3. Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) - All submissions
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Item Evaluation of the MEC's poverty-alleviation programme in the Waterberg District of the Limpopo Province(2009-11-13T13:09:57Z) Letshokgohla, Motlatso EliasBackground: In 2003, the Limpopo Department of Health and Social Development introduced a system to train students from poor families as auxiliary nurses as a poverty-alleviation strategy in the province. The programme was aimed at targeting the needy: those who depended on social grants for a living, were orphaned or who headed a family. Five years have passed but no formal evaluation has been done to estimate the impact of the programme. Objective: To evaluate the self-reported impact of auxiliary nursing training of youth from poor families in the Waterberg District on alleviation of their poverty Methodology: A cross-sectional study design using an anonymous structured questionnaire. The study population included 200 auxiliary nurses trained through the programme from 2003 to date. Results: This research found conclusive evidence that the poverty alleviation project in the Limpopo Province has significantly improved the economic conditions of the beneficiaries such as number of rooms in their houses, type of houses, type of floors, refuse collection, indoor water supply, indoor flash toilet, household assets, access to water and wood, number of meals, transport and domestic workers. This study also found positive changes in family income, bank and other accounts. This study shows significant changes in asset indicator scores after respondents had joined the programme. Conclusion: This is the first study to systematically evaluate a poverty alleviation programme in South Africa. Hopefully, both the Department of Finance and the Department of Health and Social Development in the Limpopo Province would utilise the findings of this study to review and to improve other poverty alleviation programmes in the Waterberg District and the Province.Item Managing the transition at Bakoni Malapa Open Air Museum(2008-05-22T10:59:42Z) Musinguzi, DanThis study explores how Bakoni Malapa Northern Sotho Open Air Museum situated outside Polokwane, Limpopo province is surviving in post apartheid South Africa. The specific areas investigated are: employment conditions, marketing of the museum, description of the museum products, and stakeholders’ perceptions of problems limiting success of the institution. An analysis of the nature of problems faced by the museum and recommendations for improving its success are also offered. Face to face interviews guided by interview schedules with semi structured questions were used to collect data. Personal observation was another method used to supplement interviews during data collection. Some of participants’ interview responses were audio taped while others were recorded as field notes. Audio taped responses were transcribed and together with field notes all were analysed by applying Colaizzi’s (1978) seven steps of data analysis. Data credibility was acquired through relatively prolonged engagement, detailed observation, triangulation, and taking the research findings back to participants to confirm whether their statements were interpreted correctly. Research findings indicated a number of problems limiting the success of the museum. The most important of these are: bad management-employee relationships, insufficient funds, lack of appropriate marketing strategies, lack of land, insufficient cultural and tourism knowledge among management, lack of staff, semi illiteracy and lack of skills training among staff, and lack of a defined vision. The analysis of the research findings suggest that Bakoni Malapa is not successful, however, success is defined.Item Land degradation in the Limpopo Province, South Africa(2007-02-26T13:25:10Z) Gibson, Donald J. D.An estimated 91 % of South Africa’s total land area is considered dryland and susceptible to desertification. In response, South Africa has prepared a National Action Programme to combat land degradation, and this requires assessment and monitoring to be conducted in a systematic, cost effective, objective, timely and geographically-accurate way. Despite a perception-based assessment of land degradation conducted in 1999, and a land-cover mapping exercise conducted for 2000/2001, there are few national scientifically rigorous degradation monitoring activities being undertaken, due largely to a lack of objective, quantitative methods for use in large-scale assessments. This study therefore tests a satellitederived index of degradation for the Limpopo Province in South Africa, which is perceived to be one of the most degraded provinces in the country. The long-term average maximum normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), calculated from a time series (1985-2004) of NOAA AVHRR satellite images, as a proxy for vegetation productivity, was related to water balance datasets of mean annual precipitation (MAP) and growth days index (GDI), using both linear and non-linear functions. Although the linear regressions were highly significant (p<0.005), a non-linear four parameter Gompertz curve was shown to fit the data more accurately. The curve explained only a little of the variance in the data in the relationship between NDVI and GDI, and so GDI was excluded from further analysis. All pixels that fell below a range of threshold standard deviations less than the fitted curve were deemed to represent degraded areas, where productivity was less than the predicted value. The results were compared qualitatively to existing spatial datasets. A large proportion of the degraded areas that were mapped using the approach outlined above occurred on areas of untransformed savanna and dryland cultivation. However the optical properties of dark igneous derived soils with high proportions of smectitic minerals and therefore low reflectance, were shown to lower NDVI values substantially. Overall, there was an acceptable agreement between the mapped degradation and the validation datasets. While further refinement of the methodology is necessary, including a rigorous field-based resource condition assessment for validation purposes, and research into the biophysical effects on the NDVI values, the methodology shows promise for regional assessment in South Africa.