This study examined the effect of real exchange rate misalignments on economic growth in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) by employing 15 countries. The sample is subdivided into 7 lowincome countries and 8 middle-income countries. The dataset spans 41 years covering the period 1970-2010. The study examined this broad issue in piecewise fashion. In the first part, the study examined the validity of the Balassa-Samuelson Hypothesis (BSH) using a simplified regression model and within-effects estimations. The study found a negative and highly significant coefficient of the relative productivity term for the two subsamples (i.e. low-income SSA countries and middle-income SSA countries), in addition to the full sample. Thus, the study found a well-established BSH for the SSA countries considered. Second, the study examined the impact of the real exchange rate undervaluation on economic growth using a standard regression model with key control variables. The study constructed an index of undervaluation, following Rodrik (2008). The study also constructed a Hodrick- Prescott based undervaluation index in order to evaluate the robustness of the main undervaluation index. Generally, the study found undervaluation to promote growth and overvaluation to reduce it. The study found the effect of undervaluation on economic growth to weaken as countries migrate from the low-income bracket to the middle-income bracket. Moreover, the study examined whether the choice of the undervaluation measure mattered. The study found the choice of the undervaluation measure to matter. The Rodrik-type index appeared to overestimate the size of the impact of undervaluation on economic growth. Finally, the study examined whether the impact of undervaluation on growth was linear. The evidence showed that the impact of undervaluation on growth was linear, at least, for this study. The linear impact of real exchange rate movements on economic growth implied that undervaluation enhanced economic growth just as overvaluation hindered it. / Economics / D. Phil. (Economics)

The number of students enrolling in post-secondary institutions in the U.S. has slowly been rising over the last 10 years, yet gaps continue to exist in terms of who attends college and persists through graduation. Minority and low income students often lack the guidance needed to navigate the college enrollment process and as a result, remain underrepresented at U.S. colleges and universities. The prospect of attending college is frequently ruled-out based on fears surrounding college costs and lack of awareness and exposure to financial aid programs. This dissertation study looked at the impact of increased school counselor outreach on FAFSA completion and college enrollment in a large urban school district in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Researchers found robust treatment effects on both FAFSA completion .103 (sd=.01) and college enrollment .117 (sd=.01) suggesting a strong correlation between student contact with a school counselor and these two essential tasks for successful college matriculation. The opportunity gap was narrowed for all groups measured with the greatest improvement noted for African American, Asian, and Native American students. / Graduation date: 2013

Ontario’s current regulatory approach to low-income housing lies between two primary challenges: the human right to housing, and political/fiscal constraints. This thesis draws on legal theory and economic analysis of law to articulate the proper goals of housing access policy. A structural theory is proposed to explain the normative relationship between efficiency, communitarianism and justice in housing. An array of regulatory options are compared and considered in light of the features that characterize Ontario’s low-income rental housing markets. This analysis favours demand-side housing subsidies to low-income households, combined with supply-side tax expenditures to improve elasticity in the low-income rental market. Further reform of rent and covenant controls, social and affordable housing supply, and land use planning is recommended to ensure an efficient residential tenancy market. These reforms are offered as a framework for the implementation of the human right to housing in Ontario.

Ontario’s current regulatory approach to low-income housing lies between two primary challenges: the human right to housing, and political/fiscal constraints. This thesis draws on legal theory and economic analysis of law to articulate the proper goals of housing access policy. A structural theory is proposed to explain the normative relationship between efficiency, communitarianism and justice in housing. An array of regulatory options are compared and considered in light of the features that characterize Ontario’s low-income rental housing markets. This analysis favours demand-side housing subsidies to low-income households, combined with supply-side tax expenditures to improve elasticity in the low-income rental market. Further reform of rent and covenant controls, social and affordable housing supply, and land use planning is recommended to ensure an efficient residential tenancy market. These reforms are offered as a framework for the implementation of the human right to housing in Ontario.

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South Africa's post-apartheid housing situation is permeated with the knowledge and criticisms of low-income housing. Of late, the latter has gained more exposure than the merits of the process of low-come housing provision, but the criticisms have been generalised comments that have rarely been based on a methodical format of collection and analysis. Furthermore, there have been no reported instruments that have garnered collective perceptions of residents of low-income housing settlements. In light of this gap, in both the academic and political aspects of low income housing, this dissertation describes the design of a multi-construct instrument, aimed at determining quality of life (QOL) in low-income settlements, and specifically describes the two aspects of development of that instrument. It describes the development of the model, as well as the development of the instrument that is derived from that model. Furthermore, results of qualitative tests of fitness for the model and internal reliability tests of the instrument are also described. The model design details the development of domains and variables, derived primarily from literature, while the instrument details the design of items that constitute each variable. Cronbach's alpha reliability tests used to determine the internal reliability of items of the instrument indicate good internal consistencies of twelve of the fifteen constructs constituting the instrument, while frequency tables and descriptive statistics indicate high prioritisation of existing domains used within the model. This high prioritisation and good internal consistencies suggests that the model and instrument are adequately appropriate, relevant and reliable in as far as they have been developed at this stage, and with suitable modifications as recommended on the basis of the research, will yield an appropriate tool for similar studies. / Thesis (M.Env.Dev.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2005.

