55 research outputs found

    Human resource management and decentralization in Botswana and South Africa

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    This study seeks to understand the relationship between decentralisation and human resource management in Botswana and South Africa. The study is situated within the context of the New Public Management (NPM) that has influenced the Human Resource Management reforms that the two countries aspire to adopt. This study’s main finding is that although strategic human resource management (SHRM) and decentralisation are frequently assumed to go together and are both advocated by the BrettonWoods institutions, in the cases researched SHRM reforms have been accompanied by a tendency towards centralisation. This implies a trade-off between SHRM and decentralisation in Botswana and South Africa. The study used a mixed methods approach consisting of both qualitative and quantitative research methods, applied to a sample of local authorities in Botswana and the neighbouring North West province of South Africa. In both countries the implementation of HRM reforms in local government has been slow due to other considerations – political factors in the case of South Africa and professional bureaucratic issues in Botswana, reflecting the different path dependencies of the two countries. This study argues that from the cases studied even though developing countries may implement similar reforms based on similar policy advice or prescription, a combination of factors such as social and organisational culture that are not transferable between countries account for the difference in outcomes

    Characterisation of tabanid flies (Diptera: Tabanidae) in South Africa and Zambia and detection of protozoan parasites they are harbouring

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    Tabanids are haematophagous flies feeding on livestock and wildlife. In the absence of information on the relationship of tabanid flies and protozoan parasites in South Africa and Zambia, the current study was aimed at characterizing tabanid flies collected in these two countries as well as detecting protozoan parasites they are harbouring. A total of 527 tabanid flies were collected whereby 70.2% were from South Africa and 29.8% were from Zambia. Morphological analysis revealed a total of 5 different genera collected from the sampled areas namely: Ancala, Atylotus, Haematopota, Philoliche and Tabanus. DNA extracted from South African Tabanus par and T. taeniola tested positive for the presence of Trypanosoma congolense and T. theileri whilst one member from T. par was positive for T. brucei-like parasite. DNA extracted from Zambian tabanid flies tested positive for the presence of Besnoitia besnoiti at 1.27% (2/157), Babesia bigemina 5.73% (9/157), Theileria parva-like species 30.11% (30/157) and 9.82% (14/157) for Trypanosoma evansi-like species. This study is the first to report on Babesia and Theileria parasites in tabanid flies. Further investigations are required to determine the role of tabanids in transmission of the detected protozoan parasites in livestock and wildlife in South Africa and Zambia

    Must Land Reform Benefit the Victims of Colonialism?

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    Appealing to African values associated with ubuntu such as communion and reconciliation, elsewhere I have argued that they require compensating those who have been wronged in ways that are likely to improve their lives. In the context of land reform, I further contended that this principle probably entails not transferring unjustly acquired land en masse and immediately to dispossessed populations since doing so would foreseeably lead to such things as capital flight and food shortages, which would harm them and the broader society. Oritsegbubemi Anthony Oyowe has recently argued against my claim that land reform should be enacted in a way expected to benefit victims of colonialism while not greatly burdening innocent third parties, instead supporting the return of land to its rightful owners regardless of how the manner in which it were done would affect people’s quality of life. Here I expound Oyowe’s argumentation and respond to it in defence of my initial position, appealing to examples from southern Africa to illustrate

    Casemix, management, and mortality of patients receiving emergency neurosurgery for traumatic brain injury in the Global Neurotrauma Outcomes Study: a prospective observational cohort study

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    Model-assisted optimal allocation for planned domains using composite estimation

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    This paper develops allocation methods for stratified sample surveys where composite small area estimators are a priority, and areas are used as strata. Longford (2006) proposed an objective criterion for this situation, based on a weighted combination of the mean squared errors of small area means and a grand mean. Here, we redefine this approach within a model-assisted framework, allowing regressor variables and a more natural interpretation of results using an intra-class correlation parameter. We also consider several uses of power allocation, and allow the placing of other constraints such as maximum relative root mean squared errors for stratum estimators. We find that a simple power allocation can perform very nearly as well as the optimal design even when the objective is to minimize Longford\u27s (2006) criterion
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