The objective of the study was to provide empirical evidence on whether food aid leads to depressed domestic maize prices and reduced maize production in subsequent years in Swaziland. Similar impact studies have been carried out in a number of sub-Saharan African countries but no evidence is available for Swaziland. The lack of empirical evidence has often resulted in premature negative conclusions on the impact of food aid on Swaziland’s maize industry. The study used secondary national data from 1985 to 2006 to analyse the impact of food aid on maize producer prices and quantity of maize produced. Variables used in the analysis included quantity of cereal food aid; quantity of commercial maize imports; quantity of locally produced maize; official maize producer price; open market maize producer price; fertilizer price; fuel price; rainfall; and total area planted to maize. The impact of food aid was measured using the reduced form market equilibrium model that consisted of maize quantity and maize producer price functions estimated simultaneously using the above variables through the two-stage least square method (2SLS) method. Analytical results revealed that food aid to Swaziland does not lower prices of domestic maize and has no significant negative effect on the quantity of maize produced in subsequent seasons. This means that food aid received by Swaziland over the study years has been appropriately targeted and distributed to the food insecure households. If this were not so, the demand for food from commercial outlets would have been reduced, leading to an adverse impact on maize producer prices, and subsequent local maize production. Notwithstanding the above results, Swaziland should still commit resources towards reducing the national food gap. This calls for increased investment in rural irrigation development, improved farmer institutional support services, and the implementation of pro-poor development programs aimed at improving individual household income to reduce the need for food aid, improve food self-sufficiency and vulnerability to food security. / Thesis (M.Sc.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2007.

Thesis (doctoral)--Uppsala University, 1986. / Thesis summary inserted. Includes bibliographical references (p. 207-211).

In contrast with the large number of poorly performing schools in Swaziland over the past decade (1991-2000), a few schools have managed to attain consistently good results. One such school is St Michael's High. This study draws on the perceptions of different major stakeholders at St Michael's of factors deemed to have contributed to academic success at the school. The study thus follows Fertig (2000), who advocates research in effective schools to be done by looking at the perceptions of different stakeholders rather than in relation to an objective checklist. In this study, St Michael's High is found to be an effective school. Its experience can play a vital role in helping other ineffective and failing schools to improve their academic standing and tarnished public image, provided the schools unreservedly commit themselves to changing their ways. This investigation is aimed at understanding the roles which the school leadership and associated stakeholders have played in making St Michael's an exemplary school in Swaziland. Its findings indicate that the schools that themselves take the initiative to improve their effectiveness are the ones which are successful, which accords with the consensus in research literature on school effectiveness. The evidence gathered in this study suggests that St Michael's is characteristic of such effective schools. Since this is a qualitative interpretive case study on perception of success factors in a girls' high school within the city of Manzini, interviews comprising semi-structured questions were highly useful in tapping the understanding of how various stakeholders contribute to the academic achievement of students in the school. The findings, organised in the form of themes, help illuminate what appears to be a systematic and well-focussed approach toward the academic development of the school and the fulfilment of its goals. Every aspect of the school system is thoroughly explored. The validity of the stakeholders' claim that St Michael's High is a dream school for most Swazi children is verified by the school's examination results for the past decade. But what the research reveals are the cultural, academic, social, and moral values and beliefs which serve as a strong anchor for the school leadership and management, and without which St Michael's as an organisation would be unable to meet the challenge of implementing academic and national reconstruction.

Thesis (MPhil)--Stellenbosch University, 2015. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Current customary tenure has negative implications for the sustainable environmental management of common resources in Swaziland in that it perpetuates free-for-all scenarios that result in unabated environmental degradation by all and with none held responsible. The lack of a land policy to provide a framework for land use regulation is a significant driver of common resource destruction, as is the inability of customary tenure to evolve with the times. The cleavage between customary and statutory tenure has led to informal land markets which, if uncontrolled, could wreck not only the environment but the integrity of the traditional Swazi community. The study calls for inclusive politics which would encourage democratised public participation. After all, it is only after this fact that relevant and acceptable environmental policy can be synthesised. It also calls for the regulation of customary tenure and suggests that there is advantage in mono-ethnicity that can be exploited in trying to chart a more sustainable and morally fair management of common resources in the country. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Huidige tradisionele grondbesit het negatiewe implikasies vir die volhoubare omgewingsbestuur van gemeenskaplike hulpbronne in Swaziland omdat dit scenario‟s vestig waar almal volgens eie voorkeur optree. Dit kan tot knaende omgewingsaftakeling deur almal lei sonder dat iemand daarvoor verantwoordelik gehou word. Die gebrek aan ‟n grondbeleid wat as raamwerk vir die regulering van grondgebruik kan dien, en die onvermoë van tradisionele grondbesit om oor tyd te ontwikkel is belangrike dryfvere vir die vernietiging van gemeenskaplike hulpbronne. Die gaping tussen tradisionele en statutêre grondbesit het informele grondmarkte laat ontstaan wat tot die ondergang van nie net die omgewing nie, maar die integriteit van die tradisionele Swazi-gemeenskap kan lei as dit nie beheer word nie. Die studie bepleit inklusiewe politiek wat gedemokratiseerde openbare deelname sal aanmoedig. Dit is per slot van sake net hiervolgens wat ‟n relevante en aanvaarbare omgewingsbeleid daargestel kan word. Die studie pleit ook vir die regulering van tradisionele grondbesit en suggereer dat die ontginning van mono-etnisiteit voordelig kan wees om ‟n meer volhoubare en moreel regverdige bestuur van gemeenskaplike hulpbronne in die land te verkry.

