Magister Artium (Development Studies) - MA(DVS) / A prepaid water metering project was implemented in various high density suburbs around the city of Harare in 2015 with the intention of spreading the project throughout the whole country. It was anticipated that the use of prepaid water meters as a water management device would improve the social, health, hygiene and general well-being of the poor households in the Sunningdale high density suburb. This study will investigate the social implications that were caused by the use of prepaid water meters as a tool for water management among poor households in this high density suburbs. The impact of prepaid water meter technology has been felt by water consumers in Sunningdale who have shared their experiences and attitudes towards this recently introduced innovation in water service delivery within Harare high density suburbs. The study examines the implications of using prepaid water meters as a water conservation measure and considers the behaviour, health and hygiene as well as home-based livelihoods of low-income water users. This study also provides answers for the premature abandonment of the expansion of the prepaid water meter project into other surrounding cities in Zimbabwe.

The study investigates female empowerment through online entrepreneurship on Taobao in Chinese society, from female entrepreneurs’ individual perspectives. Thus, the study is positioned in the dynamic e-commerce landscape of China.   This small-scale case study has been conducted, which involves 14 female online storeowners on Taobao. Online female entrepreneurs constitute the base of this study, and share their accounts of the dramatic changes in their lives after they initiated their online businesses. The entire study departs from their actual experiences and opinions, which provide multiple perspectives, so as to garner further insights into the dominant research of female empowerment within the context of e-commerce. Their actual experiences and accounts are interpreted and examined, based primarily on Sen’s capability approach, while their actual capabilities and functionings are evaluated, based on the selected aspects of their situations.   This study claims that even though the female online storeowners believe they have a higher autonomy in managing their time and household duties, and an ability to act according to their will to achieve what they desire, the female online storeowners still do not regard themselves as entrepreneurs. The enhancements in the capabilities of the female online storeowners and their achieved functionings do not necessarily go beyond the online environment. This study aims to provide a solid departure for any further investigations into women’s empowerment through e-commerce on a societal level.

This study investigates women’s possibilities to actively participate in societal change in Egypt. It aims at enhancing the understanding of structural conditions for women’s agency and how these enables and/or restrains women’s participation in the aspiration for societal change as well as their aspiration to live a ‘full life’. Egypt was chosen as a field for studying women’s understanding of their opportunities of participation and empowerment before and during the revolution. The informants in the study are all consciously working for awareness and equality in society. Formal education in Egypt is criticized and the country suffers from a high illiteracy rate, making informal education an important way to attain knowledge that can assist women in their quest for societal change. The acknowledgment of participation as a human right is one of the issues women are fighting for in Egypt today. A specific interest in this study is what motivates some women to oppose social, cultural and political structures despite the often high personal cost, and how informal (educational) channels are being used in the quest for societal change. The theoretical construction in which the analysis is carried out is based on frictions between societal structures and agency, using the Capability Approach (Sen, 1999) which aims at understanding what agency women have in societal change. The concept of functionings is used to indicate what someone is able to do and be. By analyzing women’s valued functionings, their conditions and thus their sense of empowerment and their experienced opportunity costs emerge. Central to the analytically framed societal structures and how agency can be perceived within each structure are the social conversion factors, the norms that allow or hinder action. To frame the complexity of women’s conditions for active agency and the outcome of their actions, I use a theoretical framework that will comprise both goals and processes. Sen’s (1999) ideas on social choice along with Archer’s (1995) theory on social change, using her model of structural elaboration / reproduction, have proved useful when investigating women’s valued functionings and attained social changes. The results of the study show that when formal education is not adequate, knowledge is obtained outside the formal educational institutions. This is done through both non-formal and informal learning. However, to get access to informal learning, a number of valued functions have to be gained. These functionings are thus both conditions for change and an end in themselves. I try to show that the costs involved in transgressing the prevailing norms are high, but lack of hope, agency and empowerment are also experienced as a high cost for those who have, in fact, imagined another better life and are in opposition to the inhibitory societal structures. This is, however, a part of what motivates some women to continue to be involved in societal change in order to achieve a life they have reason to value.

