This study explores issues of sustainability, viability and stability in the projects funded by the Department of Social Development, situated in the Nelson Mandela Bay. The researcher makes use of a combination of qualitative and quantitative research designs to gather data. The sample consisted of about three members from each of the four projects selected, as well as two officials of the Department of Social Development in the Nelson Mandela Bay. The respondents participated in structured and semi-structured interviews exploring their demographic information, information about the project and how it is managed, views and opinions about differences between a business venture and a project, their understanding of what constitutes a sustainable, viable and stable income-generating project as well as their opinions about what would contribute to ensuring sustainability, viability and stability in these projects. The results of the study reveal that it is important to structure and run the income generating projects using business principles which include vigorous marketing and proper costing. There is also a need to train the participants in business management so that they can run the ventures successfully. It has also become apparent that a clear leader or manager is lacking and thus decision making process is too long, meaning a meeting must take place involving all project members before a decision that affects the operations can be made. Almost all key factors contributing to a sustainable and viable income generating project, as defined by Mango (2004) and Madi (2007) were also found to be lacking in these projects.

A vibrant and an efficient agricultural sector would enable a country to feed its growing population, generate employment, earn foreign exchange and provide raw materials for industries. The agricultural sector has a multiplier effect on any nation's socio-economic and industrial fabric because of the multifunctional nature of agriculture. The main objective of this study was to investigate how government expenditure on agriculture has affected economic growth in Zimbabwe from 1980-2009. The Log linear growth regression model was employed where gross domestic gross was the dependant variable and the explanatory variables are the factors which affect it which include government agricultural expenditure. The expenditures of government on agriculture were divided into three functions namely extension, credit assistance and R & D. The regression analyses were performed using Econometric-views 7 (E-views 7) statistical package. Regression was carried out on time series data for the period 1980 to 2009. The data was tested for stationarity and for autocorrelation. Problems of non stationarity of data were corrected by integrating the trending series. Results from the empirical analysis provide strong evidence indicating that agriculture is an engine of economic growth. The results from this study suggest that spending more on agricultural research and development can improve economic growth and ultimately reduce poverty. However, it can also be concluded that insufficient government agricultural expenditure on extension and credit assistance adversely affected economic growth in Zimbabwe, based on the results of the study. Global experience with pro-poor growth and empirical work spanning India, Benin and Malawi demonstrates the importance of agricultural expenditure for poverty reduction in poor rural areas, while also pointing to the need for complementary non farm sector growth. This study also proposes a simple methodology to estimate the agricultural spending that will be required to achieve the Millennium Development Goal of halving poverty by 2015 (MDG1) in Zimbabwe. This method uses growth poverty and growth expenditure elasticities to estimate the financial resources required to meet the MDG1. The study attempts to address a key knowledge gap by improving estimation of first MDG agricultural expenditure at country level.

One of the factors that contribute towards slow rural development is the presence of the digital divide. An area where the digital divide is still prevalent is the administration of justice within traditional contexts. One of the areas affected by this problem is the Dwesa rural community, situated on the Wild Coast of the former homeland of Transkei, in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. To address this problem for the Dwesa community, a research project on developing and implementing an e-Judiciary service was undertaken. The primary objective of this project was to develop a web application to support traditional justice administration in the Dwesa community. Due to the lack of a proper legal environment in this community, the e-Judiciary service acts as a portal for safe-keeping of judicial information. Such a system also serves as a platform for the administration of minor offences that are solved by the traditional courts. Furthermore, it provides a better working environment for traditional judicial leaders and eliminates the difficulty of accessing legal information by the rest of the community. Through the availability and use of the service, community members are provided with understanding and knowledge about judiciary operations and services in their community.

