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An Analysis of the Challenges Faced by Small-Scale Farmers and their Response to the 2014-2016 Drought in Mfekayi, Mtubatuba, KZN, South Africa
Ziphozethu Bukhosini and Innocent Moyo 7
Small-scale farming contributes to poverty reduction and the improvement of living standards in impoverished rural communities. However, in South Africa, the drought continues to threaten the operations, incomes, and livelihoods of small-scale farmers. Against this backdrop, this paper analyses small scale farmers’ responses to the 2014-2016 droughts in Mfekayi, in the KwaZulu Natal province of South Africa. The study adopted a mixed-method approach in the form of a convergent parallel design. The results indicated that there were various measures taken by small-scale farmers to respond to the drought. These actions include buying expensive supplements, crop variation, and the application of indigenous knowledge such as livestock movement. Moreover, the results stipulated that those participants suffered livestock deaths and crop failure as the major impacts of drought. In addition, there are challenges experienced by small-scale farmers in dealing with drought, such as further livestock deaths, drought recovery costs, and a lack of information. The study recommends that the government provides relief assistance and come up with policies that specifically address the concerns of small scale farmers.
To date, few studies have been published focusing on the impact of culture on the health of men who have Sex with Men (MSM) health. This study aims to assess the impact culture has on MSM health. Studies have shown that better access to health services among MSM improves their health and reduces the transmission of HIV/AIDS. However, MSM in KwaZulu-Natal Province still face hindrances in accessing health services. This study gathered data using in-depth interviews with 25 MSM in KwaZulu-Natal in 2020. The data were analysed using the interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) framework. It was discovered that culture as a key social determinant of health factors have been categorised as a significant factor that determines the health and wellbeing of MSM in accessing health services, using stigma and discrimination as a barrier stick. Culture was identified in this study as a critical triggering factor that prevents MSM from accessing health services. The engagement and involvement of cultural influencers are recommended in this study for MSM focal programme designers, implementers, and policymakers to address identified cultural barriers to enhance access to health services for MSM.
The unprecedented rate of urbanisation has changed the South African urban landscape. The densification of the population in cities has resulted in high consumption of electricity, waste production, a reduction of greenery, and traffic congestion, all of which contribute to climate change. South Africa promulgated legislations and acts such as the Spatial Planning and Land-Use Management Act (SPLUMA), the National Urban Development Framework (NUDF), and the Integrated Development Plan (IDP) to guide climate change adaptation and mitigation aspirations. These frameworks and plans are important for the management of urbanisation, which potentially contributes to climate change. Complexity theory is a lens for reviewing complex systems like urbanisation and cities. Complexity theory gives a thorough account of cities, urbanisation, and urban planning. The method that was adopted for the paper is a mixed-method approach. The data were collected by interviewing and administering questionnaires to municipal officials and residents of four urban areas (Legae la Batho, Emdo Park, Serala View, and Flora Park). Results show that the local municipality continues to be plagued with a lack of qualified personnel to implement policies that affect programme implementation, such as energy mix. Additionally, the City of Polokwane has been experiencing a reduction of green spaces, which has a negative impact on the climate change aspiration. The paper concludes that there are still challenges to a fully capacitated workforce within the Polokwane Local Municipality. The inability to implement policies has deleterious effects on climate change mitigation.
