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  • About
  • The Global ETD Search service is a free service for researchers to find electronic theses and dissertations. This service is provided by the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations.
    Our metadata is collected from universities around the world. If you manage a university/consortium/country archive and want to be added, details can be found on the NDLTD website.
591

The New Beginnings community development project :social capacity as prerequisite for sustainability

Loots, Cedric 04 1900 (has links)
Thesis (MPhil)--University of Stellenbosch, 2005. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The South African wine industry has a history of super-exploitation. Wine farm labour practices such as paternalism, tied housing, tied employment and the tot system have maintained farm worker communities in a trapped and dependent position. Within these trapped farm worker communities social pathologies such as alcohol abuse, a highly unstable family life, illegitimacy and illiteracy are common. On an individual level, members of these communities are predominantly low in selfconfidence, self-esteem, self-reliance etc. On a communal level, domestic violence, child battering, drunken brawls, knife stabbings etc. are common in farm worker communities. In response to these conditions in wine farm worker communities, a number of initiatives have been launched within the South African wine industry. This research study focuses on one of these initiatives, called the New Beginnings project. As one of the first projects of its kind, it succeeded in releasing a farm worker community from its trapped and dependent position. This was the outcome since the project succeeded as a community development process. The community development process is essentially about building or increasing social capacity. The building of social capacity refers to a process whereby both agency and solidarity are increased within a community. Agency or capacity building has to do with the building of values, attitudes, knowledge, skills and personal qualities, e.g. self-esteem and self-reliance, of individual community members, while solidarity has to do with the building of cohesion, trustful relationships and connectivity among various community members. The New Beginnings project illustrates that community development practice that abide by guiding principles that aim to achieve both agency and solidarity building within a community, would eventually result in the sustainability of the project. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die Suid-Afrikaanse wynbedryf het ‘n geskiedenis van super-eksploitasie. Arbeidspraktyke soos paternalisme, gebonde behuising, gebonde indiensneming asook die dopstelsel het verseker dat plaaswerker-gemeenskappe in ‘n gevange en afhanklike posisie gehou word. Die gevolg is dat sosiale euwels soos alkoholmisbruik, ‘n hoogs onstabiele gesinslewe, onwettigheid asook ongeletterdheid algemeen voorkom in hierdie gevange plaaswerker-gemeenskappe. Op ‘n indiwiduele vlak, het die oorgrote meerderheid lede van hierdie gemeenskappe min selfvertroue en selfwaarde. Op ‘n gemeenskaplike vlak, kom gesinsgeweld, kindermishandeling, dronkmansbakleiery en messtekery algemeen voor in plaaswerker-gemeenskappe. As teenvoeter vir die bogenoemde toestande in plaaswerker-gemeenskappe, is verskeie inisiatiewe aan die gang gesit in die Suid-Afrikaanse wynbedryf. Hierdie navorsingstudie fokus op een van hierdie inisiatiewe, genaamd die ‘New Beginnings’ projek. As een van die eerste projekte van sy soort, het hierdie projek daarin geslaag om ‘n plaaswerker-gemeenskap vanuit sy gevange en afhanklike posisie te bevry. Die resultaat van die projek was juis moontlik omdat die projek as ‘n gemeenskapsontwikkelings- proses geslaag het. Die gemeenskaps-ontwikkelings-proses gaan hoofsaaklik oor die bou of vermeerdering van sosiale kapasiteit. Die bou van sosiale kapasiteit verwys na ‘n proses waartydens beide agentskap en solidariteit binne ‘n gemeenskap vermeerder word. Agentskap of kapasiteitsbou het te make met die skep van waardes, houdings, kennis, vaardighede asook persoonlike eienskappe, bv. selfwaarde en selfstandigheid, van indiwiduele gemeenskapslede, terwyl solidariteit te doen het met die bou of skep van samehorigheid, betroubare verhoudings en ‘n eenheidsgevoel tussen verskeie gemeenskapslede. Die ‘New Beginnings’ projek wys dat gemeenskapsontwikkelings- praktyk wat hou by die riglyne om beide agentskap en solidariteit binne ‘n gemeenskap te bou, uiteindelik tot die volhoubaarheid van die projek aanleiding sal gee.
592

