Zimbabwe's 2000-2009 economic crisis led to the erosion of many pension contributions. Whilst the 2017 Smith Commission presented a compensation scheme for those who lost their savings - almost ten years later, implementation remains slow. Despite the limited progress in compensating civil servants, private-sector compensation has stalled, with only one scheme approved out of nearly a thousand registered funds. In understanding why we haven't seen reasonable progress in implementing the compensation scheme - secondary data analysis was used to consult the Smith Commission, along with other reports (published between 2015 and 2025), from the media, government, and relevant agencies. The study attributes the delays in honoring compensations to; (i) forensic, actuarial and legal obstacles (ii) data integrity/status problems and (iii) challenges with member identification/tracing and high emigration rates. The study situates these implementation barriers within wider challenges of public-institution reform and restorative justice following macroeconomic collapse and regulatory failures.
Transfrontier Conservation Areas (TFCAs) aim to promote sustainable conservation and economic integration across national borders. In Southern Africa, these transboundary areas are seen as engines of conservation-led development, but the impact on regional tourism markets remains unclear. This study examines the Kavango Zambezi (KAZA) TFCA's impacts on intra-regional tourism, with a focus on Botswana. Using interdependence and market integration theories, relevant indicators, and Controlled Interrupted Time Series models, results show modest changes post-KAZA. However, interdependence remains asymmetric, with tourist flows mainly in Botswana due to differences in product quality, conservation, and marketing, resulting in the siphon effect and skewed dependence. This suggests that the KAZA TFCA has not yet demonstrated clear evidence of integrated tourism markets or sustained cross-border tourism circuits, as indicated by observed flow patterns and indicators of independence. However, KAZA has implemented UniVisa and collaborative policies that promote equitable benefits. Botswana should leverage its cooperative advantage to promote KAZA's cooperative branding.
Pandemics have influenced global tourism, causing devastating impacts to tour operators in countries in the global south, such as Tanzania. This qualitative study used resilience theory to explore adaptive and recovery strategies adopted by tour operators to remain operational in Northern Tanzania. Data were collected from 26 tour operators (TOs) and 12 key informants through 38 interviews. The study also carried out field observations of 26 TOs and a document review to supplement the interview data. Thematic analysis revealed that TOs reduced costs, adopted innovation, and adhered to health protocols as resilient strategies. Moreover, TOs targeted domestic markets and fostered collaborations as recovery strategies. The emergence of digital transformation, shifting from face to face to online engagement, demonstrates operational adaptability. Overall, the findings highlight the importance of collaborations in enhancing resilience. These strategies are essential for sustainable tourism. The study recommends the enhancement of crisis management documentation and prioritising domestic tourism as strategies for strengthening resilience.
Rapid urbanization and climate change contribute to the increased vulnerability of informal urbanisation, making informal dwellers more prone to natural disasters. Nevertheless, informal communities show inbuilt resilience in coping with such catastrophic events. This research seeks to map and characterize vulnerability to natural hazards in informal settlements in South Africa. By combining drone imagery with collaborative mapping, this pilot study proposes a novel approach to enhance community resilience and co-design practical strategies for disaster management in informal settlements. The proposed approach seeks to stimulate a community-led response to risks, focusing on implementing early warning systems and using low-cost moisture and fire sensors, while showing how vulnerable communities can actively participate as co-researchers in disaster management planning. Findings show the value of participatory workshops, the establishment of community disaster committees, and the use of accessible communication channels to strengthen disaster risk education and awareness. This research highlighted the critical role of leadership and capacity building in informal communities as a key strategy for fostering community resilience and self-reliance, and advancing community-led approaches to risk management. By combining local and Indigenous knowledge with technical tools and community-driven approaches, this study presents a framework for inclusive disaster risk reduction in vulnerable settings.
The 2024 National and Provincial Elections in South Africa precipitated a structural shift from single-party dominance to coalition governance. This paper analyses electoral volatility within the Gauteng City-Region (GCR), with emphasis on Johannesburg and Tshwane. Using a convergent parallel mixed-methods approach, integrating Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) electoral data (2011-2024), longitudinal GCRO Quality of Life survey data (2009-2024), and practitioner-researcher participant observation, we triangulate macro-level electoral and trust trends with micro-level coalition governance dynamics. The analysis correlates declining voter turnout and political fragmentation with a profound erosion of public trust, revealing that a 'politics of instability', marked by leadership churn and administrative paralysis, has alienated the electorate. We juxtapose this domestic fragility with the global ambitions of Johannesburg and Tshwane as co-Chairs of the Urban 20 (U20) in 2025, arguing that participation in transnational city networks offers a 'post-political' refuge, access to external legitimacy and technocratic stability amidst internal political turbulence.
