Bioenergy in Southern Africa: An opportunity for regional integration?

ABSTRACT

This introductory paper sets out the rationale for revisiting questions surrounding biofuel futures in Southern Africa and exploring the case for the establishment of a regional market. This contrasts with most research that has focused upon benefits and risks of production and consumption for individual countries. The analysis in this issue suggests that while benefits exist, the key challenges that have stifled production and consumption to date would need to be overcome. Unlocking trade requires relaxing requirements for South African manufacturers to source all their feedstock domestically. Key among factors to encourage production is resolving agricultural investment processes, particularly designing inclusive business models and clarifying land acquisition processes.     

Policy and trade issues for a future regional biofuels market in Southern Africa

ABSTRACT

This paper reviews the domestic political and legislative context surround biofuels initiatives to highlight what opportunities exist for establishing a biofuels trade network between South Africa (as an anchor market) and its neighbours, specifically in Zambia and Mozambique. By analysing global developments in major biofuel importers, reasons for policy inertia in South Africa, and recent experiences with biofuels investments, we suggest that the likelihood for a regional biofuels market developing is slender without addressing land-related challenges in producer countries and revising South Africa’s domestic legislation.     

Psychology and the development problem in Southern Africa

Although psychology is mainly concerned with the study of the individual, it can also make a valuable contribution to the economic development of communities, as the same complex factors are involved. Several relevant viewpoints of contemporary psychologists are discussed and their implications for development research are indicated. The conclusion is reached that psychologists can make a major contribution by studying personal factors that play a role in development, by therapeutic interventions and as advisory members of research teams.     

技术就绪度在科技重大专项中期评估中的应用

中期绩效评估是科技重大专项管理的重要环节，目的在于评价项目中期阶段的执行情况。通过建立基于技术就绪度方法的基础技术领域评价标准和细则，研究在省级科技重大项目现有中期评估工作中嵌入技术就绪度评价的实施方案，应用初评和细则清单确认两阶段评价的方法，优化评价流程，减轻项目承担单位的工作负担。引入技术就绪度评价有助于及时掌握项目关键技术的实施进展情况，发现潜在的技术风险，促进项目成果转化。     

The migration and development nexus in Southern Africa Introduction

The role of international and internal migration in facilitating or inhibiting development is currently attracting considerable attention globally. In southern Africa, the migration–development nexus has been researched for a number of years and policy makers in both the development and migration fields are now paying it increasing attention and increasingly recognising the significance of migration for development and poverty reduction. Much of the international debate on this nexus is hampered by the absence of sound, reliable national and local data. This collection of essays by southern African researchers combines the national with the local, the quantitative with the qualitative, and addresses several prominent themes in the global migration–development debate: remittances, the brain drain and migrant rights. It also focuses on key migration–development issues which have received less attention globally, but which are of critical importance to southern Africa: migration and HIV/AIDS, migration and food security and the rural impact of migrant retrenchments. This Introduction to the collection contextualises the essays within current international and local debates.     

Considerations in technology transfer in less developed areas of Southern Africa

A systems approach is used in analysing the physical, institutional, technological and human constraints to agricultural production and development in less developed areas. Suggestions are made for policy considerations, strengthening research and extension linkages, selection of target groups and key factors necessary to improve the effectiveness of agricultural extension.     

Agricultural development in Southern Africa: Theory,lessons and the food crisis in Africa

In this paper a household economics theory of farm‐household production in the Southern African context is presented which (a) places a new interpretation on the causes of low productivity per person and unit of land in the African farming sector, (b) demonstrates that even where improved food crop technology is widely adopted it may have a very limited impact on marketed production, and (c) contributes to an understanding of why Africa's food production per person continues to fall despite per capita aid inflows which have exceeded those for any other continent over the last decade.     

The contribution of urban and regional planning towards regional development in Southern Africa

Regional planning experienced a fast growth in South Africa, both in theory and practice, since the mid sixties. This growth was made possible by government support for regional planning and development and thus had a direct and beneficial effect on the development of less developed regions.

This paper describes the factors, both in SA and abroad, which contributed towards the growth of regional planning. It also outlines other contributions of regional planners and planning towards development of less developed regions.     

Youth and development in Southern Africa: Achievements and challenges for the social sciences

This article highlights the role played by social scientists and social science research in the field of youth and development in southern Africa. It examines in particular the research being done into teenage pregnancy and motherhood, and HIV/AIDS. The author concludes by emphasising the necessity for social scientists and people in authority to work together to identify relevant areas of concern on which to concentrate research in future.     

