A Qualitative Method for Assessing the Impact of ICT on the Architectural Design Process

During the last thirty years or so, we have witnessed tremendous developments in information and communication technology (ICT). Computer processing power doubles each 18 months, as Gordon Moore predicted during the mid-1960s. The computer and communications world has been revolutionised by the invention of the Internet. It has changed the way of exchanging, viewing, sharing, manipulating and storing the information. Other technologies such as smartphones, wearable computers, tablets, wireless communications and satellite communications have made the adoption of ICT easier and beneficial to all its users. ICT affects the productivity, performance and the competitive advantage of a business. It also impacts on the shape of the business process and its product. In architectural design, ICT is widely used throughout the design process and its final product. The aim of this research, therefore, is to explore the key implication of using ICT in architectural design and what new changes and forms have occurred on buildings as a result of ICT developments and use by architecture practitioners. To achieve this aim, a qualitative research approach was adopted using a narrative review of ICT usage in the design of buildings. The literature found was subjected to a thematic analysis of how ICT adoption affected the architectural design process. The findings of this research indicate that there is a continuous change in the design process and its final products (buildings) as the technology evolves. The framework proposed provides a foundation for gathering evidence from case studies of the impact of ICT adoption by architectural designers. The research proposes that future empirical work has to be conducted to test and refine the relevance, importance and applicability of each of the components of the framework, in order to detect the impact of ICT on the building design process and its final product

The Direct Productivity Impact of Infrastructure Investment: Dynamic Panel Data Evidence From Sub Saharan Africa

The paper aimed at isolating the direct productivity of economic infrastructure using a production function approach. Based on an extension of endogenous growth theory with public finance, infrastructure could have either a negative or positive effect on economic growth. The empirical analysis utilises a panel of 19 countries from Sub Saharan Africa (SSA). With SSA infrastructure being less developed both in terms of quantity and quality, the a priori expectation was that all types of infrastructure have a positive and signifcant effect on aggregate income level. It is found that, like static estimation techniques, dynamic panel data (DPD) estimation techniques could also produce counterintuitive results if endogeneity of infrastructure is not accounted for. Positive and significant direct productive effects of infrastructure (total roads, electricity generation capacity, and telephones) were obtained using the Pooled Mean Group (PMG) estimator (a form of DPD analysis) after instrumentation for infrastructure. Representing infrastructure with an index constructed from the three infrastructure types also produced similar results. The results are confirmed with the use of the System General Method of Moments (SYS GMM) which constructs instruments for infrastructure using appropriate lags of the variables in first differences and in levels. Thus, it would appear that the negative and counterintuitive productivity results that are sometimes obtained in the literature could be partly due to limitations in methodologies that do not appropriately account for time varying fixed effects and the endogeneity of infrastructure in the economic growth process, especially for developing countries. Control variables for the macroeconomic environment and level of political and civil rights are also found to have a positive and significant effect on aggregate output.

Working Paper 93 - The Impact of High Oil Prices on African Economies

On the one hand the high price of oil is a unique opportunity for African oil producers to use the windfall gains to speed up their development. On the other hand, it is having adverse effects on net-oil importing countries, in particular those which cannot access international capital markets to smooth out the shock. We construct a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model, which is tailored to reflect the characteristics of African economies, to quantify the effect of the increase in the price of oil on the main macro economic aggregates. The model is general enough that it imbeds both oil producing and oil importing countries. Our results indicate that a doubling of the price of oil on world markets with complete pass through to oil consumers would lead to a 6 per cent contraction of the median net-oil importing African country in the first year. If that country were to adopt a no-pass through strategy, output would not be significantly affected but its budget deficit would increase by 6 per cent. As for the median net oil exporting country, a doubling in the price of oil would mean that its gross domestic product would increase by 4 percent under managed-float and by 9 percent under a fixed exchange rate regime. However, inflation would increase by a much greater magnitude under managed than a fixed exchange rate regime in a median net oil exporting country.

Synthesis of research issues and capacity building in water and land resources management in Ethiopia

This paper presents an overview and synthesis of the key research and capacity building issues arising from the workshop presentations and the papers. Three days of intensive deliberations by professionals from various research, development and governmental organizations, and of diverse disciplines, backgrounds and nationalities have clearly acknowledged that water management issues remain very crucial for poverty alleviation and rural development in Ethiopia – the overwhelming proportion of the population depends on smallholder agricultural production, which is highly constrained by water availability (absence of perennial rivers, high spatial and temporal availability of rainfall, etc.). This situation, over the years, has generated a critical need for efficient water and land management to reduce production risks and hazards, and enhance stable agricultural and livestock production. Recent decades have witnessed various efforts in the area of irrigation and supplementary irrigation (and other development initiatives), employing various water harvesting technologies, construction of micro dams, diversions structures, etc., which were largely combined with traditional yield-enhancing methods to facilitate sustainable smallholder agricultural production.Most of these efforts did not only fall short of their desired objectives of improving smallholder production conditions but also generated a host of other problems which aggravated smallholder production conditions: the large scale irrigation schemes (e.g. Awash Basin and elsewhere) resulted in secondary soil salinization where large tracts of land have gone out of production; the spontaneous construction of micro-dams across the country (especially in Tigray) is associated with human and livestock health hazards that in some cases has resulted into abandonment of the dams; the production potential of extensive watersheds remain largely unexploited or inappropriately utilized, resulting in extensive degradation of fragile lands, and so on. The potential for effectively integrating crops and livestock management in the context of growing water in complementary crop-livestock systems remains largely unexploited, especially from the perspective of efficient water and land utilization. The limited success of most of the technologies in Ethiopia calls attention to a dire need for research and capacity building to understand the complex issues of water and land management, so as to enhance national and local capacity to deal with water and land management issues to enhance food security, poverty alleviation and national economic development.Length: pp.204-216Water resource managementCapacity buildingPovertyLand resourcesIrrigation managementDrainageWater harvestingLivestock

