Poverty and Community Engagement

Abstract

Poverty

This chapter provides definitions on poverty, and attempts to establish the link between poverty and community engagement. In this chapter, we share the details of the government programmes in Botswana, Nigeria and Malawi that have been set to address poverty through national development programmes and in the process work towards the realization of MDGs as ratified in 2004. Apparently, MDG 8 has provided an added impetus to refocus and re-align partnership issues around development needs around the MDG targets: MDG Goal 8 is calling for the Development of a global Partnership for Development. Local, regional and global partnerships are crucial to build for prudent management of scarce resources to promote lifelong learning, poverty reduction programme strategies for sustainable community development and engagement even without donor support. The regional collaborative research study on Community Services and engagement was done through a four stage case study using Action Research. The study revealed that a critical mission of Universities globally is to eradicate poverty by infusing programs in their third mission through Community Eengagement and Service. This third mission of Universities has been undeveloped due to the global and clear demands of teaching and research.

1 Introduction

The introduction Chap. 1 laid a broad view of lifelong learning, as one of the most effective tools communities can employ to fight poverty. Poverty can be interpreted as a failure of the world to promote social justice in our quest to promote planned development for all societal groups. Undoubtedly it is a debilitating agent that manifests itself in more than economic terms such as disabled capability, erosion of self-esteem, and general lack of participation in civic life. Community engagement is a catalyst for lifelong learning and developing new ways of defining and tackling poverty. Community engagement programmes and activities may be employed to reduce or eradicate poverty to promote social justice, change and empowerment of communities.

2 Brief Summary of Lifelong Learning

Lifelong learning includes all forms of learning for behavior change that takes place everywhere within and outside the four walls of the classroom. This includes learning under trees, within old buildings, along the road or any other place where there are human beings. This learning takes place across a lifespan; hence its scope has no limits. It covers learning for life, and goes back to the origins of life and work. With the impact of the western notions of what counts as learning came notions of certificates and accreditation, while these are crucial to acknowledge, it is equally crucial to know that there are different formats of African Indigenous knowledge and systems of learning not packaged in western pockets. Lifelong encompasses both planned and unplanned learning through different modes of delivery such as professional development, formal school, continuing education, distance education, e-learning, correspondence, home schooling and continuing education. Illeris (2003) argues that learning is central to human nature and has three dimensions – cognitive, social and emotional. These dimensions are interdependent and have tensions as every single learning process is stretched between the three.

A research with older adults by Poon et al. (1989), suggests that lifelong learning and training is crucial to improve memory and cognitive abilities of adults in the midst of teaching intellectual patterns. The authors argue that it is crucial to monitor everyday cognition to compare laboratory work with real life situations, clinical and educational applications. An understanding of how the human memory functions is crucial for understanding age related changes, declines and how to intensive training and retraining to improve everyday functional abilities of older adults.

3 Botswana Lifelong Learning Policy Context

Botswana’s education subsystem still lacks quality. Although literacy levels are very high (68–70 %) the type of education received does not seem relevant to meet the needs of the national economy. Key issues here are widening participation in education programmes across a lifespan, and measuring that education offered is of top quality and relevance.

The overall aims of lifelong learning are to improve Batswana for better life and access to the corporate world, and to develop educational and training programmes responsive to the needs of the ever-changing economy. The objectives of lifelong learning are to promote community and human development, and an environment that helps people to be able to cope with the challenges ad demands of change.

3.1 Adult Education Modes of Delivery for the Promotion of Lifelong Learning

Botswana has four major modes of adult education delivery which give opportunities for lifelong learning to take place:

• 1. Basic education and training: Examples include, but are not limited to Adult Basic education, Formal learning, Non Formal learning, Pre-primary learning, Primary learning, and Secondary learning and Out of school education.

• 2. Continuing Education: Examples include, but are not limited to Continuing education and re-entry of the adult learners, learning by special needs groups, Vocational/technical education and training, and Tertiary institutions.

• 3. Extension workers’ education and training: Examples include, but are not limited to Extension education, Training of trainers for extension work, extra mural studies, and Life skills training.

• 4. Distance education: Examples include, but are not limited to Open and distance education, Leisure education, Community education, Environmental education and tourism.

