Magister Legum - LLM / Despite some gains in economic reforms and international commitments, Ethiopia still maintains the position of one of the poorest countries in the world in the 21st century with very little power to influence the allocation of resources in the world market. The development problems in many of the sub-Saharan regions are confined within the country including the difficulty to keep up with rapid increase in the number of primary school enrollments, which has led to a situation of compromised quality; high child mortality and HIV/AIDS, which poses additional challenges to the poor health facilities, gender and regional inequalities and sustainable debt burden. Making matters worse, Ethiopia's political instability, civil war, recurring of drought, and economic mismanagement ties the country to a severe poverty cycle.. Ethiopia has made important economic, social and political reforms with the support of the World bank and other multilateral institutions, to pave the way for the country to face the challenges posed by globalization. However, these reforms have not been sustained by effective implementation. The response to overcome the problems has also been slow to see rapid growth. In this research paper, the writer explores the challenges regarding Ethiopia's poverty from perspective of the World Bank. The research examines the theoretical and conceptual underpinning of the World Bank's general mandate and objectives on poverty reduction, using Ethiopia as a case study. / South Africa

No abstract available. / Dissertation (M Inst Agrar ( Sustainable Ecological Management))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Zoology and Entomology / unrestricted

The world is threatened by the possibility of an irreversible catastrophe that many would blame on the environmental impact of the present lifestyle, the results of which are climate change or global warming. This is clearly unacceptable to both present and future generations. If going green really means changing the way we live and pursuing knowledge and practices that can lead to more environmentally friendly and socio-ecologically responsible decisions, it is time to protect the environment and sustain its natural resources for current and future generations. Integrated sustainability reporting should be viewed as a vehicle to accomplish this global agenda of going green beyond mere legal requirements. The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of integrated sustainability reporting (ISR) on achieving green business status within JSE listed companies. To achieve the purpose, an in-depth literature study and empirical research were undertaken using a triangulation method. After a detailed descriptive and content analysis of the collected primary and secondary data, the study found the following: Most of the JSE listed corporations’ integrated reports are not utilising the CSR, GRI guidelines and voluntary standards as effective tools to drive the process of green sustainable business. Some of the JSE listed organisations are treating financial and non-financial matters as separate issues in their integrated reports; The ISR has no impact in terms of using the NEMA framework in driving the process of green sustainable business in the JSE listed organisations; Most of the JSE listed organisations were fully aware of ecological sustainability as a pillar to drive the process of green sustainable business. They treat this pillar of sustainable development as a separate entity from socio-economic developmental issues. Most of the JSE listed corporations adhere to all the bylaws and regulations of ecological sustainability within their required certification of ISO 14001 standards in order to remain effectively certified by the auditing authority. Some integrated reports indicated much support for staff in terms of health, educational activities, labour laws and programmes that advance the socio-economic aspects of human beings; The study has found that the social pillar of sustainability is mostly supported by JSE listed organisations in South Africa - to the level of the requirements of labour relations legislation. It is not integrated with sustainability policies beyond the statutory requirements; It was further noticed in this study that integrated sustainability reports, based on the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) principles and the King III reporting guidelines, disclose outcomes and results regarding the JSE listed organisations’ obligations, strategy and management approach which occurred within the reporting period. To address the above-listed findings, the researcher recommended that the JSE listed organisations integrate the NEMA, EMS, CSR, GRI and King III guidelines in their integrated sustainability reporting, in order to produce an effective sustainable green business in South Africa that is ecologically accountable and socio-economically supportive to all multi-stakeholders. The government and non-governmental organisations are the key players to drive the process of going green using the ISR. The government needs more structured policies and regulations that will support the National Development Plan in the pursuit of green economy in the form of grants and incentives that are beyond the present status quo.

