Until recently it was fashionable to describe Durban as one of the fastest growing cities in the world. For those who held this view, the proliferation of informal settlements in and around the city pointed to massive rural-urban in-migration from the rural areas. Migration, itself, it was conceived, was typically the outcome of a direct move from the rural areas, whereby the migrant simply arrived in the city and took to squatting on any available land he or she could find. In actuality, while research has pointed out that substantial rural-urban in-migration is indeed a feature of the urban landscape, little light has been shed on the extent and nature of such migration. The aim of this dissertation is therefore to elucidate on these two features of the migration phenomenon. Through the application of the Todaro model of migration it is hoped that an understanding of the driving force behind migration to and within the Durban Functional Region could also be achieved. / Thesis (M.Com.)-University of Natal, Durban, 1994.

Disparities between housing, water and sanitation policy initiatives continuously undermine the efforts of informal settlements upgrading programme of transforming living conditions of people living in informal settlements. The objective of this research project was to explore the disparities between the above mentioned policy initiatives in informal settlements upgrading with the view to develop an understanding of various elements leading to these disparities. To achieve this research two case study areas were selected from which data was collected. The case studies were selected purposively. Household surveys were conducted from each of the two case studies and interviews were conducted with housing, water and sanitation officials. Findings of the research indicate that there are indeed disparities between housing, water and sanitation. It indicated that the disparities manifested themselves at various levels of policy. The nature of these disparities also varied according to the level at which they manifested. The research concludes that disparities in housing, water and sanitation manifest themselves in informal settlement upgrading. Various levels of policy indicate the manifestation of these disparities. Informal settlement upgrading efforts are undermined by the lack of coordination and integration in the implementation of policy. The research therefore recommends adjustments from all levels of policy from formulation to implementation. Housing, water and sanitation policy formulation process should be conducted in an integrated and coordinated manner. All parties involved in policy development and implementation should adopt high level of communication and consultation on all policy related issues. Policy objectives should be consolidated. / Thesis (M.Housing)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2009.

The Batho Pele principles (enshrined in our Constitution) redefined the relations between the users of municipal goods and services and municipalities. It compels local municipalities to comply with certain requirements such as providing tools and mechanisms to encourage citizens to participate in its decision making processes as well as improving relations with its customers. eThekwini Municipality created two business units namely the Community Participation Unit and the Regional Centres Unit. The Community Participation Unit is responsible for mobilizing the local rural and urban communities to participate in local government elections. The Regional Centres Unit is responsible for improving relations between the users of municipal goods and services and the municipality by providing access to local government services at the doorstep of citizens, improving customer relationships, identifying and implementing initiatives to enable customers to interact with the municipality when they want to, where they want to and how they want to. Citizens and municipal customers are a captive market. Municipal goods and services in the main can only be sourced from the municipality. The perceptions of municipal customers towards the municipality were mostly negative. There were no precedents that could be learnt from and this was a paradigm shift from government to governance. eThekwini Municipality looked to private sector practices for models, philosophies and practices that could be useful for achieving change as well as compliance with legislation. Companies in the private sector have to compete for customers and whilst price may be a differentiating factor, it is not sustainable to compete on pricing alone. To remain competitive and survive, companies are dependent on strategies that provide them with a competitive edge such as CRM. CRM initially was used describe software that collected and analysed data on customers assisting companies to become agile in responding to their clients, to enable them to reward their loyal customers and to be able to predict and pre-empt changes in buying behavior and preferences of their customers. It evolved into a philosophy on customer service focused on providing customers with a satisfying experience in every interaction with the company. It is used to identify improvements in the business operating model to improve delivery to the customer and to the market. This study is based on a case study of the experiences of the eThekwini Municipality in implementing CRM initiatives and the impact on relations with municipal customers. The study is based on test sampling, review of documentation and interviews with senior management in eThekwini Municipality. The results of the study are discussed with recommendations. / Thesis (MBA)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Westville, 2010.