技术成熟与技术风险评估方法在我国的适用性研究

一些具有战略性和前瞻性的国防重大科技工程,存在较大的技术和管理风险,因此很有必要在工程研制过程中引入先进的风险管理理念,实施科学的风险管理。我国目前所采用的技术风险管理手段比较单一,实施成本较高,所以,如何找到一种适合我国现状的,合理有效的风险管理手段是十分必要的。对此,文章引用NASA的一种技术成熟度与技术风险相结合的方法,结合我国国防重大科技工程特点分析以技术成熟度(TRL)、研发困难度(R&D3)、技术需求值(TNV)三个因素构建的风险矩阵。利用这三个要素构成的风险矩阵可以非常直观的衡量出工程中各项技术的发展现状,了解它们与最终成熟状态之间的差距,确定它们在研发阶段的困难度和重要性,以此加强技术状态和发展规划管理,帮助进度和经费管理。在文章最后作者分析了在我国重大国防科技工程中实施TRRA评价方法的作用和必要性,并提出了在我国试用的思考和建议。     

Designing a framework for acquiring technological knowledge among technology transfer recipients A perspective from a radar

Technology transfer is becoming increasingly important for business and economic growth in developing nations. The modern global economy uses knowledge resources to increase productivity and foster improvements in standard of living. Individual businesses acquire knowledge of advanced technologies to establish and maintain competitive positioning in the global marketplace. Without proper knowledge acquisition, transfer of technology cannot take place. The process of acquiring knowledge requires the organization to choose or adapt elements of the technology to local cultural conditions to integrate it with indigenous technologies. The cultural context of the recipient can also affect the process of acquiring knowledge. The culture and social environment of the individual creates a schema for organizing knowledge and understanding reality. This paper has two objectives： Firstly, to investigate how organisational culture affects readiness for technology transfer, and secondly, to identify elements of organisational culture affecting readiness for technology transfer. Qualitative mode of data collection was used in this study as well as interview and focus group discussion. The results from the preliminary investigations were used to create the components of the framework. Hypotheses were formulated between the constructs of the framework and a rigorous attempt was made using Structural Equation Modelling （SEM） to validate the construct as they created through qualitative findings.     

Aid,development and politics in Southern Africa: A critical look at new conditionalities in official development assistance

Development aid totalling more than 25 billion rand a year is currently flowing from the North to the Southern African region. Several countries in the region are extremely de pendent on these financial transfers and foreign donors have become important players in domestic decision making. In recent years, Northern donors have increasingly demanded major political and administrative reforms in recipient countries as a condition for con tinued aid. This article examines these new political conditionalities, drawing on data from sub‐Saharan and Southern Africa to illustrate certain key issues.     

An overview of agricultural and rural development problems in less developed areas of Southern Africa

The problems discussed in this paper are essentially the influence of various factors which underlie the present low levels of agricultural production and the constraints to development of the less developed rural areas of Southern Africa.

The nature, intensity and output of small‐scale farming systems are dependent upon the interactions between and within five groups of factors: physical and ecological; the agri‐milieu; institutional and operational; the human potential; and technology.

This paper discusses previous and present development trends, and reviews the interrelated problems of use of physical resources, the agri‐milieu, human resources, institutional problems and technology.

Suggestions are made for a co‐ordinated strategy at national and local level aimed at removing some of the present barriers and constraints to agricultural and rural development.     

Agricultural and rural development in less developed countries with special reference to Southern Africa∗

Rural development as an ideology and a practice has not achieved its goals in most less developed countries. A situation analysis is essential for successful rural development.The analysis should include physical and human resources, economic activities and institutional factors within an integrated framework, aimed at diagnosing development constraints as a basis for future planning.     

Silences speak louder than claims: Gender, household, and agricultural development in Southern Africa

Social sciences — and economic theory particularly — continue to treat the household as a socioeconomic unit, in which all members strive for a common end. This conceptualization, which leaves the social relations of gender and the concominant inequalities in access to land, produce and income unaccounted for, has continued to determine the policies of development agencies, and women and development (WID) units. This failure has gained renewed prominence and political relevance in the efficiency approach of structural adjustment programs. On the basis of empirical household data from Zambia, the article questions the validity of the conceptualization of cash and food crop production along gender lines as equal parts in the household enterprise and instead pleads for a recognition of a gender differentiated concept of control over household production as a basis for future development planning.     

Thinking regionally: Aviation and development implications in the Karoo region,South Africa

This study focuses on regional economic development in South Africa, across provincial political jurisdictions. The article argues that remote hinterlands can be more usefully understood as forming an integrated whole, rather than functioning as the poor rural cousins of their provincial metropoles. This article considers three propositions: that key transport projects (such as airports) may unlock regional development; that this may stimulate regional spatial integration; and that this may spur the South African government to address its weak regional planning system. All three propositions are speculative, drawn from the international literature, but they contribute to an argument for greater spatial coherence in South African planning in rural regions. The argument is illustrated with reference to the Karoo region of South Africa, and the potential of a new airport to impact on regional economic dynamics. Furthermore, the article argues that such impacts will require new regional planning systems, which are currently absent from the South African political system.     

浙江省科技发展的现状与对策

本文通过详实的数据分析了浙江省科技发展的现状及存在的问题 ,并针对这些问题提出了相应的对策 ,以促进浙江省在新世纪中科技经济进一步一体化。