The dynamics of inequality in a newly settled, pre-industrial society: The case of the Cape Colony

One reason for the relatively poor development performance of many countries around the world today may be the high levels of inequality during and after colonisation. Evidence from colonies in the Americas suggests that skewed initial factor endowments could create small elites that owned a disproportionate share of wealth, human capital and political power. The Cape Colony, founded in 1652 at the southern tip of Africa, presents a case where a mercantilist company (the Dutch East India Company) settles the land and establishes a unique set of institutions within which inequality and development evolve. This paper provides a long-run quantitative analysis of trends in asset-based inequality (using Principle Components' Analysis on tax inventories) during the seventeenth and eighteenth century, allowing, for the first time, a dynamic rather than static analysis of inequality trends in a newly settled and pre-industrial society over this period. While theory testing in other societies has been severely limited because of a scarcity of quantitative evidence, this study presents a history with evidence, enabling an evaluation of the Engerman-Sokoloff and other hypotheses.South Africa, settler societies, Kuznets, income distribution, asset index, institutions, mercantilism, Dutch East India Company

An evaluation of the management performance assessment tool in the department of cooperative governance and traditional affairs in the Eastern Cape

Management Performance Assessment Tool for improving audit outcomes in the Eastern Cape Department of Cooperative Governance & Traditional Affairs steamed out of the need to possibly have a preliminary understanding of the MPAT and how its application has fared towards performance improvement and service delivery mandate of the department in review. In 2010, South African Cabinet requested the Department of Performance Monitoring and Evaluation (DPME) in the Presidency in collaboration with the Department of Public Service and Administration (DPSA) to lead the development of a comprehensive assessment tool through the nine provincial departments and offices of the Premiers as the Provincial coordinating agencies. The aim of this empirical study was to assess how Management Performance Assessment Tool (MPAT) can be well utilised to improve audit outcomes of the Department of Cooperative Governance & Traditional Affairs (DCoGTA). Performance Management which is the basis for the research aims at assisting the DCoGTA in the Eastern Cape to better apply the MPAT tools to achieving better performance improvement through well informed Management decision-making which will ultimately guarantee smarter public service delivery and improved audit outcomes. The research methodology is socially driven in outlook with designed structure and plan which investigates the research aims through an introductory platform on the research questions demanding answers towards solving the research problems emanating from the main title of the research. Data analysis which informs the research findings provides some policy lessons on the application of MPAT as a tool for performance improvement when it is appropriately applied, and adopted within the decision-making structures of the Department of Cooperative Governance & Traditional Affairs of the Eastern Cape Provincial government

An evaluation of the implementation of education training and development policy in the Eastern Cape: the case of Cacadu health district

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the implementation of the Education, Training and Development Policy of the Eastern Cape Department of Health: A Case Study of Cacadu District. The Cacadu Health District as with all Districts is the Eastern Cape Department of Health experiences a few challenges with the implementation of the Education, Training and Development Policy. Through observation these problems seem to be stalling progress in the implementation of this policy. The study seeks to investigate whether there can be an improvement in the implementation of the Education, Training and Development Policy. The focus of the study will be the Cacadu Health District. Provision of Education, Training and Development is key to any organisation especially if performance of employees needs to be of high standard. If the performance of employees is of high standard service delivery will improve. Chapter one provided an introduction which gave a brief overview of the study, problem statement, research objectives and questions, preliminary literature review and research methodology to be employed by the study. Chapter two provided a literature review of education, training and development framework and legislative framework for guiding the development and provision of education, training and development in an organisation. The chapter also looked into mentoring and mentoring strategies. Chapter three looked into detail on the training evaluation strategies and what training evaluation entails. It looked at the different approaches that can be used in evaluating training in an organisation. Chapter four provides proposals for the approaches and strategies to improve the implementation of the Education, Training and Development Policy of the Eastern Cape Department of Health in the Cacadu District. The chapter will also provide an analysis of participants’ responses from the questionnaire. Chapter five will give a summary with concluding remarks and recommendations. This chapter came up with conclusions about the study and gave recommendations and way forward on how best to improve the implementation of the education, training and development policy in the Eastern Cape Department of Health: Cacadu District

