European Union/South Africa trade, development and co-operation agreement : decision-making, participation and perceived economic impacts

The European Union-South Africa Trade, Development and Co-operation Agreement (EU/SA TDCA), signed in October 1999, is viewed by some in South Africa as not only one of the most important trade and development agreements entered into by the 'new' South African goverrunent, but also a significant agreement for setting precedents for other bi-lateral trade and development pacts between the EU and African, Caribbean and Pacific group of states. This thesis considers two major issues related to the EU/SA TDCA. First, it describes and evaluates the structures that supported the South African side of the TDCA decision-making process. Second, it discusses the potential economic impact of the agreement on South Africa and part of southern African. Prior to the election of the 'new' South African government in 1994, the majority of South Africa's population was excluded - both in terms of access to decision-making structures and from economic prosperity. By exploring the TDCA, the thesis provides a window through wl-dch to examine contemporary access to decision-making processes in South Africa and the likelihood of the TDCA promoting economic prosperity for sections of southern African society, particularly the 'traditionally excluded'. Interviews with key actors who helped formulate the TDCA provide information that enabled the evaluation of the TDCA decision-making process and highlighted potential economic 'winners' and 'losers'. Interviewing representatives of the South African wine and textile sectors provided an opportunity to examine in more detail the likely impact of the agreement and decision-making processes, associated to the TDCA, within South Africa. The results indicate that an overriding message of this thesis is one of complexity. The description of the structures that underpinned the EU/SA TDCA portrayed complex relationships between decision-making 'actors'. In evaluating the inclusivity of the policy formulation process, there was a lack of consensus over who had been included or excluded. Likewise, the identification of potential economic 'winners' and 'losers' proved to be somewhat problematic.Department of Geographical Sciences, University of Plymouth

Re-assessing sport-for-development: Moving beyond mapping the territory.

Over the past decade, as the efficacy of many development interventions was being challenged, sports-based development initiatives appeared to offer alternative conduits for addressing health, education and other developmental concerns. We have, over the past 5 years, contributed to an emerging body of literature, which has explored the rationale, structure and delivery frameworks underpinning this so-called sport-for-development movement. Commenting on the literature, Lindsey and Grattan are critical of the overt focus on ‘Northern’ actors engaged with sport-for-development programmes and postulate a ‘decentred’ approach (that encompasses a more nuanced understanding of ‘Southern voices’) thus broadening our comprehension of the development process. This article constitutes our response to Lindsey and Grattan's contentions, while also taking into account Darnell and Hayhurst's rejoinder, which advocates a refocusing on the global hegemony of key development actors and a critical analysis of Northern-led development initiatives. We argue that both papers make valuable contributions, promoting the theorizing of sport-for-development discourse through what are in many respects, methodologically rigorous complementary perspectives. Having examined the contribution of these two papers, we consider key issues that are likely to characterize the future trajectory of sport-for-development discourse thus taking the debate beyond ‘mapping the territory’. These issues include the power relations in sport-for-development; the evolving contribution of sports INGOs as key actors in sport-for-development; and the challenge of evaluating development processes. This article highlights the importance of engaging with the established mainstream development discourse that provides an extensive body of theory through which to construct a critical assessment of sport-for-development. This is evident, for example, in contending theories relating to the process of evaluating the impact of development interventions. This article concludes by highlighting the importance of listening to the voices of all stakeholders involved in the sport-for-development process if the significance of such interventions is to be fully understood

Deriving and using future weather data for building design from UK climate change projections: an overview of the COPSE Project

Climate change has increasing implications for the economic and social life of the UK, as the reports of the UKCIP1 and the UK Climate Change Risk Assessment 20122 make clear. In particular, it will impact on the performance of our built environment – our buildings and the civil infrastructure that supports our urban communities and our communications networks. Recognising this, the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council has funded successive programmes of research aimed at improving understanding of the impact of climate change on the built environment and into means of improving its adaptability and resilience. A recent phase of this research brought together a number of research projects, including COPSE, under the umbrella of the Adaptation and Resilience to Climate Change (ARCC) Co-ordination Network (CN)3. The ARCC CN has sought to develop close links between those directly involved in the research, who are principally in universities, and prospective users of the outputs, such as policy-makers, architects and engineering consultants. To that end, it has held conferences and technical events, published summaries of the research programmes and issued regular newsletters, with the aim of promoting the outputs of the research and facilitating their application. This publication further contributes to that overall aim. Academic research is, rightly, first published in peer-reviewed journals where it can be subject to the scrutiny of other researchers, and the findings compared with those of similar studies. Journal publications are often, though, not easily accessible for practitioners who will be principally concerned with the findings and their implications rather than the methods through which they were obtained. By contrast, short non-technical summaries do not provide a suitable basis for application of the findings. This publication seeks to fill that gap, in that it offers an overview of the COPSE project which, while summarising the research undertaken, gives most attention to the outputs and their relevance for practitioners. By also providing full details of the publications from COPSE research, it facilitates further investigation by those who wish to take advantage of latest research findings

Organisational Geographies and Corporate Responsibility: A Case Study of Japanese Multinational Corporations Operating in South Africa and Tanzania

This article considers how an increasingly important aspect of multinational corporation strategy-corporate social responsibility - is influenced by organisational geographies. Organisational geographies is a phrase used to explain the mixture of the confluence of geographical, cultural and organisational influences that helps shape strategy for a company. This article shows five different organisational geographies in operation by relating each to a case study of seven Japanese MNC subsidiaries in South Africa and Tanzania

English professional football clubs: Can business parameters of small and medium-sized enterprises be applied?

This journal article is not available through ChesterRep.Purpose ‐ In the last two decades sports studies and sports management journals have called for there to be research in sports management that explores sports links to mainstream management analyses. The purpose of this paper is to argue that in many ways the sports sector is dominated by small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), which have a different dynamic to larger entities and therefore should be analysed accordingly. This paper applies an SME perspective on English professional football clubs. Design/methodology/approach ‐ This paper, drawn from 22 semi-structured interviews with key individuals in the English professional football (soccer) industry, employs an interpretivist approach of semi-structured interviews of key personnel to provide an account of the business practices prevalent in the English football industry. Findings ‐ The findings are as follows: that the sports industry can be regarded as one that is largely constituted of elements that are ascribed with characteristics associated with SMEs called archetypal SMEs, either in entity size, turnover or mentality; that much analysis of the administration and management of the sports industry fails to assess the sector through the prism of SME "modelling"; there are areas of engagement with SME literature that could be useful to the analysis of the management of the sports industry. Originality/value ‐ This paper does what few other papers have achieved by outlining that the sports industry can be effectively examined by applying "SME perspectives" to help explain what might appear to be their idiosyncratic characteristics