This article discusses the factors precipitating witchcraft belief practises and imputations in South Africa and Zimbabwe in the 21st century. Efforts to ignore the epistemologies of this phenomenon and paint it as primitive have been the foundation of some writings by some authors, thus leaving the believers of witchcraft unsatisfied and hence turning a blind eye on life’s pertinent challenges. To collect data, a case study analysis, semi-structured interviews, and desk-based research were conducted. Knowledge holders, namely businessmen, police, religious leaders, traditional healers, and politicians, were interviewed. In Bindura, (Mashonaland province), 10 participants were interviewed in Zimbabwe and 10 in South Africa (Thohoyandou, Limpopo province). The study's theoretical foundations were psychoanalytic theory and socio-cultural theory. The study's findings revealed that certain rural population groups in South Africa and Zimbabwe still hold deep-seated beliefs in witchcraft. Some people have not forsaken their witchcraft beliefs and practices, which are deeply rooted in African culture. The scramble for power and dominance in business and politics, polygamous marriages, and religious beliefs and teachings contribute to witchcraft beliefs and imputations. Educational programmes and the mass media have not entirely prevailed in influencing positive change. In addition, there seem to be discrepancies between the provisions of the law and what is happening on the ground. It is recommended that the most effective and efficient way of addressing this conundrum would be to update the existing colonial witchcraft legislation to address the mismatch that is there between what the law says and what people believe.
Rural development remains critical in developing countries, particularly in those with large rural communities with little economic activity, such as South Africa. Rural tourism is becoming increasingly popular as an alternative to urban tourism. This study aimed at assessing the potential of rural tourism in the communities around Hluhluwe iMfolozi Park (HiP), which is situated in the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa. It adopted a qualitative research method that hinges on the explorative and interpretive paradigms and applied a purposive sampling method for data collection. Focus group discussions were conducted with the study participants. Content analysis was used to analyse the collected data. HiP and the surrounding communities have significant potential for rural tourism development due to the natural beauty, rich wildlife species, and major cultural and historical features that exist in this area and can attract many tourists. However, the local communities’ human capital development remains a challenge to be surmounted. The study recommends a gradual process of knowledge and skills development in the local communities to support the business side of rural tourism development and offerings.
Background: In the last two decades, Kenya’s development agenda has focused on Vision 2030’s aim of transforming the country into an industrialised, modern-middle-income state. To fulfill this desired economic growth, the government has emphasised infrastructure improvement, a move that has prompted heavy borrowing, especially from China. Despite the numerous studies on China’s involvement in road construction, there has been no attempt to look at how the Kenya Road Classification System can inform and influence the choice of road projects. In addition, limited studies have illustrated the theoretical standpoint of China-Kenya road improvement projects.
Objective: Therefore, this paper explores the interest of China in road construction in Kenya through the analysis of the Kenya road classification system. In addition, it examines how the Kenya-China road construction projects can be described from a neoliberal standpoint.
Method: The paper draws from an analysis of grey literature, including newspapers, blogs, and internet archives, and ethnographic fieldwork on national infrastructure projects, particularly roads in Kenya.
Conclusion: The findings suggest that China’s primary focus is on trunk roads (class ‘A’ roads), which play a critical role in regional access to resource-rich regions and provide strategic geopolitical and territorial positioning. We argue that the Kenya National and Highway Authority’s Road Classification System can reveal the political and economic interests in road construction.
Social exclusion is a pervasive phenomenon in the lives of visually impaired individuals. This paper discusses the causes of exclusion as well as strategies for dealing with it. The qualitative in-depth interviewing design was used for the study. Convenience and purposive sampling methods were used in order to select the most relevant participants in the study. Thirty visually impaired individuals from Kwa-Nobuhle Township in the Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipality, together with twenty Community Development Workers from the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA), participated in the study, which took place from June to November 2020. The findings of the study revealed that the causes of exclusion were a lack of independence, a lack of adequate education and skills, a lack of reasonable accommodation, and a lack of community awareness. Potential empowerment strategies for minimising the exclusion of the visually impaired individuals were also presented. They included awareness campaigns, increasing platforms for information sharing, workshops and trainings, improved monitoring and evaluation, and the establishment of more rehabilitation centres for visually impaired individuals.
