While there is growing interest in the literature and policy circles regarding the performance of cooperatives in South Africa, no study has yet synthesised the body of knowledge on how to assess ...cooperative performance in the country. This paper aims to fill this gap by examining the literature on the performance of cooperatives in post-apartheid South Africa, based on a scoping review of 20 studies published between 1994 and 2021. Most of the reviewed studies adopted a qualitative approach, lacked a clear definition of cooperative performance and standardised metrics/criteria for assessing cooperative performance. The studies often relied on view of study participants to determine the performance of cooperatives. Moreover, the reviewed studies often framed the performance of cooperatives from an economic viewpoint. Clear definition of cooperatives, the development of robust indicators for assessing their performance and greater emphasis on quantitative studies on the performance of cooperatives in South Africa beyond economic and financial indicators is needed.
Abstract The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has been producing influential reports for over 35 years. As the IPCC’s Seventh Assessment Report (AR7) cycle begins, we offer our ...perspective as former members of the IPCC Technical Support Units from Working Groups I, II & III, and the Synthesis Report on lessons learned during the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) cycle. We identify three broad issues that, if addressed, could reinforce and sustain the IPCC in continuing its mission to comprehensively assess the scientific understanding of human-induced climate change. These are the imperative to ensure balanced representation, the importance of author recognition, and the need for improved institutional memory. Our recommendations include addressing skill and training needs, tackling barriers to participation particularly for Global South authors, and ensuring all contributors receive appropriate recognition for their efforts. We focus, in particular, on feasible incremental changes that could be implemented during AR7 without major changes to the underlying procedures that require approval by the 195 member governments that make up the IPCC.
The twin challenges of lack of access to improved sanitation and food insecurity remain critical, particularly in the global south. With cognizance of the nutrient potential of human excreta, there ...has been increasing interest in linking sanitation innovations with agriculture by using nutrients recovered from human excreta for crop production, thus, closing the nutrient loop. While studies and field trials have explored and validated the technical feasibility of reusing nutrients recovered from human excreta in agriculture, there is still limited knowledge of its social acceptability. This study examined whether indigenous knowledge can be leveraged to increase the acceptability of human-excreta-derived plant nutrient sources such as treated effluent in agriculture. A qualitative research design comprising seven focus group interviews (five in rural areas and two in peri-urban areas) was conducted in KwaZulu Natal, South Africa. Findings from the focus groups reveal a willingness to grow and consume food using treated effluent. Additionally, participants made references to indigenous practices that encourage recycling and reuse of human excreta. Given the potential to simultaneously address issues of food insecurity and sanitation that characterize many peri-urban and rural areas in South Africa, we recommend further studies in this area.
The study examines the roles of the annual Durban Tourism Careers Expo and the Tourism Indaba in creating job opportunities for youths and developing entrepreneurial minds of emerging entrepreneurs. ...Informed by the Social Capital Theory of Career Success, the study explores how social structures create value and facilitate the actions of youths within the tourism industry for career opportunities and success. We employed a qualitative study with a purposively selected sample of 16 participants. Findings of the study show that the events create jobs for youths through internships and learnerships. In addition, they give youths exposure in the industry and encourage them to start their own businesses. Seasonal employment, limited township/community-based tourism and lack of start-up capital were challenges identified. We recommend further research concerning the dynamics of seasonal employment in the tourism industry as well as the extent to which township/community-based tourism is practised and its potential entrepreneurial opportunities for youths.
The South African energy sector has been plagued by incessant power outages in recent years due to decreasing energy generating capacity, increased population and economic growth, political ...interference with the country’s energy provider, and a lack of maintenance of aging energy infrastructure. Economists are unanimous that incidences of load shedding have resulted in a loss of billions of Rands in revenue. Using a desktop review, this paper examines the potential roles of cooperatives in South Africa’s budding clean energy sector. The paper argues that although cooperatives can potentially contribute to the country’s clean energy transition, challenges such as policy constraints, access to finance, dearth of technical skills as well as poor understanding of the cooperative movements are barriers to cooperatives’ involvement in South Africa’s low-carbon future. The paper a rgues that these barriers must be addressed in order to unlock the contributions of cooperatives to the country’s clean energy transitions.