While lifelong learning takes place everywhere, there are facilities that promote lifelong learning. These include libraries, ICT, partnerships and funding.

There are varieties of definitions of poverty that focus on income insufficiency, basic needs dissatisfaction, Capabilities, and lack of participation in civic life. Such definitions also attribute poverty to gender inequalities, illiteracy and other socio-cultural factors associated with some form of disadvantage. Before moving on to definitions in details, it is important to illuminate the poverty situation in Botswana. The Table 2.1 below provides some vital indicators on, amongst others, poverty and related indicators in Botswana.

3.2 The Poverty Situation

An estimated 23 % of the population lives below poverty datum line in 2009, down from 30 % in 2003. Poverty manifests itself in several indicators such as, amongst others, living below the Poverty Datum Line (PDL), unemployment, life expectancy at birth, access to safe drinking water and sanitation to curb water-borne diseases, illiteracy, and child malnutrition.

Table 2.1 Some indicators of poverty. (Sources: Central Statistics Office (CSO), Vision 2016, the MDG Indicators Report, (2009, MDG Status Report on Botswana, (2010)

In 2008, the national population was estimated at 1.8 million (2 million). Life expectancy at birth increased from 55, 5 in 1971 to 65.3 years in 1991, 64.3, and 64.3 % in 1998, and further decreased to 54.4 years in 2006 due to the impact of HIV/AIDS (National Development Plan 200910, p. 13). Literacy rate increased from 68.9 % in 1993 to about 90 % by 2003. If literacy rates continue to increase by 12 % every ten years as estimated, Botswana is most likely to have a literacy of about 93 % in 2013 (CSO/NFE 2003, p. 54)

The income definitions attribute poverty to lack of income and purchasing power. Poverty is traditionally defined for Botswana as the inability to afford income that is essential for meeting basic and recreational needs (UNICEF 1993; BIDPA 1997). A Poverty Datum Line (PDL) was drawn for Botswana, and based on a suggested minimum wage of about P600.00 per month (US$ 120.00). This is an arbitrary line that divides the poor from the non-poor. According to UNICEF (1993), households with income below the poverty datum line are poverty stricken.

The Botswana Institute of Development and Policy Analysis (BIDPA) study identified poverty in terms of inability to afford basic needs such as food, clothing, shelter and education. According to this study, about 47 % of Botswana’s population was living in poverty in 1993/94.The figure reduced to 23 % in 2007, Government of Botswana report (2010).

Poverty is also perceived as a problem caused by gender inequalities especially in patriarchal societies where women are not given the same power as men, and educational, literacy and employment opportunities that are needed for everyone to break through poverty. Women’s education, and in particular, education of the girl child is important to reduce illiteracy among women and help them deal with poverty.

First, research conducted in Botswana portrays poverty as mainly reflected in skewed income distribution. However, how much income is essential to significantly reduce poverty is not clear. About 55 % of women are poverty stricken (Ministry of Finance and Development Planning/Central Statistics Office 2003). The gini coefficient measures income inequality. The Maximum Equalization Percentage (MEP) indicates the percentage of income that should be taken from those who are rich to the relatively poor to attain absolute equality. These income measures are inadequate because redistribution of wealth has not been done rigorously to benefit people living in poverty.

Second, poverty is, in most cases, inherited from generation to generation though not in a linear fashion. Children born into poverty are more likely to inherit poverty from their parents than children born to rich families. Jefferies (1997a) argues that one important aspect of poverty alleviation in Botswana is to ensure that those who are born into poverty have a chance of economic and social mobility out of poverty. If this goal is to be met, then everyone, and society in general, should care about reducing or eliminating poverty through the impact of educational programmmes and state based poverty eradication strategies and available packages as discussed in Chap. 3. In the final analysis, everyone should be committed to an ethic of alleviating poverty because poverty can lead to delinquency and crime, which drain public resources.

