Includes bibliographical references (leaves 88-96). / The objective of this paper is to investigate how UNICEF (the United Nations Children's Fund) represents the notion of childhood. A content analysis of 690 photographs as well as an in-depth textual analysis of the most authoritative publications is conducted to decode childhood representations. The methodological approaches are both quantitative (content analysis) and qualitative (textual analysis). The photographic and publications data are obtained from the UNICEF website for the period 1999 to 2003. Inscribed in the visual images are historical western notions of childhood as a blissful stage of life in which passivity and vulnerability are featured. These inscriptions are rooted in technologies of scientific knowledge and myths, which explains therefore their persuasiveness. As regards arguments that development institutions export ideal notions of childhood specific only to western societies, the paper finds that while such ideals certainly are present in the representations, the proper ideal is by no means the sole embodiment of exported notions. Over the last five years, UNICEF has begun to incorporate new views of children as socially competent, valuable social actors in their own right (a school of thought that has begun to be theorised, most notably, by the 'New Sociology of Childhood'). However, the ideas of children as social actors attains a particular meaning in UNICEF texts. Many instances of children's strength and resiliency in third worlds are not represented as constitutive of what the idea of child agency means.

Bibliography: leaves 109-115.

Includes bibliographical references. / What motivates a group of young people from a disadvantaged community spend between 20 and 50 hours every week in a voluntary organisation in their area? This dissertation has studied young volunteers aged between 18 and 28, who are working in a non-govemmental organisation (NGO) operating in a disadvantaged local community on the Cape Flats in Cape Town, South Africa. The aim of this research was to gain knowledge of their motivations for being full-time volunteers for this NGO. This is a qualitative, ethnographic study, which seeks to provide information about the young volunteers and volunteering in a descriptive way. The methods used for data collection have been participative observation, interviews, personal conversations, drawings of social network maps and a questionnaire. The numbers of interviewees are 12 in total, viz. ll volunteers and the Manager of the NGO. Clary et al (1992) created an empirical instrument that can be used to map out an individual's reasons for volunteering, namely the 'volunteers function inventory' (VFI), which suggest 6 main motivations for volunteering. This functional approach for studying motivation applies to volunteers in high-risk communities because it relates the individual’s psychological functions to his/her experiences, current life situation and stage of development. The data analysis in this study indicates that there are several motivations at stake, which can operate at the same time as well as change over time. In Cole's recent study (2004), she found that there does not appear to be any one motivational reason for volunteering. People do volunteer work for different reasons, but for volunteers from high-risk communities, values are very important motivators: "I feel compassion toward people in need" seems to apply to the majority of the volunteers who participated in this study. In addition to value based motivations for volunteering, the following three motivations are to be found in this group of 11 volunteers: the social benefits of volunteering, the personal development of being a volunteer and, last but not least, the love for the work they are doing.

Bibliography: leaves 154-164 . / The objective of this thesis is to undertake a comparative review of the power sector reforms and regulation in seven eastern and southern African countries, namely Uganda, Botswana, Kenya, Namibia, Swaziland and Tanzania.

This thesis set out to assess the impact of the land reform program on two farms located in the Mashonaland Central Province of Zimbabwe, Tembo and Rutherdale, and to examine how the livelihoods of resettled farmers from this area evolved. Since 2000, the debate surrounding Zimbabwe’s Fast Track Land Reform Programme and the implications thereof on smallholder livelihoods, has been heated and polarised. There is therefore need for empirically based studies to help quell the debate. A qualitative case study design was adopted for this research. The study sites were Tembo and Rutherdale, farms in Mashonaland Central province of Zimbabwe. The farms are about six kilometres from Shamva gold mine and have thirteen A1 farms and thirty-four A2 farms. The study participants consisted of the resettled farmers in the two farms. Key informants such as the agricultural extension and the agribusiness officers for the area and the village headmen provided information for the study. Semi-structured interviews were the main data collection instruments and these were supplemented through literature and document analysis. This study found that the land reform programme for Tembo and Rutherdale farms largely benefited the beneficiaries of the scheme. The resettled farmers in the area live in harmony with each other and have developed social networks to tackle their challenges. Access to Land allowed farmers to improve in income generation. There is, however need for further government support and intervention with the intent to make the farmers more self-sufficient. The government could also come in as a facilitator to initiatives by the households themselves to solve their challenges. This research suggests that other successful land reform programmes in other parts of the country be unveiled and studied so that the underlying principles behind their successes or failures are unearthed to quell the debate on the impacts of the land reform programme in the country. / Dissertation (MSocSci (Development Studies))--University of Pretoria, 2020. / Anthropology and Archaeology / MSocSci (Development Studies) / Unrestricted

No description available.