The recent experiences and impact of the COVID-19 pandemic provide a valuable lens for understanding the vulnerabilities of informal settlements and how they are positioned to respond to other ...large-scale hazards. This article explores the body of knowledge on the pandemic in the context of informal settlements, guided by the scoping review strategy. Our findings reveal that COVID-19 has impacted informal settlements in several ways, including increasing loss of income, food insecurity, increased gender inequality, gender-based violence and forced evictions. While there have been numerous responses to the crisis, several pre-existing factors in informal settlements impeded their implementation. We note that lessons from the pandemic provide an important opportunity to address pre-existing vulnerabilities in informal settlements to make them more resilient to both health and environmental shocks.
In 1 999, the Khomani community of Southern Kalahari was awarded a large expanse of land they had lodged a claim for in 1994. This was an attempt aimed at redressing the many years of description ...against the community. In this paper, we assess how the community negotiates the "traditional" and "modern" worlds in finding a suitable development model to utilise the restored land for their livelihood strategies. Using the social capital theory and the capability approach, we provide insights into factors that contribute to persistent poverty and inequality in the community. We argue that the lack of solidarity among the community provides challenges for collective networks of livelihood strategies. This disconnect negatively affects the social and human capital of the community. The paper also notes that the paternalist approach of government and aid agencies in the community undermine the community's agency and therefore fail to capture the many local intricacies that can be harnessed for development. We contend that by insisting that the San community remains as a pristine hunter-gatherer {through the exclusive funding of projects considered as 'tradition'), government and development organisations further disempower the community and therefore contribute to the perpetuation of injustice towards the community. The paper observes the connection between land, economic choices, power, and identities and the implication of these for livelihood development among the Khomani San Community. We argue that the application of the capability approach to understanding the barriers to development in the community and education and meditation groups. It also showed significant reduction of state anxiety in psycho-education group.Whereas no significant reduction in scores was observed among control group patients.The group psycho-education and pranayama- meditation methods were found effective in reducing state-trait anxiety among persons with epilepsy.
The Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme is a flagship programme of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development aimed at fast-tracking the growth of Africa’s agricultural sector. ...One of its priority areas of action is reducing food insecurity on the continent. The Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme, coupled with other initiatives across the continent, has contributed to reducing food insecurity. Despite the achievement, food insecurity continues to be a persistent issue. With an estimated 20% of the population categorised as undernourished, Africa continent is the region with highest percentage of undernourishment. In this paper, I examine contributory factors to continued food insecurity in Africa and how these can be addressed. The paper proposes that prioritising agricultural cooperatives in the implementation of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme will put agriculture in Africa on the path of rapid growth resulting in improved food security.
The struggle to accommodate ethnic and religious differences among its people is arguably Nigerias biggest problem today. This paper employs the social identity theory to explore the impact of ...ethnicity and religion on the emergence of a true national identity in Nigeria. The central thesis of this paper is that political mobilization drawn along ethno-religious lines has undermined the sense of national identity in Nigeria. The paper draws on colonial policies with a view to assessing the historical processes that have nurtured deep divides in the Nigerian society and suggesting options for intervention.
Policy analysis is a tool used by policy analysts to understand the complexity of policy. Different analysts use diverse models of policy analysis but they seldom agree on the model that is the most ...ideal for analysing policy. This study is geared towards a policy analysis of e-learning at the
University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN). Using both quantitative and qualitative data, the study showed that the implementation of e-learning at UKZN has various characteristics that cannot be explained exhaustively within the framework of a single model of policy analysis. In the absence of an institutional e-learning policy framework, various actors and subsystems are actively implementing e-learning at UKZN. This negates the stagist model of policy analysis, according to which, policy is made up of logical and sequential stages with one stage – e.g. policy
formulation – preceding the other – e.g. implementation. This is clearly not the case at UKZN where e-learning is being implemented in the absence of a formal policy framework. Due to the high ambiguity and low conflict that characterize the implementation of e-learning at UKZN, the
study found that e-learning at UKZN could be situated within Matland’s ambiguity/conflict model. The need to contextualise e-learning is a key concern expressed by participants in the study. The study also found that the willingness to implement e-learning is significantly high with 84.6% of those surveyed expressing a willingness to implement e-learning. Similarly, more than half of
respondents are of the view that UKZN needs to develop an e-learning policy framework. This approach fits into the incremental model according to which policy formulation is gradual and it is informed by the learning that emerges from implementation.
Thesis (M.Soc.Sc.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2010.
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