Local Economic Development (LED) is a key component of South Africa's developmental local government mandate, yet questions remain about whether LED units effectively convert public resources into improved welfare outcomes. This study assesses the efficiency of LED units across South Africa's eight metropolitan municipalities from 2010 to 2022 using a quantitative input-oriented Data Envelopment Analysis approach. LED budgets are evaluated against welfare indicators derived from the Human Development Index, including life expectancy, education, income, and unemployment. The findings reveal variation in technical, scale, and overall efficiency across metropolitan municipalities. The City of Tshwane and the Mangaung Metropolitan Municipality consistently perform well, while Buffalo City and eThekwini Metropolitan Municipalities exhibit inefficiencies. The city of Johannesburg demonstrates strong technical efficiency but weak scale efficiency, pointing to constraints. The study provides a performance-based framework for evaluating LED effectiveness and highlights the importance of institutional capacity and scale alignment in advancing welfare-oriented local development.
Ghana continues to struggle with universal sanitation, as 58.1% of households in Jirapa lack toilets, resulting in open defecation. This study assessed preferences, willingness to pay (WTP), and factors influencing toilet construction using a choice experiment. Data was collected from 228 respondents. A mixed logit model was used for estimation. The results showed positive utility for wooden doors, block walls, metal roofs, and wooden seats, but the disutility of concrete floors and higher costs discouraged respondents from choosing improved alternatives. Highest WTP was GHC204.6 ($14.43) for roofs, lowest GHC102.4 ($7.22) for walls, and - GHC271.5 (-$19.15) for concrete floors. Comfort, privacy, and dignity shaped preferences. Recommendations include promoting preferred attributes, targeted financial support, awareness campaigns, and scaling up UNICEF's Revolving Fund program.
Child marriage is pervasive in developing countries, impacting girls' education, health and overall well-being. Investigating its effects on women's empowerment is crucial for addressing gender inequality and achieving national and international goals. While previous studies have explored the causes and consequences of child marriage, few have focused on its relationship with women's empowerment. To address this gap, we used a Pooled Ordinary Least Squares model and data from the Zimbabwe Demographic Health Survey collected in 2005/06, 2010/11, and 2015. Findings reveal regional disparities, with rural areas experiencing higher child marriage rates and lower empowerment levels than urban areas. Our study confirms a significant and negative association between child marriage and women's empowerment, aligning with prior research. While child marriage remains negatively associated with women's empowerment, this association appears to be weaker among younger women than older women. In addition, having multiple co-wives is significantly associated with low women's empowerment. Conversely, female-headed households, higher education levels, socioeconomic status, women's work, and exposure to media also significantly contribute to empowerment. The study emphasises the need to address child marriage and promote women's empowerment for gender equality and sustainable development in Zimbabwe.
This study examines citizen participation in local governance within Gauteng Province, South Africa, highlighting invited spaces or government-created forums. Analysing data from the Gauteng City Region Observatory's Quality of Life VII survey (n = 13,795), findings reveal that 60% of residents have never participated in these forums, with just 4% involved in all four. This suggests systematic exclusion, influenced by several factors. Key predictors of low participation include length of residence, persistent racial disparities, and an inverse relationship where lower-income residents participate more. Barriers such as limited time, poverty, transport costs, and distrust in institutions further exacerbate low participation levels. Utilising Miraftab's framework, the study reinforces that low participation in government-created forums can coexist with other participatory processes. To nurture inclusive local governance, efforts must address structural barriers, build trust, and recognise alternative participatory spaces as vital democratic expressions.
Despite advancements in digitalisation, Namibia continues to face significant inequality in human development and electricity access. This study examines the effects of digitalisation, electricity access inequality, and their interaction with governance on inclusive human development, using an Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) approach on quarterly data from 2010Q1 to 2023Q4, analyzed via EViews 14. Findings reveal that digitalisation positively enhances inclusive human development by 0.085 in the long run. However, the interaction between digitalisation and the urban-rural electricity access gap reduces inclusive human development by -0.175 over the same period. Short-run effects vary across time lags. Governance demonstrates a positive short-run impact, though this diminishes in later periods, reflecting implementation challenges. Crucially, the long-run interaction between digitalisation and electricity access inequality is negative, confirming that digital gains depend on equitable energy access. These findings underscore the need for integrated digital and energy policies to advance inclusive development in Namibia.
South Africa has invested in infant and young child feeding (IYCF) policy for three decades, yet stunting persists at 27-29% among children under five. This paper applies the Tanahashi effective coverage cascade to evaluate where the IYCF policy framework fails between design and dietary practice. A desk-based synthesis integrates an evidence review, a policy instrument inventory coded against five coverage stages, and an affordability analysis using affordability index estimates from 2018 to 2026. Policy instruments achieve availability coverage across the protect-promote-support framework but fail downstream. For breastfeeding, the coverage chain breaks at contact and effective coverage. For complementary feeding, it breaks earlier, at accessibility: the Child Support Grant covers 54-60% of a basic nutritious child diet in the post-2021 series (59% in January 2026). South Africa lacks a national IYCF monitoring framework aligned to WHO and UNICEF (2021) definitions. Priority actions include adopting standardised indicators, establishing post-discharge counselling, and introducing an economic accessibility mechanism for the 6-23 month window.