The impact of dividend announcements on firm value represents one of the longest standing puzzles in the literature of modern finance. Based on either a behavioural or empirical approach, studies have provided rationales to address the issue of why companies pay dividends and whether the market response to the announcements can be predicted. However, these studies have failed to resolve the dividend puzzle, as no single convincing explanation about the observed dividend behaviour of firms has emerged. Moreover, most of these studies have been conducted in countries with developed capital markets; there is very little attention to corporate dividend policy research that addresses issues related to the development of emerging stock markets of sub-Saharan Africa, such as Nigeria. This study aims to provide additional evidence from an emerging market by investigating the managerial perspectives on dividend policy and the impact of dividend announcements on share prices of listed companies in Nigeria. For the purpose of the research in this thesis, a mixed-method research design, consisting of both the quantitative and qualitative approaches was employed. A postal questionnaire survey was employed to investigate the perspectives of Nigerian managers on the factors that drive dividend decision and the relevance of dividend policy to firm value. This was followed by an empirical investigation of the stock market reaction to cash dividend announcements in Nigeria employing a market-based standard event study methodology. Finally, interviews were conducted with 21 financial managers of Nigerian listed companies to ascertain their views on various dividend policy as a means of validating the findings from the questionnaire survey and the event study analysis. The findings from the questionnaire survey and interviews indicate that Nigerian listed companies’ exhibit dividend conservatism and typically focus on the level of current earnings, the stability of earnings and liquidity considerations such as the availability of cash when determining their current dividend levels. Nigerian managers believe that dividend policy affect firm valuation. Nigerian managers express strong support for the signalling explanation for paying dividends, but not for the bird-in-the-hand, tax-preference and agency cost explanations. However, majority of Nigerian listed companies do not have target payout ratios; instead, companies target the dividend per share when determining the disbursement level. Nevertheless, views regarding some of these issues differ between financial and non-financial firms. The results of the event study analysis show that the Nigerian stock market reacts significantly to cash dividend announcements, implying that dividends do convey price-sensitive information to the market. However, there is evidence of both lagging and sluggish response to cash dividend announcements, suggesting that the Nigerian stock market is not semi-strong efficient. The thesis makes a novel contribution to the growing body of corporate finance literature by providing additional evidence on the impact of dividend announcements on share prices from the context of an emerging market. As well as being timely in view of the dearth of empirical studies on stock market reaction to cash dividend announcements in Nigeria, the research is also important because it takes account of a novel feature of the Nigerian tax environment, where personal income from dividends is taxable while capital gains are exempt from taxation during the period of this study. In addition, the study is also unique because it examined the views of managers from both the financial and non-financial firms, thereby contributing to the literature on industry-related dividend effect. The focus of the investigation is also novel in that the study is the first comprehensive investigation of the perceptions of Nigerian corporate managers on dividend policy.

The concept of public participation is one of the growing interests in development discourse. It is considered to be one of the valuable principles of sustainable development, because of its people-centred development approach world wide. The study examines the level of public participation in the Malealea Lodge and Pony Trekking Centre and whether the public participation procedures in the centre sustain the livelihood strategies of the Malealea community. The investigation of the level of participation is triggered by the notion that the centre presents itself as a "best community involvement programme." The study employed qualitative and quantitative methods. Interviews, observations and documentation were used for data collection. The background to the study presents levels of participation, the model for full public participation and techniques for appropriate participation, according to Pearce et al. (1996). The findings within this study show that from case studies and secondary data collected, one of the driving factors in the failure of tourism projects is the implementation of policies which stick to exploitative, outdated approaches to development. Some tourism development projects are still practising pseudo or partial participation, whilst supposedly practising full participation. This study includes the analysis of responses regarding the level of participation and perceptions of participation from both the community and lodge management. It shows the shortfalls of full participation in the Malealea Lodge and Pony Trekking Centre. The researcher concludes that the centre practices partial participation and recommends, in this project and other similar projects, some potential solutions to ensure full participation for sustainable community development. Some recommendations are that: there should be community consultation at all levels of development, employment contracts should be drawn on agreement of conditions of work between lodge owners and community members, training and re-training of different community groups, and local authorities should be capacitated with different skills, mainly facilitation and management skills. The LTDC should also ensure implementation of tourism policy. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2008

