While it has become the United Nations (UN) responsibility to peacekeep the world’s most conflict ridden countries, so too has their impact on the physical environment increased. Large numbers of personnel require equally vast amount of logistical requirements and equipment for the sustainment of operations. Base camps are the focal points from which operations are managed in the field. The ability of peacekeeping base camps to handle their solid waste, both on-site and off-site in low capacity environments, has gained greater attention as environmental concerns have increased globally. Interviews conducted with the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) (acting as a current Troop Contributing Country (TCC) to the United Nations (UN) peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo) determined the problems facing appropriate solid waste collection, treatment and disposal methods utilized in and outside peacekeeping base camps and their specific limitations. It was found that there was inefficient monitoring and follow up processes involved with solid waste contracting providers; that there is a need for the inclusion of focused solutions during the operational planning stages; and, there is a deficiency in placed responsibility both from within a TCC and between the UN as to how and whom should manage the solid waste emanating from within base camps. This MA dissertation achieved the understanding that there must be greater focus placed on the delineation of responsibility for the management of solid waste within base camps in the documents that initially structure operations between TCCs, the UN and host nations, thereby limiting the impact on the physical environment from peacekeeping to the furthest extent possible. / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / Geography, Geoinformatics and Meteorology / MA / Unrestricted

The United Nations General Assembly adopted on the 20PthP of November 1989 the Convention on the Rights of the Child responding to the atrocities committed against the child, the deaths of children from armed conflict, and children suffering from diseases and hunger. Moreover, the UNGA adopted on May 25PthP, 2000 two Optional Protocols to the CRC relating to the involvement of children in armed conflict and to the sale of children, the use of the child for pornography and prostitution. The CRC, almost ratified by all states, contains a comprehensive list of Human Rights relating to children which should be respected, promoted, protected and fulfilled. The CRC guarantees children’s individual human rights strengthening the role of parents. The UNCRC defines in article 1 that a child is every human being below the age of 18 unless, in a particular state, the age of majority is achieved earlier and emphasizes on four general principles the best interest of the child, non-discrimination, the rights to life, survival and development and the right to participate. Furthermore, especially for children in armed conflict, the CRC sets up measures which all states parties must implement in order to protect them and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACRWC) also sets up some measures to protect them in armed conflict according to International Humanitarian Law and International Human Rights Law. Nevertheless, during armed conflict, it is almost impossible to respect all obligations set in IHL and IHRL. During the last twelve years, the Democratic Republic of Congo was a battlefield in which it has been estimated that 2 million children have been killed, more than 6 million have been injured during this armed conflict. For instance, they have suffered sexual violence, grave psychological trauma, malnutrition and diseases. All the six grave violations against children set by the UN Security Council in its resolution 1612 (killing or maiming of children, recruitment or use of child soldiers, rape and other forms of sexual violence against children, abduction of children, attacks against schools or hospitals, denial of humanitarian access to children) were committed during this period in the DRC. Therefore, the DRC is responsible for the violation of children’s rights set in the various legal instruments protecting children in period of armed conflict. Despite the responsibility of the state, armed groups or individuals are also recognized as criminally responsible of the violation of the rights of children within the Congolese jurisdiction only if the material elements are committed intentionally and with knowledge, according to article 30 of the International Criminal Court. However, the reparation of these violations may foresee restitution, compensation for damage suffered in the past, assurance against future breach of international obligations and an approach that of remedial justice and prevention because children represent our societies and their protection represents a right and a human security issue. / Dissertation (LLM)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / Centre for Human Rights / unrestricted