The management of human remains is under scrutiny due to the proliferation of funeral homes in township communities and growing environmental concerns. Operationalising a funeral business requires a certificate of competency (CoC), and it falls under the ambit of the local government, via Municipal Health Services (MHS) (Balfour, 2021). This article infers that since MHS and LED offices are under the same local government (which seeks to drive development within communities), these departments may find a workable solution for this business. However, emerging funeral directors are not knowledgeable about LED’s role in their space, while local economic developers do not know how to engage with this sector. This study aims to establish the reasons behind the challenges of compliance experienced by emerging funeral directors, and the role of MHS and LED offices, which hold the mandate to promote an enabling environment for emerging businesses.
This paper reports one of the findings of a study that was conducted to determine strategies that can be used to promote the use of indigenous African languages as languages of teaching and learning in South African schools. The problem that I sought to address was the lack of or insufficient use of indigenous African languages for teaching and learning in the South African education system, despite these languages being constitutionally recognised as official languages in the country since 1994. The study was conducted against the background of existing research both locally and internationally, which highlights the negative effects of offering education in a language that is not the learner’s first language or mother tongue. It was conducted in KwaZulu-Natal, one of the nine provinces of the Republic of South Africa, in which isiZulu is the predominant indigenous African language. Participants included a random sample of educators from primary schools and high schools, a random sample of language and education specialists in institutions of higher learning found in the province, as well as a random sample of learners in the Further Education and Training (FET) phase. Questionnaires, an observation schedule, and focus group interviews were used to collect data for the study. As part of the literature review, language policies formulated after the adoption of the new constitution in 1994, in particular the Language-in-Education Policy (LiEP) of 1997, were reviewed to determine their contribution to the language provision dilemmas suffered by indigenous African languages in teaching and learning. This paper reports on one of the effects that language provisions made in the LiEP seem to have had, which manifests as a lack of competence in both the language of teaching and learning and in the home (native) language among most black learners, a condition that has been termed “semilingualism” by some scholars. The implications of this phenomenon for language in teaching and learning are also highlighted. The paper concludes by making suggestions for a need to revise the LiEP to help overcome this emergent problem and improve the use of indigenous African languages in teaching and learning.
Despite community participation mechanisms in local government, there has been an increase in violent protests related to a deficit in the provision of services. Such protests cause damage to property, increasing the infrastructure deficit. Therefore, this paper seeks to comprehend the most effective approach to sustainable service provision in order to limit violent service delivery protests. The paper identifies active community participation as a strategy to improve service delivery in municipalities. The paper used desktop research as an approach to secondary sources. Despite its its importance in service delivery to the local population, the paper contends that community participation is a necessary tool for achieving transparency and accountability. It concludes by arguing that for sustainable service delivery to be progressively realised, local people need to reach a stage where they participate in local affairs, with the same energy, intensity, and willingness they show when they participate in violent service delivery protests.
With the advent of democracy in 1994, the South African government introduced various initiatives as part of youth skills development intervention programmes, and one of such programmes is the internship programme, which is aimed at exposing graduates to workplace dynamics and getting young people to develop their practical skills to nature careers. This programme, however, has its own challenges, especially on the part of the students, who, after completion, appear to struggle finding sustainable employment, which, in turn, renders the programme questionable. The aim of this study is to analyse the skill relevance of the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) internship programme in preparing interns for permanent employment in the employment sector. This study was empirical and used qualitative methods to analyse the skills acquired by interns during the internship programme at DHET. The sample from which data was gleaned consisted of senior managers and interns placed in different units within the department. While the concept of an internship is admirable for exposing graduates to various employment sectors, the study discovered some flaws in its implementation. For example, it was established that the process of placing interns in the DHET was almost done haphazardly, with little consideration of the linkage between their educational background and the units where training occurs. Therefore, this defeats the general mission of the programme itself and is the cause of the diminished future employment prospects of the students. The study recommended, among other things, that DHET provide graduate interns with technical and strategic training opportunities tailored to their specific career needs in order to improve their employability prospects. Possible ways to overcome the internship-related problems identified in the study are outlined towards the end of this article.