This research expounds on the impact of Organised Labour in Dispute Resolution at eThekwini Municipality. The research will identify the positive and negative aspects of the stakeholders within the environment of labour relations. The necessity of this research is that very little research has been conducted in the dispute resolution environment at eThekwini Municipality. In any labour contract, there will always be disputes between the stakeholders concerned. In some instances, the conclusion of the dispute is a win-win situation or winner takes all. In the open market, the engaging of the Commission for Conciliation Mediation and Arbitration is the forum available to resolve disputes. In the local government sector, however, organised labour caters for the needs of its members by taking their grievances to the bargaining council under the auspices of the South African Local Government Bargaining Council. Local government is the sphere that is closest to the public at which delivery of services takes place. The manner in which this is conducted depends largely on the Municipality's institutional capacity. The institutional capacity also influences its regulatory role. The co-operative governance approach encourages multiple stakeholder arrangements to deal with labour relations issues. These arrangements will provide an illustration of the role of various stakeholders in achieving peace and harmony in the workplace. Organised Labour will always have a profound effect on the economy, politics and social services. Its contribution and development to society is highly influential and ensures its recognition. The challenge is to develop systems and procedures that will serve the labour relations environment. This research will set out to explore the dispute resolution mechanism that exists currently, and the effect it has in the Municipality. In this way there will be a definitive significance on the approach to formalise the roles employed by management and organised labour. / Thesis (MPA)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Westville, 2010.

OBJECTIVES To determine if health care workers are aware of the HPV vaccine and its availability, uptake of the vaccine and prescribing practices and reasons for non – uptake of the vaccine . METHODS Health care providers working in the private sector, in the Ethekweni health district in Kwazulu Natal, were interviewed. Health care workers included: 100 general practitioners, 50 gynaecologists, 50 paediatricians, 50 medical staff and 50 nursing staff. A questionnaire was designed for purpose of this study. Visits were be made to health care providers. All heath care providers who were willing to participate were interviewed. STATISTICS Comparisons of awareness among subgroups of health care providers was analysed using Chi-square tests. If significant, pairwise comparisons were made using a Bonferroni adjustment for multiple comparisons. Associations between awareness and other factors, such as demographic, uptake and beliefs were tested using a chi square test. Analysis was done by Stata v11 (StataCorp, 2009) i RESULTS Three hundred health care workers were interviewed - 50 gynecologists (16.7%), 52 pediatricians (17.3%), 99 general practitioners (33%), 49 other medical doctors (16.3%) and 50 (16.7%) nurses. Two hundred and sixty seven health care workers (89%) were aware of the HPV vaccine and one hundred and eighty eight health care workers (70.4%) informed patients of the availability of the HPV vaccine. Most (77.9%) practitioners have only prescribed the vaccine less than ten times. Gardasil® was prescribed by 46%, Cervarix® by 6.5% and prescription of either vaccine of health care workers was 50.2%. Practitioners were generally unaware that Gardasil® could be prescribed to males (62.9%). CONCLUSION Health care workers were aware of the HPV vaccine and prescribed the vaccine on request. However even though practitioners were aware of the vaccine, most have prescribed the vaccine less than ten times since licensing in 2008. Knowledge with regards to the licensed use of the HPV vaccines is deficient. / Thesis (M.Med.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2012.

Background: The government of South Africa has focused on Primary Health Care and implementation of the National Health Insurance (NHI) as part of the plan to reform the South African health care system. This is based on the principle of the right to healthcare and the right to access health care facilities. Aim: The aim of this study was to analyse the Nurse Managers’ interpretation of the National Health Insurance Policy and, its implications for implementation on their roles and responsibilities in health care facilities. Methodology: The sequential mixed method approach was conducted. There was direct interaction (semi structured interviews) with the Nurse Managers as well as a survey (questionnaires) for both qualitative and quantitative phases. Qualitative data was collected and analysed first, and an instrument was developed based on the analysed data from the qualitative phase to collect quantitative data. Setting: EThekwini district comprising of two district hospitals, three Community Health Centres (CHC) and four Private healthcare facilities were selected. Participants: Nurse Managers in the public Primary Health Care facilities and private hospitals in the EThekwini district. These were Nurse Managers (top middle and lower levels) from the public healthcare facilities (district hospitals, Community Health Centres, primary health clinics) middle and lower levels in the private facilities. Data Analysis: A thematic analysis was used in the qualitative phase. Descriptive statistic was used in the quantitative phase to describe and synthesize data (Polit and Beck 2004) as well as inferential numeric analysis (Creswell 2009). Findings: The findings in both the qualitative and quantitative data revealed that the participants demonstrated a general impression on the NHI rather than specific understanding; hence the researcher believes that there was more general than specific knowledge and interpretation of the NHI policy. The participants’ display of lack of knowledge and understanding of the concept NHI and the implementation process was an indication that there was lack of personal development in relation to expectations from the nurse managers concerning NHI though there is a lot of publicity in this respect from the government and media. There are national policies and guidelines for all citizens to access. Recommendations: The recommendations were made for sharing with the policy makers and seniors in the healthcare facilities in order to improve nursing management, nursing education and nursing research. / Thesis (M.N.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2012.

