Appraisal of land reform projects in the Northwest Province of South Africa

The study entailed an audit of 177 land reform projects in Northwest Province to determine the extent to which the projects are meeting or not meeting the objective of commercial viability. A sample of 43 land reform projects was selected for a more detailed assessment and analysis using an evaluation instrument designed to gather both qualitative and quantitative data. These projects were divided into four categories based on their production status as follows: projects where production has increased, decreased, remained stable, or zero. The audit of land reform projects revealed the following: · More than a quarter (27%)of the projects were not operational and, thus, do not meet the agrarian reform objective of commercial viability. Reasons for this include conflict among and within groups, loss of interest from some of the beneficiaries, poor infrastructure and insufficient farm income. Farm infrastructure had either been vandalised or the quality thereof deteriorated on 50 of the 177 farms audited. No agricultural production had taken place on 30 of the audited projects. Of the 43 projects that were selected for in-depth appraisal, 19 had either decreased (10) or zero (9) production. Some of the reasons for this included: · Lack of investment in, and improvements and maintenance of farm infrastructure. · Limited access to funds to cover production costs. · Poor decision-making and management of farming activities. · Limited beneficiary involvement in farming activities. · Lack of aftercare for beneficiaries. · Limited farming advice and support. · Limited farming experience of beneficiaries. · Limited financial management skills.land reform; performance appraisal; South Africa

A Consumer Premises End User Interface for OSA/Parlay Applications

Student Number : 9812990V - MSc project report - School of Electrical Engineering - Faculty of Engineering and the Built EnvironmentThe NGN is a multi-service network which inter-works with the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN), the voice network and the data network provided by Internet. Through network independent APIs such as OSA-Parlay, the NGN slowly migrates and converges Telecoms and IT networks, voice and Internet, into a common packet infrastructure. The OSA/Parlay group defines a softswitch architecture which provides network independent APIs or SCFs that enable cross network application development The Parlay softswitch provides connectivity to underlying transport networks for application providers. The standard specifies the interaction between application providers and the softswitch. However, the standard does not specify an interface to regulate the interaction between service providers and the consumer/end user domain. This means that applications housed in the service provider domain have no defined interfaces to manage service delivery to the consumer domain. For most service providers, the lack of a non-standardized API set impedes efforts to decrease application creation and deployment time. This research investigates the design and implementation of a standard consumer interface which can be used by application providers within an OSA/Parlay system to deliver service content to end users. The main objectives with regard to the functionality provided by the interface include the integration of facilities which will assist application providers to manage end user access and authentication (to enable users to establish a secure context for service usage), subscription (to handle the subscription life cycle), and service usage management (to enable the initiation and termination of services). The TINA-Consortium (TINA-C) has developed a service architecture to support the creation and provisioning of services in the NGN. The TINA architecture offers a comprehensive set of concepts and principles that can be used in the design of NGN services. The architecture consists of a set of reusable and interoperable service components encapsulating a rich and well defined set of APIs aimed at supporting the interaction between application providers and consumers. TINA’s session concepts, information structures, interfaces and service components can be used to support the design of a consumer premises end user interface for OSA/Parlay. This research also aims to explore the feasibility of using the TINA API within an OSA/Parlay system to support consumer domain service delivery. In order to implement the consumer interface for Parlay applications, the ability of the TINA service architecture to provide Access and Authentication management; Subscription and Profile management; and Service Usage management was investigated. The report documents the design and implementation of an OSA/Parlay consumer interface utilizing TINA service components and interfaces

Challenges in the implementation of retention policy in the Department of Home Affairs

Retention of personnel should form and remain part of the core business of all government institutions which intend to remain competitive in the world where swords of war on talent continue to erode the public sector. The aim of the research was to unmask and understand the challenges on implementation of retention policy within the department of Home Affairs. A qualitative study was undertaken and literature review on retention, staff turnover, labour turnover, talent and manpower was conducted. Relevant secondary data were searched and interviews undertaken with senior and middle managers of the Department responsible for policy development and implementation, constituting the main source of primary data. The research revealed that most senior and middle managers in the Department are not aware of the existence of the Department„s retention policy and thus contribute to its non-implementation. Challenges on implementation of the policy were also found to be associated with poor leadership, emotions and lack of defined skills needs, lack of communication and a poorly co-ordinated approach towards the implementation process. Retention is a critical factor to success and each organisation has to develop a systematic approach to address turnover challenges based on its unique needs

Appraisal of land reform projects in the Northwest Province of South Africa

The study entailed an audit of 177 land reform projects in Northwest Province to determine the extent to which the projects are meeting or not meeting the objective of commercial viability. A sample of 43 land reform projects was selected for a more detailed assessment and analysis using an evaluation instrument designed to gather both qualitative and quantitative data. These projects were divided into four categories based on their production status as follows: projects where production has increased, decreased, remained stable, or zero. The audit of land reform projects revealed the following: · More than a quarter (27%)of the projects were not operational and, thus, do not meet the agrarian reform objective of commercial viability. Reasons for this include conflict among and within groups, loss of interest from some of the beneficiaries, poor infrastructure and insufficient farm income. Farm infrastructure had either been vandalised or the quality thereof deteriorated on 50 of the 177 farms audited. No agricultural production had taken place on 30 of the audited projects. Of the 43 projects that were selected for in-depth appraisal, 19 had either decreased (10) or zero (9) production. Some of the reasons for this included: · Lack of investment in, and improvements and maintenance of farm infrastructure. · Limited access to funds to cover production costs. · Poor decision-making and management of farming activities. · Limited beneficiary involvement in farming activities. · Lack of aftercare for beneficiaries. · Limited farming advice and support. · Limited farming experience of beneficiaries. · Limited financial management skills