From the author’s own personal and work experience, children of the poor often suffer a multiplicity of disadvantages such as illiteracy, lack of access to good quality education, inadequate or lack of income, inadequate access to information, lack of access to medical or specialist treatment, low social and self-esteem. They often lack access to facilities that may help them break through their poverty status. Children of poor single women in particular suffer the high dependency ratio and the disadvantage of having only one parent to support them financially and emotionally. Poverty situations worsen where women do not have any source of income. The poor have low public participation, little or no voice in the Botswana society. Poor children are likely to under-perform or drop from school than children from rich families (UNDP 1997). Under five malnutrition and illiteracy among women are some of the major indications of widespread human poverty used by UN agencies.

Preece at al (2007) make a distinction between four categories of poverty: income, capability, participatory and consequential poverty.

• Income poverty is calculated on the basis of absolute income poverty using Poverty Datum line.

• Participatory poverty is measured by participation or lack of it due to a range of deprivations, “culture of silence.”

• Capability poverty is conceptualized by absence of freedom to participate in economic life, “unemployment.”

• Consequential poverty is conceived as human and political interventions on the natural or social environment in a harmful way, making it difficult to access natural resources, labour, wars and other environmental catastrophies. “inability to harness natural resources like firewood” earthquakes, floods.

Poverty is caused by both environmental and human causes. These are further discussed in Chap. 7, with a special focus on the San Community as one of those hard hit by poverty, and Chap. 8 on reducing poverty through inventive entrepreneurship skills training.

4 ITMUA: An Example of Community Engagement as a tool for poverty reduction

Implementing the Third Mission of Universities in Africa (ITMUA): Contributing to the Millennium Development Goals is one example of a regional action research project that sought to illuminated best practice in community engagement.

The ITMUA project which is used to inform this book chapter was a regional collaborative research project that involved four African universities: University of Botswana, National University of Lesotho,\University of Calabar in Nigeria, and Chancellor College of Malawi (see university logos below).

As part of TMUA, each of the 4 participating universities carried out a self-assessment, between March and April 2010, with the view to determining the extent to which it has been involved in community service activities.

For this purpose and for the purpose of the whole project, community service was understood to mean:

Extension of university expertise to the world outside the university, the community, in the service of improving the quality of life of the community and which is effected through a university model in which community service is integral to all aspects of the university: mission, structure and organization, hiring and promotion, curriculum and teaching, research and publications etc. (Lulat 2005 p. 262).

Four universities, the National University of Lesotho (NUL), the University of Botswana (UB) the University of Calabar (Unical) and the University of Malawi (Unima), submitted reports and the contents of their submissions were summarized under the following headings: (1) country contexts within which community service was carried through (2)understandings of “community service” as reflected in the reports (3) themes explored by community services carried out (4) objectives of the community services (5) number of faculties carrying out community service (6) total number of faculties within the university (7) Number of community service projects started by individuals and (8) average age of community service.

4.1 Community Service—Types

• 1. Work carried out within a community with the dual purpose of equipping students with some practical training while at the same time teaching community members some techniques for improving on identified practices or on general living styles.

• 2. Work purposefully instituted by universities with the view to addressing challenges identified by particular communities.

• 3. Work started off in a community by an individual (who may or may not be a staff of any of the 4 universities in this project and who may be alone or collaborating with another agency or university) who is eventually joined within the same community by one of the 4 universities with the view to promoting the work originally started by the individual.

4.2 Themes Explored by Community Service(s) included the Following

• 1. Poverty reduction

• 2. Social inclusion

• 3. Health (HIV/AIDS)

• 4. the elderly

• 5. civil society

• 6. Environmental education

4.3 Objectives of Community Service(s)

• 1. To provide relevant information and skills which ultimately will improve practice and raise levels of daily, weekly or monthly income and thereby reduce economic poverty and poverty of information.

• 2. To supply both information and social services that will combine to make segments of society feel a sense of belonging.

• 3. To provide education in the manner HIV/AIDS particularly is to be handled to prevent its spread and to prevent that it leads to death.

• 4. To reach out to the elderly with the view to proffering advice on how to manage the old age pension being received in some countries and to provide health tips that would make old age life pleasurable and even longer.

• 5. To strengthen capacity of civil society organizations to serve communities more efficiently and more purposefully.

• 6. To enlighten communities on the meaning and implications of climate change and to equip them with practices that mitigate further deterioration of the environment.

