Browsing by Author "Gillwald, Alison"

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    Open Access
    An explorative case study of blockchain as a means to enhancing land registry governance to uphold property and land restitution in South Africa
    (2024) Tshitangano, Tom; Gillwald, Alison; Camerer, Marianne
    Land ownership is one of the fundamental constitutional rights of every citizen in South Africa. The slow progress regarding land reform and security of tenure in the form of the transfer and registration of title deeds is arguably a failure of the State to uphold the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa. Section 25 (5) of the Constitution requires the state to take measures to foster conditions which enable equitable access to land and to take reasonable legislative and other measures, within its available resources, to foster conditions which enable citizens to gain access to land on an equitable basis. Governance inefficiencies in the current land registry, specifically in relation to title deeds associated with land restitution and social housing — including acts such as corruption and fraud — hinder the progress of the constitutional requirement to reform land ownership. Such inefficiencies include the current centralisation of the Deeds Office; an incomplete land registry with a backlog of title deeds; insecure tenure for the majority of properties on communal land and in informal settlements; the inaccessibility of the land registry for the majority of the population; the high costs attached to purchasing property, accessing the land registry, conveyancing fees, deeds transfers and title deeds; processing delays caused by the current paper-based, manually driven land registry processes; and unreliable land audit reports. The Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework — together with public goods, principal-agent and collective action theory — form the core elements of the conceptual framework which is evident in the registration of titles for purposes of land reform in South Africa. This framework is used to analyse the existing institutional arrangements, the factors undermining the effectiveness of the land registry, and potential governance solutions and technological safeguards. 15 15 Alongside interviews with key experts, the analysis of the available secondary empirical evidence, the legal, regulatory and grey document and media coverage, following the coding of the data and- triangulation of findings provide a detailed context for the case study and evidence base for the limited but significant role blockchain could play in enabling more effective administration and governance of the land registration, particularly at the points that it is most vulnerable to abuse and which impacts on those least able to protect their interests. From the analysis, it is proposed that the identified resource constraints and lack of institutional capacity to implement a blockchain solution could be overcome through carefully managed public-private interplays. To fulfil its primary purpose, the registry needs to be complete, accurate, secure, and accessible to anyone wishing to register title deeds. This thesis examines whether the registry does fulfil these requirements currently. The findings from a set of high-level, in-depth interviews with experts in the field reveal that, while the registry system works relatively effectively for the high-end of the market, in the lower-end of the market where most of the land and housing reform transfers take place, there is evidence of inefficiencies including, inter alia, fraud. It finds that under particular complementary conditions, blockchain could provide a decentralised and secure land registry that could transform the Deeds Office and modernise land reform and restitution to address governance inefficiencies and aberrations, particularly in relation to corruption and fraud. This thesis makes the case for blockchain technology being deployed to enable the land registry in South Africa to fulfil its functions as a public good critical to the implementation of the Electronic Deeds Registration Systems Act of 2019. In doing so, it will be able to better serve its critical role in the constitutional requirements of land restitution and housing provision. 16 16 Keywords: land registry, land reform, corruption, fraud, public good, decentralisation, technology innovation, blockchain, public-private interplays, digital transformation, effective governance
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    Open Access
    Regulation of complex adaptive digital systems: optimizing competition and consumer welfare outcomes in Nigeria's converging telecommunications market
    (2023) Onuoha, Raymond; Gillwald, Alison; Bauer, Johannes M
    The thesis explores how emerging digital ecosystems would benefit from new regulatory approaches that differ from the traditional models applied in the telecommunications sector. The historical model is typically based on an analysis of static efficiency, which does not appropriately acknowledge the often complementary nature of the evolving digital ecosystem and its dynamic efficiencies. Informed by the increasing complexities of the converging telecommunications ecosystem, the corroboration of this core proposition required the examination of not just the technical but also the socio-economic and institutional elements of advanced communication systems. Findings from existing academic literature on pro-competition regulatory challenges of digital markets focus more on mature competitive markets in the Global North. There is a paucity of empirical studies on the predominantly pre-paid mobile markets of the South — where competition laws and institutional arrangements that facilitate market competition are still nascent. More so, extant studies of telecommunications market regulation were mostly supply-side focused, not taking into full consideration demand-side elements, especially the social and public value of the converged telecommunications ecosystem. In addition, most of the studies focused on quantitative methodologies largely based on econometric analysis. To fill a gap in the research literature, the thesis explores these issues within the context of a developing country, Nigeria. The research responds to the dearth of critical policy enquiry within the domain of applied social policy research that relies on qualitative interrogation to examine the interrelated ecosystem elements and arrive at answers to questions that generally cannot be understood through quantitative methods. Although there is a rich vein of literature regarding telecommunications market regulation, explaining network competition