Please read the abstract in the section 00front of this document / Dissertation (MSc (Zoology))--University of Pretoria, 2006. / Zoology and Entomology / unrestricted

In October 1995 representatives from ECPAT (End Child Prostitution in Asian Tourism) visited several Eastern and Southern African countries. The purpose of the visit was to collect information on child prostitution and the impact of tourism on child prostitution and to assess whether to expand the ECPAT campaign to Africa. Although child prostitution in tourism did not presently appear to be a problem, child prostitution was found to be widespread. One common problem identified by ECPAT in all these countries visited was a lack of legislation to protect children from prostitution and a general helplessness in how best to address the issue. So the idea of a workshop, focusing on legal aspects, was bom with the aim to bring together stakeholders from the various countries to learn from each other’s experiences and begin to formulate responses to child prostitution and prevent child prostitution in tourism. The Network Against Child Labour (NACL) South Africa was able to organise a workshop with the financial support from Bread for the World. Participants from NGO’s and governments from Kenya, Mozambique, Zambia, Zimbabwe and South Africa attended this first workshop on child prostitution in the region. Two international legal experts and advisers to ECPAT were present and partly facilitated the workshop, enriching our work with their expertise and world wide experience. The aim of the workshop extended beyond a focus on the legal aspects of child prostitution. Other specific purposes were networking, exchanging each other’s experience and achievements in order to develop strategies to combat child prostitution and finding a common ground for co-ordinated action. The Human Science Research Council (HSRC) provided a venue for the workshop and catered for the event. Dr. Willem Schurink from the HSRC organised, together with the Child Protection Unit from the South African Police, a tour to Johannesburg in areas were child prostitution is considered rife. This gave the participants an insight into the situation in South Africa’s largest city and “economic capital”. The two days of our workshop were intense and enriching. We all learned from each other’s experience and realised that there are many common problems that could be tackled with mutual support and advice in order to change legislation, policies and attitudes in the respective countries in the Eastern and Southern African region to ensure that the problem of child prostitution is declining and eventually eradicated. Continued networking and intensifying contacts will be part of our future efforts to combat child prostitution. The NACL wants to take this occasion to thank all participants for their efforts and contributions that made the workshop a success: Muireann OBrian and Denise Ritchie, who helped us in organising and facilitating. Thanks to our two volunteers, Rakgadi Masetlha and Tilman Rapp for the organisation of the workshop and especially to Dr. Willem Schurink of the HSRC, as well as to the funder - Bread for the World. With this publication we hope not only to reach stakeholders in South Africa and the region but to contribute our experience to world wide efforts to eradicate the degrading and often lethal practice of child prostitution by encouraging organisations and individuals to join a network in order to fight the problem.

No description available.

The objective of this study was to inquire into the educational experiences of pregnant and parenting adolescents enrolled in a pregnant minor program and represent their voices by documenting this inquiry. This is a qualitative study that utilized phenomenological perspective and included a series of three in-depth interviews with six pregnant and parenting students. The focus and aim of the study was to represent the participant's voices on their educational experiences. The participants were pregnant teenagers attending a program in Southern California in the United States of America.

The thesis focuses on finding solutions to major exchange rate puzzles, which were discussed in detail by Obstfeld and Rogoff (2000). The first puzzle is the purchasing power parity puzzle. The first version of the latter puzzle is concerned with whether a real exchange rate reverts in the mean. To resolve the puzzle in the context of Southern African Development Community countries, the thesis uses Bayesian unit root testing and nonlinear nonstationarity tests associated with the smooth transition autoregressive family of models. According to Bayesian unit root test results, the nonstationarity hypothesis received small posterior probability relative to other hypotheses. In this setting, the Bayesian results strongly supported the hypothesis that all the real exchange rates were trend-stationary autoregressive processes. However, it should be pointed out that Ahking (2004) has found these tests to be biased toward trend stationarity. Nonlinear nonstationarity tests presented evidence that four out of ten of SADC’s real exchange rates could be regarded as nonlinear globally ergodic processes, while others could be considered random walks. The thesis relies on local-to-unity asymptotic theory and Rossi (2005a) to deal with the half-life version of the PPP puzzle. The half-life version is that a high degree of exchange rate volatility is generally associated with an implausibly slow speed of mean reversion. Depending on the robustness of the methods used, empirical evidence points to several half-lives of less than 36 months, but the confidence intervals of half-life deviations from PPP are found in all cases, as in Rossi’s work, to be too wide to be informative enough to resolve the puzzle. In addition, the thesis undertakes Hinich and Chong (2007) class tests of fractional integration to ensure that a long memory process is not mistaken for a nonstationary process in finding solutions to the PPP puzzle. The results show that at 1 per cent and 5 per cent significance levels, the real exchange rates associated with South Africa, Mauritius and Swaziland are not fractionally integrated. Tanzania’s real exchange rate was found to be stationary-fractionally integrated but with the antipersistence property. Other currencies were found to be nonstationary-fractionally integrated. The third puzzle is the exchange rate determination puzzle, which is as follows: In the short run there seems to be no reliable determinants of exchange rates. The thesis relies on the market microstructure approach to find the determinants of South Africa’s exchange rate. In this context, the thesis utilises autoregressive distributed lag model of cointegration to identify the fundamental and non-fundamental determinants of the rand/dollar exchange rate. The main contribution of the thesis to the economic literature is the usage of newly developed methods in an attempt to resolve the above-mentioned puzzles. / Thesis (PhD (Economics))--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Economics / unrestricted

