The development of any country is regarded as the function of the availability, organisation and utilization of its resources. Information has come to be widely recognised as a resource as valuable as other resources of matter, energy and human skill. This recognition is evident through the attention given by the countries in the developed areas of the world to the collection, organisation and utilization of information. The result, as one can witness now, is the establishment and maintenance in these countries of advanced library and information services, where sophisticated technology (e.g. computers and other electronic devices) is being applied. Since developing countries like Iraq, with which we are especially concerned, are undergoing a development process and almost all of them have been adopting a planning procedure as an instrument of policy in their own development, the availability, organisation and utilization of information is essential for them. The only way to meet this is by ensuring the availability of efficient infrastructures that perform the functions of collecting, organising and retrieving information on a nationwide basis. Therefore developing countries need to: recognise information as an essential component in the individuals, and society1development, question the deficient and fragmented state of their library and information services, recognise the deficiencies of these services and take the measures necessary for their development. This study demonstrates the value of information in development, reviews the activities concerned with collecting, organising and retrieving information, questions the present state of library and information services in developing countries with special reference to Iraq, highlights their deficiencies and the, factors contributingýto these deficiencies, and provides guidelines for solution. This study was based on an extensive literature survey, personal interviews, visits and on-site observations.

The HIV and AIDS pandemic has resulted in 14 million children being orphaned worldwide. In Lesotho alone, where this study was carried out, there are about 180 000 of these children (UNAIDS, 2007). Teachers, especially in Lesotho‘s primary schools need to be equipped to better deal with the challenges that result from having these children in their classrooms. At the Lesotho College of Education, where I have worked for 12 years as a teacher educator, pre-service and in-service student teachers are not trained to offer care and support to orphans and vulnerable children. They experience problems in the classroom emanating from the needs of these children. This study followed an action research design to find ways to support teachers to better deal with the issues they face as a result of having orphans and vulnerable children in their classes. Using a qualitative approach, educators perceptions, feelings, attitudes and experiences in dealing with orphans and vulnerable children in their schools were identified, and it became apparent that educators were negatively affected on a personal and professional level. It was concluded that the development of resilience in educators would help them to better cope with orphans and vulnerable children in their classes. The chosen intervention Resilient Educators Programme (REds) was implemented and evaluated and findings revealed that it was beneficial in increasing educator resilience. Recommendations, based on the findings of the study, were made for future teacher education in this area.

Abstract The purpose of this research was to develop and test a conceptual framework concerning health care students' views of nursing and factors associated with it. The research process was conducted during 1992-1998 as a practice-based process of theory development, and it included four phases: 1) developing a conceptual framework inductively, 2) developing a measurement tool for testing the conceptual framework, 3) empirical testing of the conceptual framework and 4) analysing the core concept of the conceptual framework. In the first phase of the research, a conceptual framework of health care students' orientation to nursing was developed inductively using the Grounded Theory method. A group of students (n = 35) wrote essays and were interviewed at the beginning of their nursing programme in a polytechnic. In the second phase of the research, an instrument development process was carried out in order to test the conceptual framework. The instrument was tested via a panel evaluation (n = 15) and by using data collected from 184 students of health care. Besides that, 25 students completed the questionnaire twice. The data were used to evaluate the stability of the instrument. In the third phase of the research the hypotheses derived from the conceptual framework and the previous research results were tested by using the data (n = 184) which had been collected with the tool developed earlier. Besides that, the students from the first phase of the research (n = 19) were interviewed. These qualitative data were analysed by deductive content analysis. In the fourth phase of the research, the concept "orientation to nursing" was analysed in order to further elaborate the conceptual framework. Three different types of students' orientations to nursing were found: a caring orientation, a nursing profession orientation and a life orientation. The orientations differed from each other with regard to the prerequisites of orientation, the core of orientation, the meaning of nursing and the goals applied to a nursing career.According to the results of testing the theoretical framework, a majority of the students were highly life-oriented, and two thirds had average nursing expertise and caring orientation scores. The special characteristics of the students' orientation were emphasised during the education: caring-oriented students emphasised their personal development, nursing profession-oriented students the integration of theory and practice and life-oriented students emphasised the integration of studies, work and personal life. The nursing expertise and life orientation scores increased during the education. Caring orientation did not change during the education. On the basis of the research results, a tentative theory of health care students' orientation to nursing is presented and methods for developing the teaching of nursing and learning to nurse are suggested.