Evaluating community participation in development projects

Dube, Nobayethi 03 1900 (has links)
Thesis (MPhil (Sociology and Social Anthropology))--University of Stellenbosch, 2009. / Community participation is a concept that is frequently mentioned in community development. Practitioners in development believe that in order for projects to succeed, communities need to actively take part in designing, implementing and shaping the projects that affect them. The aim of this thesis is to evaluate community participation by measuring quantitative and qualitative indicators of participation. It is important to note that there are no universal indicators of participation. The thesis presents three projects as case studies. In order to measure participation in the three cases, the quantitative and qualitative indicators of participation of Oakley et al. are reviewed. The indicators are applied across all three cases and the analysis indicates whether they were high, low or absent. It is also important to note that to measure participation effectively requires one to spend lengthy periods at the project site and this proved to be a challenge, as will be shown in the thesis. The thesis also demonstrates that to a large extent community participation is contextual. Of the three projects, two were rural projects and one an urban project. The two rural projects, Mongoaneng Development Forum and TsweloPele Women‟s Co-operative, were initiated by members of the community and aimed at addressing issues of poverty. The urban project, Motherwell Youth Development Forum, was specifically targeting young people with the aim of providing them with skills. Key findings include the fact that each of the cases was highly diverse, and furthermore, when measuring these cases, a common thread was that not all participation indicators were present at any given stage. Another key finding is that co-operation amongst project members tends to yield positive results and the reverse yields negative results. Another finding relates to the sustainability of the projects, pointing to the fact that even though two of the cases were doing well, their sustainability was questionable.
593

Evaluation of financial performance of Development Bank of Namibia (2003 - 2007)

Sheehama, Gerhardt K. H. 03 1900 (has links)
Thesis (MDF (Development Finance))--University of Stellenbosch, 2009. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The main aim of this study, firstly, is to evaluate the financial performance of the Development Bank of Namibia (DBN) over the period of 2003 to 2007. Secondly, the study aims to compare financial performance of the Development Bank of Namibia with the Development Bank of Southern Africa during the same period. In recent years, there has been a number of criticisms raised against the Development Bank of Namibia. These have been noted by the political appointment of the top management in the bank who has no experience in monitoring of the funds and development projects (World Bank, 2003). In addition, the bank has been criticized for poor performance, in terms of very low returns due to poor procurement performance and weak performance of project management units (African Development Bank, 2005). The bank has also been seen undermining people's human rights through funded projects which were only given to those people who are politically connected or comrades (The Namibian, 2002). Two financial statements of the Development Bank of Namibia, namely the Income Statement and Balance Sheet of the period of 2003 to 2007, are used to evaluate the financial performance of the bank. Trend analysis, monitoring and evaluation reports, financial ratios and statistical tools are employed to conduct this study. Trend analysis, financial ratios and statistical tools indicated that there was no evidence to infer that the Development Bank of Namibia did perform poorly during 2003 to 2007. However, monitoring and evaluation reports indicated that there was inefficiency in terms of bank operations.
594

Understanding the Problems in Volume Production and their Connections to Management of New Product Introduction Projects : A Case Study of the Project Management Factors and the Appurtenant Production Effects from Ramp-Up of New Product in Production for Contract Electronics Manufacturing

