Word processed copy. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 87-94)

Includes bibliographical references. / Since 1981 AIDS has killed more than 25 million people world-wide, the majority of whom lived within developing countries. The worst affected region, Sub Saharan Africa, currently has 3.5% of the world’s population yet 37% of the world’s people living with HIV. In light of the magnitude of the pandemic in the region it has been increasingly acknowledged that not only are HIV and AIDS health issues but also pervasive development issues due to the impact they have on national socioeconomic development. Unsurprisingly a disease of ‘sex and drugs’4 is a highly controversial and politicized issue. An effective response represents a serious challenge for national governance institutions, particularly within the unique and complex socio political environments of the region. The need for ‘democratic governance’ and a ‘multi-sectoral’ approach within the HIV & AIDS response highlights the critical role of national legislatures. Due to the severity and scope of the pandemic there is an assumption that elected representatives would be in the forefront of the response. Effective legislatures are the sine qua non of a representative democracy, and arguably an important vehicle through which to drive the HIV national response. Legislatures represent a cross section of society and play a central role in the coordination and implementation of national responses. Further understanding and explanation of legislative responses around HIV & AIDS speak to issues of democratic governance and the need to improve overall accountability and transparency within these institutions.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 120-125). / Prior to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the United States government deemed Southern Africa to be of no strategic value. An impoverished region with a wealth of problems, Southern Africa mattered little to the United States government who approached regional security cooperation with a primarily minimalist approach. During the pre-9/11 years the United States did provide Southern African governments with some security sector assistance, primarily in direct military training and law enforcement programmes. Other areas such as peace support operations assistance, border and transportation security, and counter-proliferation training were marginal, as were arms authorisations. Everything changed on September 11th, 2001. The result of the attacks was a massive security and foreign policy shift for America. In response, the United States launched a Global War on Terror, which truly affected its relations with regions in every part of the globe, Southern Africa included. This thesis examines pre- and post-9/11 security assistance from the United States government to the nations of Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia, and Zimbabwe in the time periods 1998-2001 and 2002-2005. Chapter Two focuses on pre-9/11 security cooperation and Chapter Three on post-9/11 security cooperation. Each chapter quantifies bilateral treaties and agreements, joint military exercises, military training, peace support operations training, arms authorisations and grants, nuclear security training, law enforcement training, and border and transportation security training and overall training expenditure. Chapter Four then pools the data together and provides a pre vs. post- 9/11 analysis of collective security cooperation. Results are stated in percent changes from pre- 9/11 levels. Training and arms per soldier ratios are calculated based on the data to produce regional rankings of United States' assistance. Chapter Five offers conclusive observations and recommendations.

It is a common assumption that foreign aid has to benefit recipient countries, by, among other things, stimulating growth, reducing poverty and improving governance. While Africa has received massive inflows of aid since the 1960s, the Continent is still saddled with a number of challenges. These include, poor economic performance, growing poverty, a high level of corruption, poor governance and a general deterioration in the quality of life of its people. The contradiction between the assumption and reality has led, in recent years, to a raging debate over the effectiveness of foreign aid in mitigating Africa’s underdevelopment. This dissertation examines some of the dominant arguments in this debate, and shows that while foreign aid has been beneficial to Africa in some respects, its negative impact on the Continent’s economic growth and general development should not be discounted. For this reason, Africa should reconsider its heavy dependence on aid.

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 87-90).