The effect of environmental variability on livestock and land-use management: the Borana Plateau, Southern Ethiopia

The Borana people are the predominant ethnic group on the Borana Plateau in southern Ethiopia, who have recently increased their reliance on crops. Rainfall in the region averages between 353 mm to 873 mm; variability is high, with coefficients of variation ranging from .21 to .68. Anectdotal evidence implies that the vulnerability of pastoralist households to drought is increasing; stock levels increase dramatically during good rainfall years but plummet when rainfall is poor, indicating that the drought cycle is becoming more pronounced. In recent years, there has also been a dramatic increase in land allocated to crops, and land allocated to pastures that are either privatized or accessible to only a small sub-group of people. It is hypothesized that one of the key determinants of the productivity and sustainability of the systems is the ability of community members to cooperate over the use and maintenance of these resources. In this paper, we develop indicators of cooperation and examine factors affecting these indicators. We then use these indicators to determine the impact of cooperation on stock densities and land allocation patterns. Results indicate that cooperation is positively related to factors that increase the profitability of livestock, but negatively related to the total number of households, the use of community pastures by non-community members, and heterogeneity of wealth within the community.Ethiopia., Pastoral systems Environmental aspects Africa., Land use Ethiopia., Livestock., Crops.,

Creating Enhanced Capacity for Local Economic Development (LED) through Collaborative Governance in South Africa

The complexities of the twenty-first century have paved way for the emergence and proliferation of cross boundary collaboration in the lexicon of localised and territorial development. Collaborative governance is increasingly playing a vital role in addressing the multi-dimensional challenges of the contemporary era. This paper seeks to contextualise collaborative governance as a possible remedy that could help to salvage the incapacitated municipalities and be more resourceful in their developmental mandate of fostering localised territorial development. In addition, the article discusses some of the contextual limitations of commonly applied state-led and civilpowered approaches to address socio-economic problems in municipalities. To constitute a resilient collaborative governance capable of improving system management and responsiveness to socio-economic issues in municipalities, the paper tends to shed light on the emergence of another type of approach, the hybridcentric collaborative approach. Given this scenario, what would be the specific roles and relationship between the state and non-state

Working Paper 105 - Smallholder Agriculture in East Africa: Trends, Constraints and Opportunities

Smallholder agriculture continues to play akey role in African agriculture. This paperinvestigates trends, challenges andopportunities of this sub-sector in EastAfrica through case studies of Kenya,Ethiopia, Uganda and Tanzania. In theseagriculture-based economies, smallholderfarming accounts for about 75 percent ofagricultural production and over 75 percentof employment. However, contributions ofsmallholder farming, and agriculture ingeneral, to the region’s recent rapid growthduring 2005 - 08 have remained limited.Instead, growth was driven by services, inparticular trade. This paper finds that at thenational level, weak institutions, restrictedaccess to markets and credit. These factors,including inadequate infrastructure, haveconstrained productivity growth ofsmallholder farming. Measures needed toimprove productivity of smallholder farmersinclude ease of access to land, training toenhance skills and encourage technologyadoption and innovation, and removal ofobstacles to trade. At the regional and globallevels, international trade barriers need to beaddressed.

Barriers to Educational Opportunities for Pregnant Adolescents / Mothers in Two Chiefdoms In Sierra Leone; Lokomasama Chiefdom Port Loko District, North- West and Bumpe Ngao Chiefdom Bo District Southern Province

Teenage Pregnancy and adolescent motherhood in Sierra Leone has been increasing and is one of the world s highest rates leading to girls dropping out of school Some pregnant teens were asked out of school while others bow to societal pressure and self-isolate before they are visibly identified as pregnant Ensuring they have access to education is vital for achieving gender equality and empowering women and girls This seems to be a priority for the government by the introduction of the Free Quality Education in 2018 and the Radical Inclusion Policy targeting these vulnerable girls ensuring their human rights are upheld and achieving inclusive development as recognized in the international development agenda the Sustainable Development Goals SDG 4 and 10 UN-SDG 2015 This study research looked at the barriers to educational opportunities for adolescent mothers in two districts in Sierra Leone with the case study of Lokomassama chiefdom Port Loko district North-west and Bumpe Ngao chiefdom Bo district and southern provinc