This research analyzes welfare conditions of Afro-Colombians vis-à-vis non Afro-Colombians using Amartya Sen's Capability Approach as the theoretical framework, and the latent variable modeling as the empirical method. Multiple Indicators Multiple Causes (MIMIC) models are estimated using data from the Colombian Quality of Life Survey, 2003. Two latent constructs, namely, 'knowledge' and 'being adequately sheltered', represent the two 'Capability' dimensions to be analyzed. Ethnic background appears to have a consistently negative influence after controlling statistically by a set of relevant variables (e.g. being poor, area, marital status, age and gender, among others) included in the models as exogenous "causes" or "determinants" of each capability dimension. This implies that the capability set or the freedom an Afro-descendant enjoys in achieving the life he or she wants in terms of 'knowledge' and 'shelter' is consistently lower than that of a non Afro-descendant (whites and mestizos). As a consequence, achieved welfare or functioning achievement as expressed in terms of aspects such as years of education or dwelling conditions in the household is and would be consistently lower for individual members of this ethnic group. This evidence points toward the proposition that embedded patterns of racial discrimination are limiting Afro-Colombian capabilities and individual agency, beyond income levels or even access to educational resources. Hence, from a capability perspective removing racial discrimination must be an explicit objective of developmental policy. Accordingly, national policy must be directed not only to improving access for Afro-Colombians to resources and economic wellbeing, as traditional analysis of class disparity argues, but also toward the nurturing and expansion of the real freedom they have to pursue the goals they value. Thus, development policy in Colombia must altogether work toward the improvement of resource access for Afro-descendants and toward the creation of specific mechanisms to enforce the judicial instruments to fight against racial discrimination. These laws and judicial mechanisms were created to open spaces for political, social and economic participation for this population group on an equal basis, as their fellow citizens of non African descent, and are yet to be fulfilled.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD (Education) / The National Policy Framework for Teacher Education and Development in South Africa of 2006 (NPF) outlines seven principles which underpin this policy as expressed in the Norms and Standards for Educators (2000). These principles require a teacher to be: a specialist in a particular learning area, subject or phase; a specialist in teaching, learning and assessment; a curriculum developer; a leader, administrator and manager; a scholar and lifelong learner; and a professional who plays a role in community development, citizenship education, and pastoral care. Beginner teachers have difficulty adapting to these new roles as they have not had efficient exposure to the actual, often harsh realities of the classroom situation as it unfolds on a daily basis. A qualitative research approach is employed in the research study to explore beginner teachers' perceptions of school support to enhance their capability sets in relation to teacher education policy. Generally, a qualitative study lends itself to developing an understanding of a particular phenomenon of interest without formulating a hypothesis. In this explorative study, the investigation was underpinned by the elements of Amartya Sen's Capability Approach which include "Freedoms", "Unfreedoms", "Capabilities" and "Functionings" (Sen 1992). These elements were used to understand the nature of beginner teachers' competences and the impact of policy on their performance. In this regard, the achievement of quality learning outcomes concerning the basic competences of beginner teachers could be linked to Sen's vision for reaching achieved functionings (those valuable activities and situations that make up a person's well-being, which is also referred to as that which a person ultimately manages "to be and to do").

Magister Educationis - Med / Since the dawn of democracy, the South African government has set up different measures to improve education in schools, inter alia the provision of funding, resources, feeding schemes and the introduction and amendment to different curricula. The current education policy, the Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS), was adopted in 2012 following three other consecutive education policies that had not delivered to the desired standard in terms of educational outcome. This study focuses on the perceptions of teachers in terms of their freedom to pursue the aims of CAPS in low-income school communities. The teachers' perceptions and freedoms were explored and analyzed using the Capabilities Approach (CA) authored by Amartya Sen which forefronts the capabilities (the ability to achieve) and the functionings (real achievements). Teachers' perceptions were therefore explored and analyzed in terms of freedoms and unfreedoms they enjoy and face in the process of transferring the knowledge to learners. The thesis studied and analyzed the capabilities and perceptions of teachers in terms of their real freedoms through the deconstruction of their experiences.

CoordenaÃÃo de AperfeiÃoamento de Pessoal de NÃvel Superior / O presente trabalho teve como objetivo analisar a pobreza considerando caracterÃsticas econÃmicas, de capital humano, de infraestrutura e meio ambiente no estado do Cearà sob uma Ãtica multidimensional. Para tal finalidade, calculou-se o Ãndice de Pobreza Multidimensional (IPM) para os 184 municÃpios a partir de dados secundÃrios obtidos no IPECE, IBGE e PNUD, considerando os anos de 2000 e 2010. O Ãndice calculado foi composto por indicadores divididos em quatro funcionamentos: capital humano, economia, infraestrutura e ambiente. ApÃs a formulaÃÃo do IPM, os municÃpios foram agrupados em trÃs clusters: a primeira abrangeu os municÃpios em melhor situaÃÃo (IPM variando entre 0,00 e 47,00); a segunda envolveu aqueles valores de IPM intermediÃrio (IPM variando entre 47,01 a 69,19); e a terceira agrupou os municÃpios com os piores valores do Ãndice (IPM variando entre 69,20 e 100,00). Na anÃlise dos resultados, pode-se observar que o IPM para o Estado decresceu ao longo dos anos estudados, porÃm o funcionamento ambiental foi o que menos contribuiu para a melhoria do Ãndice. Este fato deve-se, principalmente, aos indicadores de Ãndice de DistribuiÃÃo de Chuvas (IDC) e escoamento superficial. Isso demonstra que a escassez de chuva sempre foi e continua sendo um agravante da pobreza. Com isso, pode-se concluir que, para que ocorram melhorias efetivas e duradouras no Ãndice de pobreza do CearÃ, à necessÃrio que haja uma ampliaÃÃo das polÃticas de convivÃncia com a seca, ao invÃs das polÃticas de cunho assistencialista e imediatistas que sÃo ainda mais preponderantes no estado. / This work aimed to analyze poverty considering economic features, human capital, infrastructure and the environment in the state of Cearà in a multidimensional optical. For this purpose, was calculated the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) for 184 municipalities from secondary data obtained in IPECE, IBGE and UNDP, considering the years of 2000 and 2010. The calculated index was composed of indicators divided into four functionings: human capital, economic, infrastructure and environment. After formulation of MPI, municipalities were grouped into three clusters: the first included municipalities with better situation (IPM ranging between 0,00 and 47,00); the second involved those intermediate values of IPM (IPM ranging from 47,01 to 69,19); and the third grouped the municipalities with the worst index values (IPM ranging between 69,20 and 100,00). In analysis of the results, it can be observed that the IPM to the state decreased over years studied, but the environmental functioning was that less contributed to the improvement of the index. This fact is mainly due to the indicators of Rainfall Distribution Index (RDI) and surface runoff. This demonstrates that the scarcity of rain has always been and continues to be an aggravating poverty. With this it can be concluded that, to occur effective and durable improvements in the poverty index of Cearà is necessary expand of policies of dealing with drought, instead of assistantial policies and short-term nature that are even more preponderant in the State.