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Master of Agribusiness / Department of Agricultural Economics / Allen M. Featherstone / Understanding determinants of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and Agricultural Foreign Direct Investment (AGFDI) is vital to policy makers in developing countries. FDI is a source of capital for the host country that does not affect its debt balance. Even so, technological spillover, better infrastructure as well as an increase in value added and market access have been the source of motivation to increase efforts to attract FDI. As for AGFDI, ongoing uncertainty with the financial markets created a shift in private investment towards tangible assets, which favors AGFDI to developing countries. Nevertheless, investment in agriculture suffers from low commodity prices and increasing productivity loss that discourage FDI and AGFDI. Therefore, it is crucial for policy makers to understand the determinants of AGFDI to create an attractive environment for potential investors. We use country level panel data to estimate the impacts of country-level economic and social variables on FDI and AGFDI. The data consist of 22 developing countries. A subsample of 13 Latin American countries is also studied. Country and year fixed effects are used to isolate the impacts of the explanatory variables on FDI and AGFDI. The explanatory variables wer constructed to avoid contemporaneous endogeneity. FDI determinants are consistent with previous studies and confirm traditional variables such as economy size, infrastructure and trade openness encourage FDI. A new variable that measures energy imports as a share of total energy use was negative for both main samples of FDI. The results of the Latin American panel for AGFDI, were mostly consistent with FDI determinants. Infrastructure, energy imports and economy size, as well as forestland share and agricultural value-add were statistically significant for the amount of investment inflow and total flow respectively. Further analysis with larger samples is necessary to confirm findings. Also, social and environmental impacts of AGFDI should be included in future studies.

Magister Legum - LLM / This paper has critically investigated the nature of risk posed by regulatory authorities in OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-ordination and Development)countries in inhibiting the flourishing growth in the market for the outsourcing of e-commerce services in certain developing countries. In order to illustrate the extent of the benefits contained in the e-commerce outsourcing trade, specific attention was paid to the dramatic trade growth experienced in India, with outsourcing contracts representing a sizeable percentage of the Gross Domestic Product of that country and with all the prospects for continued future growth. / South Africa

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / Eritreans have been subjected to limited and unequal education provision. throughout their hundred years of colonial history. It was expected that in post-independence Eritrea education provision would be equitably provided to all the regions and ethnic groups in the country. The focus of the thesis is on understanding disparities in provision in primary schooling with particular emphasis on ethno-regional disparities and what precipitate these inequalities. This thesis presents an account of the state of primary schooling in Eritrea between 1992 and 2001. / South Africa

Magister Legum - LLM

Magister Legum - LLM / This research is based on the premise that the BRICS group is a movement directed at the rebalancing power and wealth that may put an end to the domination of developed countries in the multilateral trading system. In order to effectively explore the role of BRICS in the further development of the multilateral trading system, this research poses the following questions: 1- What is the legal and institutional framework of the BRICS group and how does this framework relate to the objectives of BRICS group? 2- What is the interaction between the WTO and BRICS countries in the multilateral trading system? 3- What is the position of BRICS countries in the decision making process in the multilateral trading system? This research assesses the rise of the BRICS group, in relation to the participation of developing countries within the WTO. It presents some aspects regarding the challenges and complications that developing countries face in their participation in the multilateral trading system. The research further seeks to explore if this participation allows for more democratic development of the current multilateral trading system.

Mergers and acquisitions form the majority of FDI deals in the developed world, but remain relatively scarce as a mode of entry in the developing world. The purpose of this research was to investigate the macroeconomic profile of developing countries which attract greater M&A activity in the developing world. The extant literature served as a guide in assembling a list of predictor variables as proxies for macroeconomic factors identified as being drivers of M&A as an entry mode of choice. In order to isolate the significant macroeconomic factors influencing M&A as a mode of entry, two statistical analyses were employed, namely cluster analysis and principal component analysis. These methodologies enabled first a meaningful separation of the country data in order to overcome the effects of high variance and clustering identified in exploratory scatterplots and second allowed for the identification of regional and country effects in M&A activity. The study distinguished several variables relating to the market potential, institutional, infrastructural and sectoral structure of an economy as being significant in M&A activity at a regional level. At the country level of M&A attraction the significant findings were more specific. The presence of a democracy proxied by the variable voice and accountability, a decreased dependency on mining resources as a percentage of GDP and the sectoral make-up and level of diversification of a country were found to influence the attraction of M&A’s. The complex and broad nature of this paper has the intention of creating a platform from which several more specific studies on M&A attraction in developing economies may be launched. Copyright / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted