Centre for Development Support

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Browsing Centre for Development Support by Author "Atkinson, Doreen"

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    Civic culture and local economic development in a small town
    (University of the Free State, 2013) Van Rooyen, Deidré; Atkinson, Doreen
    𝑬𝒏𝒈𝒍𝒊𝒔𝒉 Although several cases of successful Local Economic Development (LED) programmes and initiatives addressing poverty and inequity are present in South Africa, there are still a number of challenges to overcome. Firstly, the definition of LED varies, however the essence of LED is local partnerships for locality planning – based on economic growth. Consequently, the analysis in this thesis uses the “L-E-P” model, combining elements of “Locality”, “Economic” and “Partnerships”. This model could be an answer for LED policy and practice to make use of all these elements. Secondly, LED strategies need to go beyond merely compiling LED documents. Municipalities need to engage with communities and the private sector in prioritising and designing appropriate strategies that unlock local potential. However, in South Africa partnerships have not always been central to LED planning. Furthermore, the soft factors of co-operation – trust and social capital -, which are considered essential for effective collaboration between state and non-state actors, should be constructed. Consequently, LED practitioners need to pay greater attention to social relationships and networks, which fundamentally mould local economies. Thirdly, academic research is only starting to incorporate social resources into economic development practice. Furthermore, only a few authors have taken the concept of civic culture into consideration when analysing LED. Local civic culture relates to how local problems are defined, how solutions are found, how the local economic problems can be solved, who is involved and how the decisions are made. International civic culture literature has been contextualised to classify civic culture in South African terms. If an understanding of the civic culture of an area is acknowledged, planning and development of this area can be simplified. Beaufort West is used as an example of a typical Karoo town to illustrate how the type of civic culture a community has, can influence local economic growth. Fourthly, there is a lack of research related to the establishment, growth and development of mining towns. Although numerous international mining companies have identified the Karoo surrounding Beaufort West for uranium extraction, planning documents of the Western Cape Provincial Growth and Development Strategy (PGDS) and also in the Integrated Development plans (IDPs) of the Central Karoo District Municipality and the Beaufort West Local Municipality do not make any suggestions for the economic “roller-coaster” ride ahead. The sustainability of mining (non-renewable resource) towns is not as important as are the economic developments of and the proactive planning (in partnerships) in these towns. Fifthly, business confidence helps explain the sentiments that business owners or managers have towards current and future business conditions. Several ways of measuring business confidence are compared. Business confidence is mostly surveyed at national level. A methodology for business confidence surveys at the local level is provided. This approach has been piloted in the town of Beaufort West in the Karoo area of South Africa. There are plans for a new uranium mine near Beaufort West, and the researcher speculates on its impact on the broader local business confidence. The results of the 2007 and 2009 study in terms of the opinions of business confidence in Beaufort West are compared. There are very few comparative studies in terms of all the above-mentioned factors. Therefore, the researcher proposes that these methodologies and models should be tested in other towns. This will then determine whether the results differ in other Karoo towns and from the rest of South Africa.
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    Promoting conservation agriculture and commercial farmers in the Eastern Free State
    (University of the Free State, 14-May) Knot, Jakob; Atkinson, Doreen; Le Roux, Pieter
    Agriculture contributes to greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) through practices that reduce the amount of soil organic carbon. Examples of this are fallow and intensive tillage. Conventional ways of farming are not sustainable as soils are degraded, imbalanced, over-utilized, low in organic matter and without heavy inorganic fertilizer good yields are not possible. Sustainable crop production however is essential for South Africa’s food security, employment and contribution to the national economy. The sustainability of agriculture needs therefore to address environmental, economical and sociological aspects. Conservation Agriculture (CA) is world-wide found as an antipode against soil degradation, erosion and ineffective water conservation as a result of conventional tillage. The problem, however is that CA is a much developed product of No-till, which requires a gradual and timely process. No-tillage in itself is not the desired outcome, but a first step to CA. Ample technical research has been conducted on no-tillage and CA reflecting improved soil quality, yields and profits (see paper 1). This thesis will elaborate more on local technical issues e.g. soil quality (paper 4) and profitability (paper 3), as to contribute to the increased adoption of sustainable farming. This thesis emphasized the urgency for transdisciplinary research and the role of sociology in innovation studies. The role of sociology is often overlooked, but this thesis advocates that sociology is an integral part of transdisciplinary research. Narratives are useful methods of explaining what NT and CA is (see paper 2). The Actor Network Theory is useful in that farmers possess “agency” as a result of networking, which enables the uptake of an innovation of NT and in addition to develop into context related or ecotype specific CA production system (see paper 5). This thesis addressed conventional farmers barriers to adopting NT e.g. livestock integration, doubt concerning profitability and lack of knowhow. This thesis contributes to environmental awareness and promotes that CA can mitigate GHG emissions through sequestration of organic carbon in the soil (paper 4) and reflecting direct and indirect environmental costs in terms of GHG through the use of diesel, fertilizer, pesticides and other chemicals (see paper 3).