AIDS in Africa- survival according to AIDS-defining illness

Objective. Evaluation of prognostic significance of the type of AIDS-defining illness (ADI) and performance status in a cohort of AIDS patients.Design, setting, subjects, outcome measures. A retrospective analysis of 280 patients with AIDS, as defined by the proposed World Health Organisation (WHO) clinical staging system, who attended two Cape Town-based HIV clinics between 1984 and 1997. Patients were stratified according to the type of initial ADI. Survival associated with each opportunistic event was determined by Kaplan-Meier analysis. Cox proportional hazard analysis was used to determine relative risk for death associated with three strata of ADI.Results. Median survival associated with various initial ADls varied from less than 3 months (encephalopathy and wasting), to over 2 years (extrapulmonary tuberculosis and herpes simplex virus infection). This effect of ADI on outcome was most striking in patients with relatively preserved CD4 counts (CD4 > 50/μl). A performance status score 4 predicted 50% mortality at 1 month, irrespective of co-morbidity.Conclusion. The type of ADl is an important determinant of survival, particularly in patients with preserved CD4 counts. The stratification of patients by type of ADI and performance status may be useful in the management of patients with advanced HIV infection in resource-limited environments

Determining training needs in the registry/messengers' division of the Cape Town City council: The application of a negotiated model

Masters in Public Administration - MPAThis study is about the application of a negotiated model of training needs analysis in the Registry/Messengers" Division of the Cape Town City Council. The negotiated model of training needs analysis is predicated on the formation of the performance evaluation committees. These committees comprise the assessees, the line managers, the peers and the trainers. Their primary responsibility is to address issues of performance ratings, causes of performance discrepancies, training solutions and/or non-training solutions in the key performance areas of individual employees who belong to the various job families. The study argues that the current application of the traditional model of training needs analysis in the RegistryfMessengers' Division which is both "menu-driven" and "line management-driven", is not scientific and participatory in form and nature. The study has four objectives. The first was to give some background to the RegistryfMessengers' Division. This painted a picture of the organisation, management and functions of the RegistryfMessengers' Division. The second objective was to provide a conceptual framework of the study by examining the existing literature on the contending models of training needs analyses, namely, the traditional model of training needs analysis and the negotiated model of training needs analysis, in public organisations. The third objective was to adopt and apply the negotiated model of training needs analysis in the RegistryfMessengers' Division. The fourth objective was to recommend the institutionalisation of the negotiated model of training needs analysis in the RegistryfMessengers' Division in “particular and the Cape Town City Council in general- given the fact that its strengths far outweigh its weaknesses. The study concludes inter alia, that th~ current application of the traditional model of training needs analysis in the Registry/ Messengers' Division should be replaced by the negotiated model of training needs analysis considering the fact that the latter allowed the collective and scientific determination of the training needs of the employees. The study then recommends the adoption of the negotiated model of training needs analysis in the Registry/ Messengers' Division in particular and the Cape Town City Council in general. However, the following factors and issues need to be taken into account to ensure the effective implementation of the negotiated model of training needs analysis in the organization, for example, educating the employees about the new approach to training needs analysis; identification of key performance areas; conducting an organization wide training needs analysis; development of performance standards for the key performance areas; formation of performance evaluation committees in the various job families; and agreement upon the performance rating scal

Cape Town road traffic accident analysis: Utilising supervised learning techniques and discussing their effectiveness