4.4 Number of Faculties in Each University

Each of the four universities involved in the ITMUA project had a minimum of 9 and a maximum of 11 Faculties and Institutes. However, between 3 and 10 faculties were found to be involved in community service projects at the time of this project.

The least number of Faculties involved in community service was recorded in the University of Calabar while the National University of Lesotho posted the highest number of Faculties involved in community service projects.

4.5 Number of Projects Begun by Individuals

In all the four universities, it was found out that individual employees (mostly academic staff), started off community service projects on their own, using their own resources or with the assistance of some agencies outside their universities.

Some of these individually begun projects were eventually taken over by universities while others are in the process of involving universities. Again the National University of Lesotho posted the highest number of individual staff members that started off community service projects into which the university eventually stepped into or which are yet to involve the university.

4.6 Age of the Community Service Projects

Some of the reported community service projects are as old as 15 years; especially those that served as training workshops for students; in other words, they have been going on for up to 15 years or more. However, most of the reported projects were between 4 to 5 years old.

The following is a university to university summary of the findings:

Table 2.2 shows that 3 of the 4 participating universities operated the three concepts of community service (training students and helping community, designing community service specifically for the benefit of community and buying into community service started off by individuals). The fourth university (the University of Calabar) was found to operate only the first two of these concepts of community service.

Table 2.2 University to university performance on community service activities. (Source: ITMUA 6th Monthly Synthesis Report, (2011); ITMUA project)

• a. Lesotho Policy context for university community engagement

The policy context for Lesotho’s national development priorities are inscribed in the following documents:

• Lesotho Vision 2020: National vision for Lesotho (Government of Lesotho 2001)

• Kingdom of Lesotho Poverty Reduction Strategy 2004/5–2006/7 (Government of Lesotho 2004)

• Kingdom of Lesotho Education Sector Strategic Plan 2005–2015

• National University of Lesotho Strategic Plan 2007–2012

Supporting documents include the Government’s Gender and Development Policy and ICT Policy papers.

The University’s vision is:

To be a leading African university responsive to national socio-economic needs, committed to high quality teaching, lifelong learning, research and community service (p. 4).

In this respect the university has positioned itself to serve the development needs of the nation and embraced the concept of lifelong learning as a strategy to meet these needs. The university further strengthens its responsiveness to regional engagement in two of its strategic goals. Goal 2 emphasises improved relevance and quality of teaching and learning; Goal 8 emphasises strengthened local, regional and international partnerships, with a view to addressing critical national issues, including the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), providing community services and engaging in partnerships with private, public and international bodies (p. 13) with relevant and responsive programmes (p. 14).

The university, therefore, has, as part of its mission and strategy, a commitment to community engagement—both for community service and as a consultative resource to make its programmes relevant to the nation.

In terms of government development goals, the government’s PRSP and ESSP both highlight that the nation has signed up to international agreements and targets as articulated in the Education For All (EFA) and MDG statements. For Lesotho, the PRSP priorities include employment creation and income generation, improved agriculture and food security, deepening democracy and local governance, improved access to health care and services to vulnerable groups, relevance of education, promotion of culture, tourism, environmental conservation and recognition of cross cutting issues of gender, HIV/AIDS, and the needs of children and youth. In this respect the government has committed itself to achieving all the development goals, with a particular focus on poverty, education and health.

The nation’s broader concerns are also reflected in the Vision 2020 which places emphasis on democracy, good governance, political participation, stability and peace, strong economy and well established technology, environmental management and justice for all. The Vision highlights relevant and productive education, lifelong learning, vocational, technical and entrepreneurial education and food security as priorities for national development.

The Education Sector Strategic Plan similarly promotes the idea of lifelong learning, relevant curriculum and the expectation that higher education will supply high level human resource for the world of work (p. 80). While Government emphasis for higher education is to respond to the world of work, this world of work can be interpreted widely to include all aspects of human life. For example the world of work includes management of human relations, cooperation and democratic participation in decision making which in turn affects all aspects of culture, health, environment, economy and politics.

It can be argued, therefore that the ITMUA project has direct policy relevance to national and university priorities since it is premised on ensuring communication between higher education, community, employer and government stakeholders in order to establish learning relevance in relation to development needs.