No description available.

MSc (Med), Pharmacology, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, 2009

University of the Witwatersrand A dissertation submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the award of the degree of Master of Arts by Coursework in the Department of Social Anthropology July 5, 2016 / There is a culture arising among young people in Swaziland that believes that to be young and Swazi is an ephemeral, temporary, and directionless existence, and having sex and ‘partying like a Swazi’ is desired, celebrated and the fashion. I illustrate that this construction is a reaction to the banal, routine and regulation of their social spaces. Furthermore, in addition to the spaces being limited in number, imbued within each are structures and routines that reproduce discourses that privilege performances surrounding their normative behaviour and development (including the development of their sexualities). As a result, Swazi society has excluded young people from being active agents in the very discourses that govern and inform their lives, status, agency and citizenship. Drawing from a phenomenological analysis of WhatsApp conversations combined with fieldwork in Swaziland, this dissertation explores the locality of digital space via WhatsApp in the landscape of the lives of Swazi young. The data illustrated that digital space is residual and resistive, as a reaction to the regulated and restricted spaces in their lives, in digital space young people enact performances of masculinity, secrecy and morality. As well as determined values systems and currencies around sex (and sexual status), vis a vis the exchange of social capital (nude and semi nude photos)- all of which are inherently self destructive. Lastly, in their resistance, Swazi young people are the local agents of their self-destruction / MT2017

A research report submitted to the Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, University of the Witwatersrand, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Management specialising in Entrepreneurship and New Venture Creation. Johannesburg, 2016 / With a struggling economy characterised by high levels of poverty and unemployment, it makes sense that Swaziland should prioritise the growth of new ventures in a bid to foster economic growth through ensuring accelerated SME growth. However, the country’s SME policy notes significant problems which hinder venture growth, particularly pertaining to SMEs access to finance, markets, entrepreneurship education and training, as well as business support programmes, business regulation and contract enforcement. This study seeks to evaluate the impact these factors have on the growth of SMEs in a bid to ascertain the extent of this impact, and further to make recommendations on how the rhetoric and practice of entrepreneurship can be shaped to foster high growth entrepreneurship within this milieu. This is done based on an analysis of data collected through a quantitative survey conducted amongst SMEs incubated within the country’s only public incubator, SEDCO. The findings are drawn from a correlation and multiple regression analysis, with the latter aiming to ascertain causality between these conditions and venture growth. Through this, the study found that the variables of access to finance, markets, education and training, business support programmes, business regulation and contract enforcement are significant predictors of venture growth, thus more needs to be done to ensure that inefficiencies within these are addressed to bolster levels of SME growth. The study contributes theoretically to the entrepreneurial landscape in that it comes at a point where there is no current research assessing the enablers and inhibitors of venture growth within Swaziland. It is of further practical significance in that it broaches the subject of high growth entrepreneurship in an environment laden with necessity, survivalist entrepreneurs whilst it is the former that is perceived to have a significant impact on the economy. / MT2016

The ~3.0 Ga Pongola Sequence, comprising a lower dominantly volcanic Nsuze Group and an upper largely sedimentary Mozaan Group, crops out in the Mahlangatsha and Kubuta areas of southern Swaziland. The Nsuze Group consists of basaltic, andesitic, dacitic and rhyolitic rocks with intercalations of ferruginous shale and pyrophyllitic schists. The Mozaan Group comprises quartzites, ferruginous shales, basalts and minor amounts of andalusite and sericitic schists. In the study area in southern Swaziland the Pongola Sequence is represented by a northerly striking lens of metavolcanic basaltic rocks extending southwards to the Ngwavuma River valley. These lavas comprise basalts, basaltic andesites and very minor rhyolites that are amygdaloidal and vesicular in places. Hunter (1952) tentatively correlated these metabasaltic rocks with the Nsuze Group but the geochemistry indicates that an upper Mozaan correlation is more likely. In the study area four stages of deformation have been deduced: a cleavage development (D1); low angle thrusting and bedding-parallel thrust faulting (D2); normal/oblique slip faulting (D3) and fracturing/jointing (D4). There has been duplication of strata by thrusting and normal faulting. Absence of marker beds prevents the determination of the degree of duplication. It is clear from the geochemical analysis that there are two broad groups of data from the suite, one from the Sigwe Hills in the north and the other from south of the Ngwavuma River. The samples from south of the Ngwavuma River are enriched in TiO2, AI2O3, CaO, Cr, Zr and Nb compared to the samples from Sigwe Hills. These volcanic rocks are tholeiitic in nature and indicate a within plate continental setting. / Thesis (M.Sc.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 1993.