[EN] Road traffic accidents (RTA) are a major cause of death and injury around the world. The use of Supervised learning (SL) methods to understand the frequency and injury-severity of RTAs are of utmost importance in designing appropriate interventions. Data on RTAs that occurred in the city of Cape Town during 2015-2017 are used for this study. The data contain the injury-severity (no injury, slight, serious and fatal injury) of the RTAs as well as several accident-related variables. Additional locational and situational variables were added to the dataset. Four training datasets were analysed: the original imbalanced data, data with the minority class over-sampled, data with the majority class under-sampled and data with synthetically created observations. The performance of different SL methods were compared using accuracy, recall, precision and F1 score evaluation metrics and based on the average recall the ANN was selected as the best performing model on the validation data.Du Toit, C.; Salau, S.; Er, S. (2022). Cape Town road traffic accident analysis: Utilising supervised learning techniques and discussing their effectiveness. En 4th International Conference on Advanced Research Methods and Analytics (CARMA 2022). Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. 57-64. https://doi.org/10.4995/CARMA2022.2022.15041576

The expected effects of the National School Nutrition Programme: Evidence from a case study in Cape Town, Western Cape

Magister Artium - MASchool feeding programmes have become a worldwide poverty reduction strategy that are designed to enhance human capital, i.e. nutrition and education. In South Africa, the National School Nutrition Programme (NSNP) began in 1994 and it was designed to enhance learning capacity, to support nutrition education in schools and to promote school gardens. The purpose of this study is to explore whether the expected impacts (nutrition and education) of the NSNP in Cape Town have been achieved. The study used the theory of change as an attempt to explore the expected impacts of the programme and it involved a qualitative research approach. The data was collected using semi-structured interviews. Note-taking and observations of non-verbal behaviour techniques were also used to capture any relevant information. The respondents were 4 school principals, 4 teacher coordinators, 4 food handlers, 4 members of the School Governing Body and one staff member from the Department of Basic Education (DBE) of the Western Cape. Findings from the global literature show that the impacts of school feeding programmes are quite mixed (between nutrition and education). This study has found that the NSNP in Cape Town has improved food security, i.e. reduced short-term hunger (but not necessarily nutrition) and it gave energy to the learners that helped them to actively participate in learning. It also eliminated some negative class behaviours and it functioned as an additional meal to some poor learners. On the education front, it enhanced school attendance, class participation and possibly improved learner performance. However, the programme has also experienced some challenges, i.e. the food quality and quantity, targeting system (the quintile system) that excluded some poor learners from receiving NSNP meals and food gardens were not producing sufficient food because they were small and poorly maintained. This study recommends that rigorous impact evaluation of the NSNP in Cape Town is required in order to address the challenges that were identified as well as to enhance the programme so that it can achieve the desired impacts

Moving Toward a Culture of Evidence: Documentation and Action Research inside CAPE Veteran Partnerships

This report is a culmination of three years of study of the impact on effective teaching of educators and artists engaging as partners in action research (inquiry based study of their own practice), in documenting the effects of arts integration on student learning (creating a "culture of evidence"), and in collaborating with other action research teams and with formal researchers to actively investigate qualities of teaching and learning at participating schools (what CAPE calls "layered research")

A knowledge-based decision support system for roofing materials selection

Varieties of materials are available for roof housing construction but selecting the appropriate material is a complex and ponderous task. In order to choose the right material, a multitude of performance criteria would need to be considered. This research aims to develop a knowledge-based decision support system for material selection (KDSMS) to facilitate the selection of optimal material for different sub elements of roof design. This model consists of a knowledge base and databases to store different types of roofing materials with their corresponding performance characteristics. Knowledge is elicited from domain experts and extensive literature review. The proposed system employs the use of TOPSIS (Technique of ranking Preferences by Similarity to the Ideal Solution) multiple criteria decision making method, to solve the materials selection and optimisation problem where initial cost, maintenance cost, thermal performance and sustainability criteria are considered among others. The proposed system is currently being developed for the housing sector in Northern Ireland. This paper presents and explains the framework of the proposed system