236 research outputs found

    The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa : a commentary

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    Since its adoption on 11 July 2003, the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa (the Maputo Protocol) has become a landmark on the African human rights landscape. It has steadily gained prominence as a trail-blazing instrument, responsive to the diverse realities of women on the African continent. This comprehensive Commentary on the Maputo Protocol, the first of its kind, provides systematic analysis of each article of the Protocol, delving into the drafting history, and elaborating on relevant key concepts and normative standards. This Commentary aims to be a ‘one-stop-shop’ for anyone interested in the Maputo Protocol, such as researchers, teachers, students, practitioners, policymakers and activists.https://www.pulp.up.ac.za/pulp-commentaries/the-protocol-to-the-african-charter-on-human-and-peoples-rights-on-the-rights-of-women-in-africa-a-commentaryhj2023Centre for Human Right

    The effectiveness of codes of conduct of selected South African mining companies in regulating labour standards: window dressing or genuine regulatory instruments?

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    Inequality and injustice are deeply rooted within the South African mining industry, and have been since at least the discovery of commercially viable diamonds in 1868, followed by gold in 1886. From the labour policies of the past, the effects of globalisation, and the dysfunctional labour relationships on many mines (as depicted by the Marikana tragedy of 2012) arise mismatched regulatory patterns on labour relations. Labour patterns in the mining sector are continuously shifting, yet the foundations of labour regulation have remained largely the same, focusing primarily on protecting employees who are in a standard employment relationship at the expense of non-standard workers. This has left many workers in non-standard employment relationships inadequately protected by the labour framework. Nonstandard mineworkers generally lack full-enabling rights, including the ability to exercise their rights to freedom of association and collective bargaining effectively. In addition, they face challenges when exercising their right to a working environment that is not harmful to their health and safety, leading to the worsening of their already dire socio-economic conditions. The state is battling to protect these workers from exploitation, but continues to legislate, primarily attempting to widen the definition of those who qualify to access rights under the legal framework. Notwithstanding these attempts, numerous workers at mines remain inadequately protected, thereby stimulating regulatory debates on new ways of organising non-standard workers. One such mechanism, which continues to gather traction in the regulatory debates is the use of codes of conduct to offer protection to workers who, by virtue of the arrangements of their work, cannot organise or access the full rights under the applicable legal framework. Codes of conduct have been popular in many sectors, such as the apparel industry but have not been fully tested in the mining context, leaving many questions around whether they can be labelled genuine regulatory instruments or whether they are mere window dressing tools. Through an assessment of codes of conduct, tracing their development, place in the regulatory spectrum and usage by mining companies in South African mines, this thesis assesses their effectiveness in protecting non-standard workers' rights. Questions on whether such instruments can be viewed as genuine complementary regulatory instruments are raised, focusing on the weaknesses of these instruments. This dissertation offers recommendations for redesigning codes of conduct to make them more legitimate, effective and democratic instruments in the regulation of labour standards at mines

    The Elderly Missing Women Phenomenon

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    This research examines the elderly missing women phenomenon – masculinized sexratios in the elderly population from a fourfold approach. First, it systematizes thecausal factors responsible for missing women according to different stages of the female life course (before/at birth, childhood, young adulthood, adulthood and old age) to reveal an elderly missing women phenomenon. This categorization emphasizes that the majority of literature to date has focused on the first two stages while neglecting the cumulative impact of factors affecting missing women at later stages and especially old age. Second, it evaluates the elderly missing women phenomenon in all countries across Asia. It shows that while the missing women phenomenon is well researched in specific countries of East/Southeast Asia and South Asia, it is mostly ignored in the Middle Eastern region of Western Asia where the extent of the female deficit is worse. Further, even in the former regions the issue is mostly addressed at young ages. In light of the rapid ageing of Asia, this points to the necessity of changing the geographical focus of literature on missing women from younger to older age groups in East/Southeast and South Asia and place a greater emphasis on the Middle Eastern region as a whole. Third, using Pakistan as a case study, it considers whether the elderly missing women phenomenon observable in the elderly populations of some Asian countries may be the result of a second set of possible group effects, namely demographic shocks. An evaluation of conflicts and natural disasters throughout the history of Pakistan, however, reveals that the first set of group effects (i.e. factors across the life course) need to be given greater weightage in explaining the phenomenon. Finally, it examines the empirical strength of the factors, forces and exogenous shocks responsible for missing women by assigning variables to these causal mechanisms and testing their strength at the cross national level. The results reveal that, when evaluated in an ordinary least squares framework, the number of variables that are significant increases when the elderly population versus the total population is used as the dependent variable. This shows that the true severity of the missing women phenomenon only becomes evident when evaluating the elderly missing women phenomenon because the latter considers the consequences of a female deficit from all life stages. By analyzing the elderly missing women phenomenon in this manner, this research shows that the life course perspective is the ideal framework to analyze the missing women phenomenon in general and the elderly missing women phenomenon in particular.</p

