This study was conducted to investigate viability and sustainability of commercial small-scale timber production. Random mushrooming and proliferation of small-scale timber production in KwaZulu-Natal and the lack of available literature on how small-growers perceive sustainability of their own practice prompted the study. Entembeni, a rural community located in northern KwaZulu-Natal, was selected for the study. High levels of illiteracy and increasing unemployment levels characterize the area. Based on a qualitative research design a stratified, random sampling was used to select a representative sample. While an understanding of small-scale timber production tends to focus on smallscale growers as the main role-players, government structures, commercial timber farmers, and contractors play a significant role in regulating and transforming timber production respectively. The study found that small-scale timber production is either hindered or enhanced by the nature and effectiveness of existing institutional arrangements. Distribution of assets is characterized by social inequality based on gender and social status. It was also found that small-growers lack the necessary skills, expertise, land and infrastructure to effectively participate in commercial timber production. Partnerships with the private sector (in the form of contract farming) ensure that small-growers have access to loans, expertise and the markets. Small-growers who are motivated by the prospects of increased income and entrepreneurial development, fail to reach anticipated targets. Reasons for this are numerous. Some small-growers operate in areas of land too small to yield the desired outcomes. Inability for value adding and reliance on large-scale growers and contractors for loans and harvesting and transportation services contributes to small-growers inability to maximize benefits. The study concluded that small-scale timber production in its current state at Entembeni is not viable or sustainable. Viability and sustainability of small-scale timber production can be enhanced through a holistic land use plan and management that provides alternative land use options, not just timber production. / Thesis (M.Dev.Studies)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2004.

This thesis uses aspects of the Sustainable Livelihoods Approach (SLA) to investigate how global trends and national eco-political factors in Botswana impact the livelihood strategies or actions of a group of individuals who identify as !Kung Group Basarwa in a small village called Ngwatle, located in the south western Kalahari. These global and national forces produce and reproduce institutions, structures and processes that constitute the particular vulnerability context in which Ngwatle is couched. The Sustainable Livelihoods Framework, a key component of SLAs, is used here as a tool of analysis to identify barriers and constraints to livelihood aspirations. Basarwa, known as Bushmen or San people more generally, have a history of strained relationships with more powerful majority groups including the Setswana (or Tswana) who account for 79% of the population as well as wealthy cattle owning minority groups. This history, understood in a wider global context, makes livelihood construction extremely difficult for people living in Ngwatle. The research is exploratory in nature and seeks to contextualize a problem or a set of problems given a particular set of circumstances rather than establish categorical causality between variables. The approach of this research has been methodologically investigated by answering three primary research questions. The first question seeks to establish the major activities undertaken in Ngwatle households that help people in the community to make a living. In this regard, the research clearly establishes that several specific livelihood actions, such as making crafts and conducting cash-generating entrepreneurial activities are performed on a daily basis in Ngwatle. The second research question asks whether resources (assets) are constrained by institutions, structures and processes and if so, how. In fact, resources are constrained by these factors and are informed by historical precedence. The third research question focuses on how institutions, structures and processes impact livelihood strategies in Ngwatle in more detail. Links are established between the macro (global), meso (national) and micro (community) economic and political environments. The suggestion is that aspects of capitalism and neo-liberalism at the global and State levels have informed and strengthened various mechanism of control designed to manipulate and direct the movement of individuals (bio-politics). In essence prejudices and discriminatory practices have served to radically alter Basarwa social systems and seriously undermine livelihood strategies. / Thesis (M.Soc.Sc.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2005.

Higher education is instrumental in the economic development of any country, as a resource of skilled personnel and knowledge production. In South Africa there is a need for higher education institutions (HEIs) to develop innovative responses to address graduate employability and entrepreneurship education. Moreover, there is a need to catalyse entrepreneurship activity among students in order to cultivate skilled opportunity-orientated entrepreneurs. This study explores the application the ‘Junior Enterprise (JE) concept’ (an international best practice) as a mechanism of improving employability and fostering entrepreneurship. To discern if this practice is appropriate for South African students, the research investigates students’ perceptions. Overall the findings suggest that there is relevant student demand for this type of experiential and cooperative learning practice. However, conflicting studies infer that the widespread implementation of this type of learning practice will face implicit challenges in the indigenous context. To further examine the feasibility of applying the JE-concept in South African HEIs, it is essential to design, implement and evaluate a pilot project. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2008.