• b. Botswana policy context for university community engagement

Community service is defined as one of the criteria for promotion of UB staff. Community service is described for the University of Botswana by SAPC as indicated in the self-assessment report.

Through university staff, the UB functions as a “resource” for innovative ideas, ‘think tank or source of knowledge’, serves in advisory capacity to community organizations, commissions, boards, and promotes innovations in Information Communication Technology (ICT), social and cultural matters.

The policy context for the University of Botswana and Botswana’s national development priorities are inscribed in the following documents:-

Botswana Vision 2016: National Vision for Botswana (Government of Botswana)

GOB/UNDP/MFDP Poverty Reduction Strategy, 2004; Millennium Development Goals (MGDS) of 2004,

The current Botswana’s National Development Plan 10, the Agricultural Policy and Strategy for diversification of the sector during NDP 10), the District and Village Development Plans.

Supporting documents include the National Commission on Education of 1993, The National Literacy Survey of 2003, Gender and Development Policy, The National Gender Framework, the National Youth Policy, the National Policy on Culture (1996), the national HIV/AIDS policy, ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, advocacy for the signing of the SADC Protocol on Gender and Development, and the Household Income and Expenditure Survey results.

The University of Botswana’s vision is:

• To be a leading ‘centre of academic excellence in Africa and the world’ (UB Calendar)

• The mission is to ‘improve economic and social conditions for the nation while advancing as a distinctively African university with a regional and international outlook’.

Other universities have also developed vision and mission statements. Based on missions, visions and other statements of intent by all universities represented in ITMUA, a common thread is that UB as the first main campus and others that became accredited over the last couple of years are willing to work with communities in line with the national vision 2016 agenda. The University of Botswana in particular has developed priority areas that include five strategic areas: access and participation, relevant and high quality programmes, intensifying research, and strengthening engagement with different communities. The development of the UB research strategy, and support centers such as Academic development, (CAD), Office of Research and Development, Office of International Partnerships, Center for San Studies, to name a few, are meant to strengthen the quality of teaching, curriculum development, innovations in teaching and research. The ongoing restructuring of the University of Botswana is expected to strengthen its responsiveness to national, regional international and community engagement to meet the five priority areas mentioned above. The university, therefore, has an intension to commit community engagement within and outside Gaborone.

The national developmental agenda is guided by five principles of development, democracy, self-reliance unity, botho (a well-rounded character), Vision 2016 (Presidential Task Group 1997) which echoes 7 pillars, cognizant of all the MGDS. The pillars address, amongst others, access to health, (an HIV/AIDS free nation and prevention of other illnesses by 2016), improved access to information, basic and tertiary education, as well as poverty eradication, innovation and productivity, notions of caring and compassion, morality and tolerance. Each of the 7 pillars comprises strategies for meeting the stated goals by 2016 when Botswana turns 50 years as an independent nation. A Vision Council and the Secretariat were set up to drive the vision from dream to reality. With assistance from international development partners especially the UN, Botswana initiated the Human Development Initiative of 1990, The National Strategy for Poverty Reduction and Government of Botswana schemes that support small to medium enterprises for employment creation, and many others. Overall, the policy context is conducive for the strengthening of community service.

• c. Nigerian Policy context for university community engagement

The policy context for Nigeria’s national development priorities can be found within the following documents:

• Nigeria’s Vision 202020

• National Empowerment and Economic Development Strategies (NEEDS)

• ECOWAS Vision 2020

• National Policy on Education 2004

• University of Calabar Strategic Plan 2002 − 07

Specifically, the University’s vision is:

To attain and maintain the highest form of excellence in teaching, research publications, and service. (p. 10)

Consequently, the University of Calabar has always realized its place within the scheme of Nigerian national developmental efforts; its Vision suggests that its contributions to national development come partly through the medium of its service to the community. The University’s Strategic Plan borrowed from the 1992 Federal Republic of Nigeria Higher Education in the Nineties and Beyond Report which metamorphosed into the 2004 National Policy on Education; in the 2004 National Policy on Education, it is stated that tertiary education is education given in the universities and other post-secondary institutions; it is equally stated that the goal of tertiary education is among other things:

• 1. To promote and encourage scholarship and community service; and

• 2. To promote national and international understanding and interaction (p. 36)

At the international level, the primary development agenda that Nigeria subscribes to, is that defined by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), Africa being the corner stone of its foreign policy; ECOWAS 2020 Vision currently emphasizes good governance, sustainable management of the environment and the protection of women, children and youths through provision of appropriate education, skills and counseling; many of these goals overlap with the MDGs thereby suggesting that Nigeria and by extension University of Calabar are also involved in promoting the MDGs through involvement in the promotion of national and regional development agendas.

