Includes abstract. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 90-93). / This study is an examination of the structures and functions of an unregistered faith-based substance abuse treatment facility, the Recovery Home, run by a Church in Mitchells Plain, a historically disadvantaged community (HDC) in the Western Cape. In addition, the challenges that the Organisation faces in meeting the policy requirements set by the Department of Social Development (DoSD) to obtain accreditation by subscribing to evidence-based practices for an in-patient treatment centre are the main issues upon which this research is structured. Information was collected, through a qualitative case study approach. Methods used were the in-depth interview, observation, documentary research relevant to the registration process and a confidential journal exercise conducted with people being treated in the Recovery Home. A lack of resources and evidence-based practices prevents the Recovery Home from providing adequate treatment services. The Organisation is unable to register as it does not meet the minimum norms and standards set by the Department of Social Development (DoSD) to acquire accreditation. It has been suggested by the relevant authorities that the Organisation fits the description of a half way house. However, no official policy for the registration of such insitutions currently exists in South Africa. The Home's definition of the causes of substance use disorders (SUDs) is inadequate in that it is limited to environmental factors, most particularly the unfavourable socio-economic conditions that prevail in the community. The Organisation is providing a valuable service in a community where the state lacks effective intervention capacity. As it is unable to register, however, it remains limited in what it is able to achieve.

Includes bibliographical references. / This mixed method study of the effectiveness of the management of substance abuse in South Africa explored the way policies are formulated and implemented. A governance lens used coordination and public participation as indicators to measure the efficacy of the coordinating substance abuse structures (the Central Drug Authority, Provincial Substance Abuse Forums and Local Drug Action Committees) to implement the National Drug Master Plan 2006-2011. Coordinated governance, which include empowerment and resourcing of structures at the provincial and municipal levels will be helpful to provide necessary resources, expertise and skills to the "whole of society" for the implementation of future strategies.

Political events can be described as events that affect a country's economic and regulatory environment. Such events may include changes in monetary and fiscal policy, changes in trade and foreign policy, cabinet reshuffles and changes in government. In emerging markets, political events can affect asset prices because of the impact they can have on foreign sentiment and investor confidence. Elections in particular can cause considerable uncertainty which can lead to herding behavior by investors, if outcomes do not reflect prior predictions. Unfavorable election results can lead to currency depreciation, stock market crashes and economic deterioration as investors change their expectations and demand higher premiums due to the perceived increase in sovereign as well as currency risk. This research focuses specifically on the effect of presidential elections on the exchange rate between U.S. Dollar and Zambian Kwacha. The study employs the event study methodology by dividing elections into two periods and these are; a month leading to the election and another month after the elections. The study will examine three distinct presidential elections that occurred in Zambia in 2011, 2015 and 2016 respectively. The research uses daily time series data for the periods September 2011, January 2015 and August 2016. The methodology makes use of the currency pair's daily mid-rate as inputs to the market model. The market model was used to calculate average abnormal returns and cumulative average abnormal returns. Test of significance was conducted using t-test with 5 percent level of significance using a two-tailed test. The results of the t-test show that political events represented by the presidential elections had a statistically significant effect on the Kwacha, with noteworthy observations concentrated around the days following the event. The study recommends that key policy makers and stakeholders should place more emphasis in ensuring a healthy and safe political environment in the country. Investors should also be cautioned against viewing emerging markets as one homogenous group. The results in this study are unique to Zambia, which has had a history of holding peaceful (and arguably), free and fair elections since becoming a multi-party democracy in 1991.

The case study research sought to investigate and establish the attitude of the Africa diaspora community, mainly associated with the University of Cape Town, towards the modeling of a diaspora pension fund as a likely instrument for the financing of the continent's development infrastructure. The case study further sought to test, using chi-square and logistic regression, whether the independent variables of age, gender and education have an effect on the willingness/support of the members of the diaspora in the establishment of the diaspora pension fund for the financing of the continent's infrastructure. The results show that members of the sampled diaspora community support the modeling and also showed their willingness to be part of the diaspora pension fund and to have part of their pension contributions invested for the financing of the development infrastructure. The resulting model shows that males, who are middle-aged and well-educated, are more likely to be in support of the modeling of the diaspora pension fund as a likely instrument for financing the continent's development infrastructure. The results show that when modeling the diaspora pension fund factors such as age, education, gender, remaining years towards retirement, governance, corruption, regulatory issues, and the rule of law and the infrastructure of investment portfolio diversification have to be taken into account as they affect the likelihood of support amongst the diaspora community. The research will help policy makers, global pension funds, governments in Africa, and the bigger community of the Africa diaspora in assessing the feasibility of commercialising the diaspora pension fund as an innovative financing instrument.

