Suchergebnisse

In this paper, the fixed effects method known as the least squares dummy variable (LSDV) technique was applied to investigate the possibility of a trade-off between bank profitability indicators and banking outreach (expanding access to banking services) by analysing a panel of 10 Southern African Development Community (SADC). Of the fifteen SADC member countries (Angola, Botswana, Democratic Republic Of Congo, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, Swaziland, United Republic Of Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe), five (Botswana, Congo, Lesotho, Malawi and Zimbabwe) had to be excluded for lack of consistent data throughout our period of analysis. The author investigates whether expanding banking access and pursuing profitability are complementary goals in the same direction or are two conflicting goals. For estimation robustness, two indicators of profitability were used namely return on average assets (ROAA) and return on average equity (ROAE). IMF Financial Access Survey (FAS) data for each country namely, deposit accounts per capita and the number of bank branches per 1000 km2 were used as indicators of bank outreach or access. Operational inefficiency, insolvency risk and credit risk were found to exert a negative impact on both ROA and ROE. Net interest margin a proxy for interest based services and off-balance sheet activities were statistically significant and positively related with bank profitability. Central to the study was that expanding banking access was found to exert a statistically significant and positive impact on profitability for some SADC countries. However, contrary to the author`s expectation, for some countries, the indicator of outreach was inversely related with the chosen indicators of profitability. The researcher however, argues that any form of intervention aimed at improving the state of access to those financially excluded cannot be evaluated from a cost or profit perspective alone but must be all-inclusive taking into account the social and economic benefits to the society as a whole. The major purpose of financial inclusion is to reach the poor and disadvantaged segments of the population. Hence, the author cautions that although attaining high profitability is an important policy objective for ensuring sustainability and financial stability, it is certainly not the only priority. Access to banking services, social inclusion and consumer protection are equally important policy priorities. There is therefore need for government support and a general holistic stakeholder approach to the problem of banking exclusion in order to generate solutions that achieve both profitability and outreach in a balanced fashion.

Allgemeiner Überblick über Wirtschafsstruktur und Wirtschaftsentwicklung 1978-85. Haushaltspolitik, Außenhandel, Zahlungsbilanz und externe Verschuldung. Problem steigender Konsum- und fallender Investitionsausgaben. Entwicklung von Preisen und Löhnen. Hohes Bevölkerungswachstum. Nur ein Drittel der Schulabgänger finden einen Arbeitsplatz im formalen Sektor. Wachsende Arbeitslosigkeit und die ständig zunehmende Abhängigkeit von importierten Nahrungsmitteln (vor allem Mais) lassen die Zukunftsaussichten dieses winzigen Landes eher problematisch erscheinen und führen schon heute zu einem ständig wachsenden Druck auf die Zahlungsbilanz. (DÜI-Hlb)

In 2018, the city of Cape Town faced the prospect of reaching 'day zero', that is a combination of natural and human-made factors leading to the complete collapse of its municipal water supply. While the rains eventually fell and a major disaster was averted, the fear of running out of water looms large in the psyche of residents in many cities around the world. Water is a non-substitutable, essential, finite and fugitive resource. It is the lifeblood of human endeavour. Cities, through global processes such as Agenda 2030 and forums such as ICLEI exchange best practices for achieving water security. These forums also are collective social spaces occupied by civil society organizations who share strategies and tactics, and the private sector, who compete for markets and contracts, promoting patent-protected technologies. It is these groups -- states, civil societies, private sectors -- coming together who determine who gets what water, when, and where. It is the job of academics to understand the how and why, and of (academic-)activists to fight for equity of access and sustainability of use. Evidence drawn from around the world and over time consistently shows that water flows toward money and power. Outcomes are too-often socially inequitable, environmentally unsustainable and economically inefficient. How to shift existing processes toward improved practices is not clear, but positive outcomes do exist. In this collection, we compare and contrast the challenges and opportunities for achieving urban water security with a focus on 11 major world cities: Bangalore, Beijing, Cairo, Cape Town, Chennai, Istanbul, Jakarta, London, Melbourne, Sao Paulo and Tokyo. Through the theoretical, conceptual and practical insights provided in these case studies, our collection constructively contributes to a global conversation regarding the ways and means of 'avoiding day zero'. Larry Swatuk is Professor of Development Studies at the University of Waterloo, Canada. He is also Extraordinary Professor in the Institute for Water Studies at the University of the Western Cape in South Africa. He has lived and worked in different parts of Africa over more than 37 years beginning with a 6 month visit to Lesotho in 1984. Between 1989-96 he was a Research Fellow, National University of Lesotho; Visiting Scholar, University of Swaziland; Post-Doctoral Fellow, Rhodes University; and Senior Research Fellow at ACDESS in Nigeria. From 1996-2007 he was a Lecturer in Politics and Associate Professor of Natural Resources Governance at the University of Botswana. Currently, His research focuses primarily on freshwater governance and management in the Global South. Corrine Cash is an Assistant Professor of Planning and Community Climate Adaptation in the Department of Geography and Environment at Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick, Canada.

