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This paper explored the relationship between external pressure and social disclosure in South African banks. The South African Kings III guideline on corporate governance highlighted the importance of inclusion of social disclosure in the integrated reports of banks; however, little prior research has focussed on external pressure and social disclosure within the South African banking sector. Hence, this paper adds a nuance to this branch of literature within the South African context. It used a sample of banks within the JSE SRI Index and applied the content analysis in data collection on external pressure and bank's social disclosure. It then applied the panel data multiple regression statistics. Results showed that profit motive, government pressure and customer pressure proved positively and significantly related to banks' social disclosure at a P value of 0.05. The paper offers practical and policy implication for sustainability advocacy groups and regulators and for academics for research and academic studies. It recommends further expanded research with many years and more financial institutions aside of banks to research on likely strategic reasons behind banks' social disclosure.

This paper examined whether selected South African mining companies obtain sustainability report assurance and whether the sustainability reports are internally or externally assured. The methodological approach is a combination of qualitative and quantitative analysis of assurance elements in sustainability reports. Findings indicate that a considerable number of mining companies are complying with the requirements of the King III assurance requirement; however, there is still room for improvement mostly in the external assurance requirement. The study finds that the lack of external assurance from some firms may stem from apparent optional nature of sustainability guidelines. Major finding from the t-test of difference in mean-assurance levels indicate that, whilst it is commendable that companies are responding to assurance requirement, however it took approximately four years for all the sampled companies to adjust toward a significant response to King III requirement for assurance of sustainability reports. Hence the paper recommends amongst others, that policy makers should allow ample time when initiating new sustainability guidelines and/or policies to enable firms to adjust. External assurance of sustainability reports should be made obligatory and that assurance work should be made to rest in the hands of qualified experts, such as the chartered accountants, to instil greater compliance and desired credibility in sustainability reports. It is also recommended that future studies may look into the extent of independence and objectivity of external assurers of sustainability in the mining firms.

The quest for improved self-revenue generation and reduction of the financial burden on government prompted the adoption of public private partnership (PPP) in the management of South African National Parks (SANParks). Accordingly, this paper examined the revenue and conservation implication of PPP in SANParks. Using a statistical t-test of difference in means, before and within the PPP, results show a significant increase in sales revenue and conservation (with significant increase of rare and threatened species) during the PPP period. Additionally, the PPP has supported poverty alleviation through a strategic use of small, micro and medium enterprises with associated local job creation and concomitant increasing support for dependent local family members. This paper thus offers a practical evidence for conservation managers that public private partnership can enhance revenue and conservation of national parks in a developing country. Ascertaining that PPP could enhance revenue and conservation in a national park should motivate conservation managers to improve PPP strategies for reinforcing future revenue streams and attendant conservation in protected areas.

This article assesses the link between the four pillars of gender equality and extreme poverty in sub-Saharan Africa. Accordingly, the objective of the paper is to empirically examine whether the four pillars of gender equality, namely women's health, women education, political participation of women and economic participation facilitate extreme poverty alleviation in sub-Saharan Africa. Data were collected from the World Bank development indicators and World Economic Forum Global Gender Gap Index for 25 sub-Saharan African countries whose data appear on both indexes for three years into the SDGs era. Th e paper applied a quantitative approach with secondary data on poverty gap index drawn from the World Economic Forum Poverty Gap Index for sub-Saharan Africa. Data for twenty-fi ve sub-Saharan African countries were analysed using the fi xed-eff ect panel data regression approach using the Hauseman model selection test. Findings from the analysis indicate that, ceteris paribus, an increase in the threegender equity variables namely economic participation of women, education of women and political participation and leadership of women in sub-Saharan Africa has a signifi cant potential to reduce extreme poverty in sub-Saharan Africa within the sample of study. Since the fi ndings of this study have shown that extreme poverty can be reduced through increased women participation in economic activity, education and leadership, the SDG of poverty alleviation can be improved in sub-Saharan Africa through better government provision of economic, educational and leadership opportunities for women such as providing women with free-interest small business start-up funds, free education for women and supporting women to ascend and survive in political and leadership positions in sub-Saharan Africa through a balanced quota for female leadership positions. Given that the women's health variable did not prove to be signifi cant on extreme poverty, further research is recommended to separate the health variable into rural health and urban health variables in order to examine the possibility that either of the health clusters might contribute signifi cantly to reducing extreme poverty. Th is paper contributes to existing literature by providing an empirical evidence to show that gender equality in sub-Saharan Africa is a viable policy strategy for achieving the SDGs 2030 Agenda of extreme poverty eradication in sub-Saharan Africa; the paper also provides empirical model for future study.

