Fictions and elephants in the rondawel: a response to a brief chapter in South Africa's National Development Plan

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Periodical article

Title:	Fictions and elephants in the rondawel: a response to a brief chapter in South Africa's National Development Plan
Author:	Sender, John
Year:	2012
Periodical:	Transformation: Critical Perspectives on Southern Africa (ISSN 0258-7696)
Issue:	78
Pages:	98-114
Language:	English
Geographic term:	South Africa
Subjects:	rural development agricultural policy national plans
External link:	https://muse.jhu.edu/article/483837
Abstract:	How have South Africa's economic planners managed to ignore, or at least to minimize the relevance of the most salient facts about the economic performance of the agricultural sector, as well as the real experience of, and prospects for, millions of desperately deprived women and men living in rural areas? There are, of course, many possible strategies to promote polite fictions and buttress conspiracies of silence. The first section of this paper focuses on two particular techniques used 'to write a new story' in the National Development Plan's brief chapter on rural development (NPC 2011: Chapter 6), viz. manipulate and omit data, and wave a populist flag. The second section outlines the failure of the postapartheid State to take advantage of the potential contribution of the agricultural sector, especially to expand exports. The section highlights some extremely adverse investment and production trends - the elephants in the rondawel - so easily ignored when wearing the NDP's ideological blinkers. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. [Journal abstract]