Browsing by Subject "geographical science"

Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
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    Open Access
    An exploration of the post-harvest activities of the Olifants Estuary Small-Scale Fishery: recommendations for equitable market access and beneficiation
    (2021) Louw, Tayla Susan; Sowman, Merle
    Small-scale Fisheries (SSFs) play a key role in poverty alleviation of rural coastal populations through the provision of food security and income generation. Yet, many SSFs fail to maximise the value potential of the seafood products they produce as a result of post-harvest losses and marketing challenges. SSFs within South Africa are no exception and are particularly disadvantaged as a result of historical discrimination, marginalisation, management, data deficiencies and inequitable market access. The financial, technical and information challenges that characterize small-scale fisher households present many barriers to accessing and maximizing market opportunities. Worldwide, and in South Africa, understanding of post-harvest losses, limitations and market constraints, is limited. Therefore, this research aims to better understand the post-harvest activities of the small-scale fishers of the Olifants estuary in order to identify opportunities for value addition and improved market access. A mixed-methods approach was employed including analysing data from community fisher logbooks and conducting semi-structured interviews with both fishers and marketers. This research has demonstrated that inadequate facilities, lack of technology and transport as well as limited knowledge have all contributed to post-harvest losses and affected the income potential for these fishers. Inequitable market forces have been shown to exist in the Olifants fishery value chain. Consequently, these small-scale fishers are price-takers since they lack the capacity required to participate in value chain negotiations and development. Furthermore, these fishers are vulnerable to the consequences of poor governance, the vagaries of marketers and the misperceptions and preferences of consumers regarding their fish products. Recommendations include building capacity and skills of the Olifants fishers to professionalise their operation, adjusting several of their postharvest activities and incorporating those suggestions offered by the marketplace that are achievable.
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    Open Access
    Investigating weather information needs of smallholder farmers in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa
    (2023) Mantshiyose, Abenathi; Crespo, Olivier
    South Africa is continuously experiencing irregular weather and climate, which is attributed to climate change and the El Niño Southern Oscillation. These have resulted in temperature increases, irregular rainfall patterns, and increased frequency of extreme events. In South Africa, smallholder farmers are the most vulnerable to extreme weather events due to their limited capacity to adapt. Their vulnerability results from a series of factors constraining their ability to adapt, such as limited resources, knowledge, and skills. Furthermore, smallholder farmers are highly dependent on rainfed agriculture, making them more sensitive. The lack of weather information that is tailored for user needs or adapted well enough is also a concerning issue that exacerbates the living conditions of smallholder farmers. This makes it difficult for them to sustain their agricultural activities. Over the years, weather information has been recognized as having the potential to be useful in agriculture, especially in informing farming practices, planning, and reducing weather events impacts among smallholder farmers. However, access and use of weather information that applies to the context of smallholder farmers which is tailored to meet smallholder farmers needs, has been limited and has contributed to limited understanding and low use levels of weather information. This has increased the need to understand the weather information needs of smallholder farmers as this is important to ensure that farmers can effectively use and understand the information. In South Africa, limited studies have looked at the weather information needs of smallholder farmers. Hence, a shift of attention towards investigating the weather information needs of smallholder farmers has increasingly become necessary. The present study investigated how to better communicate the weather information needs of smallholder farmers in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. A mixed-methods approach was used to collect and analyze the data. Interviews with open-ended and closed-ended questions were conducted with smallholder farmers and agricultural extension officers. Interviews were conducted to gain an insight on the baseline and characteristics of weather information farmers receive and their needs. The same was done with extension officers to get their insight on the needs of farmers and the needs of extension officers. 2 The findings of the study confirm that the current weather information system is inefficient as the information does not fully meet the needs of smallholder farmers. Most of the farmers expressed that they currently receive information on rainfall, temperature, and heavy rainfall but stated that they would like to receive information on drought as they are currently experiencing dry periods. The farmers mentioned that they receive weather information mostly from the television, radio, and a few from weather apps. Most of the farmers receive weather information in maps and audio, expressing that maps make it easy for them to visualize and understand the information. From the television, they receive the information in IsiXhosa and IsiZulu, and they mentioned that weather information in IsiXhosa is easy to understand as it is their local language. In weather apps, farmers mentioned that they receive weather information in English and expressed concerns about understanding weather information in English. As a result, most farmers preferred receiving weather information in IsiXhosa as they can understand the language. Additionally, farmers also expressed that they only receive weather information daily, and they stated that they would like to receive weather information daily, weekly, monthly, and seasonally to plan their farming activities and to know when to plant. Furthermore, most of the farmers expressed that they encounter some challenges with the information they receive. Some of the challenges included issues such as the inaccuracy of the information and scale issues. The farmers complained that the information they receive is not downscaled to their local scale, making it difficult for them to apply the information on their local scale decisions. Therefore, without significant improvement of the issues mentioned above and addressing the weather information needs of farmers, weather information use and understanding will remain low and will increase the vulnerability of smallholder farmers to extreme weather events. To prevent this, there is a growing need for weather information to meet the needs of smallholder farmers so that they can understand and use the information efficiently, especially in the face of increasing extreme weather events such as drought in South Africa.
