Includes bibliographical references (leaves 87-99) / That "there will be houses, comfort and security for all" was one of the rallying cries of the South African progressive movement under apartheid. When, in 1994, the African National Congress (ANC) toppled the, apartheid National Party in the country's first 'free and fair' elections, the promise of 'housing for all' again formed an important part of the vision of a 'new' South Africa. Yet in Cape Town, thirteen years later, the promises of housing for all conflicts strongly with the reality of an increasing housing backlog in the city. Apart from the obvious growth of informal and overcrowded dwellings around the city, one of the consequences has been that a narrative has emerged among residents born in the city, known as 'borners', that places responsibility for the continuation of their homelessness on people who are born outside of the city. Known as 'migrants', it is against such people that 'borners' have begun to articulate their entitlement to housing in Cape Town. This thesis is an attempt to examine such claims and the divisions which such claims imply. Using a case study of a township called Langa, the thesis attempts to understand how and why such claims are being made. Doing so requires an exploration of South Africa's past and present. By examining the past, the thesis argues, the categories 'homers' and 'migrants' can be seen as products of the attempt by South Africa's past segregationist regimes to mediate between the need for labour by capital and the racist desire to achieve a 'white' South Africa. In the post-1994 era however, the claims about division are not only encouraged by the discursive legacy of the past, but also by contemporary factors which have encouraged 'borners' to define themselves as different and in opposition to 'migrants'. Factors commonly cited by 'borners' include the facts that housing delivery is slowed by the increased demand for houses that results from large-scale immigration and that housing delivery is biased in favour of 'migrants'. Ultimately however, such conceptions about who is responsible for either producing, or usurping the tiny offerings forthcoming in Langa, misjudge political-economic reasons for the lack of housing. Working-class people waiting for houses pit themselves against others who are also without adequate housing, and the more direct causes of their housing woes, the present housing development strategy and the current direction of the macro-economy, essentially remain unchallenged.

Includes abstract. / Includes bibliographical references. / In recent years, mobile phones have become increasingly enmeshed in the daily routines of communities across the globe. This exponential swell of mobile teledensity in developing nations, especially in rural areas, gives evidence to mobile phones as being a contributing factor towards social and economic changes in local livelihoods driven by agriculture. In this study, any economic upgrading is organised under the concept of overall social upgrading. This dissertation investigates such evidence by exploring the social effects from the use of mobile phones through two agricultural extension projects in Uganda.

Includes abstract. / Includes bibliographical references. / This project was concerned at looking at philanthropy with regards to poverty alleviation and development. This was achieved by looking at the literature around philanthropy and fieldwork. The literature helped in providing an understanding of philanthropy and the politics around it. Most of the literature that was used was internationally based and this did not look at South Africa. This was a problem because the South African situation is different to what is happening internationally. But the literature with the South African context in mind helped in providing a context specific understanding. I used post-development theory to understand philanthropy within development. The reason for choosing post?development was because it best explained how philanthropists go about doing development. The project used the case study methodological approach in order to get a deep insight into the how philanthropists operate in South Africa. This approach helped to understand who the philanthropists were. This was important in trying to establish how philanthropy works within the South African context.

Beekeeping is an important industry in South Africa yet it is in decline. The South African government and development agencies see the increasing production deficits in the industry as a business opportunity for income generation for social-economically disadvantaged groups. However, most of these developmental initiatives, which have taken the form of beekeeping training programmes have not succeeded in creating a profitable and sustainable source of income. My study interrogated one such project in order to determine how beekeeping training programmes could be revised to increase the likelihood of trainees becoming viable beekeepers. I have drawn on the International Labour Organisation’s knowledge and skills development framework (called Training for Rural Economic Empowerment) to assess the methodological processes used in the development and implementation of the beekeeping programme. I collected data using a combination of qualitative interviews, documentary sources and participant observation, and then used Miles and Huberman’s thematic coding approach to analyse the qualitative data. My main finding is that there were methodological gaps in the pre-training, training and post-training phases of the beekeeping programme, either because of the exclusion of participants’/targeted groups’ inputs in the processes, or because participatory decision-making processes with participants were misapplied. As a result, the beekeeping training programme did not match the participants’ needs, economic opportunities in their area, and their social situations, and these circumstances contributed, in large part, to the graduates not taking up beekeeping.

This dissertation investigated the constraints that inhibit women from getting access to formal housing and land in Ficksburg in the Free State province of South Africa. The study sought to substantiate the hypothesis that inequalities within South African societies have been aggravated by gender dynamics and conservative macro-economic development agendas in post-apartheid South Africa in the form of development programmes like the Redistribution and Development Programme (RDP), Growth Employment and Redistribution (GEAR), as well as Building New Ground (BNG). Throughout the study, women were viewed from a marginalisation perspective. This study relies heavily on qualitative research methods. The instruments used for data collection were semi-structured interviews and participant observation. The interviews were conducted with fifteen women dwelling in shacks that are legally located in those settlements, ten women dwelling in Masak'hane/RDP houses, five women living in shacks in the informal settlements, but illegally located, and six women living in the informal settlements in self-built houses, as well as the Senior Manager at Setsoto Municipality Department of Housing. The practical and strategic gender needs of women were also used to analyse the situation of women in the informal settlements. The main findings of this study revealed that large numbers of participants do not have financial backup, and that made them ineligible to meet the requirements of the financial institutions for housing funds. Low wages limited women from getting access to land and housing from the market like their male counterparts. Along with this, constitutional laws, customary laws and registration of title deeds seemed to have complicated women's access to land and houses. Low standards of education, lack of knowledge, age and absence of identity documents were found to be other constraints. Although women in all categories struggled to get access to land and formal housing in Ficksburg informal settlements. The findings revealed that single, separated women and women under 21years struggled more than old, divorced and married women.

