True Access: User Benefits to Water in Urban South Africa

This thesis analyzes the management and governance structures for the delivery of water in South Africa since the decentralization of government. Previous views of access have been too focused on rights and have failed to take into account a user’s ability to utilize those rights. In proposing a broader theory of true access to water, I set forth a method of analyzing a user’s ability to continually benefit from public services through structural, relational, and ideological mechanisms. Two metropolitan municipalities of comparable size and development—Johannesburg and eThekwini (Durban)—serve as the case studies to which the theory of true access is applied. Levels of developed infrastructure to water in 2001 will be compared to the levels in 2007, while taking into consideration the web of mechanisms that affect the inclusive vision of true access. Thus, this thesis will assess the effectiveness of a fully corporatized model (Johannesburg) as compared to a ring-fenced, state-run model (Durban) of water management and delivery

A life-cycle approach for managing road infrastructures in developing countries based on Asset Management

Road infrastructures are very important to economic activity, especially in developing countries where they play an essential role in marketing agricultural products and providing access to health, education, and other services. While economic growth and the investments in road transport have increased heavily in developing countries, the public sector responsible for their life-cycle planning, management and maintenance is struggling to make the necessary reforms to keep up with the pace. The main objective of this dissertation is to understand the patterns that influence the strategic planning of road infrastructures and the successful implementation of the practices of asset management in the regulatory environment and structure of the responsible authorities in the developing countries. These patterns (external drivers), different in each country, if not researched and understood correctly, may affect the outcome of the results for the upcoming decades and jeopardize the entire implementation of asset management processes within the organizational structures of the developing countries. It reviews and analyzes the National regulatory environment and practices in Top Asset management countries (Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Uk, USA) and current social and political situation in the western Balkans region (developing countries region), which is influencing the successful management of primary infrastructures in this region. A significant Case study from Albania (Highway Durres- Kukes - Morine, a segment of European route 7 between Albania and Serbia), is introduced and actual physical Conditions, value, and performance of the highway are taken in consideration. Description of Problems this highway experiences because of lack of life-cycle planning and management are presented and how the mismanagement of the assets on a strategic level leads to tangible problems on the technical level. Transport impacts on the highway in terms of displacement, traffic flows, and forecast, historical traffic data are analyzed in order to analyze capacity/demand patterns and future demand, the influence it has on Road asset management and relate this with different strategies of maintenance

Comparative Landowner Property Defenses Against Eminent Domain

This thesis evaluated the eminent domain laws of the top-ranking nations in property rights based on the World Economic Forum’s Executive Opinion Survey: Singapore, New Zealand, and Switzerland. The United States is not top-ranking in property rights and serves as the base comparator given its history and jurisprudence on property. The thesis results prove the imprecision in measuring property rights without evaluating the substantive legal protections and the perceptions of the Survey participants. Switzerland appears to have the strongest quality and quantity of property safeguards. Switzerland is a federation with a long-standing history of subnational governments protecting landowner rights, similar to the United States. Switzerland may serve as the model eminent domain jurisdiction for civil code countries with parliamentary supremacy, and the U.S. may serve as the model jurisdiction for common law countries with constitutional supremacy. Although lacking in unamendable substantive protections, New Zealand and Singapore demonstrate that general property rights are not a prerequisite to legislating a stable, equitable eminent domain process that would mitigate the displacement of landowners. They introduce the baseline protections for common law or civil law countries, given how many judges enforce the eminent domain legislation without a challenge. The numerical value given to the top-ranking countries in the World Economic Forum’s Executive Opinion Survey insufficiently reflects the substantive legal protections between other higher-performing countries. The specific numerical value awarded to each country should be given less persuasive authority in making nuanced comparisons on property rights between countries when the Survey is the primary data source of the comparison

Towards a framework for assessing settlement patterns and trends in South Africa to guide sustainable settlement development planning : a case study of KwaZulu-Natal province.

Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2011This study presents a framework for assessing settlement patterns and trends to guide sustainable settlement development planning in South Africa. The rationale for the study is the persistence of multi-faceted interrelated, settlement challenges. At the beginning of the post-apartheid period in 1994, the new democratic government in South Africa adopted progressive policies to promote sustainable human settlements that integrate the various facets of human activity such as transportation, housing and socio-economic facilities. However, unsustainable and inefficient patterns of apartheid era planning persist more than 15 years into the post-apartheid settlements. Compounding this situation are new, unsustainable emerging trends such as the peripheral location of mono-functional low income housing developments in cities. This study argues that the main reason for the persistence of settlement challenges is the absence of comprehensive frameworks for the formulation of sustainable development plans that are informed by substantive theory, best practice and also the dialectical relationship among various settlement facets. It therefore develops a new framework and model for assessing settlement patterns and trends to guide sustainable development plans. The operational method is informed by a new synthetic theory of settlement patterns and trends, application of the theory to international and local patterns of policies and dynamics, empirical synthetic techniques for assessing settlement patterns and trends including the deductive formulation of sustainable development plans in localities, based on these interrelated components of the framework and model. Empirical synthetic techniques for the practical assessment of settlement patterns and trends are based on the translation of key theories and concepts of the synthetic theory into measurables. The synthetic empirical techniques use EThekwini Municipality in KwaZulu Natal province, South Africa as the case study since the municipality contains settlement typologies and systems that are typical of the province. The analysis of EThekwini Metropolitan Municipality revealed that prevailing settlement patterns and trends are not sustainable. On the other hand the municipality‟s development plans are not responsive to the heterogeneous socio-economic characteristics of the population in different settlement typologies including Local Economic Development (LED) potentials in the nodes in different functional regions of the municipality. On these grounds, the research study proposes alternative sustainable settlement development plans for EThekwini Municipality. The thesis recommends a dialectical deductive formulation of development plans based on the new framework of assessing settlement patterns and trends developed by this research. As such socio-economic investment priorities must be informed by the potential of economic growth in different town centres and functional regions all the same being responsive to social, economic and physical characteristics of the population. Pro-growth and pro-poor LED strategies should also be adopted, depending on the nature and extent of heterogeneity in the factors of production in the different town centres and settlement typologies they serve. Therefore, sustainable development plans can be achieved in South Africa if this new framework and model is adopted to guide future settlement patterns and trends

Big Data and Artificial Intelligence in Digital Finance

This open access book presents how cutting-edge digital technologies like Big Data, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Blockchain are set to disrupt the financial sector. The book illustrates how recent advances in these technologies facilitate banks, FinTech, and financial institutions to collect, process, analyze, and fully leverage the very large amounts of data that are nowadays produced and exchanged in the sector. To this end, the book also describes some more the most popular Big Data, AI and Blockchain applications in the sector, including novel applications in the areas of Know Your Customer (KYC), Personalized Wealth Management and Asset Management, Portfolio Risk Assessment, as well as variety of novel Usage-based Insurance applications based on Internet-of-Things data. Most of the presented applications have been developed, deployed and validated in real-life digital finance settings in the context of the European Commission funded INFINITECH project, which is a flagship innovation initiative for Big Data and AI in digital finance. This book is ideal for researchers and practitioners in Big Data, AI, banking and digital finance

Determinants of the Generalized Trust Radius in Scripted Fragile Sub-Saharan African States

Trust between strangers does not come easily in collectivist societies governed by coercive institutions and subject to unstable market forces. More than one-third of all states are fragile, yet the trust literature has shown little interest in explaining the variability of generalized trust among them; instead fixating on social capital, the consequence of the expansion of generalized trust, putting the cart before the horse and leaving unexamined many of its causes. The enhanced accuracy of the reconfigured World Values Survey trust question has generated new research opportunities to address this concern. This dissertation advances the trust literature through identifying, measuring, and explaining the full social effect on generalized trust in fragile states through group proximity and civil society power differential. Sociological institutionalism and social capital theory provide the theoretical framework for modeling and explaining structural social effects leading to the improbable expansion of generalized trust in the highly scripted fragile sub-Saharan African states of Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, and Nigeria. These purposefully deviant and least likely test cases are examined using within- and cross-case analysis of necessary and sufficient conditions through most similar multiple comparative case analysis, affirming or confirming most hypotheses. The expansion of generalized trust requires sustained and usually incentivized positive inter-group interaction. In fragile states, most inter-group interaction is conflictual and occurs through civil society because individuals have little capital with which to engage in the market and the state is dysfunctional. The generalized trust radius is likely to widen the more proximate and consociational its civil society is, regardless of how fragile the state is. This dissertation enlarges and strengthens the social explanation for generalized trust variability in fragile states, filling a significant gap in the literature and establishing a research design and model for future research to replicate in other fragile regions