This paper evaluated the relationship between water infrastructure financing and water provision in South Africa. The research followed a quantitative research design; secondary data for water infrastructure financing and water provision in South Africa was obtained from the Trans - Caledon Tunneling Agency (TCTA) and the World Bank for the period 1994 - 2014 . The regression results indicated two separate findings which offers unique contribution to the current literature; results from water asset finance as a single independent variable on water provision showed a significant relationship. However, an addition of two control variables , corruption and violence, neutralised the effectiveness of water asset finance on water provision to the extent that water asset finance became less significant with a P value of 0.05. The paper makes a nuance contribution from the findings, which specifically is that finance alone may not deliver target water provision if corruption and violence is left unbridled. The paper thus recommends the need for public policy makers to control the rate of corruption and violence to enable effective application of water infrastructure finance in water provision. The paper also recommends the need for further research on other government departments to integrate corruption and violence as control variables.

In fast 30jähriger Herrschaft haben Mobutu und sein Clan Zaire ausgeplündert und ein Gutteil der Einnahmen des Landes in eigene Taschen geleitet. Der Artikel analysiert die von Mobutu angewendeten Methoden des Diebstahls und diskutiert die Frage, ob und wie eine Regierung nach Mobutu der veruntreuten Gelder wieder habhaft werden kann. (DÜI-Sbd)

AbstractHuman-induced biodiversity loss and changes in community composition are major challenges of the present time, urgently calling for comprehensive biomonitoring approaches to understand system dynamics and to inform policy-making. In this regard, molecular methods are increasingly applied. They provide tools for fast and high-resolution biodiversity assessments and can also focus on population dynamics or functional diversity. If samples are stored under appropriate conditions, this will enable the analysis of DNA, but also RNA and proteins from tissue or from non-biological substrates such as soil, water, or sediments, so-called environmental DNA (eDNA) or eRNA. Until now, most biodiversity studies using molecular methods rely on recent sampling events, although the benefit of analyzing long-time series is obvious. In this context Environmental Specimen Banks (ESBs) can play a crucial role, supplying diverse and well-documented samples collected in periodically repeated sampling events, and following standardized protocols. Mainly assembled for integrative monitoring of chemical compounds, ESB collections are largely accessible to third parties and can in principle be used for molecular analysis. While ESBs hold great potential for the standardized long-time storage of environmental samples, the cooperation with Biodiversity Biobanks as scientific collections guarantees the long-time storage of nucleotide (DNA, RNA) extracts together with links to analytical results and metadata. The present contribution aims to raise the awareness of the biodiversity research community regarding the high-quality samples accessible through ESBs, encourages ESBs to collect and store samples in DNA-friendly ways, and points out the high potential of combining DNA-based approaches with monitoring chemicals and other environmental stressors.

AbstractA number of parasiticides are commercially available as companion animal treatments to protect against parasite infestation and are sold in large volumes. These treatments are not intended to enter the wider environment but may be washed off or excreted by treated animals and have ecotoxic impacts. A systematic literature review was conducted to identify the existing evidence for the toxicity of the six most used parasiticides in the UK: imidacloprid, fipronil, fluralaner, afoxolaner, selamectin, and flumethrin. A total of 17,207 published articles were screened, with 690 included in the final evidence synthesis. All parasiticides displayed higher toxicity towards invertebrates than vertebrates, enabling their use as companion animal treatments. Extensive evidence exists of ecotoxicity for imidacloprid and fipronil, but this focuses on exposure via agricultural use and is not representative of environmental exposure that results from use in companion animal treatments, especially in urban greenspace. Little to no evidence exists for the ecotoxicity of the remaining parasiticides. Despite heavy usage, there is currently insufficient evidence to understand the environmental risk posed by these veterinary treatments and further studies are urgently needed to quantify the levels and characterise the routes of environmental exposure, as well as identifying any resulting environmental harm.