Conflict has been rife in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) for many decades, in a war over minerals. The economic incentive for this conflict lies in the multimillion dollar trade in conflict minerals, and the results are human rights abuses, violent conflict and corruption. International industries from resource-rich countries play a role in business and human rights violations in other countries where governance is weak, such as the DRC. The focus of this study is minerals extracted from the eastern DRC – the ores that produce tin, tantalum, tungsten (the 3Ts) and gold. These minerals are essential to the electronics industry, where various companies, primarily publicly listed companies, use these minerals in their production processes. This study examines the way in which companies at the top of the minerals supply chain use their buying power to influence their suppliers, exerting pressure down the supply chain. There have been dramatic changes in this arena recently, including the passing of conflict minerals legislation in the United States of America (USA) and an evolving multilateral architecture for supply chain due diligence emanating from the United Nations (UN) and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). This study explores a variety of efforts initiated by a number of companies, governments and non-governmental organisations (both in the DRC and internationally) committed to combating conflict minerals. These efforts are aimed at formulating a regulatory framework on the security exchanges in Africa. Such a system should be conceptualised to regulate the due diligence process relating to minerals to enable end-users to trace supply chains from companies who use these minerals back to the sources of origin, by using independent audit chains of custody in a certification scheme similar to the Kimberley Process for conflict diamonds. This system is intended to be a means to strengthen the global transparency and accountability of electronics companies, together with industry initiatives, the OECD’s guidelines and extractive industry transparency initiatives principles, targeting publicly listed companies. This study, which consisted of a desktop review of books, journals, reports and internet sources, analyses elements of the USA‘s Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 (Dodd-Frank Act) and South Africa’s King Code Report III on Corporate Governance of 2009 to determine whether these instruments are appropriate to be applied to African exchanges. It examines whether these instruments can be used to create a system requiring companies trading in or using conflict minerals in their production to compile an annual report that is to be made publicly available, disclosing the source and chain of custody of conflict minerals which originate from conflict zones, notably the DRC and other African countries. Due to the globalised markets, companies are gaining greater power than some governments. Companies are regulated by the legislation of the host country in which they are incorporated. The countries in which these companies operate and publicly trade are usually developing countries, which are characterised by impoverished communities and unstable or emerging democracies. The recent passing of the conflict minerals provisions in the Dodd-Frank Act requires that publicly traded companies in electronics industries report annually to the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) on whether conflict minerals are part of their supply chains, and if so, what the steps have been taken to ensure that the companies do not contribute to the ongoing conflict. The practical/managerial implications of the African system is that the inconsistencies and instability in these emerging markets legislation and their relaxed rule of law create loopholes in the systems of industry which would normally require adherence to human rights principles and industry’s assistance in developing global standards and/or incorporating such standards into legislation. Industry is still largely unaware of whether products are conflict-free and has no way of determining the status of products. Responsible supply chain co-operation is therefore needed by companies to take steps to trace supply chains, and ensure independent auditing and certification. This study looks at how industry and governments can formulate international standards and regulations that require publicly listed companies using the 3Ts and gold in the production of their goods to put human rights at the heart of their enterprises. The findings of the study highlight the urgent need for due diligence, transparency and an accountability agenda for resource sectors. The study argues that more African states need to buy into these initiatives. Greater transparency must be part of broader governance schemes. The study recognises the important role of stock exchanges and the importance of regulating companies which trade and source minerals from the DRC and other countries in Africa. The study recommends a reform of securities exchanges and the implementation of corporate governance codes. The study argues that Africa can incorporate elements of the Dodd-Frank Act, the SEC Act, King III and the JSE Listing Requirements into national legislation in the individual states to impose important legal duties on companies to promote fairness, accountability, responsibility and transparency. Passing legislation to regulate the international minerals trade is crucial for the promotion of a legal mineral trade. / Dissertation (LLM)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / Centre for Human Rights / unrestricted

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / This dissertation assumes an explorative and descriptive approach rather than a comparative approach. It aims at offering the concept of Leadership Ethos (LE) and its inherent Critical Success Factors (CSFs) as a paradigm in the quest to secure organisational efficiency and effectiveness in public management, with a particular focus on the public policy implementation process. It begins by presenting the background to the study, providing relevant information about the problem and the methodology followed. It then introduces the context of the problem of the study, sketching the context of civil service leadership before the advent of democracy in the Republic of South Africa (RSA) and prior to independence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). These two countries serve as the case study through the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and the National Ministry of Economy (ECONAT) respectively. This is followed by the presentation of the theoretical framework of the study, defined within the context of compliance-based and integrity-based approaches to leadership, resulting in discussions on leadership theories. This leads to an examination of public administration reforms (PARs) in the context of LE, illustrating how PARs have resulted in a change in organisational focus and culture of the public sector. The study examines relevant economic policies in the RSA and the DRC with a view to illustrate the effects of LE and its subsequent CSFs on performance in public management, in particular, with respect to the implementation of public policies. Data were then presented and analysed with the purpose of probing the understanding of LE and its inherent CSFs. It considers how LE enhances organisational efficiency, which in turn will enhance social transformation, by guaranteeing the successful implementation of economic policies. The study then presents a summary of the main findings in both case study research areas. In its conclusion, the study proposes recommendations towards a LE that contributes to more effective public policy implementation processes.

