Learning from local economic development experiences: Observations on Integrated Development Programmes of the Free State, Republic of South Africa

The aim of this paper is to assess the degree to which the components of the Rural Economic and Enterprise Development (REED) framework have been incorporated into integrated development planning (IDP) or into strategic local economic development (LED) plans. The paper also provides an evaluation of two local municipal level IDPs in the Free State, Republic of South Africa. The evaluation is considered on an ex-ante basis in terms of contemporary LED and REED approaches. We also consider IDP efficacy and potential impact in terms of achieving enterprise development, poverty reduction and growth.Rural Economic and Enterprise Development, economic development,

Resilience of healthcare and education networks and their interactions following major earthquakes

2021 Spring.Includes bibliographical references.Healthcare and education systems have been identified by various national and international organizations as the main pillars of communities' stability. Ensuring the continuation of vital community services such as healthcare and education is critical for minimizing social losses after extreme events. A shortage of healthcare services could have catastrophic short-term and long-term effects on a community including an increase in morbidity and mortality, as well as population outmigration. Moreover, a shortage or lack of facilities for K-12 education, including elementary, middle, and high schools could impact a wide range of the community's population and could lead to impact population outmigration. Despite their importance to communities, there are a lack of comprehensive models that can be used to quantify recovery of functionalities of healthcare systems and schools following natural disasters. In addition to capturing the recovery of functionality, understanding the correlation between these main social services institutions is critical to determining the welfare of communities following natural disasters. Although hospitals and schools are key indicators of the stability of community social services, no studies to date have been conducted to determine the level of interdependence between hospitals and schools and their collective influence on their recoveries following extreme events. In this study, comprehensive frameworks are devised for estimating the losses, functionality, and recovery of healthcare and educational services following earthquakes. Success trees and semi-Markov stochastic models coupled with dynamic optimization are used to develop socio-technical models that describe functionalities and restorations of the facilities providing these services, by integrating the physical infrastructure, the supplies, and the people who operate and use these facilities. New frameworks are proposed to simulate processes such as patient demand on hospitals, hospitals' interaction, student enrollment, and school administration as well as different decisions and mitigation strategies applied by hospitals and schools while considering the disturbance imposed by earthquake events on these processes. The complex interaction between healthcare and education networks is captured using a new agent-based model which has been developed in the context of the communities' physical, social, and economic sectors that affect overall recovery. This model is employed to simulate the functional processes within each facility while optimizing their recovery trajectories after earthquake occurrence. The results highlight significant interdependencies between hospitals and schools, including direct and indirect relationships, suggesting the need for collective coupling of their recovery to achieve full functionality of either of the two systems following natural disasters. Recognizing this high level of interdependence, a social services stability index is then established which can be used by policymakers and community leaders to quantify the impact of healthcare and educational services on community resilience and social services stability

The adaptation continuum: groundwork for the future

The focus of the program was to understand the challenges posed by climate change and climate variability on vulnerable groups and the policies needed to support climate adaptation in developing countries. The aim of the book is to share this experience in the hope that it will be helpful to those involved in shaping and implementing climate change policy

Water resource management in South Africa: perspectives on governance frameworks in sustainable policy development

A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Science, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science. 01 December 2016.Pressure on water as a resource is increasingly becoming inherent and unavoidable as economies continue to expand globally. The challenges experienced in water resource management inspired the need to understand institutional frameworks holistically. This lead to the primary purpose of this study: to explore perspectives of governance in sustainable policy development. The study intended to increase understandings of the strengths and weaknesses within governance structures in relation to contextual institutional operations and mandates. A comparative analysis of various governmental tiers in South Africa, with particular interest in Gauteng, was examined. Within Gauteng, the study focussed on district and local municipalities. Respondents comprised of participants operating at national, provincial and local level; and included institutions associated with water resource management. The participants were selected using a purposive sampling technique: snowball sampling. In assessing the identified institutions, data was gathered through the use of a questionnaire and interview questions. Together with content analysis, data was used to supplement the Institutional Analysis and Development framework; which provided a platform to incorporate actors into the research enhancing the researchers understanding of actors involved in the policy arena, including their features and functions. Areas contributing to institutional fragmentation and poor institutional linkages were indicated as management functionality in terms of the top-down management approach. This includes management styles, lack of funds, capacity and skills relevant to the implementation of IWRM. Emphasis on the development of the NWRS2 was noted to be a major driver of sustainable water resource management, rather than the IWRM. Control and coordination of cooperative governance is strongly emphatic of management functionality. Overall, key findings highlight the importance placed toward economic development, moreover than social and environmental development. Integration of institutional structures is highly recommended for successful policy implementation.MT201