principles and the institutional conditions under which they thrive, instances of such research in a developing country context are few and far between. The thesis bridges these gaps by applying a systemic approach based on complexity theory and institutional analyses drawing on the institutional analysis and development (IAD) framework to answer regulatory questions of competition policy under conditions of constraint, such as in emerging markets. By developing a conceptual framework drawing on these two approaches, the effects of demand-side access and willingness to pay are assessed via an in-depth qualitative analysis to examine the resulting dynamic impact on social welfare. The thesis provides a case study of Nigeria to examine these issues in a developing country context. The research questions examine the complexities of regulating dynamic markets to achieve often competing objectives of competition, investment, innovation, and consumer welfare. The author deployed the conceptual framework to analyze the evidence for the case rather than for purposes of theoretical contestation or theory building. Therefore, the thesis methodology leans towards an inductive research paradigm within the episteme of interpretive constructivism. The author adopted a qualitative methodology for the study based on the nature of the research questions and the conceptual framework. However, empirical insights were generated by the author from a combination of methods. The research process comprised a country-specific causeeffect analysis of the regulatory challenges of OTT-MNO competition in the context of Nigeria's converging telecommunications industry and its imperatives for both innovation and investment policy outcomes. Incorporating in the methodology a process tracing mechanism allowed for the elucidation of critical junctures in the structural evolution of the country's telecommunications market and the path-dependent outcomes for alternative policy options. Consequently, the author undertook an initial step in mapping the converging Nigerian telecommunications ecosystem, which detailed its complex interrelationships in relation to ecosystem stakeholders and institutions, regulatory governance mechanisms, and outcomes to complement the qualitative analysis. The ecosystem mapping was then used to identify critical opportunity pathways for regulatory evolution both in the 3 short and long terms for effectively addressing the competition dynamics related to OTTs and MNOs within the converging Nigerian telecommunications market. The thesis contributes to the existing body of knowledge on regulating complex adaptive systems by exploring competition and consumer welfare optimization in Nigeria's converging telecommunications market. It does so by building on the literature on socio-technical systems' governance and policy design within adaptive external environments, deploying key concepts from complex adaptive systems theory. In extending and problematizing the domain discourse, a key regulatory challenge that crystallizes in assessing the converging Nigerian market is an appropriate regulatory structure that optimizes investment and innovation incentives on both sides of the market — infrastructure development and next-generation services provisioning. In addressing this regulatory challenge under conditions of institutional and resource constraint, the thesis considers the preconditions, necessary and sufficient institutional arrangements for effective competition regulation within Nigeria's converging telecommunications sector to maximize dynamic efficiency and social welfare. This contribution provides an evidence base in support of claims of the value of the converged telecommunications ecosystem for developing countries. It evaluates how ecosystem stakeholders can find an optimal balance along multiple emerging telecommunications policy trade-offs and their implications for competition policy and regulatory options
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    Open Access
    The Contribution of Information and Communication Technology to the wellbeing of the urban poor in South Africa
    (2018) Allen, Michaella; Gillwald, Alison; Kaplan, David
    Within the context of an increasingly pervasive digital society, this study seeks to understand the extent to which Internet-enabled mobile phones contribute towards the social and economic inclusion or exclusion of the urban poor in South Africa. This stems from the growing recognition that although mobile phones may be tools for opportunity and development, access to these devices may not be sufficient to ensure that they are used optimally for development. Stubbornly high mobile broadband prices and ineffectual policy reform in South Africa alternatively risk not only inhibiting meaningful ICT usage by the poor, but also potentially exacerbating their current economic marginalisation through digital exclusion. To analyse the relationship between mobile phone usage and urban poor development, Roxana Barrantes’ demand-focused Digital Poverty Framework is quantitatively applied to nationally representative data from the 2017 “Beyond Access” Research ICT Africa Household and Individual ICT access/usage survey. Results indicate that only percent 12 percent of urban individuals at the Bottom of the Economic Pyramid (BoP) are capable of actively using their Internet-enabled mobile phones on a daily basis in meaningful ways. Although all Internetenabled mobile phone users at the urban BoP are capable of using their devices to strengthen their economic, social and human capabilities; optimal usage is only predicted with a 5 percent probability in terms of both daily use and quality of opportunities generated for improved wellbeing. Accounting for the confounding presence of students, a Generalised Ordered Logit regression identifies digital literacy and mobile broadband affordability as primary barriers to the optimisation of Internet-enabled mobile phone use. In spite of ongoing regulatory pressure on operators to reduce prices, these findings highlights the current inefficacy of these efforts to promote greater digital inclusion among the mobile-data dependent urban BoP. This failure suggests a critical need for State policies to improve the viability of complementary and free aggregated access to mobile broadband alternatives, such as Free Public Wi-Fi, that can optimise the developmental potential of mobile phones for the urban poor. Such policies that additionally address digital skills needs of the poor are even better suited to equip the State to tackle key barriers of digital literacy and awareness as arguably more intractable problems to promoting effective ICT use and digital equality.