This study was conducted in the Borana rangelands, southern Oromia, Ethiopia with the aim of investigating land-use/cover changes, rangeland condition and indentifying major change drivers in the rangelands. Satellite image scenes, ground survey and people’s perceptions were assessed to identify changes on herbaceous and woody species composition. Ordination techniques were used for correlation of grass and woody species into environmental variables. Piospheric effects on vegetation composition around patch resources were also examined. These assessments were designed to bring out both spatial and seasonal variation in vegetation parameters. Rangeland condition was determined using the ecological index (EIM) and the weighted palatability composition (WPC) methods. Grazing capacity assessment was largely based on rain-use efficiency, range condition, density of woody plants. Woody cover in the Borana increased from 11.3% in the 1970s to 49.26% in 2000s, while, grassland cover declined from 58% to 32% during the same period. The cultivated/built up area also increased gradually over the years though the extent of increment was less compared to the woody cover changes. The calculated NDVI values for the 2000s were low relative to the 1970s. Ground survey results demonstrated that herbaceous biomass production and woody plant density varied significantly (P < 0.01) for the different sites in Borana. Nevertheless, herbaceous plant diversity and evenness did not differ significantly (P>0.05) across the different sites and around patch resource areas. This confirms the resilience of the Borana rangeland to the effects of grazing pressure and climatic variability. Overall, the density of woody plants varied from moderate to sever encroachment, which corresponds to the rangeland condition classes from very poor to fair. The results of the present study showed that the nutrient contents of herbaceous plants (CP, NDF, ADF, ADL and ash) were greatly influenced by species, stage of maturity, site and season. Herbaceous species with high crude protein content based on laboratory results were also ranked as the top important species by the pastoralists. Similarly, herbaceous forage species with a high structural fiber were considered inferior. Pastoralists’ knowledge and laboratory results on the nutritive value of key herbaceous species complemented each other. The stocking density of livestock units was higher than the grazing capacity for the Borana rangelands. Stocking density for the Borana rangeland using rain-use efficiency was 1.43 ha/TLU. There was no significant difference in the grazing capacity across the different sites in the study area under the existing management. The majority of pastoralists believed that the rangelands in Borana have been degraded, as consequence of recurrent drought (83%), population pressure (65%), poor management and inappropriate government policy (38%). The majority of the respondents (94%) also asserted that the traditional coping mechanisms of Borana pastoralists have declined. There is therefore a need for designing appropriate pastoral land-use policies that fit the ecological potential of the region to ensure sustainable ecosystem functioning. We suggest a comprehensive and adaptive range management for the implementation of appropriate land-use systems for the different livestock species. There is need to adjust stocking rates based on seasonal availability of forage. This would foster economic feasibility and ecological sustainability of the Borana pastoral production system. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / gm2013 / Plant Production and Soil Science / Unrestricted

A Research Report submitted to the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Medicine (Pharmaceutical Affairs) Johannesburg, 2016 / Background The World Health Organization (WHO) defines medicines regulation as the “promotion and protection of public health by ensuring the safety, efficacy and quality of drugs, and the appropriateness and accuracy of product information” (1). Medicines regulation is a key function in the realisation of the right to essential medicines. However, a satisfactory level of harmonization of regulatory activities has not been achieved in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region as yet. Objectives The study evaluated the current status of medicines regulatory harmonization within the SADC region, as well as explored perceived barriers to regulatory harmonization and potential strategies to address these. Methods A cross-sectional exploratory study design with qualitative techniques, as well as an inductive approach was used. In-depth, semi-structured, face-to-face interviews with interviewees from the SADC Secretariat, the African Medicines Harmonization (AMRH) Initiative and the Southern Africa Regional Programme on Access to Medicines and Diagnostics (SARPAM) was used, involving secondary formal qualitative approaches to identify the emergent themes, was utilised initially. A questionnaire was formulated and adapted using secondary data collected from the face-to-face interviews, then piloted. Questionnaires were sent to senior members of all 15 regulatory authorities belonging to SADC, including registrars and deputy registrars. Theoretical and analytical codes were identified from repeated ideas, concepts or elements. Codes were grouped into concepts, and then into categories. Trend analysis was conducted, involving an in-depth analysis of patterns. Results Barriers to regulatory harmonization in the SADC region perceived by participants included i) deficiencies in governance and leadership within the SADC Secretariat, ii) human resource and technical capacity constraints, iii) limited financial resources, iv) lack of political will within SADC governments, v) lack of intra-SADC relationships, vi) risk-benefit analysis differences in assessment of applications and bias according to local population needs, as well as vii) different guidance documents and legal frameworks among member countries. Strategies identified to address these included i) using other harmonization initiatives as models, ii) application format harmonization and African Union (AU) Model Law adoption, iii) redirecting focus of harmonization to information sharing and technical matter rather than complex legislative frameworks, iv) regulator initiatives of harmonization instead of SADC secretariat reliance, v) World Bank Agreement adoption, vi) human resource capacity development and vii) convergence of guidelines instead of complete harmonization of all regulatory requirements. Conclusions The findings in this study suggest that it may be necessary to redirect the focus of harmonization to more readily achievable activities and aim for convergence of guidelines. Regulatory harmonization is possible if barriers to it are addressed. / MT2016

