With the advent of democracy in South Africa in 1994, the newly elected ANC government embarked on an ambitious program of land reform. The land reform programme in South Africa rests on 3 pillars: <ul> <li> Land redistribution</li> <li> Land restitution</li> <li> Land tenure reform</li> </ul> Land tenure reform is at the core of this case study and of the 3 pillars, has faced the most challenges during implementation. The renovation of public policy in general, and particularly in land policy, appears in numerous cases to be a priority on national agendas to relieve the numerous challenges rural Africans face: land conflicts, land insecurity, important demographic pressures and weight, high prevalence of poverty in rural areas, to identify just a few of these challenges. By analysing the development process of the Communal Land Rights Act of 2004 (CLaRA), this case study sought to understand the renovation of public land policy in South Africa. Review of literature on land tenure reform yielded a dichotomy of views with one side favouring freehold title for landless communities whilst on the other hand, there are proponents of a hybrid tenure system that recognizes the functioning aspects of traditional communal tenure. Those favouring freehold title pointed to the fact that this would increase investments on the land and access of the landowners to capital through formal financial markets. Those who would not be in a position to work the land would be able to sell it and invest the money elsewhere. Contrastingly, communal tenure was seen to have benefits for the wider community and for holders of secondary land rights such as women and children who could be excluded under freehold tenure arrangements. The notion that cash poor landless people could sell the land also raises political issues which might be politically detrimental to the government of the day. The research was primarily qualitative, interviewing a broad spectrum of stakeholders in the CLaRA development process. Stakeholders included government officials, traditional leadership, communities, legal advisors, land based NGOs, civil society, academia, research institutions, parliamentarians and politicians. The objective of this research was to determine the extent of participation by various stakeholders at the national level in policy development, with CLaRA as a case study. This was done through analyzing the various positions taken by different stakeholders and the extent to which these were included or the extent to which these influenced the content of the final Act. The outcome of the analysis indicates that to a greater extent, participatory processes seemed to have taken place during the development of the CLaRA, including numerous submissions by various groups to parliamentary portfolio committees, but the final content of the Act reflected predominantly the views of government and not other affected stakeholders. This led to the immediate challenge of the legislation in court by some communities and civil society leading to the eventual nullification of the legislation by the constitutional court. Copyright / Dissertation (MSc(Agric))--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Agricultural Economics, Extension and Rural Development / unrestricted

My diploma paper is concerned with problems of consumer's relationship to the communal waste. The aim of my work is to identify which factors influence the consumer's decision making about how to dispose of the communal waste. I focus on both economic and noneconomic incentives like social norms, altruism, motivation or information. Which role does the state play? I follow with legislative problems and different ways of waste disposal in the Czech republic with the comperison with the European Union. I focus more on recycling both the positive and negative view. In the second, practical part of my work I use the questionnaire. The results will be used for analysis of factors which influence the consumer's decision making.

There are challenges to be addressed if South Africa is to reach its full potential in exploiting wind energy resources. One of such challenges is communal land ownership, which is used for the development of wind energy in rural areas. Often, communal lands have no formal land structures, ownership or title deeds to support the individuals and communities that claim possession thereof. This challenge of communal land ownership and the associated risks impact upon investments by independent power producers in wind energy infrastructure. Land in South Africa remains a highly sensitive issue given the historical injustice of land dispossession which became the source of poverty and inequality. Moreover, transitioning to renewable energy sources would add more pressure on land scarcity. Commercial wind energy projects are capital intensive, with high annual turnovers. Achieving financial close is a risk mitigation strategy that confirms that early-stage contractual agreements have been reached in the development stage of a wind project lifecycle. Therefore, risk identification and allocation are fundamental to ensuring that the structuring and contractual obligations of non-recourse project financing are met. Wind energy plants require significant stretches of land, and this is progressing at an industrial scale and often, onshore wind energy projects are located in rural areas, thereby impacting local communities. Land ownership rights are a key element for communities, in which renewable energy development takes place. Households living on communal land, of which the right to use land is vested in individual households, are situated on such lands. This study uses the theory of risk management to investigate pre-financial close risks in developing wind energy associated with communal land ownership rights and the extent to which those risks inhibit wind energy projects from reaching financial close in South Africa. An exploratory research design was applied, while a questionnaire survey was used to collect data from wind developers. The study identified the pre-financial close risks associated with communal land to be technical, legal, economic, social and political risks. Indeed, there is a lack of clear, long-term policy framework to support investments in clean energy infrastructure. This causes significant delays to wind energy project development and it negatively affects financial close. In addition, there are competing interests among multiple stakeholders, leading to the burdensome processes involved in securing leasehold agreements on communal land. As a result, projects which were initially proposed on communal land, have not always reach financial close as planned while others were stopped. The results show that risk mitigation tools could include effective and continuous stakeholder management which is critical to reaching financial close. Furthermore, the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform has not established a streamlined process that developers can follow to secure communal land leasehold rights, given that the process is time-consuming.