The purpose of the study was to investigate how the co-operatives can be used to uplift the standard of living in the rural, with specific reference to Dutywa villages of Ngcingwane, Mangati and Mbewuleni. In other words is ‘how do we make co-operatives work’. The overall purpose of the study was to investigate whether co-operatives have contributed to positive change in the socio-economic conditions in the three villages of Dutywa. The research further analyzes the performance of the co-operatives in terms of their leadership and management structures. The research was also to find out what the challenges are and what are the gaps associated with the performance of the co-operatives. The research was also to look at how the support from different government departments and other government agencies are used to enhance the co-operatives governance. Lastly, the research was to find the best model for co-operative development and what needs to be done to enhance the capacity of the co-operatives. In the study that was carried out, four different approaches were used. The research was based on action research which involved a range of instruments like questionnaires, focus group interviews, conversation and observation. Both comparative and qualitative research frameworks were used for different purposes and at different times. Comparative approach is used when the three co-operatives are compared to each other. Differences on governance and administrative issues on governance such as capital, market and the impact thereafter is reported on. The research assumption was that co-operative development is a viable tool for economic development of the rural areas. This can help many South Africans and many communities come out of poverty. However, there are 6 limitations that are caused by the inability of government to co-ordinate co-operative development. Despite the role that co-operatives play in South Africa, co-operatives still experience a number of challenges. These challenges are, amongst others, lack of access to finance, lack of access to market, lack of business skills, lack of infrastructural facilities and lack of knowledge about the co-operative. In view of the challenges facing the co-operatives, the government instituted a number of state departments and parastatals for funding and other necessary support. These are DTI, DEDEA (in the Eastern Cape), ECDC, SEDA, Department of Labour and municipalities. The objectives of these support institutions are to provide necessary support needed by co-operatives and to ensure that co-operative development is sustainable. The findings of this study suggest that co-operatives play a vital role in the socio-economic development of the rural villages. Co-operatives create self-employment and sometimes employment through temporary employment offered; provide space and time for socialization and lastly co-operative members are sometimes through their produce able to provide basic foodstuffs to the family. In view of the socio-economic benefits of the co-operatives in rural villages of Dutywa, it is highly recommended that various support programmes that are already there within the departments should be enhanced. Assistance to co-operatives should not only be limited to government funding for co-operatives but more concentration should be on finding market for their products.

M.Sc. / The social and environmental effects of inequitable development programmes inherited by South Africa’s new dispensation are aggravated by a substantial housing backlog. Tenure security and slow land release for development has motivated land invasions and the development of informal settlements. Subsequent environmental degradation in affected areas is mainly due to the lack of basic infrastructure and services including energy supply, water, sanitation, and waste management facilities. The Housing Act of 1997 has provided the means for developing housing delivery and township upgrade programmes aimed at addressing such problems. In light of South Africa’s Constitution (1996), the National Environmental Management Act (1998) and the Habitat Agenda (1996), the importance of environmentally sensitive and sustainable housing developments has been highlighted. However, socio-political pressure to address the housing backlog may demand a compromise in sustainability criteria over the long term, in order to achieve the shorter-term transformation targets. Within the context of South Africa’s transformation objectives, a question has developed about the extent to which low-cost townships are meeting sustainability criteria. This dissertation contributes towards answering the above question; three housing projects in Gauteng were selected and reviewed. For each project, the ecological risks, social sensitivity, economic stability, and available technology were analysed. The analysis indicated that in all three cases, the projects did not meet all defined sustainability criteria, concluding that under current conditions they are unlikely to be sustainable over the long-term. Factors that influenced the projects’ sustainability potential included the geographical location of each project, compliance with landuse development objectives, the township approval process, views of interested and affected parties, ecological sensitivity, and availability of resources and infrastructure. In order to improve housing delivery, the study further concluded that the process for housing and service provision should be more efficient, low-cost developments should be adequately addressed in landuse development strategies, improved communication between role-players and stakeholders including government departments is required, and alternative and affordable technologies should be considered, with the associated training and awareness for sustainable environmental management.

Men's and women's time-use in relation to wellbeing is well-investigated and understood within the context of the developed world. There has been limited research into the gendered experiences of time-use and three dimensional (3D) wellbeing in rural communities of sub-Saharan Africa and particularly so in semi-arid areas. As a result, failure to appreciate how time-use and wellbeing are experienced by the rural population in semi-arid areas impedes a full understanding of how rural inhabitants spend their time and how this makes them worse off or better off in different aspects of their wellbeing. This subsequently challenges the appropriateness of efforts to improve the lived experience of rural inhabitants. The study aimed to make a contribution to the knowledge gap on time-use and wellbeing by assessing how time-use relates to the experiences of material, subjective and relational aspects of wellbeing in a semi-arid area. It hypothesised that if men and women who are household-heads spend their time-use differently this has implications on their experiences of material, subjective and relational wellbeing. The study adopted a quantitative approach to primary data collection, analysis and interpretation of results. A questionnaire survey consisting of 93 randomly selected male and female headed households was conducted using stratified sampling techniques. Data was analysed using Microsoft Excel and SPSS software including regression analysis and statistical tests (Mann Witney U test) from which descriptive and statistical results were presented in tables and graphs following regression analysis. The study yielded several findings including the importance of personal care for improved subjective wellbeing despite the trade-off with material wellbeing; the importance of age and social grants for ensuring a better experience of material wellbeing; the importance of social connections particularly for widows and widowers; as well as the significance of time spent on leisure and work-outside for improving relational wellbeing. In addition, women's disproportionally high time spent on domestic work leaves them feeling subjectively worse-off while the persistence of traditional gender role division seems to have a determining effect on the time-use and wellbeing experiences of household-heads in the study area. Overall, the study highlights time-use related opportunities and constraints for improving the wellbeing of rural inhabitants in Onesi, Namibia.