This study investigates energy use patterns and the factors influencing energy choices among low- and middle-income households in Maputo City, Mozambique, as an empirically grounded, policy-oriented case study of the urban energy transition. Using survey data from 255 households and interviews, we apply the energy stacking model to examine how households combine fuels under limited and unequal access to modern energy. Charcoal use remains widespread: 94% of households rely more or less on charcoal, and use it alongside gas and electricity, despite near-universal grid connection. For low-income households, charcoal use persists because it can be purchased in small quantities daily. In contrast, middle-income households diversify their fuel sources. This mix is related to income, education, household size, and cultural and behavioural factors, supporting the energy stacking model over a linear energy ladder model. The results of a Generalised Linear Model indicate that the use of multiple energy sources is associated with less charcoal consumption. In this context, the article concludes by proposing pathways for policymakers and other stakeholders to reduce charcoal demand within urban households.
Africa has lagged behind most other parts of the world in terms of the expansion of social protection. Within Africa, Southern Africa has the most extensive coverage and most adequate benefits. When COVID-19 hit the world in 2020, many observers expected that it would accelerate the expansion of social protection across Africa, including Southern Africa. Whilst South Africa introduced a new grant that proved difficult to terminate, most countries in the region provided once-off emergency measures (Namibia, Botswana) or left emergency measures to donors (Zambia, Malawi). Even in South Africa, public opinion about social grants does not seem to have been shifted fundamentally. The urgency of the emergency and the circumstances under lockdowns prompted governments to innovate with respect to digital application and payment systems for their emergency interventions, but even these new systems were not extended to other - and more enduring - social protection programmes.
This paper investigates young adults' lived experience of precarity and unemployment in rural Eastern Cape by capturing their perceptions of the Covid-19 Social Relief of Distress grant (SRDg) to achieve a better life.Findings are based on field work conducted in January-May 2024, including participant observation, sixty in-depth interviews, and focus group discussions conducted in villages of the Eastern Cape province. Some scholars argue that radical direct forms of redistribution have the potential to decentre employment. Conversely, this paper voices a choral desire for jobs - i.e. for commodification - for financial stability but also recognition, relationships, and as a way out of the dullness of everyday life. Across these experiences, hopes for a better life are placed in finding a proper job, as the Social Relief and Distress (SRDg) grant is helping to get by, but it remains far from being a building block for their future.
How did international organisations and domestic politics interact to delay the extension of COVID-19 cash transfers in Malawi? Literature suggests that while international actors influence adoption of social transfers by sceptical African governments, their impact has been moderated by domestic politics, which matter more for budget provision for social transfers. The paper uses interviews and document analysis to trace the development of COVID-19 emergency payments during a politically charged period before an election. The pandemic provided a window of opportunity for expansion of transfers, but the election provided an opposite effect when donors used their long-standing power to suspend COVID-19 payments for three months. The study highlights the complex ways that donor influence shapes policy, facilitating some reforms while constraining others.
This paper examines the effects of health insurance on inpatient care utilisation and health status. The study employed the Conditional Mixed Process recursive framework to account for simultaneity and endogeneity. The study is the first to examine the influence of health insurance on inpatient care utilisation and health status concurrently using a system estimation technique. The results indicate a significant association between NHIS enrolment and inpatient care, and between NHIS enrolment and health status. These results suggest that estimating these models as single equations would yield biased and inconsistent estimates. Our primary findings revealed that NHIS decreases hospitalisation days and improves the health status of insured members relative to their uninsured counterparts. Therefore, expanding enrolment in the scheme may contribute to achieving the Sustainable Development Goal of universal health coverage.
Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) holds significant transformative potential for Africa's financial sector by enhancing efficiency, driving innovation, and promoting financial inclusion. This study adopts a theory-driven research approach to develop propositions on how GenAI can reshape financial institutions across African contexts. The analysis acknowledges the continent's socio-economic and institutional heterogeneity, while recognising the value of cross-country learning and adaptation. The study identifies key benefits of GenAI alongside critical risks and constraints, including data quality and availability, regulatory challenges, cybersecurity and shortages of technical expertise. The study emphasises the role of governments, technology providers, and financial institutions in building an ecosystem that enables ethical, secure, and inclusive deployment of GenAI. The main limitation remains data constraints, and future research should focus on innovative; context sensitive data development strategies suited to Africa's financial systems. Future research should focus on developing innovative data collection methods that are tailored to Africa continent.
This paper analyses community participation in solid waste management in Kliptown, an informal and disadvantaged neighbourhood of Johannesburg characterised by inadequate infrastructure and strained relations between citizens and the state. Using mixed-methods approaches, the results reveal low formal engagement and significant reliance on informal waste disposal, driven by structural constraints such as unreliable public services, rather than apathy. The findings demonstrate that participation is institutionally contingent on the perceived reliability of municipal services, highlighting the need for context-specific collaboration to mitigate environmental health risks. The paper further argues that by considering participation deficits as consequences of governance conditions rather than individual behaviours, the study contributes to the debate on urban service delivery in informal settlements and underscores the need for reliable services, institutionalized collaboration, and context-appropriate community engagement strategies.
