Browsing by Author "Van Ryneveld, Mark"

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
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    A review of the green economy in Cape Town: local policy in the light of international approaches
    (2016) Petrik, Marko; Van Ryneveld, Mark
    The industrial economy of the last 100 years has resulted in significant externalities, chief of which has been anthropogenic climate change caused by the release of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere. The green economy is an approach to economic activity that has been developed in an effort to mitigate against this and attempt to shift the world economy onto a more sustainable course. South Africa has a particularly carbon-intense economy, and as such bears a considerable burden to follow this shift. Cape Town, following the lead of national government, has begun to respond to climate change and has made steps to adopt the green economy. However, much of the literature and theory developed around the green economy has been produced by developed nations, which may render it problematic to be adopted by a city in a developing nation, such as Cape Town. This dissertation begins with a brief description of the background and definition of the green economy. Based on a reading of the international literature, it then uses an analytical overview of conceptual descriptions of the green economy to develop a Transition Framework as a tool for evaluation and comparison. The Transition Framework is then applied to the green economy in the city of Cape Town as a case study. While the City of Cape Town quite overtly applies international conceptions of the green economy to its formulation, it was found that there were some significant local deviations: political parties play an important role in leading and shaping the local green economy; there is a particular need to balance green economy interventions against the preservation of municipal income from tax; the city's spatial-geographic character plays an important role in strategy and planning; and the primary aim of the local green economy is to increase economic growth and produce employment opportunities, in order to ensure social and political stability. This study highlighted the fact that international conceptions of the green economy do have a significant amount of flexibility towards local conditions, this may in some cases result in a drift away from some of its stated aims (reducing greenhouse gasses, for example) towards addressing the most pressing local issues. This may potentially render its goals unachieved.
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    The role of professionals in partnership-based urban upgrading interventions
    (2018) Malan, Johanna; Van Ryneveld, Mark; Brown-Luthango, Mercy
    In South Africa, current urban planning models and traditional state-led urban interventions seem to have noticeably failed to sustainably address the integrated problems that are evident in informal settlements throughout the country. In the case of many current urban interventions, professionals give technocratic solutions to problems in informal communities with little to no consultation or engagement with the affected community. The result is often that community's needs are not sufficiently met and the community is not capacitated to take full ownership of the solution. More often than not the intervention (technocratic solution) becomes mismanaged, underutilised and inevitably the solution is proven to be unsustainable. This phenomenon has highlighted the need for a new approach to addressing the needs of informal settlement dwellers. In recognition of the need for a new approach, this case study of a partnership-based urban upgrading intervention is conducted in order to make realistic recommendations regarding the value of professionals in partnership-based urban upgrading interventions as opposed to top-down interventions. The primary research question of this case study is thus: what lessons can be learnt about the role of the professional in partnership-based urban upgrading interventions by gaining insight on a successful partnership-based intervention? The Genius of SPACE (GOS) partnership, based in the informal settlement of Langrug in the Stellenbosch Municipality is used as the topic of the case study to answer the research question. The GOS partnership was initially formed to address greywater management and stormwater drainage challenges in the settlement. A capability analysis approach is utilised as a theoretical tool to investigate all of the different assets which might be available to the professional to contribute to addressing the social as well as the technical challenges that the GOS partnership aims to address. This tool ultimately contributes to the development of clear guiding principles for technical professionals working in urban upgrading partnerships. Some key guidelines for technical professionals in partnerships emerge from the case study and clearly show that a developmentally aligned partnership should ultimately be able to utilise not only technical abilities and skills but also social expertise to facilitate community mobilisation strategies that allow for highly responsive upgrading processes to ensure long-lasting structural as well as social change.
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    Understanding the market and access gaps present in South Africas broadband internet sector
    (2016) Cameron, Alan; Van Ryneveld, Mark; Cull, Domonic
    Internet access is a prerequisite for meaningful individual and national participation in the knowledge economy and removing barriers to such access serves broader national socio-economic policy imperatives. This critical review of the literature posed the questions: What is South Africa's current telecommunications context from a Universal Access and Universal Service point of view and does a market gap and/or access gap remain despite efforts to address such gaps since 1994? If so, how do either or both the market gap and access gap appear in the South African context and what are key hurdles that need to be overcome in order to close these gaps? The review provides a plain language explanation of how broadband Internet access can benefit South Africa's economy, and describes the negligible impact of existing policy in an anti-competitive market environment. A brief overview of South Africa's telecommunications history since 1994 until 2016 helps to contextualise the sector. In the early 1990s, 2% of South Africans had access to voice telephony. A few years later Universal Service and Access regulation was overtaken by the rapid adoption of mobile phones. With more than 40% voice telephony domestic penetration the network effect of quicker communication stimulated the domestic economy. Having achieved Universal Access objectives relating to voice communications, today nations seek the compounded advantages from the network effect of broadband Internet access. South Africa's GDP is predicted to grow by 1.34% for every 10% increase in broadband penetration, through increased productivity, job creation and greater access to cheaper services. However almost two thirds of South Africans cannot afford Internet access; and neither action by the free market nor the state is effectively increasing levels of cheap, accessible Internet. Incumbent service providers dominate the South African telecommunications sector and have little incentive to accelerate Internet access and adoption to low-income households and areas outside of the major metropolitan areas. It is therefore necessary that policy facilitates: competition in the ICT product and services sector, effective spectrum management, productive Internet use by lowincome households and user demand for online content.
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    'What is to be sustained for whom?': Equity as a key to sustainable sanitation in South African informal settlements
    (2016) Pan, Sophia; Armitage, Neil P; Van Ryneveld, Mark
    Universal access to sustainable and equitable sanitation is a Sustainable Development Goal on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The South African government has taken strides to try and meet both international and domestic development goals with its Free Basic Sanitation policy, for which a national implementation strategy was developed in 2008. Although the policy was formulated at a national level, municipal governments are delegated the authority to ensure service delivery at the local level. Municipalities have adapted and interpreted the policy to suit their own contexts. In particular, they have attempted to address the challenge of providing sanitation services to informal settlements using different approaches with varying degrees of success and often without explicit consideration or guidance for how to incorporate sustainability and equity principles. The aims of this thesis are thus to explore how the concepts of sustainability and equity can be applied to improve municipal sanitation services in South African informal settlements and to explore how various dimensions of sanitation and equity relate to sanitation. A comparative case study method using the lens of sustainability and equity was used to critique the approaches to providing sanitation services to informal settlements in three of South Africa's largest municipalities: eThekwini (Durban), Johannesburg and Cape Town. Each municipal case study incorporated an embedded case study that was used to examine sanitation services in selected informal settlements at a programme, project or settlement level. Primary data was collected using interviews and field visits. Secondary data was obtained from national and municipal records such as water and sanitation department reports, census data from Statistics South Africa, and municipal geographical information system databases. Findings from the thesis indicate that there is a need to better incorporate multiple stakeholders' perspectives on what sustainable and equitable sanitation services should be like. Strengths and weaknesses of each municipality's approach to sanitation service provision were compared and used to identify factors relating to sustainability and equity. A major conceptual gap identified in sanitation service delivery approaches is the need to emphasise equity as a core tenet of sustainability, especially in a socio-economic context of extreme inequality. This thesis makes a contribution towards knowledge by highlighting the importance of equity to support sustainable sanitation service delivery in South African informal settlements, adding new perspective into different dimensions of equity in sanitation and a suggested framework for how they could be incorporated into M&E practices.