability in sub-Saharan Africa. The paper focuses on education, technology and community empowerment and their extent to which they can successfully be used to reduce poverty in the developing countries. The researcher intends to study Ghana and South Africa as the case countries.

A key feature of the African socio-economic environment is the increasing mass poverty. Poverty continues to be prevalent in most of the African countries threatening the very foundation of human existence on the continent. In fact as Adedeji (1995) shows, pervasive poverty as well as human deprivation have become the predicaments of most African countries.

In the 21st century, a major challenge for sub-Saharan countries including Ghana and South Africa is to tackle the pervasive predicament of mass poverty which has in the recent years reached alarming rates by finding lasting solutions. A report by the World Bank (1996) indicates that poverty affected more than 1.2 billion people in the year 1985. It is worth to note that this figure was at the time approximately one third of the third world countries (Sita 2005). This situation has not improved and presently, there is evidence that the situation is worse. This is proved by the drop in urban as well as rural incomes (Sita 2005). This paper believes that education, community empowerment and technology are some of the strategies that play leading role poverty alleviation in these countries.

This paper will examine how technology, education and community empowerment can be applied effectively to reduce the problems of poverty in Ghana and South Africa. This paper is based on observations and literature review that indicates that these strategies or a combination of them have the potential to address the poverty created problems. These problems include starvation, hunger and high mortality rates. Increased productivity of land, human labour as well as other natural resources and any other strategy to enhance sustainable development inherently involves either one or a combination of the mentioned strategies. That is technology, education or community empowerment. Patterns of development that seek to reduce poverty should draw upon either or a combination of these strategies.

1.2 Research Problem and Question
Though many programs have been launched by several organisations in efforts to tackle the poverty related problems, poverty continues to be a major pervasive problem for the mass of Africans as a lasting solution is yet to be found. Poverty has disastrous effects on humanity as it affects health, causes starvation and in extreme cases, results to death. Life expectancy in sub-Saharan countries is lowest in the world. The current rate is alarming and implies that poverty is a threat to human existence in these countries. There is urgent need for poverty reduction strategies that are sustainable if this problem is to be effectively tackled. This study seeks to determine which of the three strategies education, technology and community development is most effective or whether a combination is the most successive.

1.3 Research Objectives
The main objective of this research is to critically analyse the available poverty reduction strategies to determine the best in enhancing sustainability in sub-Saharan Africa by studying South Africa and Ghana as case studies. Other objectives include determining whether these strategies are relevant to a particular to a country or community.

1.4 Significance of the Research
Pervasive poverty in sub-Saharan Africa is a worldwide problem as its effects are not only limited to the specific countries. It increases international debts borrowed from the richer countries and international organisations such as the World Bank. It can be a burden and an inconvenience to the rich countries as they are expected to give aid to the poor nations. Poverty also has detrimental effects on humanity because of destitution as well as human degradation (Sita 2005). It actually is a threat to human existence in this region because of its consequences which include poor health due to starvation and malnutrition and consequent death. These countries score low on all indicators of poverty including income, life expectancy, consumption, housing and access to clean water. This study seeks to identify the best strategy or combination of strategies that will ensure sustainable development in these countries to tackle the pervasive problem of poverty. The results will be useful as they will give recommendations on the most effective strategies to implement in order to help sub-Sahara Africa and other developing countries come up with lasting solutions to poverty related problems.

2. Literature Review
According to Bhengu  Friedman (2008), the main challenges facing South Africas macro-economic policy are very high rates of unemployment as well as poverty levels. South Africas government has used several strategies in its efforts to alleviate poverty in the country. According to these authors, formal efforts by the government to improve education in the country and improve economic growth are yet to bear any fruits and might take several decades to alleviate poverty in the country. According to the findings of this research, the strategies that have been effective in alleviating poverty in the country include the continual extension of social grants and especially the child support grant. The Expanded Public Works Programme, a form of community empowerment though useful conceptually, has not been effective in alleviating poverty as its benefits have been too small to have an overall impact on poverty in the country. Most of the other strategies such as learnerships, youth skills programmes and micro-finance initiatives among several others have also had very little impact on poverty. Based on these findings, there is need for more rigorous efforts to strengthen poverty alleviation by expanding the scale of the existing strategies.

Hunter, May,  Padayachee (2003), however argue that provision of basic services and particularly education has made an impact on poverty alleviation as it is a basis of entitlement. Expansion of education seeks to improve earning potentials of individuals which helps reduce poverty within a community. Education also reduces earnings differentials between individuals hence the margin between the rich and the poor is narrowed (Hunter, May,  Padayachee 2003). This article also explains that empowerment of local communities by building. In South Africa and many developing countries that seek to alleviate poverty, education, particularly primary is free. However, schools need money to run, pay teachers, buy stationary, equipment, classrooms and furniture. Usually a subsidised fee is required which most of the poor people cannot afford. Some governments have however made primary education absolutely free which in some places has been unsuccessful as children need to be healthy for them to go school. Free education has therefore not worked in communities characterised by malnutrition and starvation. Education as a strategy can therefore not work on its own without combining it with other strategies that address other needs.

