Design for Social Innovation

South Africa failing people displaced by xenophobia riots

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to analyze the dynamic asymmetric relationship between financial technology (FinTech) adoption and poverty alleviation on annual data for the Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) region over the period from 2004 to 2020.Design/methodology/approachThis study adopted the general method of moments (GMM) method on annual data for 127 countries including 45 countries from the SSA region over the period from 2004 to 2020.FindingsThe study’s findings show that improvement in FinTech may initially decrease the rate of extreme poverty, leading to a decrease in total poverty as a percent of the population. While there is an initial decrease in the rate of extreme poverty with improvements of FinTech, once the FinTech index reaches its threshold level of 37.18 points, further improvement in FinTech tends to decrease as penetration increases, giving rise to an decrease in the rate of poverty alleviation.Research limitations/implicationsPolicymakers should design more aggressive and comprehensive policies directed at recouping the maximum gains of FinTech adoption, with a reasonable threshold target.Practical implicationsPolicymakers in the SSA region must be aware of a FinTech threshold level of 37.18 points. To ensure the highest reduction in extreme poverty, policymakers must keep investing in FinTech to reach this threshold level.Social implicationsFinTech improvement leads to poverty alleviation. Policymakers in the SSA region can fully recoup the benefits of FinTech by achieving a pre-set threshold level.Originality/valueThis paper addresses that gap in the literature by studying the impact of FinTech, instead of the traditional financial inclusion measures, on poverty in the 45 countries in the SSA region, exploring the potential dynamic asymmetry of this poverty-FinTech link, and testing the presence and statistical significance of the threshold level of FinTech.

Queering Hip-Hop, Queering the City: Dope Saint Jude’s Transformative Politics

Background: Despite being significant contributors to the economy, informal businesses operate with limited resources. In South Africa, the informal sector is substantial, accounting for approximately 30% of total employment and around 6% of gross domestic product (GDP). These businesses often struggle to adopt and leverage technology constraining their capacity for growth and innovation, ultimately limiting their contribution to economic development and the alleviation of socio-economic challenges. Objectives: The objective of this study was to investigate the factors that influence the barriers to adopting digital technologies in South Africa’s informal economy. Method: This study adopted a qualitative research approach, using semi-structured interviews and purposive sampling to collect data from 14 informal business owners in Cape Town. Participants provided informed consent and thematic analysis was conducted using the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) framework. Results: Findings revealed barriers including cash preference, load-shedding, crime and digital incompetency obstructing technology adoption. Despite these hurdles, the potential benefits of digital technology for informal businesses were underscored. Conclusion: The study suggests untapped potential in enhancing technology adoption among informal businesses through targeted interventions. By addressing identified barriers, such initiatives could significantly bolster the informal economy’s impact on South Africa’s socio-economic landscape. Contribution: This research contributes to understanding the complexities surrounding technology adoption in South Africa’s informal economy. It offers insights for policymakers, practitioners and stakeholders seeking to promote digital inclusion and economic empowerment within marginalised sectors.

: The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the importance of continued engagement with post-apartheid South Africa to United States national security. It is based on the realist premise that the U.S. has limited national interests in Sub-Saharan Africa which would be best served by a regional security strategy explicitly predicated on engagement with South Africa. The paper is presented in six chapters. Chapter One places South Africa in regional perspective as Sub-Saharan Africa's pivotal state through an analysis of its political, economic, and military dimensions of national power. Chapter Two describes U.S. national interests in Sub-Saharan Africa. These interests -- South Africa's transition to democracy, continued U.S. access to strategic minerals, the security of U.S. economic interests, and the security of sea lines of communication -- focus on South Africa and the Southern African sub-region. Chapter Three provides an analysis of the Sub-Saharan African strategic environment. South Africa offers the United States the greatest opportunity for meaningful engagement in a strategic environment which is generally characterized by dysfunctional political and economic regimes and their attendant social conditions. Chapter Four describes the emergence of a U.S. policy for Sub-Saharan Africa which implicitly recognizes South Africa as the region's pivotal state. Chapter Five is a critical analysis of U.S. regional strategy for Sub- Saharan Africa. This chapter demonstrates that there are significant discontinuities in U.S. policy and strategy for Sub-Saharan Africa. In effect, the U.S. lacks a comprehensive strategy for Sub- Saharan Africa; there are only a group of loosely coordinated political, economic, security, and informational policy initiatives which provide the semblance, but not the substance of a regional strategy.