The major challenges of the 21st century faced by human beings are how to achieve water security, food security, energy security and environmental security. Owing to enhanced natural/anthropogenic disasters worldwide, these challenges become much more complicated and daunting especially for developing countries. Therefore, it is important to highlight the risk of different disasters as well as the modern tools and techniques for minimizing disaster incidence and losses. Disaster management being highly multidisciplinary in nature, a comprehensive book dealing with different aspects of disaster management, and encompassing important disasters faced by humankind is presently not available. This book is an attempt to fulfill this gap. It provides clear, comprehensive, and up-to-date information about different facets of disaster management along with salient case studies. The book highlights the current status of disaster management focusing on developing nations, discusses vital issues such as climate change and sustainable development, modern approaches and tools/techniques, and the challenges of and future RD needs for sustainable disaster management. TOC:1. Natural and anthropogenic disasters: An overview. 2. Earthquakes in India: Hazards, Genesis and Mitigation Measures.- 3. Impact of 2004 Tsunami on Housing, Sanitation and Water Supply as Wastes Management: The Cases of the Ampara District in Sri Lanka.- 4. Impact of December 2004 Tsunami on India Coasts and Mitigation Measures.- 5. Tsunami Impacts and Rehabilitation of Groundwater Supply: Lessons Learned from Eastern Sri Lanka.- 6. Tsunami Early Warning System: An Indian Ocean Perspective.- 7. Flood Hazards in India and Management Strategies.- 8. Modeling for Flood Control and Management.- 9. Real-time Flood Forecasting by a Hydrometric Data-Based Technique.- 10. Drought Hazards and Mitigation Measures.- 11. Indicators for Assessing Drought Hazard in Arid Regions of India.- 12. Tropical Cyclones: Trends, Forecasting and Mitigation.- 13. Temperature Extremes over India and their Relationships with El Nino-Southern Oscillation.- 14. Monitoring Physiographic Rainfall Variation for Sustainable Management of Water Bodies in India.- 15. Emerging Tools and Techniques for Mine Safety and Disaster Management. 16. Management of Forest Fire Disaster: Perspectives from Swaziland.- 17. Climate Change and Water Resources in India: Impact Assessment and Adaptation Strategies.- 18. Global Climate Change vis-a-vis Crop Productivity.- 19. Adapting Smallholder Dairy Production System to Climate Change.- 20. Climate Change-Proof Disaster Risk Reduction: Prospects and Challenges.- 21. Potential of Geospatial Technologies for Mitigating Land and Water Related Disasters.- 22. Decision Support System: Concept and Potential for Integrated Water Resources Management.- 23. Sustainable Forest Management: Key to Disaster Preparedness and Mitigation.- 24. Participatory Information Management for Sustainable Disaster Risk Reduction.- 25. Cyclone Emergency Preparedness in DAE Coastal Installations, India.- 26. Sustainable Management of Disasters: Challenges and Prospects.- Index.

This paper was written as a contribution to the review of progress toward gender equality since the 1995 Beijing Conference with specific reference to the southern African region. It recognizes that in the African context, a review of this nature is necessarily also an assessment of how far institutions and processes of accountable governance, reestablished in the 1990s in most African states, are taking sufficient root to enable the realization of declared commitments to enhance the quality of life for any segment of the citizenry. The stocktaking focuses on political parties both as possible instruments and as sites of negotiated power, against a historical background where they have also been instruments of coercion and exclusion. They have thus embodied tension, as on the one hand products of repression, and on the other, symbols of a breakthrough to a future promising the African citizenry liberties and democratic rights coupled with improvements in material well-being. Therefore, a review of southern Africa's performance regarding progress towards gender equality cannot just be about the degree to which women are now represented in decision-making. Rather, the process of enhancing women's status is inseparable from the process of rebuilding democratic institutions and practices. This paper starts from the premise that the outcome of that institution-building is informed interactively by the nature of the struggles of the people or groups involved, in character, form and content. The question then is how the history of the southern African countries and the struggles waged therein have defined, and continue to shape, the type of institutions and the manner of political power-sharing and women's representation. Specifically, the paper examines what women's struggle for political space has added to the democratization process and the rebuilding of political parties in southern Africa. The southern African countries have been divided into groups that share certain historical similarities in order to examine how that history provided a context, and the obstacles that had to be overcome by women and other agencies in the process of building political institutions and negotiating political power. The groups are: * those countries that have maintained multiparty politics from the 1960s (Botswana and Mauritius) * those countries that replaced multiparty systems with single-party politics soon after independence and only reinstated them in the 1990s (Lesotho,Malawi, Mozambique, the Seychelles, the United Republic of Tanzania URT) and Zambia) * those countries that were the last to extend universal suffrage to all racial groups (Namibia and South Africa) * those countries that have regressed either right from independence or since, and have not yet embraced peaceful multiparty political systems (Angola, Swaziland, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Zimbabwe).