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 133-150). / The Great Lakes region, where conflict resolution and peace operations have been a challenge for 40 years, has been the site of continuous conflicts in the 1960s and 1990s. Despite South Africa's enormous contribution as a peacemaker in the region since 1996, the situation in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) remains fragile. How can another potentially deadly conflict in the Great Lakes region be prevented in the future? And how can South Africa improve its performance as a peacemaker? This dissertation analyses South Africa's peace-making efforts in the context of three events in the Great Lakes region: the 1994 Rwandan genocide, the First Congo War in 1996, and the Second Congo War in 1998. The dissertation takes an empirical approach and focuses on eastern DRC, which has the highest concentration of causalities and is crucial to the wars of the DRC. In addition to literature and documents, I have also incorporated key informant interviews and my own personal observations during my assignment as a humanitarian worker from March 2007 to July 2008. These interviews and observations may shed light on the conflict from the perspective of Congolese people. I argue that South Africa has failed as a peacemaker due to four main factors: South Africa's inadequate knowledge of mediation skills; its ambivalent and contradictory foreign policy that stressed the country's interests; its insufficient understanding of major causes, aggravating factors and the nature of this regionalised conflict; and the Southern African Development Community (SADC)'s paradoxical politics. The aim of this dissertation is to explore possible solutions to conflict by strengthening South Africa's peace-making opportunities, which IS the key to implementing successful conflict prevention.

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 78-81). / A literature study invetigating the role of communication within the Bretton Woods School of Development Communication as an agent to achieve social and economical change in Sub-Saharan Africa. The study presents social and economic change as intended outcomes of modernisation as supported by this school of thought. It grapples with Western modernisation discourse that was advanced by Bretton Woods institutions as well as the instruments of communication (media) applied to achieve the intended developmental outcomes. It suggests that the presumed lack of modernisation in Sub-Saharan Africa is based on subjective development criteria and the applicability of ineffective communication and governance methods that failed to consider the region's cultural and socio-economic diversity. In a postmodern world, the study suggests that there should be a gradual move away from the Bretton Woods School of Development Communication-thought and that the focus should rather be to enable the region to establish communication, development and governance models that are African in character.

In the West nationalisation and privatisation have been explained mostly in relation to the political ideologies of capitalism and socialism. The privatisations that began in the 1980s, and accelerated after the collapse of socialism across Eastern Europe, have generally been considered to be developmentally linear. Postcolonial nationalisation-privatisation cycles in South East Asian and Latin American countries, by contrast, have been explained by scholars such as Chua as related to ethnicism, nationalism and indigenism and above all the presence of a 'emarket dominant ethnic minority f (MDM). This paper reviews the cycles of nationalisation and privatisation in the mining industries in Zambia and South Africa (SA), in order to examine the respective roles that ethnicity and political ideology have played. It explores whether minority ethnic economic control is more important than political ideology in driving calls for nationalisation of mining. For each country case, I set out a detailed historical analysis of the political and policy provisions made since independence from colonial rule. The paper explores ideas of ownership and race; the internalisation of norms of neoliberal economic policies; socialism and nationalism; and power relations and identity politics. The study also interrogates the impact of global structures upon state decisions. In both case studies, I show that minority ethnic dominance has been a more important driver of nationalisation/privatisation cycles than political ideology.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 73-77). / Much of Sub-Saharan Africa economically and democratically lags behind the rest of the world. Many wealthy countries have worked to speed up Africa's development through the use of foreign aid. The George W. Bush Administration utilized aid in their efforts to help eliminate poverty and deepen democracy. They disbursed aid through a novel government agency named the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC). This thesis gauges the usefulness of the MCC and measures its impact on economic and democratic development in Sub-Saharan Africa. To provide an assessment of the MCC, I examine the association between foreign aid disbursed by the MCC and resulting economic and democratic development. The conclusions are drawn by employing a quantitative methodology using difference of means analysis and bivariate analysis. The empirical research suggests that aid disbursed through the MCC is producing only slight economic and democratic growth. I conclude the study with a case study that corroborates the empirical findings. This study brings into question the general effectiveness of foreign aid and further suggests that Africa may need another solution to underdevelopment that may go beyond the reach of aid planners.

The resource curse is a theory which argues that rather than being a conduit for development natural resources can in fact lead to slow growth, civil war and hinder democracy. This thesis focuses specifically on the inverse relationship between dependence on the export of natural resources and slow economic growth, and how to prevent it.