Thesis (MBA)--Stellenbosch University, 2010. / The Millennium Development Goals were commissioned by the United Nations in 2002 under the
auspices of the Millennium Project with the aim of addressing development challenges faced by
countries around the world in the areas of health, education, infrastructure, hunger and poverty via
a series of time-related targets with a deadline for full achievement by 2015.
Energy has typically been shown to be significantly correlated with the Human Development Index
for a given country. In a similar manner, it is postulated that the various millennium development
goal indicators are significantly correlated with total energy and electricity consumption per capita
for a given nation.
This study commences with a literature review of the origins and objectives of the Millennium
Development Goals, followed by a review of the individual goals, targets and indicators. Some
current literature regarding the intent and success to date of the Millennium Development Goals
was reviewed to provide context. The link between the social and economic development of man,
and access to and usage of energy was also explored.
To understand the potential role that energy access and usage plays in economic and social
development better, a systems thinking approach was adopted and related to how energy access
and usage can impact on the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. Potential
problem co-factors relating to economic, social and sustainable development were identified,
following which a system dynamic model is presented, illustrating the interaction between the
various co-factors and access to energy and its use.
Finally, a quantitative evaluation was performed to determine whether energy usage indicators do
exhibit a relationship with the indicators of the Millennium Development Goals as proposed. This is
illustrated for goals one through six. Where relationships were visible, empirical models were fitted
to the energy and millennium development goal indicator datasets, and the coefficient of
determination, which represents the strength of the relationship, was calculated. For each of the
millennium development goal and targets, the models which exhibited the strongest relationships
were used to assess what change in energy or electricity consumption would be required to
accompany the desired change to meet the targets outlined in the Millennium Development Goals. / Sasol
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:sun/oai:scholar.sun.ac.za:10019.1/80781 |
| Date | 03 1900 |
| Creators | De Jager, Nicole |
| Contributors | Volschenk, Jako, Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences. Graduate School of Business. |
| Publisher | Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | en_ZA |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | xii, 116 p. : ill. (some col.) |
| Rights | Stellenbosch University |
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