Social Vulnerability and Adaptation to Natural Disasters in Latin America and Caribbean

My thesis analyzes the determinants of the differential impact of natural disasters in Latin America and the Caribbean identifying the political, social and economic structures that determine social outcomes of natural disasters. It studies two adaptation tools, one individual (social capital) and one institutional (public spending and humanitarian aid) that could reduce the social impact of natural disasters. At aggregate level (countries) I conduct a time-series cross-section (TSCS) analysis, between 1960 and 2010, to analyze the impact of social capital, international aid, and public spending on the number of deaths caused by natural disasters. At individual level, I use logistic regression models to predict the probability of becoming poor after the Haitian and Chilean earthquakes in 2010. Findings at aggregated level confirm that higher the levels of social capital, disaster relief aid and public spending lower the number of casualties due to a natural disaster. However, the efficacy of these tools depends on the institutional framework of the country. Countries with higher democratization levels public spending is more effective in reducing the death toll after natural disasters. On the contrary, in more autocratic governments humanitarian aid becomes more efficient in reducing the death rate. The individual level results show that the social participation and network ties are fundamental in reducing the impact of the earthquakes on the levels of poverty with some differences between the countries. Regarding institutional mechanisms, both in Haiti and Chile the previous levels of public spending and aid within societies do help in mitigating the impact of disasters, however, results demonstrate the funding distributed afterwards encounter several limitations.Agencia Nacional de Investigación e Innovació

2017 DWH Long-Term Data Management Coordination Workshop Report

On June 7 and 8, 2017, the Coastal Response Research Center (CRRC)[1], NOAA Office of Response and Restoration (ORR) and NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) Restoration Center (RC), co-sponsored the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill (DWH) Long Term Data Management (LTDM) workshop at the ORR Gulf of Mexico (GOM) Disaster Response Center (DRC) in Mobile, AL. There has been a focus on restoration planning, implementation and monitoring of the on-going DWH-related research in the wake of the DWH Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) settlement. This means that data management, accessibility, and distribution must be coordinated among various federal, state, local, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), academic, and private sector partners. The scope of DWH far exceeded any other spill in the U.S. with an immense amount of data (e.g., 100,000 environmental samples, 15 million publically available records) gathered during the response and damage assessment phases of the incident as well as data that continues to be produced from research and restoration efforts. The challenge with the influx in data is checking the quality, documenting data collection, storing data, integrating it into useful products, managing it and archiving it for long term use. In addition, data must be available to the public in an easily queried and accessible format. Answering questions regarding the success of the restoration efforts will be based on data generated for years to come. The data sets must be readily comparable, representative and complete; be collected using cross-cutting field protocols; be as interoperable as possible; meet standards for quality assurance/quality control (QA/QC); and be unhindered by conflicting or ambiguous terminology. During the data management process for the NOAA Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) for the DWH disaster, NOAA developed a data management warehouse and visualization system that will be used as a long term repository for accessing/archiving NRDA injury assessment data. This serves as a foundation for the restoration project planning and monitoring data for the next 15 or more years. The main impetus for this workshop was to facilitate public access to the DWH data collected and managed by all entities by developing linkages to or data exchanges among applicable GOM data management systems. There were 66 workshop participants (Appendix A) representing a variety of organizations who met at NOAA’s GOM Disaster Response Center (DRC) in order to determine the characteristics of a successful common operating picture for DWH data, to understand the systems that are currently in place to manage DWH data, and make the DWH data interoperable between data generators, users and managers. The external partners for these efforts include, but are not limited to the: RESTORE Council, Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI), Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative Information and Data Cooperative (GRIIDC), the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) Gulf Research Program, Gulf of Mexico Alliance (GOMA), and National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF). The workshop objectives were to: Foster collaboration among the GOM partners with respect to data management and integration for restoration planning, implementation and monitoring; Identify standards, protocols and guidance for LTDM being used by these partners for DWH NRDA, restoration, and public health efforts; Obtain feedback and identify next steps for the work completed by the Environmental Disasters Data Management (EDDM) Working Groups; and Work towards best practices on public distribution and access of this data. The workshop consisted of plenary presentations and breakout sessions. The workshop agenda (Appendix B) was developed by the organizing committee. The workshop presentations topics included: results of a pre-workshop survey, an overview of data generation, the uses of DWH long term data, an overview of LTDM, an overview of existing LTDM systems, an overview of data management standards/ protocols, results from the EDDM working groups, flow diagrams of existing data management systems, and a vision on managing big data. The breakout sessions included discussions of: issues/concerns for data stakeholders (e.g., data users, generators, managers), interoperability, ease of discovery/searchability, data access, data synthesis, data usability, and metadata/data documentation. [1] A list of acronyms is provided on Page 1 of this report