ITMUA project, which seeks to promote university-community relations and which seeks to encourage funders of tertiary institutions to key into the spirit of community service for development purposes, is therefore topical, timely and relevant to current maneuverings at redirecting and refocusing development agendas in Nigeria and other developing countries.

• d. Malawi Policy context for university community engagement

Community Service Context for Malawi Comprised the Following

• a. Work carried out within a community with the dual purpose of equipping students with some practical training while at the same time teaching community members some techniques for improving on identified practices or on general living styles.

• b. Work purposefully instituted by universities with the view to addressing challenges identified by particular communities.

• c. Work started off in a community by an individual (who may or may not be a staff of any of the 4 universities in this project and who may be alone or collaborating with another agency or university) who is eventually joined within the same community by one of the 4 universities with the view to promoting the work originally started by the individual.

The policy context for Malawi’s national development priorities are inscribed in the following documents:

• Malawi Vision 2020: National vision for Malawi

• Malawi Growth and Development Strategy (MGDS) 2006–2011

• National Education Sector Plan (NESP) 2008–2017

• University of Malawi Strategic Plan 2004/5–2009/10 (University of Malawi 2004)

The University’s vision is:

To be an academic institution providing relevant world class education, research and services for sustainable development of Malawi and the world. (University of Malawi 2004, p. 12)

In this vision the university has positioned itself to serve the development needs of the nation and the world thereby embracing what is contained in national and international development policies including the MGDs. The university strengthens its responsiveness to national and international needs in its four strategic areas: teaching and learning; research and consultancy; outreach/services; and, cross-cutting issues. Goals under teaching and learning emphasise increased access and improved relevance and quality of teaching and learning and strengthened local, regional and international partnerships. While some of these goals are also destined to be achieved through research and consultancy, the recognition of outreach/services to communities further strengthen the commitment to achieving national development needs. This coupled with the inclusion of cross-cutting issues of HIV and AIDS, gender and human rights (p. 39) helps in addressing critical national issues, including those reflected by the internationally agreed Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The university, therefore, has, as part of its vision and strategy, a commitment to improving the lives of individuals both locally and internationally, thus education linked to community engagement—both for community service and as a consultative resource to make its programmes relevant to the nation.

In terms of national development goals, the Malawi Growth and Development Strategy (MGDS) is the living policy document. Its objective is to reduce poverty through sustained economic growth and infrastructure development. In order to achieve this goal, six priority areas of agriculture and food security; irrigation and water development; transport infrastructure development; energy generation and supply; integrated rural development; and prevention and management of nutrition disorders, HIV and AIDS have been identified. Education comes as one of the subthemes under the theme of Social development, which is one of the five themes including sustainable economic growth, social protection and disaster risk management, infrastructure development and improved governance. The areas of emphases under education are increasing access and retention; improving quality and relevance, improving equity, management and supervision and training of teachers. The National Education Sector Plan (NESP) amplifies the education component of the MGDS, in particular increasing access and retention; improving quality and relevance, improving equity, management and supervision and training of teachers all relating to the fulfillment of the MGD and EFA goals. Relevant education would mean education that addresses the development needs of the nation that are built in the six priority areas of the MGDS and the MDGs. In this respect the government has committed itself to achieving the development goals of both the nation and the world. This development agenda informs the university’s vision and mission.

The Nation’s broader concerns are also reflected in the Vision 2020 which places emphasis on good governance, sustainable economic growth and development, vibrant culture, well developed economic infrastructure, food security and nutrition, science and technology-led development, social sector development, fair and equitable distribution of\income and wealth, and sustainable environmental management. The Vision recognises relevant and productive education as key to achieving its areas of emphases and therefore contributing to national development.