This thesis discusess the aid effectiveness focusing on volunteering in development. Its main part is a case study that examines the impact of non-governmental organization engaged in volunteering FIDESCO on the city of Lubumbashi in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The thesis does not analyze the aid effectiveness as a whole, but tries to point out the importance of organizations working with volunteers in the field of development cooperation.

This study aims to test the performance of agricultural markets in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Although the DRC is classified as the fifth biggest producer of cassava, nearly 70 percent of its population living mainly in urban areas is suffering from food shortages. Since the markets are poorly integrated, food prices are very volatile. Small agricultural producers obtain low prices for their products, while vulnerable household’s consumers experience high prices. Over the last few years, the price of cassava has increased considerably, from US$ 72 per ton in 2007 to US$ 123 per ton in 2009. This dramatic increase in the price of a basic foodstuff has significantly affected poor people in both urban and rural areas. The increase in cassava market prices and the food insecurity level in DRC are an indication that markets have not efficiently performed their fundamental role of connecting producers and consumers. Therefore, understanding the status of value chain development and the degree of market integration is important to improve food security, as well as people’s livelihood in rural areas. Several techniques were identified in the literature for testing agricultural market performance, including: market integration, parity bound analysis, causality, symmetry, error correction mechanisms and value chain analysis. Some studies used mathematical models including deterministic analytical models and stochastic analytical models. For the purpose of this study and because of data limitations, value chain analysis and market integration techniques were applied. The value chain analysis was performed to identify critical issues and constraints that undermine value chain development, as well as to identify business and technological opportunities that can enhance the performance and competitiveness of the sub-sector. The prices of cassava products in the DRC were found to be high, due to the high costs of production, processing and marketing of cassava at different levels of the market chain. Poor market linkages lead to low utilisation of value addition technologies, and this contributes directly to poor market opportunities. This results in a wide range of negative aspects for the sector, such as decreasing incentives for the production and consumption of cassava products and lack of sufficient competitiveness to make cassava a significant commercial commodity. Investment in the sector is considered risky by different chain actors, and is limited as a result of the overall non-competitiveness of the sector. The cassava market in the DRC is organised around Kinshasa in Western Congo, and around Lubumbashi in the South-eastern part of the country. In view of the strategic importance of the two marketplaces, a market integration analysis was conducted to consider whether food policy focusing on those two reference marketplaces would be sufficient to stabilise the cassava supply nationwide, since most of the marketplaces seem to have a strong relationships with these two reference markets. Using co-integration techniques, an error correction mechanism and an index of market connection, the findings established that among the 11 pairs of trading markets, 6 of them were segmented, meaning that price changes in the reference markets were not fully transmitted to the regional markets. Four key factors, including macroeconomic environment, transportation infrastructure, market information flow and distance, played a significant role in price differentials, and caused potential and existing markets to cease to function as efficient generators of wealth and distributors of food. This is apparently one of the most important reasons for increased food insecurity and poverty among food producers and consumers alike. The results confirm the poor value chain status of cassava, which leads to the stagnation of this crop as a semi-commercial crop, and restrains its absorption into the mainstream market chain in local, national and regional markets. The market integration results showed segmented and moderated integrated markets arising from the 11 pairs of trading markets, of which 6 were identified as segmented. The results from the error correction mechanism (ECM) suggest that on average about 30% of past deviations from the long run are corrected each month. Among the 11 paired markets, the highest coefficient of price adjustment in the long run was indicated by the paired markets Bukavu–Goma (43%), Mbujimayi–Kananga (38%) and Matadi-Kinshasa (36%); and the lowest was given by the paired market Kisangani–Kinshasa (15%). In the short run, the IMC of 0.85 suggests a strong market connection between Matadi and Kinshasa, which then suggests that price shocks that occur in the market of Kinshasa affect immediately, and partially, the Matadi markets supplying it. This high IMC coefficient was also found between Bukavu and Goma (0.86), and Kananga and Mbujimay (0.81). None of the other markets trading with Kinshasa and Lubumbashi respond in the short run to price changes in these reference markets. This implies that only 3 market pairs out of 11 hav strong intgration which therefore presents clear evidence of weak market integration between production and deficient areas in the DRC as awhole. This weak linear relationship between markets can be postulated as one of major causes of food insercurity in the country. This understanding of cause of food insecurity and various issues surrounding market integration would futher help policy makers to improve efficiency of cassava marketing system, lower farm to retail price spread and consolidate food security accross the country. Copyright / Dissertation (MSc(Agric))--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Agricultural Economics, Extension and Rural Development / unrestricted