Estuaries are dynamic features of a coastline whose sediments are influenced by riverine and marine processes. Periodic events such as floods, as well as variations in mouth status, greatly affect the energy levels within an estuary and subsequently the amount of sediment erosion and deposition that takes place. Concurrently, pollutants are transported and deposited into estuaries and can reside in the sediments for many years. The estuaries of the eThekwini Municipality in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, are exposed to a variety of pollutants; however with the expanding industrial sector within this region, metal contamination is of concern. This study investigates the sedimentology and geochemical variations of six estuaries within the municipality namely, the uTongati, uMdloti, uMgeni, Isipingo and uMbokodweni estuaries as well as the Durban Harbour. To determine the spatial variations in estuarine sedimentology, sediment cores were collected longitudinal to the estuary axis. The core samples were analysed for sediment colour, texture and organic matter content. To assess the geochemical variations, core samples were analysed for Zn, Cu, Cr, Ni, Pb, As, Fe, Al, Ca, S, P, Mg, Mn, Cd and V concentrations. Some samples were also carbon dated to provide a temporal aspect to the sediment and geochemical variations. Descriptive and graphic techniques were used to examine the sedimentology within the estuaries; and the geochemical data was analysed with the use of multivariate statistics. Additionally, pollution indices and sediment quality guidelines were utilized to assess the pollution levels within the sediments. The results indicated that lower energy environments caused by protracted mouth closures in the uMdloti and Isipingo estuaries accounted for large amassing of fines. In contrast, the accumulation of mixed coarse and fine sediments in the uTongati and uMgeni estuaries was an indication of high fluvial flows and open mouth conditions. All carbon dated ages for all estuaries were greater than 700 years which may be attributed to a combination of scouring effects from past and recent flood events and also possibly due to the deposition of re-worked older sediments from upstream. Low metal concentrations were found within the sediments of all estuaries, and the presence of fines and organic matter governed their concentration variations with depth. The uMgeni and uMbokodweni estuaries which are located immediately downstream of industrial and urban areas, were found to contain relatively higher concentrations of elements Pb, Cu, As and Ni. These metals showed high enrichment within the sediments; however actual concentrations were below sediment quality guideline levels. General pollution levels within all estuaries were very low, and can be attributed to the climatic influences within this region which has a ‘cleansing’ effect on the estuarine environments in removing contaminants. / Thesis (M.Sc.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2014.

During the Apartheid period township areas were excluded from development. Townships only contained residential land uses, and limited social services of poor quality. Such areas lacked economic activities people had to travel to the city for employment opportunities and access to better services. As a result of apartheid planning, the country was left with cities and towns that are racially divided, lack access to business and other services and have sprawling informal settlements and spread out residential areas that make cheap service delivery difficult. All the above mentioned outcomes require a new approach to address the development challenges in South Africa. This led to the formulation of Integrated development planning processes, which were adopted to contribute towards eradicating the legacy of the past by providing a framework for economic, social development, environment protection and to deal with spatial and infrastructure issues in all the municipal areas. This study presents findings on the extent in which integrated development planning initiative in eThekwini Municipality has transformed and integrated the Inanda, Ntuzuma and KwaMashu (INK) areas. Based on the findings of this research it has been revealed that integrated development planning approach has played a major role in transforming and integrating the INK area, hence there has been improvement in the social, economic and the spatial aspects of development. However it is recommended that the municipality also consider development of light industries and skills development initiatives to address social and economic issues that are a challenge for INK areas / M.T.R.P. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban 2013.

