Incudes bibliographical references. / The thesis is based on the story of a 36 year old HIV positive middle class black Zimbabwean woman, Maidei Chivi (pseudonym). Maidei is well educated, financially secure and wields enormous power both within her family and at her workplace. She therefore, unlike many women, does not fall into the typical HIV victim category, characterised by poverty, coerced sex and desperation. Maidei's story demonstrates that economic security does not necessarily result in women taking decision making roles during sex.

This study conducted an evaluation of farmer and shepherd perceptions on Anatolian Shepherd dogs, used as livestock guarding dogs to mitigate farmer–wildlife conflict and meet conservation ends. The case study involved Anatolian Shepherd dogs bred at the Anatolian Shepherd Dog Breeding Project in the Namaqua National Park, and placed mostly on farms and at stock posts near the Namaqua National Park in the Northern Cape. The data were collected during structured and semi-structured interviews with livestock farmers and shepherds that received Anatolian Shepherd dogs from the Breeding Project. Anatolian Shepherd dogs were evaluated in terms of their contribution to reduce livestock losses and conservation of wildlife species. In terms of effectiveness in preventing or reducing livestock losses, 84% of the dogs eliminated or reduced livestock losses. Respondent satisfaction with the dogs was high, with 95% of respondents willing to recommend the Breeding Project and the use of Anatolian Shepherd dogs. Of the respondents, 95% perceived their dogs to be economically beneficial. Another 48% of respondents reported some form of behavioural problems at least once during the placement of the dogs. The most common reported problem was resting in the shade rather than accompanying the livestock. However, corrective training was effective in all cases where training was undertaken immediately. In terms of conservation, fewer respondents used lethal predator control methods in the years after placement of the dogs than before their placement. The overall perception regarding the use of lethal control methods (e.g. gin traps, shooting and poison) was that such control is cruel and that it is better to use non-lethal control methods only. However, a few respondents reported that lethal control measures were occasionally necessary to make a living when no other control measures were available, especially when the herd was relatively large. The effects of Anatolian Shepherd dogs on non-predator species in this study were minimal. The presence of the dogs therefore aided predator conservation and improved farmer tolerance of predators, especially by effectively reducing livestock losses.

This research focuses on the potential convergence between the 'form' of corporate sustainability (CS), represented by selected South African companies' integrated reports (IRs), and the underlying 'substance' of CS, being the integration of sustainability into companies' strategy and operations. The research also explores the extent to which organisational culture and management systems underpin and operationalise integrated reporting (IR) and CS. The research is approached from two perspectives: firstly, the research investigates the strategies and implementation of IR and CS independent of one another, and aims to reveal contemporary IR and CS practice and challenges; secondly, the research focuses on the potential relationship between IR and CS by seeking to identify any synergies between the IR and CS, and aims to provide insight into whether IR can further a company's CS ambitions, and if so, how this occurs. The research follows a case study research methodology, which is considered suitable for research into new fields given its predisposition to theory building. The cases were selected from those included in Ernst & Young's Excellence in Integrated Reporting Awards for 2012 (EY 2012 survey), which reviewed and rated the IRs of the top 100 companies on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE). The sample includes a total of six companies selected from the above-mentioned top 100 companies, being two companies from each of three JSE super-sectors. Of the two companies in each super-sector, one company was recognised by the EY 2012 survey as having produced a superior integrated report and the other company had not achieved such recognition. A detailed review of each company's two most recent IRs and sustainability report was undertaken to inform and facilitate meaningful and insightful interviews with appropriate personnel from various departments within each company, including corporate affairs and communication; environmental; strategy and business development; finance; sustainability; human resources; governance, risk and compliance; and corporate social investment. Primarily open-ended questions were posed to allow for the collection of qualitative, company- specific information on companies' IR and CS strategies and implementation. The broad-based adoption of IR in South Africa, in response to the JSE regulation requiring listed companies to produce an integrated report or explain why they have not, has provided a sound platform for revealing the early stages of IR practice. Although CS is not a new corporate discipline, it remains a somewhat contested corporate practice, evident from the broad spectrum of companies' approaches to CS: these range from a basic compliance standpoint to more holistic synergistic strategies aimed at integrating CS into all parts of the business. Given the differing approaches to, and appetites for, IR and CS amongst the researched companies, the findings identify certain dominant themes of contemporary practice, and reveal opportunities for expanding and improving IR and CS. Indications are that management systems play an important role in the implementation of IR and CS strategies. IR, a relatively stand-alone corporate function, shows limited dependence on organisational culture, which is a key determinant for CS given its extensive reach within companies and reliance on employee buy-in for engaging with CS. The findings also uncover other key insights into the multi-faceted relationships between IR, CS, organisational culture and management systems. Finally, although there are some synergies between IR and CS, these represent a more subtle, constrained IR and CS relationship. To conclude, although the findings recognise that IR can stimulate a focus on CS in companies that have yet to seriously engage with CS, succeeding in IR does not appear for the most part to provide an indication of proficient CS capability, reflecting a decoupling of IR practice and success from that for CS.