This study identifies and explores the challenges faced by Local Women’s Co-operatives as service providers to the school feeding programmes in KwaZulu-Natal. It was motivated by the need to provide information, which could be used as a basis to ensure that the nutritional and educational objectives of the National School Nutritional Programme could co-exist with local women’s economic empowerment. A review of literature will demonstrate that, within the developmental framework, school feeding programmes are a valuable strategy and that there are diverse views as to whether co-operatives should be the preferred institutional model. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2009.

The untenable inequalities and suffering experienced by Africans blatantly exposes that a lot more than simple developmental ‘lag’, lack of economic ‘growth’, ‘governance’, or a shaky ‘investment climate’ inhibits Africa’s legitimately progressive human development. This dissertation calls for and probes a serious reflection on the roots of the concepts broadly understood as ‘African Integration’ and ‘African Renaissance’ in light of how the space we call Africa has been constructed across centuries, serving very particular interests to effect modernity’s meta-narrative into reality, subsequently positioning Africa at the periphery of the periphery of its hierarchical ordering. Narratives, defined as a distinct form of discourse as retrospective meaning-making are effective stories manifesting the conscious experience of every ‘thing’ in the universe. How Africa’s ‘story’ has been constructed, and how its actual story diverges from the convergence theories of the colonial-imperial-globalisation project are this dissertation’s major focus. It deeply mines what Foucault exposed as global technologies-of-power, to elucidate the negative impacts of northern-centric discourses on Africa’s ‘self’, from individuated to collective aspects of that ‘self’. This dissertation draws attention to how Africa’s eco-social justice practices vindicate particular scientific, cultural, and social emancipatory discourses, and democratic theories emphatic that the monumental task of de-colonising Africa’s minds from meta-narrative constructions should prioritise, and inform developmental continental policy design. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2009.

This study considers the relationships between women and land amongst female land owners in two communities within KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Motivated by the lack of qualitative data surrounding women as land beneficiaries, this study focuses on the extent to which land and land ownership effect women’s livelihood strategies and how such assets contribute to and/or limit women’s practical and strategic needs. Although this study supports data suggesting that women’s access to land and land ownership is slowly increasing, it suggests that the positive effects of land on women’s lives are greatly limited by poor access to basic services and agricultural inputs, and lingering patriarchal cultural norms. Such limitations, combined with low education levels amongst women regarding their land rights, have thus far hindered the South African Department of Land Affairs in meeting its targeted goals of poverty reduction and livelihood improvements. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2009.

This thesis is concerned with formal education for black South Africans. Central to the argument is an appreciation of how formal educational systems tend to foster specific ideologies and reproduce particular social relations which protect the interests of the state and those class interests which are most closely reflected by it. This is demonstrated at a general level with reference to colonial and post colonial education in Africa (Chapter 1) before proceeding to the South African situation (Chapter 2). In this context educational inequalities in South Africa have been systematically entrenched by the Nationalist government following its accession to power in 1948 in accordance with apartheid ideology and the perceived needs of capital. Specifically education has been deployed to: a) help maintain the proclaimed unique identity of the Afrikaner - and more generally the white South African; b) to perpetuate the myth of white supremacy; and c) to maintain and reproduce the social relations of racial capitalism. As such, it is a form of discrimination and social control (now drawing an organised and often violent black response) which aims to 'prepare' black South Africans for distinct and inferior roles within society. This is discussed in some depth drawing on both the 'liberal' and 'Marxist' interpretations. Whereas the broad contours of the apartheid educational system have been well sketched by a variety of authors, comparatively little attention to date has been directed towards its impact on the micro level. In view of this a detailed survey of the education that is available to the Qadi tribal area of Kwa Zulu's Inanda Reserve was conducted by the author. This forms the kernel of the thesis (Chapter 3). The survey focused on both 'in-school' and 'in-community' factors to examine educational deprivation in the area. Comparisons were also made with a neighbouring white area to illustrate the depth of the inequalities that obtain under the apartheid framework. In addition, an attempt was made to evaluate the potential for education related unrest in the area by analysing pupils' aspirations and expectations. The results of this survey highlight the urgent need for remedial action. Consequently, Chapter 4 - taking note of the various recommendations of inter alia the HSRC and Buthelezi Commissions - is devoted to a discussion of possible interim measures for alleviating hardship in the educational system. It is stressed that any attempt to adequately rectify inequality is dependent on structural change within the wider political economy. Nevertheless, given that fundamental apartheid structures such as those in education are unlikely to disintegrate in the immediate future, a number of suggestions for improving black education within the present context are considered. / Thesis (M.Soc.Sci.)-University of Natal, Durban, 1984.