D.Ing. (Civil Engineering) / The thesis investigates the whole life cycle of the community ablution facilities in the eThekwini municipality, and aimed to identify the technical success factors in rolling out communal ablution facilities as an interim measure in the upgrading of informal settlements throughout South Africa. The eThekwini municipality is based on the east coast of South Africa. Approximately 12% of the 3.4 million inhabitants of eThekwini are housing informally in one of the 420 informal settlements scattered around the urban and peri-urban areas. The municipality is responsible for the provision of basic interim services to these informal settlements within their jurisdiction and is in the process of rolling out containerised ablution facilities to all informal settlements as an interim measure. They have successfully provided 302 communal ablution blocks from 2009. The findings of this thesis were based on the rollout of these communal ablution blocks. The thesis is structured in the life cycle of the community ablution blocks. The thesis required a broad set of data from a number of stakeholders in order to understand each stage in the life cycle, using a number of different data sources, such as (i) interviews with the municipality, professional service providers, and the caretakers, (ii) municipal and project related documentation and data, (iii) surveys of the existing community ablution blocks, and (iv) data logging of the water meters at the community ablution blocks. The pre-implementation stages of the community ablution blocks investigated the planning, design and construction stages of the project. In the planning stage, the municipality prioritised each settlement based on a set of technical criteria, such as location to existing infrastructure, transport routes, bulk water and sanitation services, social infrastructure, the population of the settlement; to ensure that all interim infrastructure are considered within an integrated framework in order to reduce fruitless capital expenditure. Each settlement required community buy-in for both the placement and provision of the ablution facility and the selection of the caretaker. The design stage deals with the hydraulic design of the water supply and sewerage pipes as these were unknown parameters. The ablution structure and the sanitary fittings were discussed, but these were not significant in the design due to the space constraints within the containerised ablution facilities. There were significant delays found in the construction phase, which increased the initial estimated time required for construction by a factor of approximately three, which not only places a burden on the municipality to maintain the momentum of the project at scale but also increases the budget required for construction. The post-implementation stages were not found to function as intended. The key success factors in the post-implementation stages were dependent on the quality of the caretaker and the quality of the support given to the caretaker. Furthermore, all maintenance work has to be performed rapidly to ensure that the caretakers remain proactive in ensuring the facility remains operational. The consequence of poor operation and maintenance has detrimental effects on the community, who have to resort to open defecation and other unimproved forms of sanitation. The thesis adds to the shared water and sanitation body of knowledge. The thesis provides both quantitative and qualitative data on the post-implementation stage of the community ablution blocks, an area which is often neglected in practice.

This research paper seeks to explore whether the University of KwaZulu-Natal (U.K.Z.N) Humanities Social Science Faculty (HSF) can provide utility (economic) value to the eThekwini region and the South African developmental state. Utility value within this paper is defined as being, „The welfare a given investor assigns to an investment with a particular expected return and risk.‟ (duke.edu). A developmental state according to Professor Ziya Onis is a “…state where the government is intimately involved in the macro and micro-economic planning in order to grow the economy.” (Onis 1991). Each existing developmental state has approached its development in a unique and contextually relevant manner. Yet all developmental states have one key variable prominent: Human Capital Development through investment in the Science Engineering and Management streams of study. This research project uses a qualitative research approach comprising of semi-structured interviews with selected personnel from the University‟s Humanities Social Science Faculty, private sector organisations, the local municipality, a representative from the Minister of Higher Education and Training and the Reference group set up by the Ministry to investigate the state of the HSF in South Africa. Six key questions will inform this research. Firstly, what is the content and curriculum make-up of a Humanities Social Science of the University of KwaZulu-Natal degree and what factors inform its make-up? Secondly, what is utility value expressed in employment terms does an HS degree provide? Thirdly, how are HSF Degrees structured to offer both knowledge and utility value to their students - and in turn - the South African job market? Fourthly, where do HSF graduates get employed i.e. in which Government Departments or industries do they find employment? Fifthly, what meaningful role does an HSF degree offer in the context of the developmental State in South Africa? And finally, does the UKZN HSF and its degrees need an overhaul? And if it is concluded that it does not need it, why does it not? This research project found that the Humanities Social Science Faculty and its products, the graduates , do provide utility value - needed for leading people and organisations - in the form of management skills, deductive reasoning, critical and lateral thinking. However, if the current state of the HS-Faculty continues, namely; the large number of students enrolled, the non-enterprising curriculum, the non-collaborative relationship between the faculty and local business and governmental structures, the HSF will have no “active role” in the developmental state and will in “fact” become a problem. And subsequently, a problem that contributes to the phenomena of unemployable graduates in a major way. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2010.