Includes bibliographical references.

Testing is widely acknowledged to be a useful and necessary secondary tool of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) prevention. It is the method by which to identify people who are living with the virus, so that their behaviour may be modified and medical condition treated in order to prevent further infection. Unfortunately, many persons in South Africa (SA) remain undiagnosed and therefore unaware of their HIV-positive status. This thesis explores why it is necessary to test for HIV in SA, where the incidence of the virus remains the highest in the world. Voluntary Counselling and Testing (VCT) or the âopt-inâ approach has been adopted as the norm or âsine qua nonâ. The efficacy of this method will be interrogated and shortcomings identified. The most notable is that few people in SA undergo an HIV test in order to learn their status. When they do, it is often late in the progression of opportunistic infections, requiring hospitalisation that increases pressure on an already over-stretched healthcare system. Reasons for the poor uptake of VCT are explained, including pervasive stigma and deficiencies in leadership of SAâs HIV and AIDS response. The expansion of testing is a proposed response to the challenge of persons remaining undiagnosed, and includes the acceleration of âopt-outâ or routine HIV testing (RHT) among SAâs high prevalence population. This model offers an HIV test routinely to persons attending government healthcare settings with an illness or for a routine check-up. Although the provider initiates the test, consent is necessary in order to proceed and there is an option to decline. While the key focus of this thesis is routine HIV testing, other approaches are explored in brief, including mandatory testing, mobile clinics and wellness screening. The thesis argues that if SA is to achieve the HIV and AIDS and STI National Strategic Plan (NSP) target of increasing the number of adults who have ever had a test to 70 percent by 2011, new approaches to testing, and especially opt-out, will need to be explored and more widely adopted. Key words: HIV/AIDS; Voluntary Counselling and Testing (VCT); Routine HIV Testing (RHT); Routinely Recommended Testing (RRT); Opt-out Testing; Provider-Initiated Testing and Counselling (PITC).

Living in impoverished urban areas, female headed households are most vulnerable to food insecurity. In order to reduce the risk and abate the experience of household food insecurity, civil society (NGO) and government have established numerous poverty reduction programmes and initiatives. However, in spite of ongoing efforts, the proportion of South African households experiencing food insecurity has not decreased but rather plateaued (SANHANES-1, Shisana et al, 2013). In order to address this plateau, the research has answered the question - how do food insecure female headed households experience the contributions of poverty reduction programmes in meeting their food security needs? The purpose of the study has been to add to relevant literature, with the aim of describing what food insecure households consider the contribution of poverty reduction programmes to be in meeting their food security needs. The research had four objectives - to describe (1) what food insecure households believe food in/security is, (2) how food insecure households experience food insecurity, (3) the characteristics of effective poverty reduction programmes from the perspective of food insecure households, and (4) the characteristics of ineffective poverty reduction programmes from the perspective of food insecure households. A descriptive qualitative methodology was used with data gathered through the methods of Photovoice with photo-elicitation interviews, semi-structured interviews, collage, observation field notes and a self-constructed questionnaire. The research participants, five female heads of households, were purposively sampled from a low-income Cape Town community. The research found that participant's food insecurity could not be separated from their lived experience of poverty. Making use of and influenced by Internal and External Drivers, participants were found to actively engage their living conditions with the use of social networks to be of particular importance. Participants experienced the contributions of programmes as 'half a help'. While programmes did help the participants and their households, that help served to only sustain rather than uplift them out of poverty and towards food security. If the plateau is to be addressed, then this study has argued that local programmes need to better engage their users and join with other multi-scale actors to form integrated poverty reduction programmes which offer more comprehensive, collaborative and dynamic approaches to the realization of household food security in South Africa.

Tourism is increasingly seen as a panacea for the problems of rural areas, especially in developing countries. It is promoted by governments and international development organizations as a vehicle for achieving development, poverty reduction and economic growth. However, tourism has resulted in many unwanted economic, social, cultural and environmental consequences for local communities. Through a case study conducted in Ponta do Ouro, Southern Mozambique, this research sought to investigate the contribution of tourism to coastal livelihoods. The research assessed the extent to which tourism contributes to livelihoods of coastal communities of Ponta do Ouro, and their perception of benefits and negative impacts associated with tourism. Qualitative methods were used to collect data and included five focus group meetings, 46 key informant interviews, and participant observation. Findings of this study reveal that despite providing employment and other economic benefits to the livelihoods of the community of Ponta do Ouro, tourism also resulted in negative impacts on community livelihoods. These included overcrowding during high tourism seasons, loss of access to public land, rising prices of properties, goods and services, and an increase in crime, alcohol use and pollution. Therefore a pro-poor tourism approach is recommended as an attempt to ensure that benefits of tourism are better distributed and serve the needs of the local and broader community in terms of infrastructure development and improvement of social services and facilities.