Effects of transaction costs on choice of selling point : a case of smallholder banana growers in the great lakes region of Central Africa

This article examines the effects of transaction costs on the choice of marketing channel by smallholder banana producers (i.e. travel to the market to sell their produce versus selling at the farmgate). A probit analysis is used to identify the factors which determine the choice of a selling point. Variables capturing transaction costs are used in the analysis and these relate to searching for a trading partner, gathering information about the transaction, contracting, negotiating, monitoring and enforcing of contracts. The findings reveal that collective action, gender of household head, degree of dependence on the crop, geographical location and access to price information significantly affect the choice of selling point. This suggests that policies aimed at establishing market information systems, promotion of collective action among smallholder farmers, increased investment in rural infrastructure and achieving gender balance in trade are important.http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ragr2

Marketing strategy choice and the associated income differentials among smallholder dairy farmers in Ethiopia

This study investigates factors that influence the choice of marketing strategies among dairy farmers in Ethiopia. The farmers used three marketing strategies, namely, milk products marketing (26 per cent), raw milk marketing (59 per cent), and both milk products marketing and raw milk marketing (15 per cent). The results showed that the following factors influenced the probability of choosing a raw milk marketing strategy over milk products marketing: age of the household head, proportion of crossbreed cows owned, total milk produced, distance to the market, income per litre of milk, and cooperative membership. Further analysis revealed that dairy farmers are better off if they utilize the raw milk marketing strategy, which has higher returns. Farmers who relied only on milk products marketing had significantly lower dairy income. It is recommended that tailored efforts are channelled towards improving access to raw milk markets by establishing more milk collection points.https://practicalactionpublishing.com/journal/1/enterprise-development-and-microfinancepm2021Agricultural Economics, Extension and Rural Developmen

The role of rural producer organizations in enhancing market participation of smallholder farmers in Uganda : enabling and disabling factors

The study investigates the factors influencing the effectiveness of second-tier rural producer organizations (RPOs) in linking their members to output markets in Uganda. The percentage of farmers who sold some of their produce through the RPO was used as a proxy for effectiveness. Ordinary least squares (OLS) regression analysis indicated that RPO effectiveness was positively related to the size of a RPO and democratic leadership. On the other hand, the proportion of RPO leaders with leadership training, enforcement of internal control practices, bulking distance and size of executive committee had a significant negative effect on the effectiveness of such organizations. It was concluded that improving the effectiveness of RPOs required the (i) use of numerous sub-committee instead of many all-member meetings and smaller executive committees; (ii) dedication, respect and commitment by leaders of RPOs when imparting skills learnt in order to boost members’ morale; (iii) devising reward systems for leaders or putting in place stringent rules, such as leadership codes, to guide leader behaviour so as to prevent conflict of interest and possible elite capture; and (iv) policies guiding Savings and Credit Cooperatives (SACCOs) lending conditions be reviewed to match rural producers’ economic status and seasonality of enterprises.The Uganda Agricultural Strategy Support Programme of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Ford Foundation, Institute of International Education, the Pan African Bean Research Alliance of the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), and Kilimo Trust, through its INSPIRE project.http://www.academicjournals.org/AJARam201

Temporal and spatial variation of income diversification strategies among rural households in South Africa

Understanding temporal and spatial variations of income diversification is important for developing policies aimed at reducing rural poverty. This study applied Simpson Index of Diversity (SID) to panel data from National Income Dynamics Study from 2008 to 2017 to investigate these variations across four provinces of South Africa. Findings point to the importance of disaggregating when analysing household income diversification. Limpopo, KwaZulu-Natal and North West had higher SID than the aggregated index, while Eastern Cape had lower degree of diversification. Contrary to other studies, this study found provinces with the highest and lowest income not having the highest degree of diversification. Over time, households diversified more, with SID increasing from 0.16–0.23 by 2017. The study recommends supporting households diversify their income. Specifically, the study recommends support for agriculture in KwaZulu-Natal, Eastern Cape and Limpopo, while in North West, provincial government should promote business ventures to improve household resilience.The National Income Dynamics Study (NIDS), the Department of Planning Monitoring, and Evaluation (the data funding agency), Southern African Labour and Development Research Unit (implementer) and DataFirst (data distributor).http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cdsa202022-07-12hj2022Agricultural Economics, Extension and Rural Developmen

Performance of land reform projects in the North West Province of South Africa : changes over time and possible causes

Anecdotal evidence as well as selected studies on the performance and progress of South Africa’s land reform programme generally present mixed to rather negative results. Few longitudinal studies exist on the progress of redistributed farms, resulting in an incomplete picture of the performance and progress of land reform projects. In this paper, we report on the progress and performance of a group of land reform projects in the North West Province of South Africa over five years. As part of a comprehensive audit of land reform projects in the North West Province, 43 farms were studied in 2005 to assess their performance, based on their production status. Five years later, in 2010, 37 of these farms were visited again to review their progress. The results indicate that the production status (and thus performance) of land reform projects is not static. Although some projects either improved or maintained their initial production status, the overall trend shows deterioration in performance. Numerous factors are responsible for the decline, including group characteristics where farms are owned by groups of beneficiaries. The paper is thus the first to use two surveys of a group of land reform projects to show the true status of farms in their post-transfer phase in South Africa.http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cdsa202017-12-31hb2016Agricultural Economics, Extension and Rural Developmen