Frost, Niclas January 2016 (has links)
The ongoing globalization of companies has resulted in a highly competitive business climate where companies have to be cost-effective but still flexible with fast response to customer feedback and present in the international scene. In order to meet the fast paced technological development from the competition and changing demand of the customers, companies focus on creating new products and reducing their time-to-market with an early product launch to gain profits from increased market shares. However, in order to maintain profitability of the new product, it becomes even more important for the company to quickly deploy a full-scale production of the product, also known as the production ramp-up phase. Despite being known as a major cost driver in new product development projects, production ramp-up is a research area which have yet received sparse attention compared to research on product launch and time-to-market in new product development projects. However, with shorter product life-cycles and higher market competition it has resulted in a need to shorten the length of a new product’s ramp-up time without making any trade-off to the cost-effectiveness of the ramp-up project and the end product’s final quality. The study identifies the common problems in volume production of a contract electronics manufacturer and their sources of disturbances from the new product introduction process. It also identifies the factors influencing the new product introduction process at the company and how these factors are connected different sources of disturbances. To identify these findings, a single case study was designed and performed at Orbit One AB, a contract electronics manufacturer with a low-volume production of products. The data collection course was executed in an iterative manner over a period of four months through interviews, observation and internal documentation and was backed up and analyzed with a literature study. The data collection through interviews was carried out in two separate rounds, where the first round of interviews was focused on identifying the common problems in volume production and the second round was focused on the factors influencing the output from the new product introduction process. The discoveries from the interviews were analyzed together with the other sources of collected data to reach a conclusive analysis. The results of the study showed that the most common problems in volume production of the company could be traced to six different sources of disturbances: Product, Production System, Design-Production Interface, Quality, Resource Management, and Personnel. The most common problems could also be summarized as: Problems with manufacturability of product; High variation of process performance, Poor correctness of information, Quality issues with products, and High workload on resources. The factors identified in the findings of the study shows that there are multiple and connected factors which affects the final output of the new product introduction process which corroborates with earlier studies and research in the area of production ramp-up. The study did identify two factors which has not been identified by other ramp-up studies, these were: Lack of organizational project culture and customer flexibility.
595

Rapport à la nature et stratégies intégrées de conservation et développement : le cas de São Tomé et Principe

Boya Busquet, Mireia Aran 10 1900 (has links)
Depuis les années 90, les Projets Intégrés de Conservation et Développement ont été présentés comme des modèles fonctionnels de développement durable pour un site spécifique dans une perspective de réalisation. Le but est d’intégrer les objectifs biologiques de la conservation aux objectifs sociaux et économiques du développement. Ces projets, qui répondent à de multiples dénominations et stratégies, sont implantés dans des contextes naturellement hétérogènes et dynamiques, où l’aménagement du territoire ne doit pas être un outil de planification étatique, désigné et imposé dans une logique conservationniste. Les aires protégées représentent une certaine vision du rapport entre l’être humain et la nature, apparue dans le contexte nord-américain avec la création des premiers grands parcs nationaux en 1870. Aujourd'hui, la forte volonté d'impliquer la population se heurte avec la difficulté de concilier la gestion de ces espaces avec les pratiques, les nécessités et les intérêts locaux. Le parc naturel Obô, qui occupe 30% du territoire de São Tomé et Principe, doit affronter la difficile intégration entre les représentations de la nature et les usages locaux avec les objectifs globaux des politiques conservationnistes, ainsi qu’avec les intérêts touristiques et économiques des investisseurs locaux et étrangers. Les représentations sociales de la nature, établissant une forme de connaissance pratique, déterminent la vision du monde et la relation qu'un certain groupe social peut avoir avec le territoire. Ainsi, chaque communauté possède ses propres mécanismes d'adaptation au milieu basés sur ce système représentationnel. Dans le cas des communautés sãotoméennes, la nature présente un caractère spirituel (associé à des croyances, des rites et des pratiques médicales traditionnelles) et utilitaire (la nature, à travers l'agriculture, la récolte ou la chasse, répond au besoin de subsistance). L’objectif de ce projet de thèse est donc de mieux comprendre la synergie existante entre savoir endogène et gestion de la biodiversité pour adapter l’aménagement du territoire à la réalité des populations qui y vivent. / Since the beginning of the 1990s, Integrated Conservation and Development Projects have offered a functional model of sustainable development for specific sites within the perspective of particular projects. Their goal has been to integrate biological aspects of conservation to the social and economic aspects of development. Protected areas represent a particular vision of the relationship between man and nature, appeared in the American context with the creation of the first national parks. Currently, the wish to involve the population in the creation of protected areas faces the challenge of reconciling the management of these spaces with the local practices, needs and interests. Obô Natural Park, which occupies 30% of the territory of Sao Tome and Principe, follows the difficult process of integrating both local uses and representations of nature to the global objectives of conservationist policies while considering the touristic and economic interests of local and foreign investors. Social representations of nature, understood as a form of practical knowledge, determine the vision of the world and the relationship that a particular social group may have with its territory. Thus, based on this system, each community has its own mechanisms of environmental adaptation. In the case of the Saotomean communities, nature presents a strong spiritual (associated with beliefs, rituals and traditional medical practices) and utilitarian character (nature provides, through farming, collecting or hunting, all you need to live). The aim of this thesis is to understand the synergies between endogenous knowledge and management of biodiversity to adapt the land management process to the reality of the people who live in the particular territory of Sao Tome and Principe.
596