This study focused on community participation in relation to policy formulation in Lesotho. It paid particular attention to whether the Lesotho community participated in the formulation of the Lesotho Land Bill 2009. Literature related to the concept of participatory development, community participation and policy formulation was reviewed. From the literature, it was clear that the attainment of effective community participation in policy formulation is not something that can take place overnight and this makes community participation a crucial aspect of any development project. The study used the qualitative approach to provide more information and detailed examination of community participation in the formulation of the Lesotho Land Bill 2009. This approach adopted the case study design. The data was collected using focus groups, interview schedule and document analysis. The study found that the government did not consult widely on the Bill before it was enacted into an Act of parliament. Therefore, it recommends that the government of Lesotho should involve all relevant stakeholders to participate in policy formulation. This will help to establish a link between the government and civil society stakeholders at local levels, for participatory policy-making to be effective.

This study investigates the impact of ICTs for agricultural development in the Alice rural community. The rationale for carrying out the study has to do with the limited access to ICTs by farmers residing in this rural community which in turn affects their productivity and increase in the volume of agricultural production. The core argument of the study is that the use of ICTs has positive spinoffs on agricultural development which leads to improvement in the quality and quantity of agricultural production. Conversely lack of access to ICTs can result in inability to enhance agricultural productivity in rural areas such as Alice. Furthermore, it is argued herein that technological information devices such as ICTs are essential communication and information tools; and as such, should be regarded as useful communication media for disseminating relevant agricultural information to farmers residing in rural communities. In conducting this study theoretical frameworks such as Rogers’ diffusion of innovation and development theories encompassing both the participatory approach and development support communication were presented and argued for as approaches suitable for the study. Triangulations of research methods, such as, qualitative and quantitative methods, were utilized for the collection of data for this study. As is common practice, the triangulation method was used in cross checking and supplementing data/information collected through the utilization of each of the methods. Interviews and questionnaires were used as data collection tools for this study owing to their ability to generate clear and precise responses or answers to the questions posed. The key findings of the study show that the limited access to ICTs in the Alice rural community was caused by factors such as low level of literacy, age and language barriers which in turn affected the adoption of ICTs amongst the Alice farmers. Amongst the recommendations emanating from this study is the idea that the adoption of ICTs for agricultural information can be fast-tracked through the implementation of telecentres/kiosk and information centers for easy access to information and communication services in the rural community.

The introduction of Web Services as a platform upon which applications can communicate has contributed a great deal towards the expansion of World Wide Web technologies. The Internet and computing technologies have been some of the factors that have contributed to the socio-economic improvement of urban and industrial areas. This research focuses on the application of Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) and Web Services technologies in Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D) contexts. SOA is a style used to design distributed systems, and Web Services are some of the common realizations of the SOA. Web Services allow the exchange of data between two or more machines in a simple and standardized manner over the network. This has resulted in the augmentation of ways in which individuals in a society and in the world communicate. This research aims to develop a SOA-based system with services that are implemented as Web Services. The system is intended to support communication activities of Dwesa community members. The communication methods identified as the most commonly used in the Dwesa community are Short Message Services (SMSs) and voice calls. In this research we have identified further methods (i.e. Multimedia Message Service, Electronic mail and Instant Messaging) to augment communication activities in Dwesa. The developed system, therefore, exposes SMS Web Service, MMS Web Service, Email Web Service and IM Web Service that are consumed in machine-to-machine, machine-to-person and person-to-person types of communication. We have also implemented a one-stop communication shop, through a web portal which provides interfaces to the different communication modules. Elaborate functional and usability testing have also been undertaken to establish the viability and end-user acceptance of the system respectively. This research has provided the initial validation of the effectiveness of the SOA-based system in ICT4D contexts

No description available.

