Browsing by Author "Kapfudzaruwa, Farai"

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    The economic evaluation of aquaculture as a climate change adaptation option in fisher communities of Zimbabwe
    (2017) Tongowona, Admire; Charteris, Ailie; Kapfudzaruwa, Farai
    Due to climate change, fisher households who depend on fishing for their livelihood are faced with a number of challenges that include low productivity. There is now an acknowledgement internationally that fishers cannot depend on hunting fish when all other food producing sectors have adapted. How economic and feasible is it for fishers to consider aquaculture in the face of climate change? This dissertation investigates the economic viability of aquaculture as a climate change adaptation option in rural fisher communities of Zimbabwe. The southern lowveld district of Mwenezi was used as a case study in the economic evaluation of pond culture and cage culture as a climate change adaptation strategy from a baseline position. Data was obtained from secondary sources which include the private sector involved in aquaculture, civil society organisations and the fishers practising aquaculture in both Mwenezi and another district, Kariba. The cost benefit analysis method of economic evaluation was used to assess the economic viability of pond and cage culture forms of aquaculture. The net present value, internal rate of return and benefit cost ratio were used as the decision criteria. Two scenarios were considered depending on the type of funding for the initial investment - scenario one was built on donor funding support while scenario two relied on a bank loan with interest for financing. A sensitivity analysis was also performed to determine the extent to which different factors affect the economic viability of both pond and cage culture. Both pond and cage culture were found to be economically viable as climate change adaptation options in fisher communities of Zimbabwe. Cage culture was found to have a higher net present value under both scenarios when compared to pond culture. However, under scenario two, pond culture was found to have a higher internal rate of return and benefit cost ratio. The inconsistencies were due to the variations in the scale of upfront investments between pond and cage culture where the latter requires a higher initial investment. Key factors that affect the viability of aquaculture as an adaptation strategy in Zimbabwe include the market price of fish, the cost of fish feeds and the price of fingerlings. While these factors are primarily economic, there are other factors which may affect the viability such as the increasing frequency of natural disasters.
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    Institutional dimensions of water resource management in South Africa: socio-cultural perspectives
    (2007) Marais, Sarshen; Kapfudzaruwa, Farai; Pollard, Derck; Haram, Gro; Sowman, Merle
    Water is an essential resource in everyday life and if managed properly can help alleviate the day to day struggles that most South Africans face. The transition to democracy in South Africa required a process of law reform that saw old acts abolished to make way for new legislation that encapsulate the principles of equity, sustainability, and efficiency. In terms of the National Water Act (NWA) strategies including the national water resource strategy (NWRS) have been developed to facilitate the proper management of water resources. South Africa has been divided into nineteen water catchment management areas, identified in the strategy, and new water management institutions have been designed to help address the problems of water provision, management, conservation and participation by stakeholders in these processes (DWAF, 2004b). This project seeks to analyse and evaluate these new water management arrangements, especially relating to the water user association (WUA). A key focus will be the role that socio-cultural issues, particularly the role of traditional leadership and cultural and religious practices play in determining water management outcomes.