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    Municipal bonds in sub-Saharan Africa: the checkered past of debt instruments in an era of incomplete decentralization
    (2019) Gorelick, Jeremy; Parnell, Sue
    Cities across sub-Saharan Africa are faced with challenges in urban planning and service delivery due to insufficient capital for long-term investment projects. Despite the success of municipal bonds as a tool to assist in closing this financing gap in much of the rest of the world, there have been limited examples of success in this region. This study looks at the universal obstacles limiting sub-national governments from using municipal bonds as a financial instrument before examining four case studies - Johannesburg, Douala, Dakar and Kampala - to better understand their approaches to municipal bond issuance. Based on the findings from research, the thesis concludes that the chief obstacle blocking the uptake of municipal bond issuance as a means for raising funds stems from a variety of elements in the constitutional and regulatory systems in each country. This represents a significant departure from the commonly-held understandings that cities in the region are not eligible for long-term debt and are ill-managed, lack capacity, or are not viewed as creditworthy by institutional investors and other purchasers of municipal bonds. The success of municipal bond issuance appears to be contingent on strong interlinkages between central and subnational governments. This dissertation offers a critical review of the explicit and implicit powers granted to local governments under the constitutions of each of the countries, specifically the legislation that enables or prohibits municipalities from issuing bonds. Reform to the existing regulatory and legal environments across the African continent, ones that govern a financially-sustainable level of indebtedness for sub-sovereign governments, is an essential step in ensuring the future growth of Africa’s cities.
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    Towards “just” energy transitions in unequal societies: an actor-centric analysis of South Africa's evolving electricity sector
    (2022) Nkata, Zimkita; Rennkamp, Britta
    The rapid and intensifying impacts of the changing climate and subsequent need to alleviate these have resulted in the synonymous pathway towards a global energy transition. Through enhanced national climate action plans, countries worldwide are formulating development pathways that are aligned to a carbon-neutral and net-zero emissions global economy. The recent IPCC Sixth Assessment report confirmed, once again, the urgency to reduce emissions to prevent catastrophic climate impacts. While nations have submitted their enhanced climate action plans, developing countries like South Africa battle with severe developmental challenges. The imperative to respond to climate change alongside addressing entrenched development challenges such as high unemployment, inequality, and poverty make it essential for the country's energy transition to be just. Frameworks theorising technological transitions predominantly originate from the global north. Thus, to avoid adopting frameworks from their place of origin and replicating them in different contexts, this study merges Geel's multi-level perspective (MLP) framework with the energy justice framework to have a better understanding of the composition of actors and discourse shaping South Africa's just energy transition debate. The study achieves this by operationalizing a range of qualitative discursive approaches, namely content and media frame analysis. Over an 11-year study period, online newspaper articles are used as a unit of analysis to develop actor categories, these are accompanied by frames (in the form of statements said by the identified actors). With the assumption of there being no agency at the landscape level of the MLP, landscape developments placing pressure on the regime identified from the analysis include the climate change phenomenon, pressure from the international community, and declining global demand for coal. At the regime level, actors engaging in activities reinforcing the status quo such as Eskom and members of business fell within the incumbent (core) actor category whereas actors who were identified as outsiders (i.e., those that openly criticize the regime by highlighting problems associated with it) mainly consisted of civil society groups. Within each actor category, actors use discourse that either stabilizes or destabilizes the regime. At the niche level, the financial intermediary role played by development finance institutions (DFI's) emerged as key to creating protective spaces for the adoption of renewable energy technologies throughout the study period. Finally, because of the varying levels of power and interactions between actors across the multiple levels of the country's energy transition, issues of fairness in decision-making (procedural justice), representation (recognitional justice) and share in costs and benefits of the regime and transition emerge (distributive justice).
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    Unlocking small-scale fisheries value chains through Information & Communication Technology (ICT) - the case studies of Lamberts Bay & Kleinmond, South Africa
    (2019) George, Robin Peter; Raemaekers, Serge; Haysom, Gareth
    Focusing on the small-scale fisheries sector, this thesis examines the question of how the usage of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) can unlock value chain opportunities for fishers. Using a case study approach by focusing on the communities of Lamberts Bay and Kleinmond in the Western Cape of South Africa, it seeks to discover what ICTs should take cognisance of to adequately speak to the value chain realities of small-scale fishers. Some of the work done was observed while engaging with fishers from both communities and other relevant stakeholders during certain engagements with the Abalobi programme, a co-designed smartphone application programme. The emphasis of the research was to speak to different stakeholders who are involved in the value chain and who are engaging with or impact the value chains of small-scale fishing communities. As value chains start with small-scale fishers, their narratives are of utmost importance as they are the initiators of these value chains. The three objectives of this research are to understand the value chain activities of the two communities, differentiate the different value chain activities of the communities at the local, regional and international levels and then contribute to how ICTs such as Abalobi can assist efforts of connecting fishers to their markets. Interviewing and engaging fishers, supportive organisations, authorities, value chain stakeholders in both communities as well as corporates and an ICT specialist, the thesis considers the different perspectives and needs of those involved in the small-scale fisheries value chain. The result of this thesis lead to six ICT requirements being identified to unlocking of small-scale fishing value chains: easy to use, self-sustaining, people-centred and inclusive, integrated, evolving and detailed. Although value chains exist in the sector, ICTs can enable better coordination between stakeholders in it. This research was done to understand how ICTs as a tool can improve and better facilitate the interactions between fishers and their desired markets and that their narratives are brought to the fore in understanding the value chains and in sourcing ICT solutions for them.