Conventional fisheries management approaches have been shown, in many instances, to have been ineffective in dealing with complex conservation concerns such as bycatch. Greater considerations for broader-scale and holistic approaches, as proposed by the 'Ecosystem Approach to Fisheries' (EAF) and the 'balanced harvesting approach', are beginning to challenge some of the negative misconceptions around bycatch, especially in small-scale fisheries. The need for a more holistic approach to fisheries management, particularly in small-scale fisheries, in South Africa is highlighted by its commitment to an EAF and the recent Small-Scale Fisheries Policy, for which the Marine living Resource Act of 1998 provides the legal framework to implement. The case study of the Olifants estuary small-scale traditional gillnet fishing community, located on the west coast of South Africa, provides a particularly relevant example of a complex fishery requiring a holistic approach. Current regulations prohibit the harvesting or retention of any bycatch species. Fisheries management worldwide and in South Africa, generally view gillnet fisheries as destructive, due to the occurrence of bycatch and the fact that many of these bycatch species are considered overexploited, which has led to numerous attempts over the years to phase out the Olifants gillnet fishery. The purpose of this study was to, firstly, use an EAF framework to contextualise the issue of bycatch in the Olifants gillnet fishery, and secondly, to identify the relative contributions of all fisheriy sectors to the four key selected linefish species caught as bycatch by the fishery. An extensive review and analysis of available secondary data, as well as primary data collected for this study, have estimated, with acknowledged limitations, the magnitude of the exploitation by all known fisheries of these species. Key information from small-scale fisher interviews and community-monitoring data highlight the capture rate of key linefish species by this fishery. This is echoed by recent landings for 2012 indicating the relative contribution of the national beache seine and gillnet fishery to the overall catch of (Elf [Pomatomus saltatrix] - 26.94%; Silver Kob [Argyrosomus inodorus] - 0.88%; White Stumpnose [Rhabdosargus globiceps] - 1.05% - excluding the recreational sector). A significant finding of this study is the substantial levels of cross-sectorial exploitation of Silver Kob and White Stumpnose, and to a somewhat lesser extent Elf and White Steenbras.

PLEASE NOTE: THIS THESIS IS EMBARGOED. Historically, urban agriculture (UA) in the African context has been viewed as a food security and livelihood intervention. However, influenced primarily by discourses in the Global North, the framing of urban agriculture has shifted. Increasingly, advocacy from urban planners has shaped how UA “gets done”. Drawing on contemporary planning concepts, these practitioners have been innovating new forms of urban agriculture that connect UA to the built environment, such as vertical farming, rooftop gardens, and mixed-use urban “agrihoods”. However, scholars from the fields of Southern and African urbanism and critical urban planning, have raised concerns regarding the uncritical application of Northern theories, including those from urban planning, into the African context. Specifically, there is concern around planners’ lack of regard for the inherent characteristics of African cities as they attempt to world them into global cities. Against this background, this dissertation examines the process behind attempts to integrate these new forms of urban agriculture into the African context through a case study of the Lukhanyo Hub project in Khayelitsha, Cape Town, South Africa. Focusing specifically on visions for urban agriculture at the Lukhanyo Hub, this dissertation asks, How do each of the actors articulate the purpose/function of urban agriculture? What is the spatiality of their ideal urban agriculture and why? and What is the role the state, civil society organizations and community in that vision? To answer these questions, participants from the project development team, municipal government, and civil society organisations were engaged in in-depth interviews and participant observation. The results centred around four themes: creating a farmer network, urban agriculture and environmental education/training, economic or distribution model, and creating a contextualised but replicable Hub model. Several challenges and critiques emerged throughout the data collection process, which seemed to stall the development. The author argues that this forced the development team to take a more participatory, co-development approach. This should have positive effects on the future of the project, though further research will be required to say for certain.

Includes abstract. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 86-91). / South Africa is a highly unequal society, comprised of a small, wealthy elite class and a large population living in deep, chronic poverty plagued with unemployment. Those suffering from the greatest poverty are unemployed women caring for children. In the context of a distinct underclass that has been historically marginalized from the labour market and a welfare system does not provide assistance for the unemployed, these women are left to cope with their own poverty. Additionally, the HIV/AIDS epidemic exacerbates existing vulnerabilities and compromises the capabilities of these women and children. Guided by a livelihood framework and based on a multi-dimensional definition of poverty, the study explored how women navigate within their difficult environment to respond to the poverty of their children.