It can be argued, therefore that the ITMUA project has direct policy relevance to national and university priorities since it is premised on ensuring communication between higher education, community, employer and government stakeholders in order to establish relevant education in relation to development needs. The focus is on poverty reduction, education and health.

Consequently, the following was the set of concepts and understandings of community service within the framework of which they carried through their community service projects.

The following is a university to university summary of the findings:

Table 2.2 shows that 3 of the 4 participating universities operated the three concepts of community service (training students and helping community, designing community service specifically for the benefit of community and buying into community service started off by individuals). The fourth university (the university of Calabar) was found to operate only the first two of these concepts of community service.

Table 2.2 equally shows that the National University of Lesotho explored the themes of Poverty reduction, social inclusion, health (HIV/AIDS), the elderly, civil society and environmental education; University of Botswana explored these same themes except that dealing with the elderly; University of Malawi explored the same themes except those dealing with the elderly and the civil society; University of Calabar community services on their part, focused on only three themes, namely, poverty reduction, health and environmental education. Consequently, the objectives in carrying out community service in each university were related to the themes that were explored; in other words, while all the objectives mentioned earlier applied to the National University of Lesotho, only those related to the themes explored by other universities applied to each of them.

Unical had a total of 11 faculties and institutes or schools, NUL had 10, UB had 9 while Unima had 5 faculties/institutes; however, 3, 10, 7 and 5 faculties/institutes/schools were involved in community service in each university respectively. While all existing faculties/institutes in NUL and Unima had their hands on some community service activities only 78 % and 27 % of the faculties/institutes ran any community service in UB and Unical respectively.

Four individuals in Unical, 3 in NUL, 2 each in UB and Unima started off community service projects; while all other universities bought into these individually inspired community service projects, Unical is the only university which was yet to into the 4 projects started off by individual staff members. While a number of community service projects were found to be decades old, the average ages of community service projects in all the 4 universities were found to be between 3 and 7 years.

The overall aim of community engagement is community development. What then is community development?

4.7 Community Development

The regional collaborative research study on Community Services and engagement was done through a four stage case study using Action Research discussed in Chap. 11 of this book. Part of the mission of Universities globally is to eradicate poverty by infusing programs in their third mission—Community engagement and service. This third mission of Universities has been undeveloped due to the global and clear demands of teaching and research.

According to Innam Schuetze,

While Colleges and Universities frequently promote ‘service’ as a mission equal to teaching and research, this is not always reflected in faculty reward systems (p. 8).

There are a range of third mission activities as follows:-

• Community based research and learning

• Public Courses and Lectures/knowledge transfer

• Consultants by individuals and teams

• Workshops and other contributions to learned societies.

• Universities continuing education programs. The use of ICT, Internationalization, marketing institutions, ranking of Universities. Commercialization of knowledge, and models of the emerging trends in the lives of Universities and how these affect community service delivery.

4.8 Issues

The extent to which Universities perceive engagement as part of their core business remains vague. There was however, an adopted definition of University Community engagement, and measurement of what counts as University engagement

MDG 2 seeks to achieve universal primary education. Primary school enrollment for children aged 6–12 years was above 90 % until 2005 when it declined to 86 % in 2009. The net enrollment rate of 7–13 years 100 % in 2002 and declined to 93 % in 2009. This suggests most children start school at 7 years.

On RB2 Air Monday 23rd July 2012, the author had a one hour presentation of her book outline and key highlights on air about the book. The RB2 programme “Itemoge” or “Inner Self” is a forum that encourages Batswana to take note of their strength in whatever they are worth. For the 23rd July 2012 program, the chapter author was on air to dialogue with the nation on their realization of their own role in poverty eradication, informed by the three parts of the book. In response to the presentation a number of Batswana called to dialogue with the author for 30 min highlighting their views summarized as follows:-

Botswana has also set up to look to Asia on poverty (India and China) through a memorandum of agreement to “reduce poverty, promote Agricultural development and fight hunger. The three countries will assist each other on Social development issues. The plan includes cash transfer initiatives, technology and increased access to education, health and welfare.” (p. 4 Midweek Sun, 25th July 2012).