To deal with the adverse impacts of climate change, index-based or parametric insurance has been recognized as an adaptation technique to compensate farmers for economic losses from extreme weather events. The insurance can be either private or sovereign. African Risk Capacity Insurance (ARC Ltd) offers the latter to African countries against drought events through contingency planning, risk pooling and transfer facilities. While the ARC insurance initiative seems promising, the current approaches used to estimate risk and determine premiums do not consider the change in risk from anthropogenic climate change. As the frequency of extreme weather events changes, the price of insurance premiums is likely to rise. Representing a cutting-edge science from weather to impact attribution, this study links attribution modelling with parametric insurance modelling to quantify how the probability of drought events has changed due to human influence on the climate system and translates the impacts into actual costs. To quantify this change, global climate models consisting of both factual and counterfactual world (with and without human forcing of climate, respectively) experiments were post-processed and used as rainfall inputs into an insurance risk modelling software, Africa RiskView. Estimated response costs needed for drought assistance in a world with and without climate change were calculated in Malawi, Zimbabwe, Senegal and Mauritania for the last 30 years. The empirical cumulative distribution function plots show that the distributions of models that represent the counterfactual natural world estimate lesser drought-affected population and lower response costs for assistance than those of the factual world distributions. The results suggest that climate change is likely to increase the price of insurance premiums. Therefore, there is a need for blended financing models that integrate international climate funds generated on a responsibility-based approach to cater for the added cost brought in by climate change.

Local governments are increasingly responding to climate change by developing formal institutions for adaptation. However, given the relative novelty of the adaptation planning field, there is insufficient practice-related research to inform these processes. The aim of this dissertation is therefore to assess the factors and actors that affect climate adaptation planning at the municipal level. Whilst numerous studies have identified the barriers to and opportunities for adaptation, less is known about what the underlying institutional, political and social conditions are that cause these factors to arise. This dissertation adopts a placebased perspective to comparatively analyse the adaptation planning processes that were undertaken in the Bergrivier, Drakenstein and Eden Municipalities between 2012 -2013, under sponsorship from the Western Cape Government's Climate Change Municipal Support Programme (CCMSP). The CCMSP upholds an ethos of participation and multistakeholder engagement, and the theoretical concepts of knowledge co-production and collaborative governance are therefore drawn on as a framing device to guide the analysis. The results highlight the various factors that can inhibit the success of collaborative adaptation planning in municipalities, as well as the multiple opportunities that exist to overcome or avoid these barriers. The barriers that emerged most strongly included: the prioritisation of local socio-economic development needs, restricted financial and human capacity resources, information and time constraints, an absence of mandatory legislation, a lack of political will to prioritise adaptation, limited cross-sectoral integration, poor representation and continuity at multi-stakeholder workshops, unclear employee roles within an organisation, strong power dynamics and misrepresented perceptions around compound environmental, climate change and development issues. The most prominent opportunities that were found for overcoming these barriers included: sound leadership from driven local champions, locating champions in departments other than, or in addition to, environmental departments, the presence of political will and support for the adaptation agenda, drawing on and/or building relationships and networks to co-explore and co-produce knowledge and policy, embracing experimentation and innovation, using informal communication channels, finding alternative devices through which to frame climate change and mainstreaming adaptation into overall municipal planning. Whilst some of the barriers and opportunities that were identified were common across the three case studies, others were specifically related to causes internal to the municipal environment and were thus highly context-specific. In light of these findings, the dissertation concludes that future municipal adaptation planning processes should focus on addressing the need for strong political will and effective local leadership, remain cognizant of the municipal context, call attention to the invisible factors that influence municipal climate governance, capitalize on opportunities for partnership-building, view adaptation as an iterative process rather than an end-point and embrace a flexible, 'learning by doing' approach.

