Rural people’s perceptions regarding causes and solutions of poverty: The Lesotho milieu

Abstract

It is incontrovertible that in Lesotho poverty is more pronounced in rural areas. The paper argues that in order to combat extreme
poverty, there is need to first understand its causes. Thus, the study sought to establish causes and solutions of poverty as prescribed by the rural people. Random sampling was utilised to select 120 unemployed people from Manonyane rural area in Lesotho. A mixed method approach was employed, hence, a questionnaire and an interview schedule were used to gather quantitative and qualitative data between 07 February 2018 and 15 January 2019. For frequencies and percentages, data were analysed using GraphPad Prism version 5.03. Chi-square tests were computed using SPSS version 23.0. Lack of inputs, government failure and absence of NGOs were cited as causes of poverty, amid others. Solutions of poverty included job creation by government, availing of capital by both  government and NGOs and enrolment in income-generating projects. Looking at perceptions on causes of poverty by gender, at the 0.05 significance level, p=0.827 for laziness, p=0.766 for few NGOs but for lack of inputs it was 0.004. For solutions of poverty, p=0.004 for capital from the government, meaning perceptions were not dependent on gender, they all had high expectations from the government. The study was anchored on the materialistic and economic perspectives on poverty. Research on poverty is crucial in order to inform poverty alleviation debates, policies and initiatives.

Keywords: Lesotho, government, unemployed, perceptions, NGOs, poverty