The major landmark in Eswatini's response to the Covid-19 pandemic was the adoption of the Coronavirus (Covid-19) Regulations 2020 under Section 43 of the National Disaster Management Act, Legal Notice No 72 of 27 March 2020. Though this statutory instrument provides mainly for containment measures against the spread of the pandemic, it also established a National Disaster Management Task Force responsible for the provision of relief assistance to the poor and vulnerable. Other measures that were adopted by the government include the postponement of increases in water and electricity prices, relief assistance to workers who lose their jobs, suspension of the dismissal of employees during the pandemic and the reduction of fuel prices twice since the arrival of the pandemic. Responses to the social impacts of the pandemic have largely been as a result of government decisions and pronouncements rather than legislative processes. Moreover, relief efforts have largely been donor-driven, which brings into question issues of sustainability, which suggests the need for establishing robust social protection systems in order to promote the wellbeing of all Swazis.

Background Timely access to emergency care can substantially reduce mortality. International benchmarks for access to emergency hospital care have been established to guide ambitions for universal health care by 2030. However, no Pan-African database of where hospitals are located exists; therefore, we aimed to complete a geocoded inventory of hospital services in Africa in relation to how populations might access these services in 2015, with focus on women of child bearing age. Methods We assembled a geocoded inventory of public hospitals across 48 countries and islands of sub-Saharan Africa, including Zanzibar, using data from various sources. We only included public hospitals with emergency services that were managed by governments at national or local levels and faith-based or non-governmental organisations. For hospital listings without geographical coordinates, we geocoded each facility using Microsoft Encarta (version 2009), Google Earth (version 7.3), Geonames, Fallingrain, OpenStreetMap, and other national digital gazetteers. We obtained estimates for total population and women of child bearing age (15–49 years) at a 1 km2 spatial resolution from the WorldPop database for 2015. Additionally, we assembled road network data from Google Map Maker Project and OpenStreetMap using ArcMap (version 10.5). We then combined the road network and the population locations to form a travel impedance surface. Subsequently, we formulated a cost distance algorithm based on the location of public hospitals and the travel impedance surface in AccessMod (version 5) to compute the proportion of populations living within a combined walking and motorised travel time of 2 h to emergency hospital services. Findings We consulted 100 databases from 48 sub-Saharan countries and islands, including Zanzibar, and identified 4908 public hospitals. 2701 hospitals had either full or partial information about their geographical coordinates. We estimated that 287 282 013 (29·0%) people and 64 495 526 (28·2%) women of child bearing age are located more than 2-h travel time from the nearest hospital. Marked differences were observed within and between countries, ranging from less than 25% of the population within 2-h travel time of a public hospital in South Sudan to more than 90% in Nigeria, Kenya, Cape Verde, Swaziland, South Africa, Burundi, Comoros, São Tomé and Príncipe, and Zanzibar. Only 16 countries reached the international benchmark of more than 80% of their populations living within a 2-h travel time of the nearest hospital. Interpretation Physical access to emergency hospital care provided by the public sector in Africa remains poor and varies substantially within and between countries. Innovative targeting of emergency care services is necessary to reduce these inequities. This study provides the first spatial census of public hospital services in Africa. Funding Wellcome Trust and the UK Department for International Development.

