Magister Legum - LLM / The prominent role of cities in contemporary developing countries, especially in South Africa, purposively cannot be overstated. Home to 40 per cent of South Africa’s population and accounting for 63 per cent of the national gross domestic product (GDP), cities, in the words of the former Minister of Finance Malusi Gigaba, ‘are at heart of the national economy.’ Yet, despite being at the epicentre of the national economy, cities in the form of metropolitan municipalities (Category A), also known as ‘self-standing municipalities', face a significant mismatch between their expenditure responsibilities and revenue sources.5 Not unique to South African cities, this mismatch, notoriously known as the ‘fiscal gap’ or ‘fiscal imbalance’, arises when own revenue sources such as, property rates, user charges, levies and other taxes available to cities, are inadequate to meet their expenditures.

The goal of this study was to explore and describe roles of social workers in enhancing social capital in communities to manage HIV and Aids in the Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipalities. In order to achieve this goal, a qualitative research approach was adopted to explore and describe the views of social workers and community members. The research deals with the roles of social workers in enhancing social capital in the communities of Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipalities in order to manage HIV and Aids. To this end, the collective case study design guided the study. Focus group interviews were used as the data collection method for this study, and two distinct interview schedules developed and utilised for social workers and community members, respectively. From the raw data, the researcher implemented the qualitative data analysis process of Creswell (1998) to extrapolate themes and sub-themes through thematic analysis. The trustworthiness of the data interpretation was confirmed through reflexibility, voluntary participation and the guarantee of anonymity. An analysis of three different sources of data, namely the literature review and focus group interviews with social workers and community members was undertaken to answer the following two research questions, namely: (1) Based on the views of social workers, what are the roles of social workers in enhancing social capital in the communities to manage HIV and Aids in the Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipalities?; and (2) Based on the views of community members, what are the roles of social workers in enhancing social capital in the communities to manage HIV and Aids in the Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipalities? The key finding of the study was that, social workers have various roles to play in enhancing the social capital of communities to manage HIV and Aids in the Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipalities. More specifically, it was found that: (1) Social workers provide critical services in the identification and assessment of situations in which relationships between people and social institutions need to be initiated, enhanced, restored, protected and terminated; (2) Social workers promote social change, problem solving in human relationships, and the empowerment and liberation of people to enhance their well-being; (3) Social workers provide essential leadership and support in mobilising community response to HIV and Aids; (4) Social workers strengthen bonding, bridging or linking relationships that are critical for building family and community capacity, connecting families to services and supports, improving safety nets for prevention and early intervention, and for empowering family and community members; (5) Social workers develop special kinds of local communities that promote people’s health and well-being and, at the same time, contribute to sustainable, integrated social and economic development; and finally, Social workers play a critical role in combating stigma related to HIV and Aids through education and raising awareness. In strengthening the roles of social workers to enhance social capital in the communities, in order to manage HIV and Aids in the Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni Metropolitan, the following recommendations are made: to ensure that relevant international, regional, national, provincial and district level policies, guidelines and other relevant statutes are part of social workers’ workplace orientation programme and continuous professional training; to emphasise the social capital concept in the tertiary education curriculum of social workers; to ensure that social workers are urgently and continuously strengthened and sustained during HIV prevention efforts; to ensure that social workers transition from their work in needs orientation to human rights affirmation; to encourage the NGO sector to include a developmental social work focus in their HIV and Aids work with communities; and to ensure that social workers work on coordination and open discussions of interpersonal networks between the government and NGOs. These recommendations are consolidated into a document entitled ‘Guidelines for social workers to building social capital in communities towards the management of HIV and Aids in the Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipalities’. Future research could focus on the following: (1) Extending the research study to other Metropolitan Municipalities in the Gauteng province in order to compare if social workers in other municipalities identifies with the findings of the current study and to expand the recommendations originating from this study on a provincial level; (2) Investigating social capital as a community development tool for social work in the context of HIV prevention and management in the South African context further; (3) Guiding social workers on the role they could play in the efforts to prevent and manage HIV infection at community level; and (4) Implementing the guidelines originating from this study in practice and determining their strengths and limitations. / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2014. / am2014 / Social Work and Criminology / unrestricted

No description available.

No description available.