Mobile transfers have become a defining feature of cross-border remittance transmission in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). However, recent studies on mobile transfers have mainly focused on cash remittances and need to pay more attention to mobile food transfers. This paper addresses this research gap on mobile food transfers by examining cross-border food remittances and mobile transfers by Zimbabwean migrants residing in Cape Town, South Africa, to their families and friends back home. In this paper, we seek to understand the factors influencing the uptake of digital food remittances by Zimbabwean migrants who have lived in South Africa for at least three years. The paper is based on a mixed research study carried out in Cape Town during the nationwide COVID-19 lockdown in 2020. The mixed-methods study involved a questionnaire survey of 100 Zimbabwean nationals that was complemented by in-depth interviews with 10 participants selected from the interviewed group. The study findings reveal that the national COVID-19 pandemic lockdown disrupted informal food-remitting channels and, at the same time, helped to solidify the digital and mobile food transfers across national borders that have emerged in SSA in recent years.

Globally, the informal food sector has been the recipient of exclusionary urban policies, despite its dominant role in urban life. This study examined the contributions of the informal food sector to food flows during the COVID-19 lockdown in Cape Town, South Africa. An ethnographic research method consisting of in-depth interviews and participant observations was used to gather data between April and November 2020. The data were thematically analysed. Corporate retailers and informal vendors managed food flows through the city prior to COVID-19. Due to the lockdown regulations, food flows through the informal sector ceased. The situation resulted in job loss and increased food insecurity. During this challenging period, the informal sector transformed food flows by facilitating sustainable urban agriculture, food aid programmes, and community change. Although the sector can hinder urban modernisation, the current study findings showed that the informal food sector is a buffer for meeting urban sustainability needs. Regulatory frameworks that embrace inclusive governance approaches are highly recommended.

Cape Town is the second-largest city in South Africa, with a population of over four million people. Established by Dutch colonists in 1652, it is a diverse and complex city, with a long history of segregation and inequity. The city continues to be characterized by high levels of inequity, most tangibly manifested in the presence of informal settlements. Much of this inequity is along racial lines as a result of enforced spatial segregation during colonial and apartheid times. Since South Africa’s transition to democracy in the 1990s, the city has continued to evolve, with significant urban regeneration initiatives (such as the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront) and with major governance reforms (with the fifty-seven local government bodies and regional government body that existed in the early 1990s being merged into one local government body in 2000). Cape Town has been the site of much research, from a range of perspectives. During the apartheid era, this research largely focused on the implementation of apartheid segregation and the resistance to apartheid, whereas since the 1990s, the focus has been on the implementation of developmental local government, continued inequities, and the roll-out of neoliberalism. Research from a “developmental local government” perspective has focused on government reform and the large amount of service delivery (for example, housing delivery) that has occurred since the 1990s. Another major focus of research has been on the implementation of neoliberal urban strategies and the resistance of civil society to this (although some scholars of “southern urbanism” would argue that the importance of Neoliberalism in Cape Town and other cities in the Global South has been overemphasized by scholars from the Global North). Given its location in a magnificent setting with unique levels of biodiversity, tourism and the urban interface with the natural environment have also become major topics of research. Probably the most effective reflections of life in Cape Town have been in fiction and popular nonfiction works, so it is important to also consider these as well. The bibliography is structured in the following sections: History of Cape Town (to 1990); Overviews of Post-Apartheid Cape Town (after 1990); Poverty, Inequality, and Exclusion in Cape Town; Place and Space in Cape Town; Governance of Cape Town; Neoliberalism in Cape Town; Crime and Violence in Cape Town; Tourism in Cape Town; Cape Town and the Natural Environment; and Fiction and Popular Works about Cape Town.

Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is a region with a population of over 1 billion people and abundant natural resources. With a current GDP of about US$1.6 trillion and an average GDP growth of about 5% over the last decade, it is fast developing into a vibrant business region. Its firms are also rapidly evolving to become competitive international players. With immense potential, SSA is one of the last unexplored frontiers of business, and conducting research into its emerging OFDI and internationalisation phenomenon is both interesting and important. Adopting an inductive methodology, this thesis explores the phenomenon at both country and firm levels through the use of a funnel approach. Specifically, this research investigates the important OFDI push and pull influencing factors, and the internationalisation process of indigenous firms described as SSA MNEs. It also examines the relevance of FDI and internationalisation theories to SSA. Based on a detailed literature review and conceptual foundations, a broad range of OFDI factors were developed into a comprehensive OFDI framework of twenty push and pull factors for SSA. In a subsequent firm-level analysis, this framework was used to underpin qualitative case studies from firms in South Africa, Nigeria, and Kenya, and interviews were conducted with senior executives. Case findings reveal fourteen influential push and pull factors in the region, with enterprise strategy and market growth being the most important push and pull factors respectively. The results also show that the internationalisation of SSA MNEs occurs through an incremental process that takes time, with patterns indicating the use of either systematic or unsystematic international market selection methods. For the purpose of subsidiary control, locational fit, and risk mitigation, SSA MNEs use a mixture of foreign market entry modes, such as greenfield investment, joint ventures, and licensing. Traditional FDI and international business theories relevant to SSA are identified, and it is found that several emergent approaches find support including the ‘firm resilience capabilities’ argument of this thesis. Based on general findings and syntheses, the thesis advances a taxonomy of SSA MNE’s which outlines internationalising firms from the region as market growth optimisers, strategic asset aggregators, networks consolidators, or low-cost market converters. With regard to the enhancement of market growth, the findings indicate the importance of openness to trade to internationalising SSA firms. The thesis therefore considers the impacts of Brexit on SSA MNEs with EU operations and recommends they develop strategies that will mitigate the risk of potential export trade limitations and market fragmentation after Brexit. Such firms providing financial services in the UK should also restructure their legal entities to accommodate potential changes to EU financial passport conditions after Brexit. Generally, SSA MNEs carrying out OFDI should deploy enterprise strategies that allow for both the reduction of deficiencies in institutional mechanisms and for the leveraging of their resilience capabilities for market growth. Overall, the thesis suggests that it enhances the international business discourse and it makes an original contribution to the understanding of OFDI and internationalisation from SSA.

Ruth Miller: Poems, Prose, Plays. Edited and introduced by Lionel Abrahams. Cape Town: Carrefour Press, 1990. The Fires of the Dead by Robert Berold. Cape Town: Carrefour Press, 1989, Interiors by Jennie Roberts. Cape Town: Carrefour Press, 1989. From Apartheid to Nation‐Building: Contemporary South African Debates by Hermann Giliomee and Lawrence Schlemmer. Cape Town: Oxford University Press, 1990. Distant Companions; Servants and Employers in Zambia, 1900 ‐ 1985 by Karen Hansen. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1989. ’Muzukuru’ a Guerilla's Story by Paul Hotz. Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1990. Perspectives of Mental Handicap in South Africa. Edited by Susan Lea and Don Foster. Durban: Butterworths, 1990. The Annotated Soul of the Ape by Eugene Marais. Introduced and Annotated by Peter Henzi. London: Penguin Books, 1990. Cultural Forces in World Politics by Ali A. Mazrui. London: James Currey, 1990. People and Violence in South Africa. Edited by Brian McKendrick and Wilma Hoffman. Cape Town: Oxford University Press, 1990. Education: From poverty to liberty. Edited by Bill Nasson and John Samuel. Cape Town: David Philip. 1990. The Political Economy of South Africa. Edited by Nicoli Nattrass and Elisabeth Ardington. Cape Town: Oxford University Press, 1990. South African Human Rights and Labour Law Yearbook 1990 Volume 1. Edited by Michael Robertson. Cape Town: Oxford University Press, Centre for Socio‐Legal Studies Durban 1990. Protecting Human Rights in a New South Africa by Albie Sachs. Cape Town: Oxford University Press, 1990.