No abstract available. / Thesis (M.Dev. Studies)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2003.

The study focuses on job creation for the empowerment and development of women and assessed the role of State projects in the Umlaas Catchment area of the Working for Water Project in Kwazulu-Natal. The concepts of gender, households and rural development are defined from the socio-economic and geographical perspectives. A brief review of the aims of the Working for Water Project, which sets out to increase water yield through the clearing of invasive alien plants with the main objective of employing and training people from the disadvantaged communities in order to enhance their social upliftment and empowerment is presented. The data are collected from five stakeholders viz: the women employees, the contractors, the Project manager and the household members of the women employees of the working for Water Project as well as the community members from the six settlements in which the women employees are resident. In-depth interviews with the samples, which were tape-recorded, yielded a- rich database. The data are subjected to qualitative and quantitative analyses- to assess the extent to which job- creation enhances the empowerment and development of the women employees of the Project. The analyses entail the level of involvement of women in the management of the Project, capacity building and acquisition of skills through training, the effects of income in power relation at home and community and the socio-economic impacts of the project on the empowerment of the rural women in the study area. The analyses show that: (a) many of the women resort to work because of the pressing financial needs in their homes in order to alleviate the level of poverty. Also, the Working for Water Project has significantly helped the women employees to meet their financial obligations toward themselves, their children and members of their households. (b) more women than men are employed by the Working for Water Project in keeping to its objective. However, few women occupy management positions. The Project draws on a range of age groups with almost all the women employees less than 50 years of age. (c) some of the women employees of the Project have acquired skills from the organized training and as such are more confident to manage resources not only in their primary assignment but in their life situations. However, while the Project has helped some of the women employees to organize themselves in budgeting and making choices regarding their lives, some are still constrained by traditions. (d) the men seem to be happy that their women are working since there is no evidence to support that the men did not want the women to work neither did any of the women indicate that their men raised an opposition. Thereafter suggestions are offered to guide the policy makers and the Working for Water Project in achieving their set objectives of empowering and developing the rural women in order to stimulate a rapid transformation of the rural areas in South Africa. / Thesis (M.Dev.Studies)-University of Natal, Durban, 2003.

Privatization, and particularly privatization of services, is a worldwide trend that has grown tremendously over the past 25 years. This growth has been particularly pronounced in developing countries in recent years. Prison services is one of many sectors that has contracted with the private sector, however, until South Africa outsourced the design, construction, finance, and operation of two maximum security prisons to the private sector for a period of 25 years, private prison companies were only involved in some developed countries. Many argue that the sector's involvement in South Africa signals its intention to expand throughout the developing world, and undoubtedly, South Africa's experience will be influential in the future growth of this sector in such countries. This paper aims to explore the experience of South Africa's public-private partnership (PPP) prisons thus far, within a context of international and domestic service privatization, in order to identify key trends and issues which may be relevant to future private sector involvement in prisons and other service sectors. Research was conducted qualitatively, with a total of 12 interviews carried out telephonically and in person. Respondents included members of the government, PPP prison administrations, and members of civil society in order to gain as wide a perspective as possible. An extensive review of the literature, as well as relevant government sources, was also undertaken. While these prisons have certainly brought benefits to South Africa's correctional service, a number of key concerns about private sector involvement in service provision were identified through this research. Firstly, the whole experience, starting with the initial decision, has lacked transparency and debate. Although contracting with the private sector was supposed to lead to increased efficiency and reduced cost, the prisons have, in fact, led to unexpected high costs and risks for the DCS. Furthermore, private sector involvement has led to a tiering of prison services, with PPP prison services generally much better than the public sector. Finally, the research indicates that there are serious questions to be raised about the effectiveness of the regulation of this sector and whether PPP prison companies are truly being held accountable by government. / Thesis (M.Dev.Studies)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2005.