    Routledge Handbook of Public Policy in Africa

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    This Handbook provides an authoritative and foundational disciplinary overview of African Public Policy and a comprehensive examination of the practicalities of policy analysis, policymaking processes, implementation, and administration in Africa today. The book assembles a multidisciplinary team of distinguished and upcoming Africanist scholars, practitioners, researchers and policy experts working inside and outside Africa to analyse the historical and emerging policy issues in 21st-century Africa. While mostly attentive to comparative public policy in Africa, this book attempts to address some of the following pertinent questions: • How can public policy be understood and taught in Africa? • How does policymaking occur in unstable political contexts, or in states under pressure? • Has the democratisation of governing systems improved policy processes in Africa? • How have recent transformations, such as technological proliferation in Africa, impacted public policy processes? • What are the underlying challenges and potential policy paths for Africa going forward? The contributions examine an interplay of prevailing institutional, political, structural challenges and opportunities for policy effectiveness to discern striking commonalities and trajectories across different African states. This is a valuable resource for practitioners, politicians, researchers, university students, and academics interested in studying and understanding how African countries are governed

    A Research Agenda for Civil Society

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    Transformational Change for People and the Planet

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    This Open Access book deals with the pressing question of how to achieve transformational change that reconciles development with environmental sustainability. It particularly focuses on the role of evaluation in finding sustainable solutions. Environment and development are closely interlinked, as are human health and ecosystem health. The pandemic that began in 2020 demonstrated in no uncertain terms how destruction of habitats has allowed hitherto unknown pathogens spill over to humans wreaking havoc on people’s lives and livelihoods. We are already seeing the impacts of global climate change in terms of heatwaves, forest fires and increased storms. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) explicitly recognize the equal importance of the social, economic and environmental dimensions of development. In these turbulent times, when humankind faces multiple complex challenges it is essential to know that our responses are effective and that they make a positive difference. Evaluation can provide invaluable lessons to how we design policies, strategies and programs and how we allocate limited resources between competing priorities. This book brings together key thinkers and practitioners from the public and private sectors, from major multilateral organizations and from bilateral donor agencies, to present the latest knowledge and experience on how to evaluate interventions in the nexus of environment and development. The book does not promote any particular approach or methodology, but rather emphasizes the need for mixed methods to address the question at hand in the best and most suitable manner. It covers cases from a variety of fields, from climate change mitigation and adaptation, energy efficiency and renewable energy, natural resources management, biodiversity conservation and more. This book is not a conference proceedings although it has its roots in the Third International Conference on Evaluating Environment and Development organized by the GEF Independent Evaluation Office in October 2019. The conference brought together a larger number of established and upcoming evaluators, researchers and evaluation users from the Global North and South, representing a wide variety of organizations, to discuss the frontiers of environment and development evaluation. Following the conference, the editors identified and contacted the participants who made key contributions at the conference and asked them to develop their ideas and papers into book chapters according to a coherent plan

    Geographies of the meantime: temporalities of housing cooperatives in Kigali, Rwanda

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    The thesis examines the slow temporalities of urban housing development through the case of housing cooperatives. Cooperative housing development in Kigali reads as slow relative to the speed, efficiency, and performance parameters that inform the urban trajectory of Rwanda's capital city and shape the research orientation of studies of African urbanism. Drawing on nine months of qualitative fieldwork with eight cooperatives, the thesis aims to understand how cooperative members perceive the temporalities of their housing projects in an urban context mediated by speed. I propose the conceptual framework of the 'geographies of the meantime' to support the empirical reading and theorising of slower temporalities. The geographies of the meantime are concerned with the spaces and social connections built in the interim time before a specific objective, say housebuilding, is achieved. I argue that cooperative members adopt a slower pace of development to collectively negotiate their immediate and long-term aspirations, their social connections, and their interactions with public and private urban housing stakeholders. Cooperative members envisage long-term timeframes of development that rely on slowly consolidated geographies of the meantime. Housing cooperatives progressively acquire land in response to the members' aspirations for homeownership and pursuit of stability. Also, cooperative members speculate about future income-generating ventures in real estate. They lay the groundwork for these future opportunities by institutionalising their solidarity and trust through the organisational form of the cooperative. This slow pace of progress can nonetheless breed frustration and endanger the cohesion of the cooperative. Therefore, the members enact the value of patience to keep the social networks intact and ensure all members can progress at the same pace. This thesis expands the temporal boundaries of studies on African urbanism by drawing insights from slow temporalities of development. This research also contributes to debates on incremental and mutual help housing by shedding light on the socialities created through slowness
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