Informal urbanism : an appraisal of socio-legal and economic dynamics in East London, South Africa

Many cities and towns in the Global South continue to experience the growth of the informal sector. There are a number of reasons which explain the growth of the informal sector. These include formal sector retrenchments, shortage of jobs in the formal sector and lack of skills. Street vendors are the most visible traders in the informal sector as compared to other kind of traders. In many cities, the spaces in which vendors conduct their trading is not allocated to them legally as they are seen as a nuisance or obstruction to commerce and the free flow of traffic. Against this background, this study examines the contestation for vending in the East London Central Business District (CBD) Eastern Cape, South Africa. It specifically explores social processes and vendor decision making when it comes to choosing (or claiming) a particular vending space, the legal instruments (by-laws) that either promote or constrain informal trading activities. Furthermore, it investigates the extent to which street vending contributes to the traders‟ income generation and sustainable livelihoods. This study uses a qualitative research design. Purposive sampling was used to select thirty informal traders. In-depth semi structured interviews were conducted with all thirty respondents In addition to the thirty respondents, five key informants were interviewed. The study found that street vending plays a major role in providing BCMM people with livelihood opportunities. Trading space in the CBD is strictly competitive and the spaces they acquire are too small for their businesses to expand to another level. Vendors face a lot of challenges but at the epitome of their challenges is the vending by- laws which the vendors view as a major constraint when it comes to operating smoothly in the streets. The study suggested that vending polices and by- laws be reviewed in order to derive a better socio- economic and functional environment for vendors

Observed controls on resilience of groundwater to climate variability in sub-Saharan Africa

Groundwater in sub-Saharan Africa supports livelihoods and poverty alleviation1,2, maintains vital ecosystems, and strongly influences terrestrial water and energy budgets. Yet the hydrological processes that govern groundwater recharge and sustainability—and their sensitivity to climatic variability—are poorly constrained4. Given the absence of firm observational constraints, it remains to be seen whether model-based projections of decreased water resources in dry parts of the region4 are justified. Here we show, through analysis of multidecadal groundwater hydrographs across sub-Saharan Africa, that levels of aridity dictate the predominant recharge processes, whereas local hydrogeology influences the type and sensitivity of precipitation–recharge relationships. Recharge in some humid locations varies by as little as five per cent (by coefficient of variation) across a wide range of annual precipitation values. Other regions, by contrast, show roughly linear precipitation–recharge relationships, with precipitation thresholds (of roughly ten millimetres or less per day) governing the initiation of recharge. These thresholds tend to rise as aridity increases, and recharge in drylands is more episodic and increasingly dominated by focused recharge through losses from ephemeral overland flows. Extreme annual recharge is commonly associated with intense rainfall and flooding events, themselves often driven by large-scale climate controls. Intense precipitation, even during years of lower overall precipitation, produces some of the largest years of recharge in some dry subtropical locations. Our results therefore challenge the ‘high certainty’ consensus regarding decreasing water resources in such regions of sub-Saharan Africa. The potential resilience of groundwater to climate variability in many areas that is revealed by these precipitation–recharge relationships is essential for informing reliable predictions of climate-change impacts and adaptation strategies

Creating compliance value through informal work procedures

Informal work procedures are often untapped in organisations because they remain compartmentalised and unavailable for organisational learning. Trends from Auditor General Reports show the metastasising culture of non-compliance in local government and by implication the re-enforcement of procedural compliance in many avenues. This study explores the value informal work procedures can add to building a strong compliance-based culture in South African local governance. The study contributes to knowledge on organisational studies and compliance in local government by moving beyond formal procedural explanations to highlight informal work procedures as critical elements of the municipal compliance discourse. A qualitative methodology using interview data shows that local government managers operate based on informal work practices and procedures, which create a potential for learning and compliance value chain. The findings also suggest that where local government managers are able to consciously create synergies between informal and formal work procedures a municipal culture that supports innovation, compliance and effective performance develops. It is proposed that addressing the gap between “work as imagined” and “work as actually done” can present an opportunity for building compliance through organisational learning

Hypernasality in a Shona child with a cleft palate: A phonological account

The nasalization of oral sounds in the speech of a Shona child with hypernasality is investigated in this article. Hypernasality is a resonance disorder that is caused by a dysfunction of the velopharyngeal mechanism (Riski, 2009). Individuals with hypernasality produce oral sounds with a nasal resonance because of the existence of a cleft palate. This phenomenon has been considered from a number of perspectives, but this article is a description of a phonemic inventory of oral speech sounds produced as nasal sounds by the child under study. Observations and unstructured interviews were used for data collection. The findings of this investigation show that the child produced simple and complex oral consonants with a nasal resonance. It was established that, although the child had difficulties in producing oral consonants, she could produce nasal sounds found in Shona correctly. It was concluded that the child’s speech is hypernasal since it has more nasal sounds than oral ones. The observations of this research are compiled in the hope that they will contribute to the cleft speech database and more specifically towards a cross-linguistic investigation of resonance disorders of speakers of Bantu languages.S.Afr.J.Afr.Lang., 31(2) 201