AJIC Issue 22, 2018
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Item AJIC Issue 22, 2018 - Full Issue (LINK Centre, University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), Johannesburg, 2018-12-07)Item AJIC Issue 22, 2018 - Full Issue - Print-on-Demand Version (LINK Centre, University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), Johannesburg, 2018-12-07)Item Evolution of Africa’s Intellectual Property Treaty Ratification Landscape(LINK Centre, University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), Johannesburg, 2018-12-07) De Beer, Jeremy; Baarbé, Jeremiah; Ncube, CarolineIntellectual property (IP) policy is an important contributor to economic growth and human development. However, international commitments harmonised in IP treaties often exist in tension with local needs for flexibility. This article tracks the adoption of IP treaties in Africa over a 131-year span, from 1884 to 2015, through breaking it down into four periods demarcated by points in time coinciding with key events in African and international IP law: the periods 1884–1935, 1936–1965, 1966–1995, and 1996¬–2015. The article explores relevant historical and legal aspects of each of these four periods, in order to assess and contextualise the evolutions of the IP treaty landscape on the continent. The findings show that treaties now saturate the IP policy space throughout the continent, limiting the ability to locally tailor approaches to knowledge governance.Item Nigerian Copyright Reform and Implications for Access to Teaching and Learning Materials (TLMs) in the Digital Age(LINK Centre, University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), Johannesburg, 2018-12-07) Chuma-Okoro, HelenThis article examines the extent to which the provisions of Nigeria’s draft Copyright Bill promote access to teaching and learning materials (TLMs), with such access framed as an important public interest goal. The article highlights the weaknesses in the extant Nigerian copyright statute with regard to TLM access, and examines the extent to which the provisions of the draft Bill would provide improvement. The article concludes that while the draft Bill provides significant improvements in respect of TLM access, it also contains significant weaknesses and gaps which Nigerian lawmakers should seek to address.Item Mobile Phone Use by Zimbabwean Smallholder Farmers: A Baseline Study(LINK Centre, University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), Johannesburg, 2018-12-07) Musungwini, SamuelThis article provides findings from a baseline study on mobile phone use by smallholder farmers in Zimbabwe. The study investigated use of mobile phones by 58 farming households in a village in Zimbabwe’s Midlands Province. Via a survey questionnaire and a focus group discussion, the study found that 100% of the surveyed households identified “asymmetry of information” as a challenge they face in their agricultural activities, and 90% cited “absence of market information” as a challenge. Yet at the same time, the study found low levels of household mobile phone usage, with only 50% of households were found to be using mobile telephony in support of a farming activity. The article concludes with a recommendation for how to close this apparent gap between the smallholder farmers’ felt need for increased agricultural information and, at the same time, their lack of use of mobile telephony to access such information.Item Patterns of Innovation and Knowledge in Two Ethiopian Informal-Sector Clusters: A Study of the Shiro Meda Handloom-Weavers and Merkato Shoemakers(LINK Centre, University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), Johannesburg, 2018-12-07) Belete, WondwossenThis article provides findings from a study of innovation and knowledge management practices in two informal-sector micro and small enterprise (MSE) clusters in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa: a handloom-weaving cluster and a shoemaking cluster. The activities in these two clusters were studied in order to explore the patterns of innovation in the MSEs, and to identify factors that influence collaboration and the spread of knowledge among the enterprises. The research also explored the enterprises’ knowledge appropriation behaviours and perspectives in relation to their informal-sector innovations, i.e., their orientations towards both informal knowledge appropriation mechanisms and formal tools of intellectual property (IP) protection.Item Adoption of Electronic Fiscal Devices (EFDs) for Value-Added Tax (VAT) Collection in Kenya and Tanzania: A Systematic Review(LINK Centre, University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), Johannesburg, 2018-12-07) Eilu, EmmanuelDomestic revenue collection through taxation is still below its potential in many Sub- Saharan African countries. In an attempt to boost their tax revenues, many national governments have deployed electronic fiscal devices (EFDs) to improve value-added tax (VAT) collection. However, there is evidence indicating that the deployment of EFDs in some African countries has encountered substantial challenges. Using the systematic review method, the research described in this article investigated challenges encountered in adoption of EFDs in Kenya and Tanzania. The review concludes by modelling recommendations, extracted from seven existing studies, in terms of the technology-organisation-environment (TOE) framework (Tornatzky & Fleisher, 1990). This model is an effort to provide a potential guide for successful EFD adoption in East Africa.