This dissertation examines the meaning of the African philosophy of Ubuntu in an emerging multi-racial community within the new context of democracy in South Africa from a narrative research perspective. South Africa has been embedded with notions of tribalism, homelands, segregation, racism, violence which have origins and ethnological prejudices mirrored in colonialism and apartheid. This dissertation is broadly shaped by the following three questions: • Is the concept of Ubuntu applicable in a multiracial community? • South Africa is viewed as an unequal society in terms of socio-economics, racial prejudice and resulting in political instability. How does this inequality affect people's relationships with one another and with the leaders in a diverse community? • How do people living in a multi-racial society in a post-democratic country perceive peace, forgiveness, the ideal of a Rainbow Nation and reconciliation in their communities? To appropriate the meaning of Ubuntu through narrative research in a multiracial community, the researcher embarked on a qualitative research, social constructionism, postmodernism and postfoundationalism in specific reference to the community of Olievenhoutsbosch Township. This is one of the rare urban townships in South Africa where almost all the races, classes, socio-economic statutes, ethnic groupings and foreigners are found. This study proceeded from a narrative research approach to listen to the stories of people living in this township. The aim of the research was to understand how meaning was being constructed with regard to Ubuntu. Ubuntu was frequently mentioned by the co-researchers as the African philosophy embracing 'Batho Pele' (People first), Rainbow Nation, peace, forgiveness and reconciliation in South Africa. The study traces the historical experiences of human settlement from colonialism, apartheid to post-apartheid. The research proceeded to transversal interdisciplinary conversation where academics from the fields of Clinical Psychology, Political Sciences and Education, reflected their voices. The study concludes with findings, reflections and recommendations that Ubuntu is essential for human beings and the lack of Ubuntu results to corruption in South Africa. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2016. / Practical Theology / PhD / Unrestricted

Research shows Mexican Americans typically have better cardiovascular health than European Americans, despite being relatively economically disadvantaged. Given research indicating the importance of relationship quality on one's health, the present study examined whether certain relationship orientations (e.g. communal or exchange) were more prevalent in different ethnic groups and if these orientations could help explain this Hispanic Paradox. 582 adults were recruited from the community. Participants were primarily European American (40%) and foreign-born Mexican Americans (55%). A cross-sectional designed was used where participants wore 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure (ABP) monitors and completed self-report measures of relationship satisfaction and relationship orientation. Results indicated that, contrary to predictions, European Americans tended to have more of a communal relationship orientation compared to foreign-born Mexican Americans. As expected however, communal orientation was predictive of higher relationship satisfaction, β = .29, SE = .07, p < .001, 95% CI [.15, .43], and while higher relationship satisfaction predicted lower systolic blood pressure, R2 = .02, β = -.16, SE = .07, p < .05, 95% CI [-.31, -.01], when ethnicity was added into the model this relationship was eliminated and foreign-born Mexican Americans had higher ABP compared to European Americans, β = 4.72, SE = 2.25, p < .05, 95% CI [.29, 9.14]. While there were these important differences, communal and exchange orientations had minimal direct or indirect effects on ABP. Even though communal and exchange relationship orientation don't seem to give us any more information to unravel the Hispanic Paradox, there are important ethnic differences in how we engage in marriage relationships and future research may consider other approaches to examine the health effects of these differences.

In social systems, the distribution of reproduction among group members is termed reproductive skew. This study was intended to address the issues of reproductive skew within the communally breeding smooth-billed ani employing genetic data to complement behavioural data. The aims of the study were: 1) to develop smooth-billed ani specific DNA markers to be used in the assessment of parentage 2) to determine parentage of buried eggs and surviving offspring to assess whether a reproductive skew pattern is seen 3) to comment on adult relatedness within smooth-billed ani groups. Smooth-billed ani microsatellite DNA sequences were isolated and characterized for use in a parentage/kinship analysis. Lambda Zap Express was used to construct a library of recombinant phage which was screened with TG and AAT probes. Five loci were characterized with between 4 and 9 alleles with heterozygosity values ranging from 0.538 to 0.840. The combined total exclusionary power of the five loci was 0.8869. Offspring loss due to egg destruction in the form of burial has been observed in smooth-billed anis. The issue of reproductive skew as a result of egg burial was addressed by estimating parentage of offspring both buried and remaining in the incubated clutch using 5 species specific microsatellite DNA markers. Evidence for an egalitarian system exhibiting very low skew was found. The significant factors affecting the potential for bias were laying order, laying timing and the number of breeding females. The relatedness of members within a social group may affect the amount of reproductive skew observed. Adults within nesting groups were tested for evidence of relatedness using the pedigree analysis program KINSHIP. Ten percent of dyads showed significant relationships. Low incidence of relatedness provided evidence that smooth-billed ani groups do not contain a large number ofyoung remaining at the natal nest nor was there evidence that regular dispersing within sibling units occurs. There was some evidence that a young male remained on his natal territory while a young female dispersed to a neighbouring territory. Low relatedness between adults and very low reproductive skew were consistent with the prediction of an egalitarian system / Thesis / Master of Science (MS)

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