This dissertation aims to provide insight into the relationship between Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (BBBEE) compliance and the financial performance of top empowered companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) in South Africa. This study is similar to two previous studies; the first is on the impact of corporate governance on JSE listed companies for the period 2003 until 2006 and on a sample of 97 JSE listed companies (Abdo & Fisher, 2007). The second is on the contribution of BBBEE on the financial performance on a sample of 49 JSE listed companies from 2005 until 2008 and 2008 until 2010 (van Heerden, 2011). This empirical study was initially on a sample of 100 JSE listed companies from 2009 until 2012 that was derived from JSE listed companies which featured in the annual Financial Mails Top Empowerment Survey Publication from 2009 until 2012. The sample was reduced to 64 units due to delisting, corporate name changes and data unavailability for the period. Corresponding company financial data (share price, price to earnings ratio, price to book value) were obtained for the period 2008 until 2012 from McGgregor BFA database and correlated to BBBEE compliance ratings as published by Financial Mail. JSE indices were obtained from I-Net Bridge. Based on the types of companies, they were grouped into 10 JSE economic sectors such that the performance of each sector could be correlated to the total average BBBEE compliance ratings, financial metrics and JSE indices. For each sample unit, the average BBBEE rating was calculated for the period 2009 until 2012. This was then correlated to the annualised share price return for the same period and to price to earnings ratio and price to book value for 2012. The findings suggest there was a negative and weak relationship between share price and BBBEE compliance rating. There is a positive and weak relationship between price to earnings and price to book value. The cluster of companies with high BBBEE compliance ratings achieved higher and lower annualised share price returns than the respective JSE sector indices. The cluster of companies with low BBBEE compliance ratings also achieved higher and lower annualised share price returns than the respective JSE sector indices. It was also observed that high BBBEE rated companies achieved higher and lower share price returns than low BBBEE rated companies. Companies with high BBBEE compliance ratings achieved both higher and lower price to earnings than the respective JSE indices. Companies with low BBBEE compliance ratings also achieved higher and lower price to earnings than the respective JSE indices. Companies with low and high BBBEE compliance ratings achieved profit to book values below the respective JSE sectors. Of the seven BBBEE compliance indicators five positively correlated to the annualised share price return i.e. employment equity, skills development, preferential procurement, enterprise development and socio- economic development. Ownership, skills development, preferential procurement, enterprise development, socio- economic development positively correlated to the price to earnings ratio. Skills development, preferential procurement, enterprise development, socio- economic development positively correlated to the price to book value ratio.

Corporate sustainability reporting is an important part of corporate reporting, and also an important part of creating a visibility about the sustainable agenda of corporates. Motivated by a lack of in-depth information about how this practise has evolved in South Africa; the objectives of this study are to shed more light into this evolution, as well as the quality of the content that is part of that evolution in the research period of 2002 – 2012. Segmenting the decade into through anchor points for the research, the methodology of content analysis was employed in order to read and interpret sample reports and conduct scoring across own developed evaluation criteria of six reporting categories, which was made up of a total of 62 assessment items. Reporting performance was determined, coded, summarized and aggregated where required, in order for the different levels of analysis to be carried out. The findings revealed a rising growth trend in the evolution of sustainability reporting in South Africa, with the highest growth taking place in the middle section of the research period, and significantly lower growth in the last section. This is both in terms of overall reporting as well as content coverage of the different reporting categories included in the research. The Social Performance category is the most reported on category through the decade. The highest percentage increase is found to be in the Context & Commitment and Quality of Management reporting categories through the decade. The industrial sector is the top performer and Telecoms the bottom performer in terms of overall reporting performance for the decade. Sustainability reporting in South Africa seems to have experienced an overall growth trend similar to the global trend. However the evolution of that growth has highlighted certain country specific nuances through the reporting period.

The study examines the relationship between the level of access to debt finance and viability among 41 randomly selected SMEs operating in the agricultural sector in Zimbabwe for the period 2011 and 2014 using descriptive statistical analysis and panel data regression analysis. The study found that viability is positively associated with short-term debt and negatively associated with long-term debt, while it has no significant relationship with total debt. The study concludes that the level of debt accessed does not matter to viability; what matters is the type of debt accessed. It also concludes that access to debt is not the main factor associated with viability, but there are other factors such as size of business, growth opportunities, number of employees and the ratio of female to male shareholders. It is therefore recommended that SMEs managers and policy makers should be mindful of the type of debt availed to SMEs since shortterm debt is positively related to viability and long-term debt is negatively associated with viability. It is also recommended that SME managers should monitor the sizes of their enterprises and growth opportunities since these are negatively associated with viability. Female ownership of SMEs should be encouraged and supported as the results demonstrate that those enterprises dominated by female shareholders are associated with high viability. SME managers should ensure that they have adequate employees, since the results show that viability is associated increasing the number of employees.