Dissertation (LLM)--University of Pretoria, 2014. / gm2015 / Centre for Human Rights / LLM / Unrestricted

This study is an analysis of how military issues can contribute to a sustainable ending of civil wars particularly in Africa. The continuous warfare in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) between 1996 and 2004 is used to understand the nature of civil wars and how they relate to classical strategic theory of war in general and their termination in particular. According to classical strategic military theory, war must always be guided by clear political objectives. Without this, war becomes an irrational act and spins out of control. Tactical victory gained in the battlefield over an opponent must be translated into strategic victory for war to end sustainably. This can only be done if the political objective of the war has been attained. But also crucial are the terms and conditions of peace that the victor offers the defeated opponent. Not all wars end with a tactical victory in the battlefield. In many instances of modern wars, and in particular with the current civil wars in Africa, there is a stalemate. This forces the belligerent parties to negotiate. Within the context of the DRC, the first war (1996-1997) ended in a tactical victory for the Rwandan alliance (composed of Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi) over the regime of President Mobutu. However, this victory was not translated into strategic victory (long term peace). The alliance, despite having installed a new leader (Laurent Kabila) in the DRC, remained an occupying force, with the Rwandan military commander taking over the role of the DRC’s military chief of staff. This was in part because the political objectives of the Rwandan alliance had changed from revenge on Mobutu for sheltering and supporting the perpetrators of the genocide in Rwanda, to economic exploitation of the abundant natural resources of the DRC. The outcome was that the proxy (Kabila) turned against his backers as he sought to gain legitimacy and support from his fellow Congolese citizens. President Kabila ordered the Rwandan alliance out of the country. The alliance then started a second war (1998-2002) aimed at deposing the former proxy and establishing new proxies. The situation had however changed as the old proxy (Kabila) had acquired new partners (Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe). This, apart from transforming the DRC war into Africa’s first continental war (in terms of the number of countries that were eventually involved), turned into a stalemate. This resulted in negotiations that took a long time to complete. The first round of negotiations produced the Lusaka Ceasefire Agreement (LCA) in 1999 with two independent tracks that led to two levels of agreements: inter-state agreements and intra-state agreements. None of these were implementable until 2002 when the DRC negotiated with Rwanda and with Uganda separately on military issues of the conflict. These negotiations produced the Pretoria Accords between the DRC and Rwanda, and the Luanda Accords between the DRC and Uganda. The withdrawal of the militaries of Rwanda and Uganda from the DRC paved way for their proxies, The Rally for Congolese Democracy - Goma (Rassemblement Congolais pour la Démocratie - RCD-Goma) and the Movement for the Liberation of Congo (Mouvement de Libération du Congo – MLC) to join the Inter-Congolese National Dialogue (ICND) which ended in 2004 without a conclusive agreement on military issues. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2015. / tm2015 / Political Sciences / PhD / Unrestricted

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / I set out to rethink the ongoing conflict in North Kivu and South Kivu in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). I highlight two problems with regards to the current conceptualisation of the conflict in North Kivu and South Kivu. The first is a theoretical problem and here I demonstrate that the Banyarwanda and Banyamulenge’s quest for belonging has so far been restricted to citizenship. Congolese Banyarwanda and the Banyamulenge find themselves in a peculiar situation, at various times in the postcolonial Congolese state they had recognition from above but lacked recognition from below. It is in this context that a politics of belonging developed. The second problem is with regards to the history of the conflict. I argue that most scholarly works take the 1993 conflict in North Kivu as the starting point of the conflict, but the conflict can be traced back to an earlier date. It was with this in mind that I pose the following question: Can the conflict in North and South Kivu in the DRC be considered as a politics of belonging between indigenous Congolese and Kinyarwanda speaking Congolese, and a contest for survival between Hutu and Tutsi elites? My research is qualitative and since the problem is theoretical and historical I had to think about how the conflict was presented in terms of definitions, meaning, concepts, and so on. Therefore, this research is guided by critical theory and uses a case study research design. For this purpose, I relied on both primary and secondary data. Primary data sources for this study include the following: photographs that was taken while I was deployed in the DRC as a soldier, my personal deployment diary, internet newspaper articles, research reports of the United Nations, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, a focus group with expats from North Kivu and South Kivu, a questionnaire I distributed among expats from the DRC and an online discussion forum.

No abstract available. / Dissertation (LLM)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / gm2014 / Centre for Human Rights / unrestricted