鳥籠高樓─由土地整合角度論臺北市住宅開發型態之變化 / Building High-rises on Small Plots: Housing Development Analysis From the View of Land Assembly in the Taipei City

吳佳儒, Wu, Chia Ru Unknown Date (has links)
在我國土地開發市場中,開發者應偏好整合坵塊、以大面積土地進行開發,惟相關報導指出臺北市近年以狹小基地開發之鳥籠建案有所增加,遂形成實際與預期不符的矛盾情況。本文從土地供給角度出發,認為除了地價昂貴之外,土地整合成本亦對開發基地規模有決定性的影響,且由於容積獎勵制度的施行,當開發者取得大小足以開發的土地後,可能不再進行土地整合、而改以資本替代之。 為驗證上述推測,本研究以民國83至102年第三種住宅區新建住宅之使用執照存根為基礎,建立開發個案之資料庫;並利用集群分析方法,對開發個案之土地、資本配置型態進行歸納。經過統計,歷年均有近40%的新建住宅屬於基地狹小之鳥籠建案,且集群分析實證結果指出在空間上,市中心至郊區的住宅開發型態呈現單獨小規模開發至整合大規模開發的遞移變化,代表土地整合的難題已長期存在於臺北市住宅開發市場中,其中又以土地較零碎的市中心更為明顯。 此外,本文另以基地面積、公告現值與政策虛擬變數對實際容積率進行線性迴歸,結果顯示整併土地確實有提升容積總樓地板面積的規模經濟效果,但效果卻不如政策性容積獎勵來得明顯;且經過模擬亦得知若欲達到同樣的樓地板面積增量,申請政策性獎勵所需的成本將遠低於進行土地整合。是以在取得合理規模之基地後,土地整合已非必要,再加上多樣化卻缺乏總量管制的容積獎勵,開發者將傾向透過政策性手段來達到擴大資本開發規模之目的,遂造成住宅開發型態呈現空間垂直的成長。 / In Taiwan, land developers are expected to prefer assembling small plots into a large lot for development. However, it is widely reported recently that development projects of building on a small plot have been increasing in Taipei. This phenomenon is inconsistent with the above expectation. From the perspective of land supply, this study argues that apart from land prices, costs of land assembly also have a decisive influence on the lot size for land developments. Also, because of the bulk reward regulations, developers might be less willing to conduct land assembly. Instead, they choose capital intensive means which presented as building high-rise housings once they obtain a site. To verify the argument, this study establishes a database of housing projects based on the residential usage licenses from 1994 to 2013, and observes allocation patterns of land and capital by using cluster analysis. Statistically, there are about 40% of housing projects that were built on plots smaller than 330 m2 every year. The empirical result of cluster analysis shows that housing development patterns change from downtown to suburbs. In downtown area, most developers build houses on a small single plot. However, they assemble plots to get a bigger site in the suburbs. It means that housing development market of Taipei has been entangled by land assembly problems for a long time. This issue explicitly exists in downtown area where lands are much more fragmented. In addition, this study uses site area, current land value and a policy dummy as independent variables and building density as dependent variable to conduct a linear regression. The result shows that, although land assembly increases the floor area, its effect is not as large as that of policy incentives. Based on this result, the comparison analysis of land assembly and policy incentives also points out that the application of bulk reward costs less than land assembly, while they can enjoy the same floor area. Therefore, it is believed that developers tend to choose increasing housing scale by applying bonuses instead of assembling lands. This trend makes the housing development forms vertically expand consequently.
597