The Road to Absalom is set in contemporary South Africa, where, for much of the predominantly young population, the country's ancien regime is little more than a childhood memory. David is a young articled clerk living a hedonistic and carefree life with his model girlfriend, Georgina, in Cape Town. When the entire family of the Xhosa chief of a remote rural valley is murdered he is sent in search of any remaining heirs. The new chief would be a lucrative client for the law firm. The search begins at the site of the massacre. David discovers that the only surviving heir, Absalom, has been missing for several years. He picks up the trail at Absalom's old university, where an ex-lecturer tells him about Absalom's early political consciousness (dismay at his family's collaboration with the white regime), his increasing rebelliousness, and his eventual disappearance. Local gangsters tell David more about Absalom's life as a criminal and an exile from his own family, circumstances which led him to move to Soweto. David drives across the interior of South Africa to Soweto, but does not find Absalom. His contact there arranges a meeting with Absalom's mentor and protector - Pius, a chief drug-smuggler resident in Swaziland. The hours of driving give David the time and perspective to reflect on his life in Cape Town: his dysfunctional relationship with Georgina, his fixation on his mixed-race high school lover, Angeline, his unwanted job and his ambivalent relationship with his family. He suspects that his supposedly convenient life has been constructed from fear or self-deception, and he is forced to re-evaluate his motivations. The meeting with Pius uncovers broad issues involving local and global politics that have contributed to Absalom's family's massacre and to his disappearance. However, Absalom has left to train as a Sangoma. David drives to Durban, where another sangoma gives him directions to the initiate's retreat in the Drakensberg mountains. He finds Absalom's spiritual master, a secretive bushman shaman, who explains that Absalom had abandoned his spiritual studies when he was told to do so by a powerful Spirit of nature. With the shaman's help David experiences a vision of Absalom's new hide-away on the coast. In the morning David follows the directions of his vision until he finds Absalom. The pair combine their knowledge: it emerges that their respective pasts have locked them into their present trajectories. David's family and his law firm (as well as a giant construction company and the World Bank) are involved in the events leading up to the massacre, while the past betrayals of the chief's family helped bring about their deaths. However, the pair abstain from the roles described for them by history, choosing instead to construct their own responses in an attempt to continue towards self-determining lives.

Sweden's and the other Nordic countries' support for the national liberation process and struggle against apartheid was unique in the international context both in regard to the size of the financial support and the extensive popular involvement. This book attempts to document the involvement of Sweden in the Southern African struggles against colonialism, occupation and white minority rule. While Volume I set out to identify the actors and factors behind the involvement, the aim of the present volume is to illustrate the Swedish participation. The focus of this study is on official assistance to the national liberation movements but the important role played by the organized Swedish solidarity movement and other non-governmental organizations also forms part of the narration. The study also attempts to contribute to a broader understanding of the international aspects of the Thirty Years' War in the region, a significant chapter in the quest for national self-determination, democracy and human rights towards the end of the troubled 20th century. Primarily written for the general reader interested in relations between Sweden and the Southern African liberation movements, the presentation should also provide material and theoretical enquiries with regard to, for example, Swedish foreign policy in the cold war era; regional developments in a bipolar world; and the diplomatic initiatives, political alliances and material conditions of the different movements. This book is a part of the Nordic Africa Institute's Research Project National Liberation in Southern Africa. The Role of the Nordic Countries. The result of the project is a unique documentation, mainly drawing on hitherto restricted official primary sources. This book, together with the other studies published within the project, forms a valuable reference source for everyone interested in the 20th century history of Southern Africa in particular or North/South and international relations in general. ; Contents: Chronological overview 1950–1994 -- Acknowledgements -- Prologue -- PAIGC of Guinea-Bissau : Breaking the Ground -- FRELIMO of Mozambique : Clearing a Way -- MPLA of Angola : A Rockier Road -- ZANU and ZAPU of Zimbabwe : On Separate Trails -- Patriotic Front : ZANU and ZAPU towards Independence -- SWAPO of Namibia : Tentative Steps towards Firm Relations -- Transport, Home Front, Churches and Trade Unions -- The Shipanga Affair and Beyond : Humanitarian Assistance and Human Rights – Cold War, Total Strategy and Expanded Assistance -- With SWAPO to Victory -- ANC of South Africa : No Easy Walk -- Isolation versus Involvement : Companies, Churches and Labour in the 1970s -- SACTU, Unions and Sanctions – 'Looking for Alternatives' : Pan Africanist Congress -- Gatsha Buthelezi and Inkatha -- Black Consciousness, IUEF and 'Operation Daisy' -- From Beds in Exile to Organizers at Home -- Attacks and Assistance in the Forward Areas : Swaziland and Mozambique -- Lesotho, Botswana, Zimbabwe and a Note on Security -- Closer and Broader Cooperation : Projects in Exile, Mineworkers, UDF and Civics in South Africa -- Culture and Popular Initiatives : From Frontline Rock to the People's Parliament -- Banning of Trade and Planning for Post-Apartheid -- Free at Last