This study focuses on commercial mushroom production, a relatively new economic activity in Swaziland that seeks to assist rural-based small-scale farmers to diversify and improve their economic independence and livelihoods. The mushroom programme is in line with the National Development Strategy, which, among its major objectives, aims to address povertyrelated challenges through the promotion of non-conventional high-value agricultural commodities that have not been explored by local farmers despite having a relatively high consumer demand in local and international markets. In attempting to provide an impetus to the mushroom industry, the Swaziland government currently offers free training in mushroom production, extension services, high quality spawn at a very nominal fee, and free substrate bags. Considering the geographical suitability and the magnitude of investment made towards the mushroom development programme, there is a need to understand why many farmers are not participating in the industry, and why Swaziland still imports more than 95 percent of locally consumed cultivated mushrooms. There has also been no research so far on the challenges and opportunities in producing, value adding, and marketing of mushrooms in Swaziland. This study was, therefore, an attempt to address these knowledge gaps. It also provided an opportunity to draw relevant policy and management implications to inform future strategies in the industry. The specific objectives of the study were to: (i) identify and examine the factors that influence households’ decisions to participate in mushroom production; (ii) study the underlying mushroom production and market access constraints; (iii) examine the effects of transaction cost factors that influence mushroom producers’ market channel choice decisions and the quantity of mushrooms sold in selected channels; and (iv) study the effects of organisational form on producers’ participation in collective responsibilities. Using cross-sectional data gathered from mushroom producers and non-producers, the results of the Two-Stage Conditional Maximum Likelihood and Two-Stage Probit Least Squares estimation methods revealed that farmers’ decisions to participate in the mushroom enterprise are mainly influenced by institutional factors. Farmers who have undergone training in basic oyster mushroom production, are located in close proximity to input and output markets, and have positive perceptions towards mushrooms, are likely to participate in the mushroom industry. The development of positive perceptions towards mushrooms is predominantly influenced by the knowledge gained on their nutritional and therapeutical properties. The value chain approach was used to identify the underlying factors constraining mushroom production and producers’ participation in mainstream markets. Among the important findings, the study showed that producers’ plans to expand production capacities are hampered by the difficulty to access key inputs and services, which are centralised and fully controlled by the government. Generally, local farmers produce below capacity in relatively small low-cost structures, which are also not well equipped. As a result, farmers apply very primitive management methods that eventually affect their productivity. These constraints are partly responsible for the extremely low locally produced volumes and inconsistent market supply, prompting local mushroom traders to rely on imports. Other constraints relate to the lack of diversification as farmers currently produce only the oyster mushroom, yet consumers are mostly interested in the button mushroom, which is favoured for its appearance and taste. Currently, no cultivated mushrooms are exported from Swaziland and producers have not yet engaged in any form of mushroom processing. Instead, from what they harvest, it was found that about six to 10 percent is consumed at household level and the remainder sold through four channels identified as: (i) the farm gate; (ii) retail market (supermarkets); (iii) middlemen; and (iv) food services industry (restaurants/hotels). Among the four channels, the retail market and farm gate were, respectively, identified as the most preferred. Between the two, the retail market offers a comparatively higher producer price and a relatively more dependable market. Cragg’s regression results revealed that producers who are likely to supply the retail market are those who manage a relatively large number of spawn impregnated bags, have a high labour endowment, own cold storage facilities, and are affiliated to mushroom producing groups. However, the difficulty in accessing market information and lack of bargaining power significantly constrains other producers’ plans to supply the retail market; hence, they end up selling through less remunerative channels, such as the farm gate. Producers’ decisions on the quantity of mushrooms supplied through the retail market are significantly affected by the difficulty in accessing transport and uncertainty about meeting the retailers’ quality requirements. Over 90 percent of mushroom producers in Swaziland currently participate in the industry through farmer groups. These groups are predominantly organised in two forms, depicted as model A and B, respectively. In model A, besides establishing their own by-laws, members produce mushrooms in one growing house where they share the costs and benefits of all preproduction, production and marketing activities. In model B, members also establish their own by-laws and share all pre-production activities. However, instead of producing under one roof, each member manages his/her own growing house and members are at liberty to make their own marketing arrangements independently. The results of the Propensity Score Matching method indicated that producers affiliated to model B groups have significantly higher levels of cooperation, which is evidenced in making joint decisions and performing shared manual activities. Participation in such groups also improves producers’ knowledge of the enterprise, and reduces the likelihood of internal free-riding. The overall results of the study point to the need to strengthen farmer training in mushroom production and value-addition. In attempting to improve producers’ access to key inputs and services, it is recommended that the government should relinquish its position (to the private sector) as the only provider of these services, allowing public institutions to assume a monitoring role. Producers’ competitiveness and sustainable participation in the mushroom value chain can be enhanced by institutionalising and strengthening collective action, which can possibly enable them to achieve economies of scale benefits in the input and product markets, and improve their bargaining position. As indicated in the empirical chapters, market availability for mushrooms is not a challenge in Swaziland. However, the lack of a market information system, expert assistance in agribusiness management, poor value chain governance, and lack of vertical coordination, predispose producers to high marketing and transaction costs such that they end up selling through less remunerative marketing channels.