The embodiment of inequality: AIDS as a social condition and the historical experience in South Africa

BackgroundThe global burden of hypertension is growing, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. This study aimed to investigate differences in the relationship between social capital and hypertension between regions in Sub-Saharan Africa (West vs. South Africa) and within regions (rural vs. urban residence within each country).MethodsData for 9,800 adults were analyzed from the Study on Global Ageing and Adult Health (SAGE) 2007-2010 for Ghana (West African emerging economy) and South Africa (South African established economy). Outcomes were self-reported and measured hypertension. The primary independent variable was social capital, dichotomized into low vs. medium/high. Interaction terms were tested between social capital and rural/urban residence status for each outcome by country. Linear and logistic regression models were run separately for both countries and each outcome.ResultsThose with low social capital in the emerging economy of Ghana were more likely to have hypertension based on measurement (OR=1.35, 95% CI=1.18,1.55), but the relationship with self-reported hypertension lost significance after adjustment. There was no significant relationship in the relationship between social capital and hypertension in the established economy of South Africa after adjustment. No significant interactions existed by rural/urban residence status in either country.ConclusionLow social capital was associated with worse hypertension outcomes, however, the relationship differed between South Africa and Ghana. Further investigation is needed to understand differences between and within countries to guide development of programs targeted at leveraging and promoting social capital as a positive component of overall health.

The rapid rise in supermarkets in developing countries over the last several decades resulted in radical transformations of food retail systems. In Cape Town, supermarket expansion has coincided with rapid urbanization and food insecurity. In this context, retail modernization has become a powerful market-driven process impacting food access for the poor. The introduction of formal food retail formats is viewed simultaneously as a driver of food accessibility and as a detriment to informal food economies established in lower income neighborhoods. Through a mixed-methods approach, this article assesses the spatial distribution of supermarkets within Cape Town and whether this geography of food retail combats or perpetuates food insecurity, particularly in lower income neighborhoods. Spatial analysis using geographic information systems at a city-wide scale is combined with a qualitative case study utilizing semi-structured interviews and observational analysis in the Philippi township in order to illuminate the limitations of supermarket expansion as a market-oriented alleviation strategy for food insecurity. While supermarkets have been successful in penetrating some low-income communities, they are often incompatible with the consumption strategies of the poorest households, revealing the significance of the informal economy in Cape Town and the limitations of a food desert approach toward understanding urban food security.

Few studies have assessed HIV incidence in men who have sex with men (MSM) and transgender women (TGW) in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). We assessed HIV incidence and its correlates among MSM and TGW in SSA enrolled in the prospective, multi-country HIV Prevention Trials Network (HPTN) 075 study, conducted from 2015 to 2017. Participants were enrolled at four sites in SSA (Kisumu, Kenya; Blantyre, Malawi; Cape Town and Soweto, South Africa). Eligible participants reported male sex assignment at birth, were 18 to 44 years of age, and had engaged in anal intercourse with a man in the preceding three months. Participation involved five study visits over 12 months. Visits included behavioral assessments and testing for HIV and sexually transmitted infections. Twenty-one of 329 persons acquired HIV during the study [incidence rate: 6.96/100 person-years (PY) (95% CI: 4.3, 10.6)]. Among TGW, HIV incidence was estimated to be 8.4/100 PY (95% CI: 2.3, 21.5). Four participants were found to have acute HIV infection at their first HIV-positive visit. HIV incidence varied among the four study sites, ranging from 1.3/100 PY to 14.4/100 PY. In multivariate longitudinal analysis, factors significantly associated with HIV acquisition were engagement in unprotected receptive anal intercourse [adjusted hazard ratio (AHR) 5.8, 95% confidence interval (CI): 2.4, 14.4] and incident rectal gonorrhea and/or chlamydia (AHR: 2.7, 95% CI: 1.1, 6.8). The higher HIV incidence in Cape Town compared to Blantyre could be explained by the higher prevalence of several risk factors for HIV infection among participants in Cape Town. Annual HIV incidence observed in this study is substantially higher than reported HIV incidence in the general populations in the respective countries and among MSM in the United States. Intensification of HIV prevention efforts for MSM and TGW in SSA is urgently needed.

Afriflu2—Second international workshop on influenza vaccination in the African continent—8 November 2012, Cape Town (South Africa)