Although South Africa has an adequate food supply nationally, household level food insecurity is still prevalent. One well-known social security intervention, the South African social grant programme, aims to provide financial relief to food-insecure households. However, there is lack of empirical evidence on how deep and broad the food security impact of this programme has been. Employing data from a nationally representative sample and using the instrumental variable method, the study examines this issue by measuring the resilience these households have towards vulnerability to food insecurity. The findings revealed that households receiving social grants are vulnerable to food insecurity. Chronic food insecurity prevails in rural-dominated provinces, while urban-dominated provinces mostly have transient food insecurity. Although this programme targets the poor, its unintended negative impact on economic activities would require policy priority. People with disabilities, female-dominated rural households, and environmentally friendly economic activities should all be prioritised in policy.
Graduate unemployment is one of the major socio-economic development problems in South Africa and many other developing countries. Previous research has described various factors causing graduate unemployment, one of which is a lack of relevant work experience. Internships are increasingly supported to address this problem. However, internships have been criticised for being exploitative, illegal, and unjust. This paper seeks to present a new perspective on internships. It seeks to examine the perspectives on the impact of stipend level on graduate intern work productivity. Thus, the objectives of this study are to: explore the impact of stipend level on the work productivity of graduate interns; explore the exploitative nature of internship as perceived by participants; and explore the concerns of graduate interns over compensation. This study is qualitative and exploratory in nature. Fifty semi-structured interviews were conducted with interns, mentors, and HR managers at eThekwini municipality, Durban, South Africa, to address these research objectives. Data from interviews was analysed through thematic analysis. The results indicate that there is a relationship between the level of stipend earned by interns and their work productivity. This study found that low pay is associated with low work productivity. Therefore, work compensation is the primary motivator of productivity, not only for full-time employees but also for graduate interns.
Local Action Groups (LAGs) are a promising development approach that has gained prominence across the world. They are underpinned by participation of all local actors (community-led rural development) as the main precondition for generating and sustaining economic development in rural regions. Despite this potential, there has been a dearth of scientific studies that have investigated the potential role of LAGs as a rural transformation approach in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. Therefore, the current paper sought to identify existing local action groups and explore their role and potential to promote rural development. A concurrent mixed-methods approach was adopted to attain the study objective. Four hundred households were purposively drawn from two rural local municipalities, Amahlathi and Nyandeni, in the Eastern Cape Province. Survey questionnaires and semi-structured interview guides were used to collect data. Results showed that existing LAGs were mainly burial societies, cooperatives, farmers associations, women's organisations, and financial saving schemes. The main roles of these LAGs were to enhance food security, boost income generation, and foster social cohesion. However, despite their contribution, LAGs have not reached their full potential as a conduit for rural development owing to the limited involvement of relevant rural development stakeholders. Therefore, adequate targeted support is required from both the public and private sectors to unlock the potential of LAGs as a catalyst for rural development.
Empirical evidence has revealed the prevalence of unethical practises in the construction industry. These malpractices result in project failures. On the contrary, successful delivery of construction and infrastructure projects brings physical development, which promotes economic growth. For that reason, professional codes of conduct are established as a deterrent to unethical behaviour. This study sought to identify and examine the challenges faced by construction project managers in complying with the South African Council for Project and Construction Management Professions (SACPCMP). Adopting a mixed research approach, the study, using the snowball sampling technique, selected a sample of 72 respondents. The results of the study showed that SACPCMP has 39 obligations that are imposed on professional construction project managers. There were varying degrees of compliance identified, i.e., full compliance, partial compliance, and no compliance. Construction project managers face various challenges such as obedience to authority, peer pressure, conflict of interest, time constraints, socio-economic and political pressure, breach of confidence, other challenges, acts of kindness, and external pressure. The study`s major recommendation is the need for SACPCMP and the professional project managers to bridge the gap between managers' behaviour at membership registration and actual conduct of professional work.
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