Rapport à la nature et stratégies intégrées de conservation et développement : le cas de São Tomé et Principe

Boya Busquet, Mireia Aran 10 1900 (has links)
Depuis les années 90, les Projets Intégrés de Conservation et Développement ont été présentés comme des modèles fonctionnels de développement durable pour un site spécifique dans une perspective de réalisation. Le but est d’intégrer les objectifs biologiques de la conservation aux objectifs sociaux et économiques du développement. Ces projets, qui répondent à de multiples dénominations et stratégies, sont implantés dans des contextes naturellement hétérogènes et dynamiques, où l’aménagement du territoire ne doit pas être un outil de planification étatique, désigné et imposé dans une logique conservationniste. Les aires protégées représentent une certaine vision du rapport entre l’être humain et la nature, apparue dans le contexte nord-américain avec la création des premiers grands parcs nationaux en 1870. Aujourd'hui, la forte volonté d'impliquer la population se heurte avec la difficulté de concilier la gestion de ces espaces avec les pratiques, les nécessités et les intérêts locaux. Le parc naturel Obô, qui occupe 30% du territoire de São Tomé et Principe, doit affronter la difficile intégration entre les représentations de la nature et les usages locaux avec les objectifs globaux des politiques conservationnistes, ainsi qu’avec les intérêts touristiques et économiques des investisseurs locaux et étrangers. Les représentations sociales de la nature, établissant une forme de connaissance pratique, déterminent la vision du monde et la relation qu'un certain groupe social peut avoir avec le territoire. Ainsi, chaque communauté possède ses propres mécanismes d'adaptation au milieu basés sur ce système représentationnel. Dans le cas des communautés sãotoméennes, la nature présente un caractère spirituel (associé à des croyances, des rites et des pratiques médicales traditionnelles) et utilitaire (la nature, à travers l'agriculture, la récolte ou la chasse, répond au besoin de subsistance). L’objectif de ce projet de thèse est donc de mieux comprendre la synergie existante entre savoir endogène et gestion de la biodiversité pour adapter l’aménagement du territoire à la réalité des populations qui y vivent. / Since the beginning of the 1990s, Integrated Conservation and Development Projects have offered a functional model of sustainable development for specific sites within the perspective of particular projects. Their goal has been to integrate biological aspects of conservation to the social and economic aspects of development. Protected areas represent a particular vision of the relationship between man and nature, appeared in the American context with the creation of the first national parks. Currently, the wish to involve the population in the creation of protected areas faces the challenge of reconciling the management of these spaces with the local practices, needs and interests. Obô Natural Park, which occupies 30% of the territory of Sao Tome and Principe, follows the difficult process of integrating both local uses and representations of nature to the global objectives of conservationist policies while considering the touristic and economic interests of local and foreign investors. Social representations of nature, understood as a form of practical knowledge, determine the vision of the world and the relationship that a particular social group may have with its territory. Thus, based on this system, each community has its own mechanisms of environmental adaptation. In the case of the Saotomean communities, nature presents a strong spiritual (associated with beliefs, rituals and traditional medical practices) and utilitarian character (nature provides, through farming, collecting or hunting, all you need to live). The aim of this thesis is to understand the synergies between endogenous knowledge and management of biodiversity to adapt the land management process to the reality of the people who live in the particular territory of Sao Tome and Principe.
598

Performance of income generating-projects supported by Botswana National Literacy Programme.