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    Investigating business' contribution to climate change governance in areas of limited statehood: the case of South Africa and Kenya
    (2014) Kapfudzaruwa, Farai; Hamann, Ralph
    Climate change and the related social and economic challenges present society with problems at multiple levels. There is a diverse range of actors who are contributing to climate change governance, including those who are going to be affected by the impacts. In areas of limited statehood were states have varying degrees of deficits in their abilities to steer effective climate change mitigation and adaptation, private actors such as business organisations are expected to step in. This research set to investigate how and why companies in South Africa and Kenya contribute to climate change governance. South Africa and Kenya are selected because they represent areas which have varying levels of limited statehood. The results from the content analysis and the case studies reveal that companies’ climate change governance contributions can be characterised into four configurations: laggards, emergent planners, efficiency drivers and visionaries. The laggards display very limited responses and if anything adopt cosmetic initiatives. The majority of Kenyan and South African firms are in this cluster. Emergent planners are in the early stages of implementing self-regulatory initiatives mostly at the firm level. The efficiency drivers which consist of mostly energy intensive companies engage in co-regulation which involves partnering with the state to set and implement rules in energy efficiency accords in both countries. The firms, in turn, self-regulate themselves by internally implementing the energy efficiency accord guidelines. The final configurations, the visionaries, make more comprehensive mitigation and adaptation governance contributions focusing on collective self-regulation and adopting the role of the “inspector” along their supply chain. On the basis of these empirical findings, the research identifies different ways in which the institutional, organisational and issue specific drivers interact to explain the variations in firms’ governance contributions between countries, sectors and different companies. First, corporate climate change governance contributions vary between South Africa and Kenya as a result of the countries’ different levels of statehood. South African firms are more responsive to climate change than Kenyan companies because they are more exposed to the shadow of hierarchy. Statehood is a significant factor in the context of possible alternative explanations. Second, the climate change governance contributions vary between sectors due to the combined effect of the shadow of anarchy and the task complexity associated with securing energy or water supply among “high salience” sectors. Furthermore, carbon intensive sectors have strong associations which enable them to address collective problems linked to climate change. Lastly, there are significant levels of variance in the governance contributions between the different types of companies, that is, between large, multinational companies and smaller, domestic firms. The large firms engage in more comprehensive mitigation and adaptation efforts due to organisational factors which include “asset specificity” and organisational resources.
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    An investigation into the evolution of sustainability reporting among the JSE top 10 socially-responsible companies
    (2015) Memela, Melody; Kapfudzaruwa, Farai
    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.
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    Sensemaking and sensegiving apabilities and resilience: a study of a manufacturing MSME in Kenya
    (2015) Kirigi, Linda; Kapfudzaruwa, Farai
    MSMEs play a very crucial role in the economies of developing countries. They contribute towards GDP; reduce the unemployment levels and bridging the huge gap that divides the rich and the poor. They however face numerous risks such as commercial risks, financial risks, operational risks and regulatory and compliance risks to name a few, which threaten their existence. In Kenya, many of the MSMEs do not survive beyond a year due to the lack of resilience to these risks. Furthermore, lack of proper managerial expertise in creating strategies that are well suited to mitigate these risks contribute to their demise. Much has been said about the risks that MSMEs face in Kenya. However, there is limited research on the strategies used to mitigate those risks and the decision making process that leads up to the strategies that are employed. This research therefore aimed to bridge that gap and investigate how MSMEs respond to risk, why they respond the way they do and how they can build resilience. This was done using sensemaking theory to explore the sensemaking and sensegiving capabilities of MSMEs in Kenya. A single case study of a manufacturing MSME in Kenya was used. The overall proposition of the study was that good sensemaking and sensegiving capabilities would assist MSMEs build resilience. Pattern- matching was used to match the expected pattern (theories such as enactment theory and 4 I framework) to the observed pattern which was obtained through the data collected from the company. The findings suggested that indeed good sensemaking and sensegiving capabilities do build resilience as the risk management processes and sense making and sensegiving capabilities of the selected company was a close fit to the expected pattern. The areas where the two patterns did not match, highlighted areas in which the MSME could make improvements and in so doing build resilience.
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    South African asset manager perceptions on the integration of climate change risks into equity investment decision-making processes
    (2015) Ndebele, Nontokozo; Kapfudzaruwa, Farai
    The growing interest responsible investing strategies driven by bodies such as the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investing Initiative has resulted in issues such as climate change and its impact on investment portfolios becoming part of the asset management industry discourse. However, the degree to which these issues are perceived by asset managers to be significant has not been expanded upon extensively in literature. This study was undertaken to evaluate South African asset manager perceptions regarding the integration of climate change risks within equity investment decision-making processes. The study was further aimed at providing an understanding of preferred methods of climate change risk integration, where integration does take place, and the perceived barriers to integration within the South African Asset Management industry. To achieve the above-mentioned aims, an online survey of South African asset managers was conducted. The questions in the survey comprised a combination of open ended and closed ended questions with Likert and ranking scales being used. The data which was both quantitative and qualitative in nature was analysed using descriptive statistics and thematic analysis methods involving the identification of trends.