The perceptions of Government Social Protection Programmes in mitigating the challenges faced by street children in Harare Metropolitan Province in Zimbabwe
- Authors: Gunhidzirai, Constance
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: Poverty Alleviation Street children
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD (Social Work)
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10353/17998 , vital:42002
- Description: This study was aimed at examining the perceptions of Government Social Protection Programmes in mitigating the challenges faced by street children in Harare Metropolitan Province in Zimbabwe. The study was based on the pragmatism paradigm that triangulated both quantitative and qualitative research methods of collecting data. A questionnaire survey was administered to 202 street children while 32 heads of households were involved in focus group discussions and four Social Workers took part in semi-structured interviews. Drawing from the Human Rights-Based Approach (HRBA), Psychoanalysis Theory and Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory (EST) that guided the study, the findings revealed that street children experienced economic, social, physical and psychological challenges that hindered their attainment of full growth and development. Findings further revealed that street children adopted various coping strategies to mitigate the challenges they encountered in the streets to ensure sustainability. Furthermore, not all Government Social Protection Programmes were effective in addressing the plights of street children. This was due to inadequate funds, corruption and discriminatory criteria for selection of beneficiaries. These impediments hindered the provision of comprehensive social welfare services to street children, which led street children to adopt various coping strategies to mitigate the challenges they encountered in their efforts to ensure sustainability. The study concludes that Government Social Protection Programmes (GSPPs) such as Basic Education Assistance Module, Child Adoption, Institutional Care, National Action Plan for Orphans and Vulnerable Children, Free vii Treatment Order and Harmonized Cash Transfer are not entirely addressing the challenges facing street children in Harare Metropolitan Province. This is because of the criteria used to select street children, which systematically excludes them from benefitting, resulting in extended impoverishment and vulnerability. The study further recommends that the government of Zimbabwe provide productive safety nets and sponsor self-help projects to empower vulnerable households, and source out additional resources such as human resource and finance for Social Protection Programmes from Non-Government Organisations, private companies
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Perception of climate change impacts, adaptation responses and national response policy outreach by smallholder farmers in Amathole District, South Africa
- Authors: Popoola, Oluwaseun Oluwabunmi
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: Climatic changes -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape Global environmental change Climate change mitigation
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10353/9000 , vital:34181
- Description: The climate is changing, with imminent threats. Projections for increased inconsistencies in climatic elements such as rainfall and temperature have continued to raise concerns particularly amongst farmers. The majority of South African smallholder and resource-poor farmers rely heavily on rain-fed agriculture, making them vulnerable to the vagaries of climate change risks. As sustainability is crucial to the continuous survival of this population, this study assessed the farmers’ perceptions of climate change impacts on agricultural production activities as well as their adaptation responses. The South African national climate change response policy was developed and approved in October 2011 in order to institute a responsive intervention system for the moderation of climate change impacts on South Africa’s citizens. Amongst its priorities is building capacity and resilience in the country’s agricultural sector, with the public agricultural extension system as a principal component for climate change sensitisation, education and capacity-building. With current global climate change conditions, the urgency to provide agricultural knowledge on adaptation has risen. Smallholder farmers, in particular, are challenged in this regard, and face numerous restraining factors. Therefore, this study investigated several key issues related to climate change sensitization activities and response. A multistage sampling procedure was used in the selection of the study sample (n = 301) residing in the rural settlements of Mbahashe Local Municipality, in Amathole District Municipality, Eastern Cape Province, South Africa. A cross-sectional household survey was carried out in eighteen villages surrounding the three major towns in the municipality – Idutywa, Elliotdale and Willowvale. Data was collected using semi-structured questionnaires. Descriptive and inferential statistical tools were used for data analysis. Findings revealed a perceived increase in temperature levels and a drastic decline in rainfall; perceived harsh and aggressive climatic conditions, with attendant problems of drought. There is a perceived increased difficulty in production activities as a result of water scarcity. Poor soil conditions, pest infestations and disease infections, poor vegetation and limited grazing, decreased livestock growth rate, reduced livestock weight, milk production and reproduction rates, reduction in quantity of egg production, egg quality and sizes, are amongst many other perceived challenges. There is a growing threat of unsustainable agricultural production, which may in due course increase poverty levels among the smallholder farmers. Adaptation responses were extremely limited. Findings also revealed that there is an extremely low awareness of the national climate change response policy, and a dearth of sensitisation campaigns and capacity-building training of smallholder farmers in the study area. There is also a significant lack of access to agricultural extension services that might disseminate information and build capacity for an appropriate climate change response. Analysis also revealed that public extension services play a minute role in rural farmers’ climate change knowledge; they get their information elsewhere. The most critical constraint to climate change coping and adaptation in the study area was lack of access to agricultural extension services. The study recommends government intervention in the form of appropriate, functional extension services, particularly for carrying out climate change coping and adaptation education and support. It also strongly endorses the tower gardening concept, practised in a number of countries, including parts of South Africa to facilitate an exigent intervention project to curb declining crop production and sustain the livelihoods of farmers, before major intervention schemes are set up by various governing bodies. There is an immense need to buffer the adaptation capacities of livestock smallholder farmers in rural communities through the implementation of adaptation promotional schemes for rural livestock sustainability. Productivity and efficient commercialization of both indigenous and hybrid poultry production should be beefed up by encouraging poultry breeding programs and breed improvement activities, subsidizing commercial feeds to encourage supplementary feeding, provision of better infrastructure for improved housing and the facilitation of health care systems like vaccination programs. This study also recommends that efforts to create awareness, knowledge and skills in relation to climate change be intensified through an enhanced use of all media. In addition, agricultural extension departments functioning at the local level should be financially and technically capacitated to allow for enhanced performance by their field officers.
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Market participation and value chain integration among smallholder homestead and irrigated crop farmers in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa
- Authors: Mdoda, Lelethu
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: Farms, Small -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape Irrigation farming -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , DPhil
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10353/15023 , vital:40152
- Description: The irrigation schemes had been established over the years and now are operational but there is no marked improvement in the living conditions of the rural farmers and households. Smallholder farmers still face numerous constraints in market participation that hinder smallholder farmers, irrigators and homestead growth which have been attributed to lack of access to markets and technical expertise. Despite the government efforts, smallholder farmers effectively functioning in the agro-food chains, high-valued markets and commercial agricultural markets are rare; this indicates that the objective to allow smallholder farmers to advance their livelihood through participating in commercial agro-food chains has not yet been met. Farmers in the Eastern Cape produce many crops which they mainly sell in informal local markets; there is minimal number of smallholder farmers supplying their produce to the formal markets. Irrigation development is very crucial to the development of the agricultural sector as it ensures improvement in yields and reduces rural poverty through creating rural employment, enhance smallholder farmers’ market participation and enhance market access policies by smallholder farmers as means to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals The study was conducted in the Eastern Cape Province and employed survey data obtained from 200 smallholder irrigated crop farmers and homestead gardeners. A multistage stratified sampling procedure was used in which the first stage involved selecting the study areas. This was followed by the selection of the district and then the respondents. The farmers were selected from three District Municipalities which have operational irrigation schemes, namely OR Tambo, Amathole and Chris Hani District Municipalities in the province. STATA and SPSS were used to analyze the data. The Heckman model was applied to examine factors influencing farmers’ decision to participate in market among crop producing farmers in the province. In the first stage Heckman analysis, the decision as to whether or not to participate (which is a binary choice situation) is used to undertake the maximum likelihood estimation (MLE). In the second stage, the conditional quantity sold (continuous variable) is assumed to follow a truncated normal regression model, whereby the MLE is estimated by fitting a truncated normal regression of quantity sold. Gross Margin and Net Farm Income were used to measure farm profit as well as multiple regression analysis to estimate determinants of profitability in the study area. Profit efficiency was measured using the normalized transcendent logarithmic profit frontier approach (translog). he descriptive statistics employed include means, percentages and frequencies mostly of the socio-economic characteristics of farmers in the study area. The results show that males were dominant with the representation of 61.7percent. The majority of farmers were aged and the mean age was 60 years, indicating that farmers in the province are old which has implication for productivity and market participation. High level of illiteracy is shown in the data and mean household size of 5 persons with the household head having at least obtained some primary school education.The irrigated crop farmers and homesteads were found to have farm size under 4 ha. About 86.5percent were full time farmers and Farming is their major source of livelihood. Smallholder irrigators and homestead gardeners derive their income from social grants and remittances. This thesis found out that majority of the farmers do not participate in markets. In this instance, farming becomes a scapegoat for failure to enter alternative labour markets. The average annual on-farm production income from smallholder irrigators was R7 860.27 and homestead gardeners was R5 915.50. The empirical results from probit model suggest that age of the farmer, level of education of the farmer, household size, farm organization, access to extension, distance to markets, occupation and farm experience were some of the key determinants that had significant and positive effects on farmers’ decision to participate in markets while access to credit, transport to the markets and farm size were some of the key determinants that had significant and negative effect on farmers’ decision to participate in markets. The volume of crops sold to the market is determined by gender, age, years spent in school, distance to the market, farm experience, household size, access to extension, membership in farm organization and non-farm income.
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