Activating Energy Communities for Systemic Change

The speed of energy transition in the Netherlands is low, in contrast to its 2050 climate change target of net-zero emissions. The transition requires 7.5 million households with natural gas connections, to move to renewable energy sources. The main challenge is not technical, many viable options are already available, but social: people will need to be supported to decide and act. In this paper, we identify interventions that could activate change within energy communities, through 19 interviews conducted in March 2021 in Austerlitz, Zeist municipality, The Netherlands. Interview questions were guided by the Capability, Opportunity, Motivation, and Behavioural (COM-B) change model. The model explains factors that affect people’s behaviour. Results indicate that renovation and energy transition are viewed as two separate processes. Austerlitz homeowners are waiting for the government to lead the energy transition process, while they continue to renovate their homes to improve comfort, aesthetics, safety, and convenience. Also, current interventions towards activating households are piecemeal and more focused on creating external opportunities (such as financial support), and barely address the psychological capabilities and motivation factors (belief, attitude, social norm, and perceived behavioural control). To boost psychological capabilities and motivation, we recommend interventions that enhance homeowners’ belief that the energy transition is part of their long-term home renovation plans, for their own benefit, to motivate them to drive the energy transition process. Interventions may include ‘show’ or ‘display’ houses where energy transition was combined with renovations and highlighting inspirational energy transition stories on the municipality website

Big Data and Artificial Intelligence in Digital Finance

This open access book presents how cutting-edge digital technologies like Big Data, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Blockchain are set to disrupt the financial sector. The book illustrates how recent advances in these technologies facilitate banks, FinTech, and financial institutions to collect, process, analyze, and fully leverage the very large amounts of data that are nowadays produced and exchanged in the sector. To this end, the book also describes some more the most popular Big Data, AI and Blockchain applications in the sector, including novel applications in the areas of Know Your Customer (KYC), Personalized Wealth Management and Asset Management, Portfolio Risk Assessment, as well as variety of novel Usage-based Insurance applications based on Internet-of-Things data. Most of the presented applications have been developed, deployed and validated in real-life digital finance settings in the context of the European Commission funded INFINITECH project, which is a flagship innovation initiative for Big Data and AI in digital finance. This book is ideal for researchers and practitioners in Big Data, AI, banking and digital finance

Australia's National Competition Policy 1995-2005

Between positive structuralism and post-modernism lies an epistemological gap in which much understanding is lost. This is particularly true of the study of government policies. The National Competition Policy was one such: a vast program of change of Australian law, governmental processes and regulation; it changed thousands of pieces of legislation, brought new institutions of government into being, ruled governments and cost livelihoods. Thinking about the National Competition Policy falls into that epistemological gap. This thesis sets about rendering the National Competition Policy thinkable by developing an epistemology: thick reflexive description. It proceeds to describe the National Competition Policy in that way, bearing in mind the Scylla of theory contingent abstraction and the Charybdis of volume. It starts by defining in precise terms what the National Competition Policy is taken to mean including its institutional, constitutional and legal context, and its prior history. Finally the thesis sets out accounts, both by year and by topic, of the National Competition Policy’s implementation and also of reactions to it. A thick study does not seek to prove or disprove. Its results are simply observations, which may run counter to alternative descriptions. Questions may be answered and it may provide the opportunity for reflection. It may throw up hypotheses for later testing or even for measurement against evaluative criteria. This thesis concludes with such responses. It asks whether the National Competition Policy achieved change and answers that it did very little that was not in train already, although it overcame some barriers due to the federal/state vertical fiscal imbalance. On the point of whether the National Competition Policy was good for Australia, it concludes that despite much official literature, no study has been able to demonstrate that it did. On the theoretical point of whether the National Competition Policy implemented neo-liberalism it concludes that it was the expression of pre-existing neo-liberal politics but conceded the place of the public interest to a greater degree than erstwhile. There was a price for even that in the rise of irrational politics. When applied to the question of whether the National Competition Policy rewrote federalism, it suggests that while it further developed techniques of its working, albeit at the cost of democracy and accountability, it did not rearrange its fundamentals. Many observations are made possible by the thick reflexive description of the National Competition Policy. For example, it is surprising how uncritical the various estates of the Australian polity have been of the Productivity Commission. That body was mistaken about the benefits in the beginning and concealed its inability to evaluate at the end. It was deployed as a partisan tool of government to defeat political critique. Most importantly, this thesis observes how ill-researched the basic thrust of competition policy is. The goodness of competition is assumed and any wrongs committed in its name attributed to implementation of the policy