Editor’s Note

This issue presents four articles that shed light on various issues such as adequate and reasonable use of police force, welfare programs, measurement of poverty, and the concept of holism in social work. These articles contribute to current discussions on the scope and utility of the social development perspective for policy interventions.

Parker, Cleere, and Smith present an interesting study on the circumstances that lead to the use of deadly police force. The study examines well-known associations among demographic characteristics such as minority status, presence of identifiable threats to police safely, harassment of police, and use of deadly police force. None of the factors appear to be significantly associated with police use of deadly force. The study reports no significant findings. Despite nonsignificant findings, the study generates several questions that social development practitioners and researchers may find interesting. Police force as an instrument of social control is of interest to social development practitioners and researchers.

Seleka and Lekobane evaluate seventeen welfare programs that variously fall under three social protection strategies: means-tested, categorical, and self-targeted programs. They examine the influence of the welfare programs by observing three components of impact: program coverage, distribution of program beneficiaries, and benefit incidence. They find that many of the means-tested programs target the poor better than the categorical and self-targeted. The results reveal how some well-intentioned programs are ultimately wasteful owing to leakages to nontargeted beneficiaries. The study highlights the importance of identifying and targeting the beneficiaries as well as designing leakage-proof modalities for delivering welfare benefits. This is a study of high relevance to social development planners for two reasons. First, this study reports findings from a well-conducted national survey, the 2015/2016 Botswana Multi-topic Household Survey. The findings reported here are robust. Second, social development planners who model social protection approaches can benefit from the findings.

Chiwara and Lombard provide insights into multidimensional aspects of poverty using case studies from Namibia and South Africa. Poverty has often been measured using economic indicators, overlooking the associated social and environmental inequalities. Social development perspectives on poverty invoke a multidimensional assessment targeted at improving human well-being. The article makes a case for social development approaches for addressing poverty.

Borrmann raises an important question that is central to the practice of social work and social development. The question deals with the poorly understood concept of the ‟holistic focus of social work.” The relationship between the global and local aspects of social work, as related to holism, is very often mentioned but never clarified. What is the relationship between the two and how do the two interrelate? The author looks at this issue from several perspectives, such as indigenous, global, cultural relativistic, and human rights, and arrives at a more prudent account of the holistic focus of social work. The new perspective offered here helps reorient social development programs toward more efficient use of resources.

Vijayan K. Pillai

Editor, SDI