Community empowerment includes making information and resources available to all communities within the country in spite of their location, people having a variety of choices that are beyond yes and no, feeling of group sense of efficacy, communities being included in forums that discuss issues and make decisions, and communities having the power to hold the leaders and decision makers accountable for choices and actions made (Brinkerhoff,  Azfar 2006). Community empowerment helps alleviate poverty as it ensures that members of the community use the resources available to meet the fundamental needs. Community empowerment when combined with decentralisation eradicates poverty as it ensures that the public services are properly matched with citizen needs. It also enhances good use of available funds because of the transparency and accountability that characterise community empowerment. Community empowerment and decentralisation ensures improved technical efficiency and increased innovation within the community. According to Ronell (20205), decentralisation and community empowerment (increased participation) can help in achieving distributions of privileges. The findings of this study however indicate that community empowerment which increases participation and community ownership is not a necessity and neither is it a sufficient condition for successful delivery of services for those in rural areas (Inge, 2001). This paper argues that poverty is pervasive in African countries because overly ambitious policy making that is idealistic. Lack of flexibility also causes most policies to fail.

A study conducted by Kumi-Kyereme (2008) however shows that community empowerment and participation is essential in reducing poverty. The Poverty Reduction Strategies Paper to alleviate poverty also upholds participation of communities in the programmes. The findings however reveal that effectiveness of empowerment is dependent on the community or location. Success is achieved when all groups particularly those which are marginalised and traditionally weak are adequately represented. Rural populations also perceive their participation as manipulation and may not participate actively (Kumi-Kyereme 2008). Decentralisation has however been in Ghana since 1988 when it was introduced by the Rawlings regime. It sought to stimulate the spirit of self-help as well as awareness among communities. This programme has worked for sometime as communities in Ghana accepted that it was their responsibility to develop their own areas (Crawford, Abdul-Galhru 2009. This strategy is effective if the right policies are put in place to implement it.

Technology has the potential to tackle the problems that result from poverty. Technology can address problems of starvation, hunger and death. This is because all efforts seeking to increase human productivity, productivity of land as well as that other natural resources and any strategies seeking to promote development that is sustainable inherently rely on technology. Technology should however be used with due regard as well as restraint. It is evident that the developing nations require to acquire and effectively utilise technology. Technology can be used to achieve various goals and objectives as it is neutral. Technology is essential in agriculture which is the main economic activity of developing countries.  Technology also enhances creativity and innovation which are crucial in production industries that are yet to develop in these countries. Technology is strategic as long as the right people use it for the right purpose. It is however important to understand that though technology can be used to enhance socio-economic development hence reduce poverty, it is often used by those who own and control it to exploit and dominate the under-developed.

2. Methodology

3.1 Research Design and Data Collection
This research can be viewed as a qualitative explanatory study in which the researcher seeks to analyse poverty reduction for sustainability in sub-Saharan Africa.  The researcher intends to collect data by critically appraising and reviewing articles on prior studies conducted by other researchers on related topics (secondary sources of data will be used to collect data). This method was chosen because it is faster and less expensive hence saves on time and money, which are very crucial resources in research work. This also seems to be the best method to adopt considering the location of the countries to be studied. Carrying out a primary research would be very expensive for the researcher who is based in the United Kingdom. Using secondary data is also advantageous as it minimizes errors that usually committed during data collection. Using secondary sources also reduce errors that result from researcher-based biases. However, the researcher acknowledges that secondary data might not be very accurate because it is impossible to tell the errors that were committed during the study or if the right procedure was used. To increase validity hence reliability, the researcher will appraise as many articles as possible and compare their findings before drawing the conclusion.

3.2 Data Analysis
The data collected from the secondary sources will be analysed using content analysis. This tool analyses the collected content according to the emerging themes. Content analysis categorises literature according to the themes that come out allowing the researcher to identify similarities in the various articles (Salkind 2006). This enables the researcher to derive data that is in-depth from the collected studies, which is the most fundamental goal of qualitative studies.

3.3 Validation
Since triangulation is not available for this case, the researcher plans to use multiple perspectives. Multiple perspectives will be used in the validation of the findings, as triangulation is not available for this case.  The researcher will use one of the strategies allowed for such cases which is to compare the findings with those of other researchers who have conducted similar studies to determine how the results compare. This strategy is allowed in qualitative studies that are often characterised by validity issues (Saunders, Lewis  Thornhill 2007).

3.4 Ethical Issues
This study does not involve using humans as subjects hence will not be characterised by many ethical issues. However, it will involve using other peoples published work as sources of data. To avoid plagiarism which is academically illegal, the researcher intends to reference and cite all the information they will have lifted from articles published on other authors work. This is to give credit back to other researchers for their work.