Exploring Social Work Gaps in Africa with Examples from South Africa and Botswana

The Challenge to Promote Social and Economic Equality in Namibia Through Social Work

“…The limited number of social workers points to a lack of capacity to deliver on developmental social welfare goals. Although the case of Namibia is a special one, it is certainly not unique, as the scarcity of social workers is experienced, albeit in varying degrees, in other African countries such as South Africa, Botswana, Kenya and Zimbabwe (Department of Labour, 2008;Kang'ethe, 2014;Lombard & Wairire, 2010;Mugumbate, 2014). However, a point to note is that this limited number of social workers must not prevent Namibia from re-orienting services towards developmental social work and thus human rights-based practice and the promotion of social and economic equality.…”

Exploring the Phenomenon of Youthnization of Poverty in South Africa

“…Other researchers indicate that some youth survive on the goodwill of their parents. This state of affairs creates a cyclical dependence syndrome whereby the youth will not take responsibility to develop themselves and their lives but will rather wait and sit for the parents to do everything for them (Kang'ethe, 2014b). In a world where everything is becoming expensive and broken families becoming rampant, this scenario overburdens the already overwhelmed South African government financially (Chigunta, undated).…”

The Impetus of Social Work as a Catalyst to the Achievement of Millennium Development Goal Number Three in Selected African Countries. A Literature Review

“…This is very important to countries such as South Africa where availability of social welfare help system has slid many people to develop a state of dependence syndrome (Kang'ethe, 2014b). With the government spending close to 100 billion on welfare grants annually, this kind of spending may not be sustainable.…”

“…It also often costs her life, because early pregnancy is a leading cause of maternal mortality (Kang'ethe, 2013). Through the interventions of government in tandem with social workers usually employed in community development dockets in countries such as Kenya, women have been organized to participate in awareness campaigns against child marriage (Kang'ethe, 2014b). This is because of the realization of how the countries stand to have women lag behind in issues of development and therefore slacken countries' chances of doing well in achieving MDG number three.…”