Wits School of Governance (ETDs)

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Browsing Wits School of Governance (ETDs) by School "School of Governance"

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
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    Evaluating the influence of stakeholder participation in the m&e process of green technology projects (A case study of the SANEDI Biogas Digester Projects in South Africa)
    (University of the Witswatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023) Ndlovu, Linah
    Green technology projects have become more recently one of the best alternative strategies for sustainable development against the growing concerns and threats of energy crisis, climate change, population growth and wealth disparity. In the endeavour to fulfil this essence over the past two decades, South Africa has fallen short and demonstrated below average uptake of green technologies compared to other developing countries. Research evidence supports the effective use of participatory M&E of projects and programmes in promoting better project performance, sustenance, and greater adoption of projects. To explore the influence of stakeholder participation levels on the implementation of green technology projects, a qualitative research approach making use of SANEDI’s biogas digester projects as a case study was adopted by this study. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews from eight participants representing internal and external stakeholders. The findings reveal that the level of stakeholder participation in M&E of projects was low to medium amongst external stakeholders during early project stages of inception and planning through to project implementation, monitoring and close out whereas internal stakeholders had high level of participation throughput the project cycle. among internal stakeholders. The low level of participation created downstream challenges in maintaining and operating the biogas digesters, low project acceptance and ownership levels by the community. The study concludes that meaningful stakeholder participation with balanced power dynamics is required throughout the project life cycle. A high level of stakeholder participation amongst internal and external stakeholders in M&E of projects from project inception to closeout allows stakeholders to enjoy decision making benefits that can help create more aligned stakeholder priorities and needs, build better community ownership levels and greater project uptake. The study also concludes that meaningful stakeholder participation supported by the provision and planning of financial resources, training and awareness create an enabling foundation for the sustainable implementation and uptake of green technologies.
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    Human Resources Development at Tumela Mine
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2014-01-21) Mphahlele, Matuku
    In the context of the South African mining and mineral sector this study explores the human resource development measures to transform mentoring programmes at Tumela Mine. Despite the legislative stipulations that seek to promote equitable access to participation in the creation, development and sharing of the South African economy and natural resources through the establishment of a workplace environment conducive for learning to take place, little is known on how Tumela Mine implements mentoring programmes to foster effective human resource development. The study explored and analysed participants’ perceptions regarding the implementation of the Tumela Mine Mentoring Programme. The research was conducted through the use of a case study approach, and primary data was collected from respondents, and secondary data was gathered from relevant policies, minutes of meetings and company annual reports. The research questioned the successful aspects in the Human Resource Development unit, challenges and management’s responses to impediments to the implementation of mentoring programmes at Tumela Mine. The findings indicate that two key issues to improve implementation of mentoring programmes at the Tumela Mine are a transformational style of management and strategic repositioning of the mentoring programmes. The research argues that although company corporate strategic policy formulation and planning seek to promote equal participation of all employees in mentoring relationships, programme interventions at an operational level make it difficult to promote mentoring programmes. The key recommendation is that in order to implement effective mentoring programmes the company should review the corporate business strategy focused on strategic repositioning of mentoring programmes and inspire visionary leadership to implement a transformational style of management.
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    The role of peace missions in sustaining peace in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
    (2023) Nyuykonge, Wiykiynyuy Charles
    This study examined efforts aimed at ending conflict and restoring order and political stability in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, under the auspices of the United Nations peacekeeping mission. As one of the largest and most extensively funded peace operations across the globe, the UN’s mission in the DRC represents paradoxes and contradictions of the Liberal Peacebuilding approach, from the size of deployment to the scale of its funding, given the failure to end cycles of conflict in the country. In departing from the dominant socio-economic and ethnographic lenses from which the elusiveness of peace in the country have been examined in many studies, this study focused on the institutional guiding frameworks that have informed the succession of UN peacekeeping missions and madates over the years. A significant amount of research on UN peacekeeping missions in the DRC have relied on the Liberal Peacebuilding discourse and how it proposes to deliver peaceful and a prosperous nation. This study therefore interrogated the UN missions’ performance in implementing the Liberal peace framework. It examined if indeed the location of the UN mission within the Liberal Peacebuilding models may help explain its successes and failures, and whether this approach informs its inability to ensure sustainable peace in the country. Furthermore, the study examined the prospects that the transition to Sustaining peace holds for peace and stability in the DRC. To this end, it sought to understand, whether and how the new Sustaining Peace approach could overcome the pitfalls of the Liberal Peacebuilding model; and its potency to resolve this partly conceptual and partly practical quagmire. This study adopted a descriptive method of analysis based on a case study survey design, using both primary and secondary data, and qualitative analysis. Findings from interviews with the UN and other stakeholders indicate that in contrast to clear academic bifurcations on the meaning of these two frames of action, there is not such clarity within the UN, about the conceptual equivalence of it's operational frames. Sustaining peace, the study found, is a muscular conceptual matrix whose operationsalisation is not linear. It recommends conceptual harmony between theory and practice among other measures, as panacea for peace in the DRC. This justified the usefulness of this enquiry in ending the elucivenss of peace in the DRC.
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    The role of statistical numeracy in computational models of risky choice
    (2021) Werbeloff, Merle
    Numeracy is a strong predictor of general decision-making skill, and linked to differences in risk attitudes, such as risk aversion. However, the commonly used normative expected utility model assumes complete cognitive competence of the decision maker, and statistical numeracy is not considered directly in descriptive models of risky choice. These models are nevertheless used in policy-focused economics to assess individuals’ economic welfare, regardless of the effect of statistical numeracy. Thus, if model validity is dependent on the statistical numeracy of individual decision makers, resultant policy decisions may be biased. In an online quantitative empirical study, student respondents were categorised into numeracy groups based on latent mixture analysis of responses to statistical numeracy tests. Using the students’ risky choice responses to monetary lotteries, decision models were estimated using maximum likelihood parameter estimates on a subset of the data, followed by Markov Chain Monte Carlo Gibbs sampling methods for hierarchical Bayesian analysis. The results indicate significant differences between the numeracy groups on the utility parameter estimates, with risk aversion highest for low numeracy respondents. More complex models present identifiability problems. However, simpler models indicate successful outcomes in approximately two-thirds of in-sample estimates and out-of-sample predictions in the gain frame, based on parameter estimates specific to each numeracy group. The researcher proposes a numeracy-based modification to the models, citing the nudging and boosting policy initiatives of the behavioural economics literature as potential solutions to the presence of low numeracy and its effects on risky choice behaviour.