Magister Artium (Development Studies) - MA(DVS) / Cash transfers, integral in social protection, have increasingly been viewed as a viable measure of promoting human development outcomes in low and middle income countries in the face of persistent poverty exacerbated by the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Sub-Saharan Africa has been the worst hit by the HIV/AIDS pandemic with almost two thirds of the world’s HIV/AIDS patients living in the region. By 2005, 12 million children were orphaned by the disease while 2 million more below 15 years of age were estimated to be infected (UNICEF, 2005:2). To address the plight of orphans and vulnerable children in Kenya the government together with various international development agencies launched the Cash Transfer Programme for Orphans and Vulnerable Children (CT-OVC) in 2004 to provide for the basic needs of OVC and promote their human development. With the capability approach as its theoretical framework, this research seeks to determine the value attached by recipients of the CT-OVC to capabilities in the four broad dimensions of social life, health, education and play. It also seeks to gauge the extent of attainment of functionings in the four dimensions, and the association between participation in the programme and one’s functionings in the key dimensions. The research is conducted through a quasi-experimental design which compares recipients of the cash transfer to non-recipients and mixed methods are used to collect and analyse data. Results show that OVC consider capabilities in the dimensions of social life, education, health and play to be of high value in their lives. Children in the recipient group appear to have attained functionings in the four dimensions to a higher degree than their counterparts in the comparison group. There is also an association between participation in the CT-OVC programme and attainment of functionings in all four dimensions. Perceptions from participants explore further opportunities created or expanded through the CT-OVC as well as participants’ suggestions on the programme

This thesis examines whether, how and to what extent social cash transfers help the poor in reducing poverty; not only in income terms but also in relation to how they build on their capabilities and address gender inequality, risk and vulnerability. The thesis explores these questions through an analysis of a community targeted social cash transfer scheme from Traditional Authority Mlomba, Machinga district in Malawi, using the capability approach as the conceptual framework of analysis. The study is located in the critical realist domain as its underlying research philosophy. The study is qualitative in nature, using semi-structured interviews, observations and life histories. The scheme targets the poorest 10% of the population who are also labour constrained and deemed to be economically unproductive. Thus, the study offers some insights into an area that is not well researched as it is a relatively new concept to target the poor who are also labour constrained and not economically productive. In this thesis, I show that despite the limited resource base compared to the large number of the poor, social cash transfers as low as US$14 per household per month can make a valuable contribution to the reduction of poverty through building capabilities of the poor, empowering women and addressing some of the gendered inequalities, risk and vulnerability. Therefore, social cash transfers are not just handouts but act as ladders that can uplift the absolute poor out of poverty.

This thesis examines whether, how and to what extent social cash transfers help the poor in reducing poverty; not only in income terms but also in relation to how they build on their capabilities and address gender inequality, risk and vulnerability. The thesis explores these questions through an analysis of a community targeted social cash transfer scheme from Traditional Authority Mlomba, Machinga district in Malawi, using the capability approach as the conceptual framework of analysis. The study is located in the critical realist domain as its underlying research philosophy. The study is qualitative in nature, using semi-structured interviews, observations and life histories. The scheme targets the poorest 10% of the population who are also labour constrained and deemed to be economically unproductive. Thus, the study offers some insights into an area that is not well researched as it is a relatively new concept to target the poor who are also labour constrained and not economically productive. In this thesis, I show that despite the limited resource base compared to the large number of the poor, social cash transfers as low as US$14 per household per month can make a valuable contribution to the reduction of poverty through building capabilities of the poor, empowering women and addressing some of the gendered inequalities, risk and vulnerability. Therefore, social cash transfers are not just handouts but act as ladders that can uplift the absolute poor out of poverty.