The development above was the brain child of a trip to China and India by a Sub-Committee on poverty eradication led by Botswana’s Minister of Presidential Affair and Public Administration (PAPA). The purpose was to benchmark anti-poverty, strategies and programmes used by the two nations in alleviating their citizens from poverty.

5 A Statement from the Community Development Foundation (UK)

Community development is a structured intervention that gives communities greater control over the conditions that affect their lives. This does not solve all the problems faced by a local community, but it does build up confidence to tackle such problems as effectively as any local action can. Community development works at the level of local groups and organisations rather than with individuals or families. The range of local groups and organisations representing communities at local level constitutes the community sector.

Community development is a skilled process and part of its approach is the belief that communities cannot be helped unless they themselves agree to this process. Community development has to look both ways: not only at how the community is working at the grass roots, but also at how responsive key institutions are to the needs of local communities.

A Working Statement on Community Development (from the Standing Conference for Community Development—a UK wide development network).

This is adopted as a move towards our understanding of Community Development.

• Community Development is crucially concerned with the issues of powerlessness and disadvantage: as such it should involve all members of society, and offers a practice that is part of a process of social change.

• Community Development is about the active involvement of people in the issues which affect their lives. it is a process based on the sharing of power, skills, knowledge and experience.

• Community Development takes place both in neighbourhoods and within communities of interest, as people identify what is relevant to them.

• The Community Development process is collective, but the experience of the process enhances the integrity, skills, knowledge and experience, as well as equality of power, for each individual who is involved.

• Community Development seeks to enable individuals and communities to grow and change according to their own needs and priorities, and at their own pace, provided this does not oppress other groups and communities, or damage the environment.

• Where Community Development takes place, there are certain principles central to it. The first priority of the Community Development process is the empowering and enabling of those who are traditionally deprived of power and control over their common affairs. It claims as important the ability of people to act together to influence the social, economic, political and environmental issues which affect them. Community Development aims to encourage sharing, and to create structures which give genuine participation and involvement.

• Community Development is about developing the power, skills, knowledge and experience of people as individuals and in groups, thus enabling them to undertake initiatives of their own to combat social, economic, political and environmental problems, and enabling them to fully participate in a truly democratic process.

• Community Development must take the a lead in confronting the attitudes of individuals and the practices of institutions and society as a whole which discriminates unfairly against black people, women, people with disabilities and different abilities, religious groups, elderly people, lesbians and gay men, and other groups who are disadvantaged by society. It also must take a lead in countering the destruction of the natural environment on which we all depend. Community Development is well placed to involve people equally on these issues which affect all of us.

• Community Development should seek to develop structures which enable the active involvement of people from disadvantaged groups, and in particular people from Black and Minority Ethnic groups.

6 Conclusions

Lifelong education and learning are essential for the poor to develop new ways of tackling poverty within their own contexts through organized and unorganized educational and lifelong learning initiatives respectively. Although there are many definitions of what counts as lifelong learning and educational programmes, these should be contextualized to promote best community development practices.

Poverty is a multidimensional problem of income insufficiency, incapacity, limited or no choices, and lack of participation. It disproportionately affects different communities by age, class, gender, geographical location and ethnic group. Poverty eradication through lifelong learning has the goal to improve quality of life and suggestive of the fact that in human existence, learning never stops to deal with real life situations like poverty. Poverty eradication takes many forms that include state and non- state based programmes, and university community engagement.

During the first decade of the twenty-first century, African universities have been found to be involved in the promotion of community service projects within the context of community service policy operating within their countries; the themes most explored by these universities include poverty reduction, health with emphasis on control of the spread of HIV/AIDS, strengthening of the capacities of civil societies and environmental education.

In all university case studies cited, it can be concluded that the social, technological, political and cultural environments are conducive for poverty definition, programmes that range from poverty reduction to eradication with university community development as one of the many tools of engagement. Universities’ management must be urged by all concerned stakeholders, including African governments, and organizations of the civil society, to perceive and implement engagement as part of their core business and not as an afterthoughts or forgotten items for staff assessment criteria. It can be argued that the socio-cultural, technological and political environments cited in this chapter are conducive to promote lifelong learning, poverty reduction and eradication, and university community engagement to promote social justice.