<p>The reservoir quality (RQ) of well E-BA1 was characterized using thin sections and core samples in a petrographic study. Well E-BA1 is situated in the Bredasdorp Basin, which forms part of the Outeniqua Basin situated in the Southern Afircan offshore region. Rifting as a result of the break up of Gondwanaland formed the Outeniqua Basin. The Bredasorp Basin is characterized by half-graben structures comprised of Upper Jurassic, Lower Cretaceous and Cenozoic rift to drift strata. The current research within the thesis has indicated that well E-BA1 is one of moderate to good quality having a gas-condensate component.</p>

<p>This paper gave an insight into the novelties as well as the deficiencies of the provisions related to democratic elections and their implementation framework. It examined the potential effectiveness or otherwise of a binding treaty which is not yet enforced on the basis of past experience. In effect, it shed light on the possible measures that could be taken to guarantee its realisation and to circumvent the shortcomings in ensuring its effective implementation.</p>

M.Com. (Economics) / The objective of this study was to obtain information that will enable the identification of the role, nature and magnitude of private road freight transport in the South African economy. The underlying rationale was the lack of information in this regard in South Africa. Information about private road freight transport was obtained on a sectoral basis by means of a literature analysis and an empirical investigation.

There exists a certain consensus among scholars and French diplomats that the golden era of the exceptionally close and amicable relations between France and its former sub-Saharan colonies is over. Nevertheless, the conclusions that these researchers arrive at regarding the current state of France’s African policy are rather different. The aim of the thesis is to determine which of the three paradigms concerning France’s African policy – the incremental adaptation, normalisation or confusion – best describes the French response to the crisis in Côte d’Ivoire under the Gbagbo regime. The contribution of the thesis is the analysis of continuities and changes of this specific Franco-African relationship, also known as Françafrique, within the framework of international relations regime theory. The thesis argues that France’s diplomacy towards the Ivorian crisis and her role in the multilateral conflict resolution strategy, reveal her growing inability to defend the constitutive principle of the Françafrique regime: grandeur. Her pursuit of middle power status through maintaining hegemonic relations to her favourite former colony was considerably challenged by various domestic and systemic factors, among which the Ivorian power struggles and Gbagbo’s duplicitous politics played a considerable part. Moreover, the thesis also points to the persistence of some old rules and decision-making procedures of the Françafrique regime, especially the resilience of informal networks. These old practices collide with France’s growing desire to make her African policy more transparent, coherent and efficient. It is therefore concluded that the coexistence of these opposite tendencies in France’s response to the Ivorian crisis under Gbagbo, as well as the inconsistent resort to the Françafrique principle, rules and decision-making procedures are best explained by the confusion paradigm of France’s African policy.

M.Comm. / The agricultural sector is important in South Africa, because it contributes approximately 4 percent to the country’s Gross Domestic Product. Agriculture can contribute significantly to economic growth, by means of food production and job creation, and thereby it can play an important role in reducing poverty. This paper examines the contribution of agriculture to economic growth in South Africa, and its possible role in poverty alleviation. It begins by conducting a literature review of the contribution of agriculture to economic growth. In particular, it examines two stages of farming, namely, the subsistence and commercial stages, to determine how each of these contributes to economic growth and poverty alleviation. It finds that both of these stages have undergone little improvement over the years and have performed poorly. Next, the challenges that prevent the farming sector from performing better are described and investigated in detail. Importantly, unavailability of the data in the subsistence sector makes it harder to arrive at a conclusion as to whether agriculture contributes to poverty alleviation. Despite these challenges, the study finds that agriculture remains the key to survival for most of the rural poor. Finally the paper draws conclusions and makes recommendations for policy measures to increase growth in the agricultural sector based on the findings of the research. The key conclusion emanating from this study is that agriculture does not indeed contribute to economic growth and that it is able to alleviate poverty. However, resources such as land, skilled labour, machinery and capitals are a major limiting factor. As for recommendations, a critical strategy must be to recapitalise agriculture, investing more heavily in this sector and in programmes to develop rural economic and social infrastructure. Public investment needs to be directed in particular towards promoting agricultural research and extension, improving access to financial services, providing investment incentives, and increasing access of the poor to support services and productive resources. The study concludes that data and information should be separated between subsistence and commercial farmers to be able to determine whether agriculture contributes to poverty alleviation.

Thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, Wits Business School at the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg 2016 / The primary objective of this study was to investigate the role played by financial market development (FMD) in harnessing international capital flows of foreign direct investment (FDI) and foreign portfolio investment (FPI) in nine selected African economies, from 1980 to 2014. The study employed various econometric techniques such as the Generalised Method of Moments (GMM) for the dynamic panel data, Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) bounds testing approach to cointegration, Vector Error Correction Models (VECM) as well as Granger-causality tests. Using Principal Components Analysis (PCA), we also developed an infrastructural development index, as well as one for financial market development. The results highlighted that FDI to sampled African countries are determined by agglomeration effects, FPI, human capital development, real gross domestic product (GDP) growth, interest rates, inflation, infrastructure, trade openness, institutional quality, natural resources, and only certain individual financial market variables. FDI determinants are magnified by the application of the infrastructural and financial market development indices. FPI inflows, on the other hand, are influenced by FDI, exchange rates, stock market capitalisation, financial system liquidity, FPI agglomeration effects, capital account openness, and real GDP growth rates. The composite FMD index has a positive and highly significant effect on both FDI and FPI inflows to the selected African countries. There is reasonable evidence of bi-directional Granger causality between FDI and FPI, and FPI and overall FMD (FMD index), thus implying complementarity, as well as uni-directional Granger causality emanating from FDI to stock market capitalisation, FDI to domestic credit to the private sector by banks and also from FDI to overall financial market development in Botswana, Cote d’Ivoire, Egypt, Kenya, Mauritius, Morocco, Nigeria, South Africa, and Tunisia. In light of these findings, the policy implications are that African governments need to be conscientised on the benefits of financial market liberalisation and development. An open economy, complemented by adequate infrastructural and financial market development, plus appropriate regulation would play a significant role in attracting the type of international capital flow desired by the African host country’s level of economic development, without the concern of depleting other non-renewable natural resources. / GR2018

