Volume II - The Northern Cape Provincial Spatial Development ...

the standard of living in a region’s population with sustained growth, usually from a
lower-level economy to a higher-income economy. This typically involves
improvements in a variety of indicators such as literacy rates, life expectancy, poverty
rates, GDP and other aspects such as leisure time, environmental quality, freedom,
social justice, and economic wellbeing.
• Social development is a related process which results in the transformation of social
structures in a manner which improves the capacity of the society to fulfil its
aspirations. A region’s economic development, therefore, is linked to its human
development, which encompasses, among other things, health and education. These
factors are closely related to economic growth so that development and growth go
hand in hand. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_development).
• Rural development in general denotes the actions and initiatives taken to improve the
standard of living in non-urban neighbourhoods, countryside, and remote villages.
These communities demonstrate a low population density ratio. Agricultural activities
are prominent whereas economic activities relate to the primary sector, production of
food stuffs and raw materials. Rural development actions mostly aim at the social and
economic development of the areas. Rural development aims at finding ways to
improve the quality of life with participation of the rural people themselves so as to
meet the required needs of the rural area. As such, local people themselves have to
participate in creating their own comprehensive rural development landscape. In this
context many approaches and ideas have been developed and followed in the past, i.e.
the “bottom-up approach”, “participatory rural appraisal”, “rapid rural appraisal” and
“rural-urban linkage development perspective” etc.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rural_development).
(ii) Development Capital: The Northern Cape PSDF proposes to employ a model of the
various forms of “development capital” vested in the region in order to reach its goals and
objectives pertaining to sustainable development in the towns. The “Five Capitals Model”
(Forum for the Future, 2010) suggests the following capital components in this regard: (i)
Natural Capital; (ii) Human Capital; (iii) Social Capital; (iv) Manufactured
(Infrastructure) Capital; and (v) Financial (Monetary) Capital.
• Human Capital refers to people’s health, education, training, knowledge, skills,
spirituality and motivation, which are needed for a flourishing economy, productive
work, poverty reduction and capacity for human relationships.
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