Documentation and formalization of informal settlements ("insitu" i.e. while people continue to live in the settlement) needs appropriate mapping and registration system of real property that can finally lead into integrating an informal city to the formal city. For many years extraction of geospatial data for informal settlement upgrading have been through the use of conventional mapping, which included manual plotting from aerial photographs and the use of classical surveying methods that has proved to be slow because of manual operation, very expensive, and requires well-trained personnel. The use of high-resolution satellite image like QuickBird and GIS tools has recently been gaining popularity to various aspects of urban mapping and planning, thereby opening-up new opportunities for efficient management of rapidly changing environment of informal settlements. This study was based on Manzese informal area in the city of Dar es salaam, Tanzania for which the Ministry of Lands and Human Settlement Development is committed at developing strategic information and decision making tools for upgrading informal areas using digital database, Orthophotos and Quickbird satellite image. A simple prototype approach developed in this study, that is, 'automatic detection and extraction of informal buildings and other urban features', is envisaged to simplify and speedup the process of land cover mapping that can be used by various governmental and private segments in our society. The proposed method, first tests the utility of high resolution QuickBird satellite image to classify the detailed 11 classes of informal buildings and other urban features using different image classification methods like the Box, maximum likelihood and minimum distance classifier, followed by segmentation and finally editing of feature outlines. The overall mapping accuracy achieved for detailed classification of urban land cover was 83%. The output demonstrates the potential application of the proposed approach for urban feature extraction and updating. The study constrains and recommendations for future work are also discussed. / Thesis (M.Env.Dev.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2005.

Thesis (MA (Geography and Environmental Studies)--University of Stellenbosch, 2010. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: In 2004, the then Department of Housing’s Breaking New Ground (BNG) policy introduced a compilation of principles that underlie a sustainable human settlement. The principles were aimed at guiding, amongst others, municipal officials in the decisions they take when faced with a housing development project. This thesis will set out to determine how municipal officials have taken up BNG’s principles for sustainable housing settlements as well as the perceptions, methods of implementation and degree of acceptance that housing and town planning managers have of BNG. In the study, the perceived relevance that these managers have of BNG within their non-metropolitan towns is explored using five of the fifteen leader towns of the Western Cape Province. This research has shown that BNG considers the compact urban form, coupled to other development considerations, as the most sustainable for South Africa. In terms of building sustainable human settlements: the low-income housing unit has evolved substantially since its conception, and that the current unit is held in far higher regard (by both municipalities and beneficiaries) than its predecessors. The design of this unit remains standardised due to a lack of funding for a more flexible design, but its structure allows for additions to be made at the cost of the beneficiary. Funding thus remains a major constraint to housing delivery. Municipalities feel that they are able to implement BNG, but that there are certain shortcomings in the document which prevent its full implementation. One of these shortcomings is the lack of an external funding mechanism for housing delivery, proposed in BNG, but never having materialised. Further, BNG focuses more on the metropolitan scenario and is not always relevant to non-metropolitan towns. Almost all of the municipalities have initiated inner city regeneration projects, but fewer have included the provision of social housing as part of their inner city rejuvenation. Subsidy housing is the most implemented housing typology, but these units often experience decay due to the absence of original owners who have (mostly illegally) sold or rented out their units. The one-erf-one-unit nature of subsidy housing is not seen as sustainable owing to space limitation experienced by most of the municipalities interviewed. Contrary to earlier research, in situ upgrading is a common occurrence in municipalities. However, there is a great need for stronger regional (or broader scale) planning regarding housing delivery. Low-income housing is strongly influenced by politics – a fact which municipalities say negatively influences housing delivery. Migration also poses a serious threat to municipal backlogs. Currently, the fight against an escalating demand for low-cost housing is a losing battle as the rate at which government is rolling out housing is vastly ineffectual. Municipalities deem that large-scale projects like the N2 Gateway might be a solution to their housing backlogs which, they concur, are at crisis point. However, municipalities indicated that their implementation of large scale projects will not follow the same path as the N2 Gateway – the planning of which is seen to be substandard. Currently, urban integration takes place on an income basis and not due to racial division. Inclusionary housing is seen as a relevant tool for the promotion of integration, but cannot be enforced to its full potential due to a lack of supporting legislation.