An increasing interest in international volunteer service (IVS) has resulted in a large number of companies offering volunteers from developed countries the opportunity to work with non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and service organisations in developing countries. Amidst a growing body of research into the impacts and benefits of different IVS models, there remains limited literature available on whether IVS can be harmful. A study, entitled 'AIDS orphan tourism: A threat to young children in residential care' by Richter and Norman has given some prominence to IVS harm in residential child care settings and, in part, motivated this study. This descriptive case study explores how benefits and harm in shortterm international volunteer service (STIVS) is understood and experienced by both international volunteers (IVs) and local host organisations (LHOs). The study places emphasis on whether IVs had considered harm prior to starting their IVS, and whether IVs and LHOs shared similar understandings or concerns to those identified in the Richter and Norman study. A problem-driven framework, drawing on quantitative and qualitative approaches, was used to explore the understanding of harm and benefit by IVs and LHOs. The study adopted a mixed methods approach to obtain data from a variety of sources. Univariate statistics, percentages, thematic and regression analysis were used to analyse the data. Data was collected between the 27th May and the 31st August 2014 in Cape Town, South Africa. Cross- Cultural Solutions South Africa (CCS-SA) provided the study site, with all field work for this study integrated into the regular operational, monitoring and evaluation processes of the CCS-SA programme.

Includes bibliographical references. / One of the many reasons for the dispossession of the land from black people was the colonial and apartheid regime’s commitment towards establishing nature reserves and national parks for the purposes of biodiversity conservation. The nature conservation discourse has remained strong even after the demise of these discriminatory regimes. Biodiversity conservation and the preservation of ecosystems have occupied a prominent role in the development discourse in South Africa and globally. The more recent approaches to the discourse have been on punting conservation as the basis from which all development springs. But even with this, there has been a lot of effort, wittingly or unwittingly, to craft the discourse in apolitical and ahistorical terms. There has been little effort to dissect the historical colonial thinking that still persists in the biodiversity conservation sector, and the factors that help sustain in thereof. The primary aim of this research therefore was to disentangle these ‘colonial gestures’ in biodiversity conservation and locate conservation within the framework of our colonial present .The main objective of this study is to assess and dissect the presence of the colonial motives and thinking, in the processes of policy development and programme implementation in as far as biodiversity conservation is concerned.

Includes bibliographical references. / This dissertation focuses on understanding the development philosophy and standards of practice that contribute to the organisational effectiveness that mark Ziphilele Youth Projects (ZYP) as an effective and professional non-governmental organisation (NGO).

This dissertation explored sustainable microfinance (SMF) practices in South Africa through an investigation of the microfinance sector nationally. Since recipients of microfinance largely depend on local ecosystems and natural resource bases for sustaining livelihoods and improving quality of life (QOL), microfinance has been identified as an important development strategy for reducing the vulnerabilities associated with changing environmental conditions for impoverished people. A framework for SMF consisting of four principles was assembled based on the sustainable development theory and microfinance literature. The qualitative methodology encompassed two main approaches: (1) a literature review that located examples of SMF practices found internationally, which contributed to understanding the concept and provided insights for South Africa and; (2) a case study where a sample of organisations across the country and an in-depth look at one housing microfinance institution (MFI) offered insight into SMF practices. Data was collected from the sample by way of interviews and personal correspondence with key players from eight organisations from four provinces. Data gathered from the housing MFI was through 20 interviews with management, staff, partnering organisations and loan recipients; as well as through direct observation of the loan collections process and by reviewing organisation documents. The main finding was that SMF does not yet exist in practice but that it is emerging although it is not yet recognized by the industry at large. Four organisations were beginning to consider the environment in practice through exposure, awareness, environmental initiatives, renewable energy (RE) and by promoting SMF. The evidence was analysed against the SMF framework, which found that two-thirds (2/3) of the criteria supported the framework while the other one-third (1/3) did not. This suggests that more research is needed; since finding relevant organisations was challenging, the housing MFI was a ‘loose’ fit for the framework where not all aspects of SMF were integrated and the sample organisations were not investigated with enough depth. If sustainability continues to be sacrificed in microfinance practice, it is apparent that loan recipient’s lives and the industry will face many challenges and microfinance runs the risk of becoming another development failure.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 96-106). / Mozambique is viewed by the donor community and multilateral institutions, such as the World Bank and IMF, as a success story of post-war construction and is used as a model to be emulated. The study proposes that, contrary to this belief, adjustment policies harm this poor economy. Also, neo-liberal economic policies have altered the role of state institutions, not eliminating state power, but redirecting it. This study challenges the neo-liberal claim that Mozambique's post-conflict political economy has been “revolutionary”. Economic reforms can benefit this economy, but alone, are insufficient to reduce poverty and economic dependence. The study found that, despite improvements in reducing the number of people living in poverty between 1992 and 2008, malnutrition, malaria, HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis and corruption are on the increase.