Motiki, Antoinette Tsheboeng. January 2006 (has links)
The Botswana National Literacy Programme (BNLP) was officially launched in 1981 as a major adult literacy initiative. Literacy was in this case defined as reading, writing and calculating. However, experience over the years of implementation showed that provision of the 3Rs is not enough but literacy needs to be made functional in order to be useful to the learners in their daily lives. Income generating projects were therefore introduced to the National literacy programme as a way of making literacy functional. It has been realized however that the BNLP supported income generating projects are failing or not doing well. The aim of this study was therefore to investigate the performance of income generating projects supported by BNLP in relation to projects meeting member' objectives, group dynamics, economic growth, members' health status, commitment to the projects, use of literacy skills in running the projects, conducting feasibility studies before embarking on income-generating projects, business management, availability of start up finance and follow up. Hypotheses of this study stated that the BNLP-supported income generating projects are failing because of projects not satisfying members' needs, group disputes among group members, lack of growth, ill health lack of members' commitment to the projects, inappropriate literacy curriculum, inadequate feasibility studies before starting the projects, business management, lack of finance and lack of follow up after training. The methodologies used for this study were participatory and survey research. Qualitative strategies were employed using focus group discussions, force field analysis, observations and questionnaires. Stratified random sampling, was employed to select the sampled population often operating and ten non-operating income-generating projects in the South East, Southern and Northern regions of Botswana. Purposive sampling was employed to select all twelve trainers of the income generating projects within the same regions. The results of this study were analysed using SPSS 11.5, and manual inspection. The results of this study supported this hypothesis to a great extent in that causes of failure of the projects were because the personal objectives of project members were not met, there was a problem of group disputes among members, ill health of some members was affecting their production, literacy skills learnt in literacy and income generating skills provided by BNLP were not adequate to be used in the running of the project and business skills are taught separately from the basic literacy skills of reading and writing and numeracy. Feasibility studies were not conducted before embarking on income generating projects and there was mismanagement of the projects. Inadequate follow up was also seen to be one of the contributory factors to the failure of projects. Hypothesis of this study was also partially rejected in a sense that, the results showed that almost all the projects received some grants to start their projects and therefore start up finances were not a problem but rather a problem of shortage of funds for expansion, Lack of ensuring sustainability of projects was due to mismanagement of the funds by the office bearers and mostly LGLs. Recommendations of this study directed to income generating-project members included settling group disputes, conducting feasibility studies, embarking on relevant projects individually or as groups. Policy recommendations included support of individual and group projects, running a pilot project where appropriate literacy needs of the piloted projects will be provided, involvement of the participants in decision-making concerning their projects and curriculum. The policy recommendation included ensuring that funds are only given to viable projects and literacy curriculum is relevant to the running of income generating projects to ensure sustainability. Recommendations for further studies included BNLP conducting an in-depth study to establish the prospects and problems of group approach in income generating activities, investigate the level of skills that the BNLP supported income-generating projects and their trainers possess and their specific needs for skills development and lastly evaluate the training materials used in both literacy classes and income-generation training to get more insight on what is lacking, and how this could be improved. / Thesis (M.Sc.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2006.
599

Kwazulu Natal's institutional environment : its impact on development imperatives.