The introduction of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) for rural development in rural marginalized societies is vastly growing. However, the success of developing and deploying ICT related services is still in question as influential factors such as adaptability, scalability, sustainability, and usability have great effect on the rate of growth of ICTs in rural environments. The problem is that these ICT services should be maintained and sustained by the targeted communities. The main cause for rural marginalization is the fact that some communities situated in rural settings are educationally challenged and computer illiterate or semiliterate in comparison with urban communities. An ICT for development (ICT4D) intervention in the form of an e-Commerce platform that targets the social and economic growth of rural marginalized communities has been developed and field tested at Dwesa, a rural community located on the Wild Coast of the former homeland of Transkei in the Eastern Cape Province. The e-Commerce platform is known as “buy at Dwesa” and can be visited at this URL, http://www.dwesa.com. The aim of the e-Commerce platform is to motivate small entrepreneurs in rural areas to market their products and themselves to the global market as they lack the skills and resources for marketing their art and crafts. Virtual stores are created for a small group of entrepreneurs who will maintain and sustain the stores on their own. These entrepreneurs are often elderly women with limited education and little to no computer literacy - meaning that sustaining the stores may prove difficult for them. In this research we discuss the re-design and re-development of the virtual shop-owner interfaces of the e-Commerce platform to make them more culturally and linguistically localized. The virtual shops allow shop-owners to upload their artifacts to advertise and sell on the customer’s end of the e-Commerce platform. For multilingual and multicultural communities, adoption of the software interfaces to the user’s cultural and linguistic needs and modes of expression is important as failure to do so may reduce the level of benefits of e-Commerce initiatives.

This research investigates the characteristics of natural resource mega-project planning processes. The implications of staple theory and selected characteristics of natural resource mega-projects are used to construct eleven characteristics of such planning processes. Staple theory suggests that optimistic expectations will be a fundamental characteristic of resource development planning in Canada, and that the state's role will be to facilitate, rather than evaluate, staple production. The size, complexity, visibility, and meaning of mega-projects may create momentum around them that weakens rational analysis and stampedes the planning process. Overall, the planning process may focus on narrow, technical issues concerned with constraints facing the mega-project. Alternatives may not be considered, overly optimistic expectations may not be checked, and risk and uncertainty may be inadequately addressed. These proposed planning process characteristics are investigated in a case study of British Columbia's North East Coal Project (NECP). The institutional structure of the planning and implementing organizations are investigated, and the major planning issues are identified. The expectations generated within the planning process regarding the mega-project's contribution to regional economic growth and development, and its economic viability are reviewed, and then evaluated by comparing them to information available at the time from sources within the planning process and from sources outside the planning process, and to actual outcomes. The case study findings support many of the eleven proposed characteristics of natural resource mega-project planning processes. The NECP's public planning process focused on identifying and overcoming constraints that would prevent the mega-project proceeding, and on minimizing the costs of the public sector's infrastructure responsibilities in the mega-project. The terms of reference for the various Sub-Committees requested analyses of constraints in most cases. The absence of a Regional Development Sub-Committee in the organization of the planning task force suggests that longer term planning issues were not perceived to be as important as the infrastructure issues. Sixty percent of the official public planning budget was allocated to transportation and townsite studies. The mandate, structure and operations of the government's implementing organization focused on controlling project costs. Finally, the benefit-cost analysis of the mega-project did not consider any alternatives to the NECP. The expectations regarding the NECP's contribution to regional economic growth and development were overly optimistic given the information available at the time, and far exceed the actual outcomes to date. The NECP stabilized the South Peace region during the recession of the early 1980s, and produced some growth in employment, population, and income levels. Also, education levels increased and some entrepreneurial development occurred. However, the mega-project did not alleviate the unemployment situation in the region, did not improve the distribution of income, and it did not diversify the regional economic structure. Despite the early planning emphasis given to the opportunities that the NECP could provide to members of regional target groups such as Natives and women, few individuals from these groups obtained mining employment. In 1986, most of the direct economic benefits associated with the NECP, such as the new employment opportunities, high incomes, and training opportunities, had been captured by in-migrants to the region. The expectations regarding the NECP's economic viability were also overly optimistic given information available at the time. The possibility of capital cost overruns were not considered despite ample indication that they were highly probable. Continuing high prices were assumed despite historical evidence that periods of high prices had been consistently followed by sustained periods of low prices, and expert advice that structural forces would contribute to a continual decline in the Japanese demand for metallurgical coal. The pre-project analysis projected that the NECP's net present value would be $464 million (1980$C), but the ex post analysis suggests that the NECP will generate $955 million (1980$C) in net economic losses for the Canadian economy. The overly optimistic expectations regarding the NECP's economic viability were formed early in the planning process and were based on a period of enormous increases in metallurgical coal prices. As market conditions changed, the group within the planning task force responsible for the NECP's economic evaluation lowered their expectations, but their concerns were apparently insufficient to counter the momentum that had been established around the NECP. This momentum was reinforced by the meaning attached to the NECP, which was portrayed as a fundamental component of BC's economic development strategy. Risk and uncertainty were inadequately addressed within the planning process and within the technical analyses of this mega-project's regional economic impacts and economic viability. No sensitivity analyses were completed in the analysis of the NECP's regional economic impacts. The sensitivity analyses in the pre-project benefit-cost analysis all considered positive adjustments to the base case scenario, save one. Problems of geological uncertainty, and the lack of experience of the project proponents in coal mining were ignored. Mega-project planning processes must be carefully designed to counter the characteristics suggested by this research. At a minimum, a full public review of the mega-project should be conducted before the decision to proceed is taken. Consideration should be given to developing a formal, required mega-project planning process based on the two-tiered structure. The first tier would include a policy assessment addressing broad questions such as alternative regional development strategies. If the outcome of the first tier was a decision to proceed with a mega-project, the second tier would address mega-project planning and regulatory issues such as infrastructure options and impact management strategies. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Community and Regional Planning (SCARP), School of / Graduate