Collm (52°N, 15°E) midlatitude mesosphere/lower thermosphere (MLT) zonal winds are investigated with respect to a possible influence of the Southern Oscillation (SO). It is found that in winter the prevailing wind is positively correlated with the Southern Oscillation index (SOI), which qualitatively fits to the response of the low-latitude stratosphere on the SO. In summer, however, there is a negative correlation between MLT zonal winds and SOI. A possible mechanism, which includes slightly enhanced planetary wave propagation to the MLT in summers of low SOI is discussed. / Windmessungen aus Collm (52°N, 15°E) wurden hinsichtlich eines möglichen Einflusses der Southern Oscillation (SO) in ihnen untersucht. Es zeigt sich, dass im Winter der mittlere Zonalwind positiv mit dem \'Southern Oscillation Index\' SOI korreliert ist, was qualitativ mit der Reaktion der Stratosphäre auf ENSO übereinstimmt. Im Sommer findet sich jedoch ein negativer Zusammenhang zwischen hochatmosphärischem Zonalwind und SOI. Ein möglicher Mechanismus, der die Ausbreitung planetarer Wellen beinhaltet, wird diskutiert.

The Maputo Corridor is the most significant development project undertaken by the South African government since 1994. The Corridor is an extremely complex project, bringing together a variety of actors from South Africa, Mozambique, and beyond. The project includes the rehabilitation and upgrading of major transport and communications infrastructure between Witbank and Maputo, institutional reform to expedite border-crossing, and incentives for labour-intensive investment in the areas adjacent to the Corridor. The Maputo Corridor is also the first build-operate- transfer highway in the region. The Maputo Corridor is a valid and fascinating subject for political inquiry because it provides insight into the new South African government's priorities and ideological stance. Research on the Corridor also contributes to our understanding of political power structures in the region. The primary goal of this dissertation was to come to an understanding of why and how the Maputo Corridor developed. Research was designed to test popular hypotheses from the South African media. These hypotheses were (1) that the Corridor was designed to isolate Gauteng from potential transport-based blackmail by the IFP and (2) that the Corridor was sponsored and directed by the leaders of Mpumalanga Province. This dissertation is composed of four main sections. First, the historical context of the Corridor starting in the 19th century is investigated. Repetitive historical themes with relevance for the present are identified. Second, the leaders and managers of the corridor project are pinpointed. Third, strategic motivations for the corridor in the current political environment are studied. The fourth part consists of an investigation of the means used to implement the Corridor. Several sources of information were used. These sources included indepth interviews with the Corridor's stakeholders, primary documentation, and secondary published sources.

Dissertation Submitted in Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy (PhD.) at the University of Witwatersrand – School of Governance September 2015 / This research is demarcated according to two modes, one conceptual – state sovereignty - and two - distant proximity – the ideal of regional integration. When these are juxtaposed in the state sovereignty-regional integration complex, they resemble a complex picture of what is under construction. The nation state currently exists, so it is an important variable. The research examines what happens to the nation state variable, in respect to its policy preferences, interests and ideational content as the process of regional integration evolves. Put differently, does the nation state remain indivisible or is it evolving as the process of regional integration deepens? The research has found that the policy preferences and interests of states in Southern Africa converge and/or diverge not so much based on the SADC objectives and norms. The convergence and/or divergence of policy preferences among states in SADC is informed by the constant negotiation and engagement among states - yielding not so much a zero-sum regional integration arrangement nor is it leading to the demise of the nation state – but around a range of factors including: perceived economic gains and losses; persuasion and influence among state and non-state actors; political solidarity among state actors; external and internal political and economic pressures. The notion of state sovereignty is invoked by many states when all the factors above have yielded inadequate results for the particular state. The research has found that a constructivist process of co-determination and co-constitution and solidarity, albeit very loose and not legaly binding, is taking place in Southern Africa. This process, the research has found, is pointing to an intergovernmental regional integration arrangement wherein certain policy areas or competencies reside at the regional level and some at the nation state level. The process of inter-state action and behaviour, the dissertation has found, is underpinned by the interests, preferences and choices of states in their discursive relationship to one another in the process of regional integration. / MT2016