[pt] Este trabalho procura contribuir para o debate sobre as relações entre escolas públicas, famílias de origem popular e vizinhança escolar, tendo como referência territórios pobres da cidade, notadamente o conjunto de favelas da Maré. A pesquisa aborda, especificamente,as relações no âmbito do Programa Escolas do Amanhã/ Bairro Educador (PEA/BE), política que se coloca na perspectiva, tanto das novas formas de educação prioritária e compensatória para escolas em territórios vulneráveis, como da reconfiguração dos espaços e tempos escolares e de uma visão ampliada dos espaços educacionais. Do ponto de vista metodológico, um estudo de abordagem qualitativa dessa experiência foi conduzido em escolas públicas municipais de Ensino Fundamental que se caracterizam por serem participantes e não participantes do PEA/BE na Maré. Com o objetivo de indagar a possível existência de diferenças nas relações entre escola-família-vizinhança em escolas que se distinguem basicamente por serem ou não participantes do PEA/BE, foram realizadas entrevistas com diferentes agentes educacionais, escolares, familiares e sociais envolvidos direta ou indiretamente no programa, buscando conhecer a percepção deles acerca dessa política. Particularmente, o Projeto Bairro Educador foi desenvolvido no âmbito do Programa Escolas do Amanhã da Secretaria Municipal de Educação da cidade do Rio de Janeiro (SME-RJ), com a finalidade de aproximar as escolas públicas localizadas em territórios marcados pela violência e que apresentam resultados abaixo da média da sua respectiva rede de ensino, das famílias e de suas vizinhanças, através do uso do território como ferramenta educativa e pedagógica. Os principais resultados da pesquisa permitem afirmar que o Programa Escolas de Amanhã/Bairro Educador não deixou um legado suficientemente consistente a ponto de marcar uma diferença substancial nas relações escolas-família-vizinhança entre as escolas que dele participaram. Uma das possíveis explicações para isso diz respeito à falta de alinhamento entre as orientações do PEA/BE e sua implementação, bem como aos problemas de externalidade, fragmentação e segmentação da coordenação político-pedagógica do BE e à falta de uma orientação mais enfática da SME-RJ acerca dos caminhos a percorrer para atingir os objetivos propostos. O trabalho se encerra com a apresentação de recomendações que pretendem contribuir para a orientação de políticas públicas que tenham como objetivo a aproximação entre escolas-famílias-vizinhança. / [en] This study aims on discussing the relations among public schools, low-income families, and the schools neighborhood, considering poor areas in Rio de Janeiro, specially a community called Maré. The research focuses on the relations within Escolas do Amanhã / Educator Neighborhood (PEA/BE in Portuguese), which considers the perspective of new priority and compensatory ways of education driven to vulnerable areas, as well as school space and time adjustments. A qualitative study of this experience has been conducted in order to analyze elementary and middle public schools in Maré that participate or not in PEA/BE. The objective has been to question if there are differences in the relations among school, family and neighborhood, considering schools which participate in the program and schools which do not. Different educational, school, family and social agents have been interviewed in order to comprehend the way they see this policy. Educator Neighborhood project, in particular, has been developed within Escolas do Amanhã program by the Education Municipal Office (SME-RJ in Portuguese), with the goal of integrating public schools placed in violent areas and with low results in relation to their education network, families and neighborhood, considering territory as an educational and pedagogical tool. The main results of the research show that Escolas do Amanhã / Educator Neighborhood program did not leave a consistent result in building better school, family and neighborhood relations among the schools that participated in the program. One of the possible reasons for it may be the lack of a guideline between PEA/BE and its implementation, as well as problems referring to its political-pedagogical coordination, such as its fragmentation and segmentation. This guideline could come from the Education Municipal Office, pointing to a path that leads to the program s objectives. Therefore, this thesis ends up with some recommendation about public policies that may contribute to closer relations among school, family and neighborhood.

The aim of this study was to investigate the causes of the housing backlog in the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality from 2000 to 2014. Fifty participants which were two ward councilors and two PR councilors, four community development members, four ward committee members , twenty backyard dwellers from ward 17 and ward 18 and eighteen senior officials (project managers) from the Department of Human Settlement in the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Municipality were purposively sampled for the study. A qualitative design was used. In-depth interviews were conducted to collect data to enable the researcher to ask open ended questions and explore the participants’ perspectives about the causes of housing backlog. The study revealed that the factors which are playing a role in this regard include the role played by the Eastern Cape Province in housing, the large portion of land which is privately owned, beneficiary management by municipal officials and political interference on the waiting list Metropolitan subsequently, recommendations for further research were made.