The overall aim of the study was to explore educational attainment of youth who have reached eighteen whilst in foster care in Ocean View, Cape Town. A qualitative research design and a purposive sampling technique were adopted to recruit the participants. Furthermore, nonprobability sampling has been utilised to draw a purposive sampling. Semi-structured one-toone interviews were used in this study. The participants were males and females between the ages of eighteen and twenty years, who had reached eighteen whilst in foster care. Children in foster care associated their goals in life with educational attainment. The study revealed that the youth who turned eighteen whilst in foster care identified importance pertaining to education as the only way that could help themselves to get their desired jobs and achieve their educational goals in life. The study found that children in foster care appreciate social support and kindness they receive from their foster parents, which they considered as crucial in their lives because their biological parents could not provide for them. However, some of the participants expressed great concerns over the treatment they were receiving from their foster parents as a major setback in their lives, which could hinder them from achieving their education goals. The study also shows that the participants in the study encounter financial challenges such as not having money to access tertiary education similar to many children from an impoverished family backgrounds. The main recommendations are that there is a need for collaboration between the foster parents, social workers and the class teachers in offering social support to the participants who are in foster care.

This study “A study of the reading practices of parents with young children in Mitchell’s Plain” was conducted through a sample of five early childhood development (ECD) centres in Mitchell’s Plain. The study adopted a sequential transformative mixed method research design. Non-probability purposive sampling was used to select the five ECD centres and from that sample convenience sampling was used to select the interview participants. The quantitative data comprised of 137 completed questionnaires and the qualitative data was collected through 14 face-to-face interviews. A semi-structured interview schedule was used to guide the faceto-face interviews. Main findings: While 99% of parents felt that reading with children is important only 7% of respondents report reading with their children on a daily basis. Parents are aware of the importance and developmental benefits of reading, but do not seem to be making the time to read frequently. Overall, only 30% of respondents are reading once a week or more with their children. A statistically significant correlation between reading frequency and number of readers was found as well as frequency of library visits and reading frequency. Most of the respondents (64%) reported having between one and ten books at home while there were 8% who do not have a single book at home. No statistically significant correlation was found between number of books or parental education and reading frequency. The barriers that are preventing parents from reading with their children were found to be a lack of time, financial, environmental and personal challenges as well as libraries not being open on the weekend. Alliteracy and a lack of personal motivation to read was also found to be a barrier to book sharing. Very few parents of the participants interviewed had heard of or been involved with literacy organisations but past experiences with reading seemed to have a positive influence on their current reading practices. Main recommendations: ECD centres are uniquely placed to be able to inform, encourage and monitor frequent book sharing. ECD centres should therefore be trained in the importance of early book sharing and in turn provide training and support for their parents. Furthermore, if ECD centres were equipped with libraries that parents who found accessing the local library a challenge they would be able to offer parents an invaluable resource. Investing in local libraries so that they are able to offer extended operating hours on the weekend and more resources for children under five years old is also recommended. Parenting programmes in various forms are also recommended to provide parents with the information and support needed to encourage frequent book sharing

The incidence of unemployment falls most harshly on youth, who are generally low skilled and often have no experience of formal sector employment; with just 24.4 percent of young people being active in the labour market. In an attempt to assist this disenfranchised so called ‘lost generation’ there has been a major shift from passive to active labour market programmes in many countries across the world in support of the unemployed, where these programmes often concentrate on the youth. But the results on these active labour market interventions are very mixed, in terms of their effectiveness, with some countries having experienced significant improvements in unemployment levels; and others are yet to bring to fruition the economic benefits the programmes had hoped to achieve. Through the use of a qualitative research method approach, by means of surveys, this paper aims to lend to the lessons around youth labour market interventions by conducting a case study on a particular NGO’s youth intervention program to see if it has had any impact on reducing youth unemployment. What sets the programme apart is that it offered meaningful volunteering as a form of work experience as well as a self-development component which allows the youth to be more self-aware. The study found that overall the time youth spend in unemployment after completing the programme decreased by 6 months and that other unemployment duration determining factors play a key role in determining how long a youth spends in unemployment. The study found that the attitudes of the participants changed to a more positive outlook on their future prospects once they have completed the program; which lends itself to have a positive impact on job search activity.