Magister Legum - LLM

Submitted by Silvana Teresinha Dornelles Studzinski (sstudzinski) on 2015-06-24T14:18:03Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Luciano Santos Malta.pdf: 3767586 bytes, checksum: 996b1c196eb276c090a4b03a065abd79 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2015-06-24T14:18:03Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Luciano Santos Malta.pdf: 3767586 bytes, checksum: 996b1c196eb276c090a4b03a065abd79 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-09-30 / Nenhuma / As pressões e as exigências socioeconômicas, políticas e ambientais do mundo contemporâneo vem motivando o processo de modernização da gestão pública, nas últimas décadas. Essas transformações, por sua vez, se refletiram na administração e na forma de gerir a coisa pública, exigindo uma atuação mais ampla e transparente dos governos. Nesse cenário, alguns princípios - como o da eficiência - passaram a ser tratados como forma de se alcançar melhores práticas de gestão, na prestação de serviços públicos. Com a reforma constitucional de 1988, a gestão dos municípios passou a centralizar atribuições relevantes, frente ao crescimento de demandas por políticas públicas que visassem à inclusão social, ao combate à pobreza, à promoção do desenvolvimento humano e à prestação de serviços essenciais, como: educação, saúde, transporte e segurança. Evidenciar os potenciais de melhorias e estabelecer padrões na geração de serviços públicos se tornou aspecto emblemático, visto a restrição de recursos e a crescente demanda pela geração de tais serviços. Nesse contexto, o objetivo deste estudo foi analisar a eficiência relativa dos municípios pertencentes às regiões metropolitanas brasileiras, evidenciando os fatores determinantes desses escores e as melhorias necessárias para que os referidos municípios sejam considerados eficientes. A ferramenta utilizada é a Data Envelopment Analisys (DEA), com orientação para o produto e em retornos constantes de escala. A amostra foi composta por 295 municípios de regiões metropolitanas, com corte temporal para o ano de 2011. Tratase de uma pesquisa descritiva, de caráter quantitativo e com natureza de survey documental. Os resultados dos escores de eficiência apontaram algumas características comuns, dentre os municípios eficientes, como densidade populacional abaixo de 100 mil habitantes, equilíbrio na produção de serviços e geração de receitas, baixo nível de endividamento e escala de receitas e PIB per capita abaixo de média da amostra. Dentre as variáveis que mais impulsionaram os resultados de eficiência, a taxa de alfabetização da população apresentou maior impacto, nos municípios eficientes. / The pressures and demands socioeconomic, political and environmental issues of the contemporary world, led the modernization of public administration in the last decades. These transformations in turn , were reflected in the administration and how to manage public affairs, requiring a broader role and transparent government. In this scenario , some principles like efficiency began to be treated as a way to achieve better management practices in public service delivery. With the constitutional reform of 1988, the management of municipalities has centralized assignments relevant forward to growing demands for public policies that aimed at social inclusion, combating poverty, promoting human development and the provision of essential services such as education, health, transport and safety. Highlight these potential improvements and establish standards in the generation of public services has become emblematic because resource constraints and growing demand for the generation of these services. In this context , the aim of this study was to analyze the relative efficiency of the municipalities belonging to the metropolitan regions, highlighting the determinants of these scores and improvements needed for these counties are considered efficient. The tool used is Analisys Date Envelopment ( DEA ), with guidance to product and constant returns to scale. The sample was composed of 295 municipalities of metropolitan areas with cut out for the year 2011. This is a descriptive study of a quantitative nature and documental survey. The results of efficiency scores suggest some common features among the municipalities efficient as population density below 100 inhabitants, the balance in the production of services and revenue generation, low debt levels and a range of revenue and GDP per capita below sample average. Among the variables that most boosted efficiency results the literacy rate of the population had the highest frequency in the municipalities efficient.

Thesis (Ph.D. Commerce (Accounting)) -- University of Limpopo, 2021 / Despite South Africa's progress towards increasing investments in water management (IWM), water services delivery challenges (WSDCs) are prevalent. However, this further proves that focusing on only increasing (IWM) without addressing sustainability practices is not the only lasting solution. Therefore, the study examined the relationship between Sustainable Water Infrastructure (SWI) factors and IWM in South African metropolitan municipalities (SAMMs) to explore an alternative way of dealing with WSDCs. The study considered 278 municipalities in South Africa as the population. Furthermore, the study purposively selected eight (8) SAMMs, and employed quantitative content analysis to collect secondary data (2009 to 2019) from the various internet-based data sources. The data analysis procedure involved multivariate regression analysis through which Ordinary Least Squares and Feasible Generalised Least Squares produced results for the study. The study results suggest that only environmental management practices have had a positive but insignificant effect on IWM, whereas social, governance and economic factors have adversely and insignificantly influenced IWM. Overall, the relationship between SWI factors and IWM in SAMMs has turned out to be neutral. The results further expose the metropolitan councils' lack of proactive strategies to deal with the SWI factors that impede progressive efforts towards addressing an underinvestment gap and the worsening WSDCs. Since the study pioneered in the water management narrative, it has initiated new approaches to addressing WSDCs in the South African context. The study results present important implications for water service authorities and policymakers in South Africa as the narrative concerning the development of sustainable cities continues to gain momentum in urban development discourses. The study further recommends that SAMMs adhere to guidelines proposed in the framework to ensure that created investment opportunities due to good SEGE practices can enhance IWM. Lastly, further studies in this field of study are fundamental in exploring various approaches to addressing WSDCs. / Mpumalanga Department of Education (MDE)