Dissertation submitted in full compliance with the requirements for the Master’s Degree in Technology: Business Administration, Durban University of Technology, Durban, South Africa, 2012 / The dissertation focuses on the implementation of strategies and programmes that are aimed at boosting local economic development at Sobonakhona Makhanya Traditional Area by the EThekwini Municipality. Sobonakhona Makhanya Traditional Area is one of the three main traditional/rural areas making up the Greater Umbumbulu Area, which is situated some 20 kilometres south-west of the Durban Central District. Each of these traditional/rural areas is ruled by its own Traditional Leader. The Sobonakhona Area is made up of areas that can be described as deep rural and peri-urban. For the purpose of this study a municipality and a local government are treated as the same entity. The implementation of these strategies in the deep rural Sobonakhona Area has, however, so far proven to be more challenging than it was initially conceived. This can be partly attributed to the following factors, firstly; before 1994, all matters related to rural economic development initiatives in South Africa fell under the jurisdiction of either the provincial governments or national line ministries or homeland governments – not municipalities. Secondly, between 1994 and 2002, all strategies/programmes that were aimed at boosting economic development were, through the national government’s previous SMME strategy, carried out at national level by the Department of Trade and Industry and its affiliated agencies. Thirdly, the 2000 demarcation of municipal boundaries saw a number of rural areas being incorporated under some municipalities that had jurisdiction over urban areas only, and this created an additional service delivery challenge for these municipalities. Whilst these municipalities were still baffled by how to accommodate/incorporate the rural areas under their programmes, the national government, in 2002, introduced a new SMME strategy (replacing the previous SMME strategy) that required municipalities to effect economic development at local government level. This also presented its own challenge as very few of these municipalities had experience and/or knowledge in the formulation and implementation of local economic development programmes/strategies. This dissertation therefore seeks to uncover the challenges that the EThekwini Municipality faces as it attempts to implement its economic development strategies and programmes for its rural areas in particular, with Sobonakhona Area being the area of focus. The EThekwini Municipality is one of those municipalities that previously had no rural areas under its control. Chapter One of the dissertation introduces the topic of the study together with the relevant background to the study. Chapter Two discusses the research methodology used in an attempt to unravel the study’s research problem. Chapter Three discusses literature review on implementation of strategies and programmes aimed at boosting economic development in rural areas. Chapter Four outlines both the KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Government and the EThekwini Municipality’s strategies and programmes that are thought would promote economic development in the province and in the EThekwini region respectively. Results uncovered by this study are discussed in Chapter Five. Chapter Six concludes the study by presenting recommendations on how to improve implementation efforts. / M