In recent years, climate change has caused great changes in weather patterns such as extreme changes in rainfall leading to prolonged drought. Rapid urbanization has led to more than half of the world's population living in urban centres, and the growing urban population must share increasing scarcity of water, exacerbated by climate change. Thus, climate change and urbanization has contributed to the emergence of more water-stressed cities. This thesis is concerned with water conservation as a method of adaptation to an urban water crisis. It looks into the water crisis in the City of Cape Town that took place during 2015-2017. The severe water crisis has been attributed to prolonged drought, rapid population growth, reliance on six-rain-fed dams to provide 95% of the city's water supply, and excessively high water use by formal residential households. The City of Cape Town took various measures to manage both the demand and the supply of water in order to alleviate the stress caused by the water scarcity. From January 2016, a public education campaign was paired with progressively increased water restrictions. However, despite the growing water restrictions and the worsening of the water crisis, Capetonians did not reduce water consumption enough. Against this background, this thesis aims at gaining a nuanced understanding of the barriers and enablers to water conservation amongst residents in formal residential households in the City of Cape Town. The study focuses on formal residential households because the residents use 65% of the total municipal water supply. Data collection was carried out primarily in the Southern and Northern suburbs and consisted of in-depth interviews with 44 respondents using a semi-structured interview guide about daily water conservation as well as perceptions of the water crisis and of their role in mitigating the water crisis. The data analysis involved development of a coding system and identification of three categories of water savers amongst the highest, the lowest, and the median levels of water conversation within the data set, referred to as respective the ‘avid', the ‘low' and the ‘moderate' water savers. The key findings are that the main barrier of water conservation for the ‘low water savers' is lack of willingness to inconvenience one-self in relation to water conservation. Other important barriers to water conservation for the ‘low water savers' included lack of information regarding the on-going water crisis, perceptions of the water crisis as non-urgent, limited trust in water governance institutions, and interest in maximising own benefit from the common water resource. The dominant enabler amongst the ‘avid water savers' is the pro-environment identity they possess, combined with a high self-efficacy to make a difference to the water crisis through their actions. The study showed that this dominant enabling factor works as a catalyst to enhance other enabling factors, especially seeking information and engaging in conversations about water conservation within their social networks. Barriers such as the discomfort of taking short showers, standing inside a bucket during a shower and collecting greywater for re-use are seen as necessary actions that align with their identity and altruistic outlook towards the environment. Interestingly, ‘the moderate water savers' held similar proenvironment identity but were constrained, mostly by institutional barriers, to reduce their water use. Thus, the overall argument is that there is not one barrier or one enabler to water conservation. Rather, the main argument is that an overriding enabling factor for increased water conservation in daily life is a pro-environment identity combined with a high sense of self-efficacy. Finally, this study has shown that the factor of Personal Characteristics, serves as the main enabler and as the main barrier to water conservation because Personal Characteristics have a ripple effect on how factors such as Information, Social, Technical, Financial or Institutional factors affect a respondent's water conservation.

The 'Africa Rising' narrative, which has gained popularity since the late 2000s, refers to the considerable economic and social gains that have been made across the continent since the start of the new millennium. Heralded as more than just GDP growth and poverty reduction, supporters of the 'Africa Rising' narrative also make reference to structural change, macroeconomic improvements and a growing middle class among sub-Saharan African countries. However, there are many who dispute these claims, arguing instead that recent economic growth has not been inclusive and sustainable, and many challenges still exist. This dissertation takes the case study of Ghana as a lens through which to explore the arguments in more detail and determine whether robust, reliable evidence exists to support the claims that Ghana is 'rising', both economically and socially. Using the headings of poverty, economic growth, and employment and equality, socioeconomic data collected from Ghana from the year 2000 onwards was analysed to assess the evidence behind the claims and counter-claims made. Despite significant data limitations, the findings present a mixed picture of Ghana's recent economic growth and development, with substantial progress made in poverty reduction, economic growth and income per capita, but considerable challenges remaining in terms of the current macroeconomic crisis, high youth unemployment and rising income inequality. Ghana's current development pathway, based primarily on commodities and oil revenues, is likely to be unsustainable in the long-term, and the slow rate of structural change, especially in manufacturing, means that growth so far has not been sufficiently inclusive or equitable to benefit the majority of the population. Within the broader context of the 'Africa Rising' narrative, the study also brought to light two important considerations: firstly, that significant data limitations exist within national statistics, making it necessary for claims to be investigated thoroughly; and secondly, that it is important to examine the case of individual countries such as Ghana before painting a whole continent with the same brush.