Barnes, Justin Raymond. January 1995 (has links)
The study of development in the 1960s and early 1970s was characterised by major struggles between competing ideological positions . Writings were dominated by attempts at getting the ideologies right , hence the proliferation ofNeo-Marxist and Neo-Classical discourses. The vociferous debates between development theorists such as Andre Gunder Frank (1966), Paul Baran (1962), W.W. Rostow (1963) and their followers) were indicative of this period. A fundamental shift occurred in the late 1970s, however, when the focus of development studies shifted to the more technical issue of how to get prices right. World Bank and International Monetary Fund intervention in state affairs were a characteristic of this fundamental shift, with the now notorious Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs) of the 1980s being a direct result of this movement. The whole terrain of development studies has once again, however, undergone reconstruction, with the emergence of an entirely new strain of development-oriented thought in the 1990s. The key development problem being identified by social scientists at present is the institutional context in which development takes place. It has finally emerged that this issue surpasses those debates concerning ideology and monetary issues. Development protagonists now acknowledge that they can no longer look at development without considering the institutional environment in which it is to take place. Irrespective of ideology and price factors, then, it has finally been realised that development is highly contingent upon the establishment of a sound development-oriented institutional environment. Although the international development arena has experienced this fundamental shift, very little research has been done , thus far, on the dynamics of KwaZulu Natal 's institutional environment. As such very little is known about its efficacy in supporting or initiating development programmes in the province. If one considers the enormity of the development task in KwaZulu Natal this is an extremely unsatisfactory situation. KwaZulu Natal undoubtedly needs a sound institutional environment that supports development, thus making a study of how the province's institutional environment impacts on development imperatives an extremely important endeavour. It is hoped that this dissertation helps in some small way to fill the research void that is clearly apparent in KwaZulu Natal. It needs to be iterated right at the outset, however, that this dissertation is not meant to be an extensive, all encompassing critique of KwaZulu Natal's institutional environment. It is rather an exploration of those important issues pertaining to its institutional environment that impact so dramatically on development imperatives in the province. / Thesis (M.Soc.Sci.)-University of Natal, Durban, 1995.
600

An evaluation of the perceived benefits and constraints of community gardens established by the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Agriculture and Environmental Affairs.

Thamsanqa Philangenkosi. January 2008 (has links)
This study provides feedback from the Extension Officers and community garden members involved in community garden projects of the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Agriculture and Environmental Affairs, by investigating the contribution of community gardens to household food security. The investigation included interviews with 61 Extension Officers from the Bergville, Hlanganani, Eshowe, Vryheid and Mbumbulu districts and 106 community garden members from 31 community gardens in the Bergville and Hlanganani districts. It was found that the people involved in community gardens were older persons, with little or no education. Those involved in community gardens were unemployed and relied on pensions, remittances and selling handicrafts to purchase garden inputs. The average household dependency ratios were 4, 5 and 5, 5 persons per active household member in Hlanganani and Bergville, respectively. Community garden members were mostly females, but most community garden members’ households were male-headed. The community garden members indicated that the most important reason for producing vegetables was for household use. Extension Officers were not satisfied with the state of community gardens and the relationship between the regional and district offices. Community gardens do not reflect the effort put in by the Extension Officers. The Extension Officers want to be involved in determining research priorities and be regularly informed about research findings and policy changes made at the regional level. The Extension Officers would like to see all government departments working together towards the development of communities. Extension Officers believe that if the government departments pool their resources, they would be able to serve the communities better than when each department works alone on community garden projects in the same community. Despite the initial funding of community gardens by the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Agriculture and Environmental Affairs, there were many factors limiting production of vegetables in community gardens. The limiting factors included poor soil fertility; small garden plot sizes; low water availability; high start-up costs and poor management of the community garden finances. The community garden members were positive about the contribution of community gardens to their lives. The benefits were in the form of information about vegetable production, cropping practices and the availability of fresh vegetables that provided nutritious food and allowed them to buy other household requirements instead of vegetables. Community garden projects have a potential role to play in the lives of many rural people if the following concerns raised by the Extension Officers are addressed: the relationship between the offices at district level and the regional level improves; the establishment and maintenance of sound channels of communication between the district field staff and the regions; research support is received from the regions; and government departments work together. The KwaZulu-Natal Department of Agriculture and Environmental Affairs should not only focus on providing infrastructure for projects but should also ascertain that the proposed project achieves the objectives of both the community garden members and the Department of Agriculture and Environmental Affairs and that the beneficiaries are trained before the project is handed over. / Thesis (M.Sc.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2008.

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