Uneven Development and Conflict in Southern Africa: Interrogating the Patterns and Accumulation Processes

Abstract

Over the past two decades, Southern Africa has witnessed economic growth powered by relative political stability. Development has occurred at varying pace in different parts of the region on the foundation of unequal share of resources, opportunities and benefits. In most cases, politically and economically privileged elites are reaping the economic benefits whilst exploiting and excluding millions of the disenfranchised poor. This paper interrogates development patterns, mechanisms of resource allocation and the conflicts associated with uneven geographies of income and poverty. This paper draws exclusively from secondary data on urban, economic and social development between 2000 and 2015 in South Africa and Zimbabwe. Observations show that more and more poor Africans are forced to migrate to better performing economies as a sheer survival strategy. The paper concludes by discussing why the competition for opportunities in receiving countries has witnessed negative responses characterised by xenophobic attacks on foreigners in some instances. In doing so, it highlights the difficulties that governments in southern African face in reconciling the redistributive priorities of the urban poor with strategies to maintain long-term economic and political stability.