Advancing a holistic systems approach for sustainable cattle development programmes in South Africa: insights from sustainability assessments

Efforts to exploit the central roles of cattle to drive agriculture and rural development in low-income countries recorded limited success owing to their narrow focus on modernizing and commercializing low-input cattle farming. Most programs failed to take cognizance of the heterogeneous range of complex relationships between the environmental, economic, social and institutional challenges that limit low-input cattle farming. The current qualitative literature review evaluates the environmental, economic and social sustainability delivery impacts of the leading cattle development programs in the low-input farming sector in South Africa using a holistic systems approach. A mixed method procedure involving stratified sampling was used to allocate local and international-based programs while, purposive sampling was used to select programs with a wider scale of operation. The review then draws on the crosscutting key constraints emerging from the case studies to provide a better grounding for subsequent sustainability sensitive recommendations. Local-based cattle development programs advanced more market-led interventions while, their international-based counterparts had more interventions including, soil and rangeland improvement. The narrow focus by both local and international developmental programs is inadequate to address a wide array of environmental, economic, social, technical and institutional challenges faced by low-input cattle producers in South Africa.The Department of Science and Technology-National Research Foundation (DST-NRF) Centre of Excellence (CoE) in Food Security [140102].https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/wjsa212021-01-23hj2020Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS

Exploring the Feasibility of Service Integration in a Low-Income Setting: A Mixed Methods Investigation into Different Models of Reproductive Health and HIV Care in Swaziland.

Integrating reproductive health (RH) with HIV care is a policy priority in high HIV prevalence settings, despite doubts surrounding its feasibility and varying evidence of effects on health outcomes. The process and outcomes of integrated RH-HIV care were investigated in Swaziland, through a comparative case study of four service models, ranging from fully integrated to fully stand-alone HIV services, selected purposively within one town. A client exit survey (n=602) measured integrated care received and unmet family planning (FP) needs. Descriptive statistics were used to assess the degree of integration per clinic and client demand for services. Logistic regression modelling was used to test the hypothesis that clients at more integrated sites had lower unmet FP needs than clients in a stand-alone site. Qualitative methods included in-depth interviews with clients and providers to explore contextual factors influencing the feasibility of integrated RH-HIV care delivery; data were analysed thematically, combining deductive and inductive approaches. Results demonstrated that clinic models were not as integrated in practice as had been claimed. Fragmentation of HIV care was common. Services accessed per provider were no higher at the more integrated clinics compared to stand-alone models (p>0.05), despite reported demand. While women at more integrated sites received more FP and pregnancy counselling than stand-alone models, they received condoms (a method of choice) less often, and there was no statistical evidence of difference in unmet FP needs by model of care. Multiple contextual factors influenced integration practices, including provider de-skilling within sub-specialist roles; norms of task-oriented routinised HIV care; perceptions of heavy client loads; imbalanced client-provider interactions hindering articulation of RH needs; and provider motivation challenges. Thus, despite institutional support, factors related to the social context of care inhibited provision of fully integrated RH-HIV services in these clinics. Programmes should move beyond simplistic training and equipment provision if integrated care interventions are to be sustained

Africa Agriculture Transformation Scorecard: performance and lessons. South Africa

The Malabo Declaration on accelerated agricultural growth and transformation for shared prosperity and improved livelihoods is a set of goals that were adopted by Heads of State and Government of the African Union in 2014 in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea (AUC 2014). To translate the seven Malabo commitments into results, a call for action was made by the Heads of State and Governments, by calling upon the AU Commission and the NEPAD Planning and Coordinating Agency, in collaboration with partners, to initiate a review process to be conducted on a biennial basis starting 2017, with an objective of tracking, measuring, and reporting progress towards achieving the Malabo Declaration commitments by 2025. Three Biennial Reviews (BR) have been conducted—the inaugural BR in 2017, the second BR in 2019, and the third and most recent BR in 2021. This brief draws on the third BR report to summarize the performance of South Africa in pursuit of the seven Malabo Declaration commitments and assesses the challenges faced and the lessons learned by the country. South Africa is considered not on track to achieve the Malabo commitments by 2025. Moreover, the overall performance score for South Africa has been relatively stagnant, if not declining, across the successive BRs, with the lowest performance registered in the second BR. A key recommendation from the analysis is for South Africa to improve on the overall CAADP process and the CAADP-based policy and institutional support system. The country fell short on most indicators relating to this commitment, including the CAADP process completion index; the existence and the quality of a multi-sector and multi-stakeholder coordination body; and having in place evidence-based policies, supportive institutions, and corresponding human resources required

Africa Agriculture Transformation Scorecard: performance and lessons. Angola

This brief highlights Angola’s performance in the second BR and assesses challenges faced and lessons learned by the country during the review process. The brief also reviews policy and programmatic changes in Angola that can be attributed to the first (2017) and second BRs. It concludes by highlighting required policy actions for Angola to meet the Malabo Commitments by 2025

Providers and services accessed on day of survey and since testing HIV positive, by clinic.

<p>Providers and services accessed on day of survey and since testing HIV positive, by clinic.</p

Desired additional services on day of survey, by clinic.

<p>*Anova F Statistic (p value)</p><p>Desired additional services on day of survey, by clinic.</p

Contextual influences on structure, process and outcomes of integrated RH-HIV care.

<p>Contextual influences on structure, process and outcomes of integrated RH-HIV care.</p