This thesis investigates the hypothesis that the combination of future changes in climate and development (primarily irrigation) in the Zambezi River Basin (ZRB) threatens the technical and economic viability of existing and planned hydropower plants, and in turn the expansion plans and costs of the regional power system for Southern African countries. This hypothesis is evaluated using the following three questions to structure the analysis. ● How could future climate and irrigation expansion in the Zambezi River Basin affect hydropower generation potential? ● How could development in Southern Africa affect power demand, and how might this demand be met? ● How could the changes in water availability for hydropower (i.e. due to climate change and development) affect regional electricity expansion plans, generation costs and greenhouse gas emissions? The methodological tool used to address the first research question is the Water Evaluation and Planning (WEAP) scenario modelling system, developed by Stockholm Environment Institute. WEAP is a combined hydrological and water allocation model that is widely used internationally. The modelling demonstrates that the change in future climate is the overwhelming driver of future production at almost all hydropower plants in the ZRB over the study period of 2010-2070. The difference in mean generation under wetting and drying climates (i.e. difference between the values under wet and dry scenarios) is 12-16% for individual existing plants. This difference is as much as 30% for individual new plants, with all plants other than Batoka showing variation in mean annual generation of more than 13%. The impact of irrigation, on the other hand, is mainly an issue for plants downstream from Kariba, and even then the magnitude is typically less than a third of the impact of the alternative climates. The water modelling results therefore do not vary significantly across alternative development futures, because the accelerated irrigation development is still not large enough to dramatically impact hydropower. The second research question is analysed using Stockholm Environment Institute's Long- Range Energy Alternatives Planning (LEAP) model to trace the impacts of socio-economic development on electricity supply and demand. The analysis combines a simulation of current utility plans with a least cost optimisation to meet the remainder of supply needed over the long term. The analysis shows that the underlying socio-economic drivers of demand lead to both a dramatic increase in total electricity demand and a shift across sectors and countries within the region. Total electricity demand for the Southern African Power Pool (SAPP) region increases by 8-14 times over period from 2010 to 2070, with the combined demand from the rapidly growing countries of Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Mozambique and Zambia becoming larger than South African demand by 2070. At the sectoral level, the share of total demand from the extractive and manufacturing sectors increases from 59% in 2010 to 70% in 2070 under the most optimistic development scenario, based on a compound annual growth rate of consumption in excess of 5%. Activity level growth is the main driver of demand growth. Comparison with other studies in the region show that the mid-term demand estimates (e.g. 2025-2030) in this study are generally within the range of other research, with somewhat higher demand estimates from the most optimistic development scenario. Total electricity supply required over the longer term is met through the addition of 400-1400 GW of new capacity, or 8-20 times the current capacity of the region. More strikingly, the power mix shifts from almost 80% coal-fired power to 24-44% coal by 2070, with the balance being supplied mainly by solar, wind, hydropower and nuclear generation. The regional shift is no less dramatic, with South Africa's share of total generation declining from 84% to only a third, based on the higher growth rates in countries such as DRC, Mozambique and Zambia. The third research question is the most important in terms of the original contribution of this PhD thesis. Applying the WEAP and LEAP tools to an integrated multi-country system is a methodological advance pioneered in this thesis, showing that the integrated methodology can provide information to address not only the immediate questions about generation choices under an uncertain future climate, but also system costs and GHG emissions. The analysis shows that the reduction in hydropower generation under a drying climate leads to a shift in both capacity expansion choices and the operation of the regional power system, while the increases in hydropower output under a wetting climate are smaller. In other words, the "downside" of future climate changes is larger than the potential "upside". At an aggregate level, the increases in generation costs are a small share of total generation costs (i.e. less than 1% over the full study period compared to the baseline climate). However, the impact on generation costs for hydro-dependent countries such as Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe is considerably larger, and these countries also gain more under a wetting climate. Finally, because some hydropower could be displaced by coal, regional GHG emissions could increase by more than 6 MtCO2 per year in the medium term, or the equivalent of a large coalfired power station. This research has important policy implications for the water and electricity sector in the region. The potential transformation of the electricity supply sector would require a fundamental shift in resource use, grid management and infrastructure development in the region. The shift in the resource base for electricity generation will pose challenges for grid integration and balancing supply and demand across countries and load centres. Historically, the development of transmission capacity, and the resulting trade in electricity, has been constrained by the political and economic realities of the region. There are signs that the politics could be shifting, however, for political, economic and environmental reasons. In addition, the relatively low consumption of water in the Zambezi River Basin in the past meant that explicit trade-offs across sectors and across countries posed less of a challenge for the basin overall. This is very likely to change in the future, as increased demand from all sectors, and major potential changes in climate will require more explicit agreements across both countries and user groups on how best to utilise a limited resource. This research demonstrates the tools that could be used to integrate both climate change and upstream development demands into the feasibility studies before investment decisions are made. The research also illustrates the first steps toward integrating climate change and upstream development considerations into national and regional electricity planning. The electricity and water sectors are important contributors to the development of the Southern Africa, and hydropower in the ZRB lies at the intersection of these fields. Climate change, however, has the potential to add increased stress on these sectors, both directly and indirectly, and yet is not being considered in many individual hydropower power investments, or in national or regional electricity planning. The integrated scenario analysis approach in this thesis demonstrates how the impacts of climate change, as well as increased irrigation demand for water, could be assessed not only for specific hydropower plants and for the entire sector power sector. Preparing for this possible range of future climates can increase the resilience of the sector and reduce the risk of stranded assets in the power sector.

This dissertation examines the role of subsidised housing in reducing carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions in South Africa. Climate change is an occurring event and is largely caused by human activities, such as the production of energy from fossil fuels (NRC, 2010). Buildings are seen as one of the highest consuming sectors of energy and therefore present many potential climate change mitigation opportunities. The South African subsidised housing sector is expanding significantly and estimations made in the current study show that 2.8 million subsidised housing units can potentially reduce up to 3% of the total current CO₂ emissions from the residential sector. This demand for subsidised housing units can also potentially reduce up to 0.06% of South Africa's total annual CO₂ emissions.