CHAPTER TWO LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1. Overview
This chapter deals with the different documented evidence
regarding social security fund toward social economic development of RWANDA and
overcome poverty reduction. This information helps to shed more light on issues
related to best practices in social security within the environment in which
security is implemented. An attempt is made to analyze the issues that may
hinder or facilitate social economic development of RWANDA via Social Security
Fund of RWANDA. Since SSFR concepts tend to be indistinct, and sometimes
controversial, the major concepts used in this research are defined.
2.2.
Review of Relevant literature review
Since social science concepts tend to be indistinct, and
sometimes controversial, the major concepts used in this chapter will be
defined.
2.3 Development
Are you sure that you know what «development» really
means with respect to different countries? (Rwanda Statistics, 2006: p12)And
can you determine which countries are more developed and which are less? It is
somewhat easier to say which countries are richer and which are poorer. But
indicators of wealth, which reflect the quantity of resources available to a
society, provide no information about the allocation of those resources--for
instance, about more or less equitable distribution of income among social
groups, about the shares of resources used to provide free health and education
services, and about the roles of production and consumption on people's
environment. Thus it is no wonder that countries with similar average incomes
can differ substantially when it comes to people's quality of life:
access to education and health care, employment opportunities,
availability of clean air and safe drinking water, the threat of crime, and so
on. With that in mind, how do we determine which countries are more developed
and which are less developed?
2.4 Goals and Means of
Development
Different countries have different priorities in their
development policies. But to compare their development levels, you would first
have to make up your mind about what development really means to you, what it
is supposed to achieve. Indicators measuring this achievement could then be
used to judge countries' relative progress in development. Is the goal merely
to increase national wealth, or is it something more subtle? Improving the
well-being of the majority of the population? Ensuring people's freedom?
Increasing their economic security. Recent United Nations documents emphasize
«human development,» measured by life expectancy, adult literacy,
access to all three levels of education, as well as people's average income,
which is a necessary condition of their freedom of choice. In a broader sense
the notion of human development incorporates all aspects of individuals'
well-being, from their health status to their economic and political freedom
(MINECOFIN, 2008-2012, p.38)
2.5 Economic growth
It is true that economic growth, by
increasing a nation's total wealth, also enhances its potential for reducing
poverty and solving other social problems. But history offers a number of
examples where economic growth was not followed by similar progress in human
development. Instead growth was achieved at the cost of greater inequality,
higher unemployment, weakened democracy, loss of cultural identity, or
overconsumption of natural resources needed by future
generations. As the links between economic growth and social and environmental
issues are better provided by nature, such as pollution absorption and resource
regeneration. Moreover, economic growth must be constantly nourished by the
fruits of human development, such as higher qualified workers capable of
technological and managerial innovations along with opportunities for their
efficient use: more and better jobs, better conditions for new businesses to
grow, and greater democracy at all levels of decision making, if environmental
and social/human losses resulting from economic growth turn out to be higher
than economic benefits (additional incomes earned by the majority of the
population), the overall result for people's wellbeing becomes negative. Thus
such economic growth becomes difficult to sustain politically. Second, economic
growth itself inevitably depends on its natural and social/human conditions. To
be sustainable, it must rely on a certain amount of natural resources and
services.
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