A research dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of a Master of Management in Public Policy (MMPP) The University of Witwatersrand Wits School of Governance 26 February 2015 / This research dissertation investigates what factors drive poverty in South Africa using annual data from 1996 to 2013. In an attempt to contribute towards a better understanding of what contributes to poverty in South Africa, the researcher adopted three types of research questions: a contextual research question, a main research question and an applied research question. The central questions of this study was “what drives poverty in South Africa?” and “how do these drivers influence poverty trends in South Africa?” The study recognises poverty as a multi-dimensional phenomenon, in addition to the unidimensional money-metric definition of poverty for analysis purposes. Consequently although the study adopts the monetary definition of poverty as a framework to poverty analysis; it also incorporates other variables that capture the multi-dimensional nature of poverty relevant to the South African context. The study uses various data analysis tools including descriptive statistics, line graphs, bivariate analysis, and trend analysis to investigate the relationship between poverty and the variables in this study. Consistent with Klasen (2000) and Finn et al. (2013), the main findings were that there is a negative relationship between poverty and government expenditure on health, housing, energy, public order and safety, and access to credit in South Africa. On the contrary, government expenditure on education is found not to reduce poverty in South Africa, neither is unemployment found to increase poverty in South Africa. The research concluded that although certain variables are expected to reduce or increase poverty, remedial policy interventions by Government and country specific economic structure mitigate these a prior expectations. From these findings the researcher makes recommendations, contributing to how scholars (and government) can further their attempt to alleviate poverty in South Africa. / MT 2018

Thesis (M.Sc.)--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Science, 2000.

A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy 19 August 2015 / This thesis focusses on the impact of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) on economic performance in selected African countries over the period 1980-2012. The thesis is divided into five chapters and three of them are empirical. Chapter 1 is the introduction. Chapters 2, 3 and 4 are empirical chapters examining the impact of FDI on various indicators of economic performance. Chapter 5 concludes by giving policy recommendations. In chapter 1 we provide a background, motivation, objectives, hypothesis to be tested, gaps in the literature, contributions of the study and the main findings. Chapter 2 examines the link between FDI and domestic investment and the role of host country factors namely financial development, institutional development and trade openness. We use the ordinary least squares, random effects, fixed effects and the system GMM methodologies on a panel of 48 African countries over the period 1980 to 2012. The results show that FDI has a crowding out effect on domestic investment and that improved institutions and trade openness do mitigate the substitutionary effect of FDI on domestic investment. This implies a need to come up with policies to improve local conditions by strengthening institutional quality and enhancing trade openness. Chapter 3 investigates the impact of FDI on productivity growth and the role of relative backwardness (the technology gap) on a panel of 45 African countries over the period 1980-2012. We use two measures of relative backwardness namely: the distance from technological frontier and the income gap. We apply the fixed effects, random effects and system GMM method to account for the issues of endogeneity. The results show a general insignificant effect of FDI on TFP growth. This suggests that FDI has a limited effect on productivity growth. The analysis of the advantage of relative backwardness does not support the convergence theory of Findlay (1978) and Wang and Blomstrom (1992). The large technology gaps in African countries hinder their ability to absorb foreign technologies from advanced countries. Chapter 4 analyses the long run dynamic relationship between FDI, exports, imports and profit outflows in 47 African countries over the period 1980-2012 by means of panel cointegration techniques. The results from the panel cointegration tests show that a long run relationship exists between the variables. Our findings provide evidence on the adverse long run effects of FDI on the current account in African economies. In particular, the results show that, FDI inflows lead to a decrease in exports and an increase in both imports and profit remittances. These findings confirm that indeed profit outflows by multinational companies are one of the main factors driving current account deficits in African countries. Chapter 5 is the conclusion. We provide a key summary of the key issues covered, the main findings, the key contributions of the study and the policy recommendations. We also suggest areas for further research in the future. / MT2017

A dissertation submitted to the Wits Business School, Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the candidacy of the Masters of Management in Finance and Investments University of Witwatersrand April 2016 / The aim of this paper is to investigate financial contagion in African financial markets from the global financial crisis. Interest in this subject has grown exponentially in the recent past in light of expanding globalization. The empirical analysis is based on daily stock price indices of a sample of African countries in order to compute the stock returns and find the impact of correlations between them and the US market. The empirical evidence is based on correlation tests by Forbes& Rigobon (2002). The analysis suggests that the larger markets by market capitalization and number of traded stocks exhibit co-movement, whereas the smaller markets experience financial contagion. The results have implications for financial investment process and risk management in terms of globalization and the unfolding of financial liberalization in Africa. / GR2018