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The new South Africa has encountered some successes, but also many disappointments since the democratic transition of the 1990s. This book is based on a recent major report prepared by South African researchers for Thabo Mbeki, now the country's President. It presents a comprehensive portrait of the facts of South African poverty. Eschewing a narrowly economistic view, it is concerned with human development more generally. It examines the state of the country in terms of education and training, health care, HIV/AIDS, malnutriton, welfare, crime, as well as access to services like water, sanitation, energy, transport and communications. It represents the most up-to-date pulling together of information about all aspects of deprivation and marginalisation in democratic South Africa. In its economic analysis, it argues that policy must not assume that market forces and growth (even if that can be achieved) will provide any kind of 'automatic' or 'trickle-down' alleviation to these politically pressing problems. Instead, at every point of leverage, its authors believe all policy must be infused by a powerful preoccupation with poverty alleviation and their volume is replete with detailed suggestions and recommendations to that end.