Abstract

This paper presents the findings of a review of performance of poverty alleviation projects in Vhembe District of Limpopo Province in South Africa. Data were collected from 30 stratified randomly sampled poverty alleviation projects across the district. Five project strata, namely community gardens (n = 12), poultry (n = 8), piggery (n = 2), bakery (n = 2) and other projects, including juice making, brick making, stone crushing and coffin making (n = 6) constituted the sample. One hundred and eight (108) respondents representing the sampled projects were interviewed using a structured questionnaire. Data were coded, processed and analyzed using the Microsoft Excel program and matrix of projects performance. Performance of projects differed by type. All the bakery projects were successful, followed by poultry (62%), community garden and other projects with 33% each. In contrast, all the piggery projects were performing poorly. Overall, the projects performed well (above the 50% threshold), based on the following indicators: availability of project funding, level of commitment by project members and skills as well as knowledge gained. Level of production, generation of income and profit, self-reliance and relevance of projects to addressing project members` needs indicated that the projects did not perform well. The results of this study reflected areas of serious concern, in particular the low levels of production; irrelevance of projects to addressing project members` needs; inability of projects to generate income and profit; and lack of self-reliance. Given the results of this study, it is desirable to evaluate the performance of all PAPs in the province.

Key words: Alleviation, indicator, performance, project, poverty.