Strengthening surgical and anaesthetic services at district level in the African region: issues, challenges and proposed actions

Health care delivery systems are organized at several levels with the district hospital serving as the first referral for comprehensive care in the majority of countries worldwide. The provision of comprehensive surgical services requires several inputs and tools to be in place, among which are an adequately trained surgical, anaesthesia and obstetric healthcare workforce, infrastructure and functioning equipment, and essential medicines and supplies. These, however, are not in place in the majority of commonly received surgical cases, such as trauma, obstetric, abdominal and orthopedic emergencies, thus limiting the capacity of district hospitals to address them. Global and regional public health initiatives have traditionally neglected the necessity of the provision of surgical services despite the fact that these constitute an essential component of comprehensive primary healthcare (PHC)1. In fact, because surgery so frequently cannot be safely postponed, this deficiency prevents the transfer of patients to a secondary or tertiarylevel hospital where further care can be provided.

Quantification of biophysical adaptation benefits from Climate-Smart Agriculture using a Bayesian Belief Network

The need for smallholder farmers to adapt their practices to a changing climate is well recognised, particularly in Africa. The cost of adapting to climate change in Africa is estimated to be $20 to$30 billion per year, but the total amount pledged to finance adaptation falls significantly short of this requirement. The difficulty of assessing and monitoring when adaptation is achieved is one of the key barriers to the disbursement of performance-based adaptation finance. To demonstrate the potential of Bayesian Belief Networks for describing the impacts of specific activities on climate change resilience, we developed a simple model that incorporates climate projections, local environmental data, information from peer-reviewed literature and expert opinion to account for the adaptation benefits derived from Climate-Smart Agriculture activities in Malawi. This novel approach allows assessment of vulnerability to climate change under different land use activities and can be used to identify appropriate adaptation strategies and to quantify biophysical adaptation benefits from activities that are implemented. We suggest that multiple-indicator Bayesian Belief Network approaches can provide insights into adaptation planning for a wide range of applications and, if further explored, could be part of a set of important catalysts for the expansion of adaptation finance

Challenges facing South Africa’s electricity sector’s integrated resource plan : a qualitative system dynamics approach

CITATION: Mqadi, L., Musango, J. K. & Brent, A. C. 2018. Challenges facing South Africa’s electricity sector’s integrated resource plan : a qualitative system dynamics approach. Administratio Publica, 26(2):119-137.The original publication is available at https://journal.assadpam.netNational electricity plans are policy approaches that provide opportunities for integrated, goal-oriented electricity transition management. This article provides a critical reflection of the challenges that face the Integrated Resources Plan (IRP) of South Africa, which include the misalignment of the electricity sector’s long-term plan with other national strategic plans, and the minimal endogenisation of this long-term plan into existing sustainability transitions governance frameworks. The article argues that the use of qualitative system dynamics, particularly causal loop diagrams, can be useful in learning about the key feedback loops that relate to the IRP development process challenges in South Africa. The results show that resistance to IRP development, adoption and its overall implementation has contributed negatively to the electricity sustainability transitions agenda. Further, current solutions merely deal with symptoms rather than the root cause of the IRP challenges. An integrated sustainable electricity transitions framework is thus proposed, aimed at improving South Africa’s electricity sustainability transitions agenda. The article finally argues the need to entrench the sustainability transitions-based framework in the existing IRP policy development process in South Africa.https://journal.assadpam.net/index.php?journal=assadpam&page=issue&op=view&path%5B%5D=37Publisher's versio

Rethinking strategic sustainability planning for the electricity sector in South Africa

CITATION: Mqadi, L. J., Musango, J. K & Brent, A. C. 2018. Rethinking strategic sustainability planning for the electricity sector in South Africa. South African Journal of Industrial Engineering, 29(1):63-73, doi:10.7166/29-1-1654.The original publication is available at http://sajie.journals.ac.zaENGLISH ABSTRACT: A series of processes is now converging to force the issue of sustainability to drive South Africa’s low-carbon energy transitions. This raises the question of how a ‘sustainability transition’ framework can be conceptualised to address the challenge of low-carbon electricity transitions in South Africa. This paper, therefore, critically reviews the strategic electricity planning process in South Africa within an established sustainability transitions theoretical framework. From the literature, it is observed that the challenges facing South Africa’s strategic electricity planning resulted from the related politics, from differing views owing to different stakeholder preferences and lack of transparency in terms of electricity planning, and from a lack of, or misalignment between, development policies and objectives. All these theoretical and practical gaps reveal that South Africa must rethink its current strategic electricity planning practice, especially considering the country’s political economy. This paper, therefore, proposes a conceptual complexity-planning framework to ensure that the complex sustainability policy objectives are aligned within the electricity planning process.AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: ’n Reeks prosesse konvergeer nou om die kwessie van volhoubaarheid, en Suid-Afrika se lae-koolstof energie-oorgange, aan te spoor. Dit laat die vraag ontstaan hoe ’n raamwerk vir ‘volhoubaarheid oorgange’ gekonseptualiseer kan word, om die uitdaging van ’n lae-koolstof elektrisiteit oorgang in Suid-Afrika aan te spreek. Hierdie artikel verskaf dan ’n kritiese oorsig oor die strategiese elektrisiteit beplanningsproses in Suid-Afrika, opgestel in ’n gevestigde volhoubaarheid oorgange teoretiese raamwerk. Uit die literatuur is dit opgemerk dat die uitdagings in Suid-Afrika se strategiese elektrisiteit beplanning ’n gevolg is van die verwante politiek, verskillende sienings as gevolg van verskillende voorkeure van belanghebbendes in terme van die beplanning van elektrisiteit, en ’n gebrek aan, of uitlynfout tussen, ontwikkelingsbeleid en doelwitte. Al hierdie teoretiese en praktiese leemtes toon dat Suid-Afrika sy huidige strategiese elektrisiteit beplanning praktyk moet herbesin, veral met inagneming van die politieke ekonomie van die land. Die artikel stel dus ’n konseptuele kompleksiteit-beplanningsraamwerk voor om belyning van verskillende, mededingende, en komplekse volhoubaarheid beleid doelwitte te verseker binne die elektrisiteit beplanningsproses.http://sajie.journals.ac.za/pub/article/view/1654Publisher's versio

Tutorial on the application of systems approach to technology Science, sustainability assessment (SATSA): The case of biodiesel production development.

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