scholarly journals Climate change threats to a floral wedding: Threats of shifting phenology to the emerging South African wedding industry

2019 ◽  
Vol 45 (45) ◽  
pp. 7-23
Author(s):  
Mazozo N. Mahlangu ◽  
Jennifer M. Fitchett
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Natural Environment ◽  
Mixed Method ◽  
Exploratory Study ◽  
Adaptive Strategies ◽  
The World ◽  
Phenological Shifts ◽  
Method Approach

AbstractWedding tourism is a fast emerging niche market both globally and in South Africa, as destination weddings are becoming increasingly popular. Wedding industries across the world, and specifically in South Africa, are increasingly dependent on the natural environment. Wedding venues with floral gardens, farms, orchards or forests are particularly popular. Beyond the venue, flowers are important for the bouquets and decoration, with popular blooms changing year on year. Shifting phenology – the timing of annually recurrent biological events – has been identified as one of the most sensitive responses to climate change. This poses a threat to the sustainability of floral wedding venues and the floral industry relating to weddings. This exploratory study utilizes an interdisciplinary mixed-method approach to record the importance of flowers in South African weddings and the perceived threats of climate change to this subsector. The respondents reveal the importance of flowers and the outdoors in both symbolism and the enjoyment of the wedding day, and had organised their wedding date to align with flowering. Destinations highlight a lack of awareness regarding phenological threats and are relatively unperturbed about the threats of climate change. Comparison to global phenological shifts reveals that these are misplaced. There is, therefore, a need for such wedding venues to adopt adaptive strategies to preserve their environment which drives wedding tourism.

The World Economic Forum Principles on "Climate Governance on Corporate Boards": can soft law help to face climate change around the world?

2020 ◽  
pp. 37-55
Author(s):  
Sabrina Bruno
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
South Africa ◽  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Boards Of Directors ◽  
Soft Law ◽  
Corporate Boards ◽  
World Economic Forum ◽  
Financial Factor ◽  
The World ◽  
World Economic

Climate change is a financial factor that carries with it risks and opportunities for companies. To support boards of directors of companies belonging to all jurisdictions, the World Economic Forum issued in January 2019 eight Principlescontaining both theoretical and practical provisions on: climate accountability, competence, governance, management, disclosure and dialogue. The paper analyses each Principle to understand scope and managerial consequences for boards and to evaluate whether the legal distinctions, among the various jurisdictions, may undermine the application of the Principles or, by contrast, despite the differences the Principles may be a useful and effective guidance to drive boards' of directors' conduct around the world in handling climate change challenges. Five jurisdictions are taken into consideration for this comparative analysis: Europe (and UK), US, Australia, South Africa and Canada. The conclusion is that the WEF Principles, as soft law, is the best possible instrument to address boards of directors of worldwide companies, harmonise their conduct and effectively help facing such global emergency.

A novel methodology for supporting integration between refugees and host communities: NAUTIA (need assessment under a technological interdisciplinary approach)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adela Salas-Ruiz ◽  
Andrea A Eras-Almeida ◽  
Rocío Rodríguez-Rivero ◽  
Alberto Sanz-Cobena ◽  
Susana Muñoz-Hernández ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Quality Of Life ◽  
Mixed Method ◽  
Human Mobility ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approach ◽  
Refugee Camp ◽  
Need Assessment ◽  
Political Conflicts ◽  
Method Approach

Abstract More than 26 million people are recognized globally as refugees and have been forced to flee from their home countries because of poverty, human rights violations, natural disasters, climate change, and other social and political conflicts. What is more, most host communities are usually poor and face social and economic crises. This is why supporting integration between refugees and host communities is imperative at the global humanitarian context. Thereby, this research presents the NAUTIA (Need Assessment under a Technological Interdisciplinary Approach) methodology, an innovative mixed-method approach designed by the Platform on Refugees of the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. The main objective of NAUTIA is to identify the basic needs of refugees and locals to improve their quality of life through interdisciplinary and inclusive intervention proposals based on technology. The methodology was applied in the permanent Shimelba Refugee Camp (Ethiopia), where energy, shelter, and food security solutions have resulted essential to improve the living conditions of both population groups. The results are useful for researchers, stakeholders, and practitioners from the humanitarian sector as they provide a more innovative and comprehensive way to support the unprecedented global human mobility there is nowadays.

scholarly journals Local and National Belonging in A Globalised World

2011 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 127-143 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tom Inglis ◽  
Susie Donnelly
Keyword(s):  
Mixed Method ◽  
National Identities ◽  
Global Flow ◽  
National Belonging ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
Rural And Urban ◽  
The World ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
Method Approach ◽  
International Social

The question of place is becoming more important in an increasingly globalised, cosmopolitan world. Has the global flow of culture and the movement of people around the world meant a decline in the importance of place as a form of identity? Have local, regional and national identities lost their significance for people? The article begins to explore these key issues. In particular it looks at Ireland which, from the 1990s, moved from being relatively insular and homogeneous to becoming one of the most globalised societies. The authors use a mixed method approach. First they examine data from the International Social Survey Project (ISSP) to see if there is any evidence of a decline in identity with place, how this varies between rural and urban dwellers, and levels of age and education. They then use findings from a qualitative study to examine the complex ways in which people talk about and identify with place, where they were brought up, where they live now and being Irish. The findings show that level of identity with place is still strong in Ireland and in some cases is increasing. The authors argue that increased identification with the local is an equal and opposite reaction to globalisation.

scholarly journals An Evaluative Study of Criminalistics: A Case of South African Counterfeiting and Knock-Off Menace

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 45-60
Author(s):  
Godfrey Thenga
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Health Hazard ◽  
Capital Flight ◽  
Tax Revenue ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Counterfeit Goods ◽  
Evaluative Study ◽  
The World

Counterfeit goods are a health hazard to human life, environment and business. More so as the goods destroy the viability of legitimate businesses across the world. Counterfeit goods are characterized as a threat to the financial viability of legitimate businesses and has a dire impact on the tax revenue of countries, necessitating its effective and efficient policing for the financial wellbeing of countries. If not well managed, counterfeit goods could lead to unemployment, disinvestment and capital flight in countries. The available evidence reveals that even though counterfeit goods has dire consequences for the economic wellbeing of countries, its penalties in most African countries are less severe in comparison to penalties for other crimes. The sight of counterfeit goods in many places, such as on busy street corners and transportation terminals in the Southern parts of Africa, attests to its prevalence in the continent. Especially in South Africa as the country has become a transit point for contrabands. Post 1994, South Africa opened its borders to the world of branded and protected goods and this enabled rogue people to trade in counterfeit goods. Effective policing is hindered by the use of sophisticated skills and expertise that leads to counterfeit goods resembling genuine goods. Moreover, in South Africa, the problem persists despite the promulgation of the Counterfeit Goods Act 37 of 1997, thus questioning the effectiveness of the policing strategies in use to quell the problem.

scholarly journals The Evaluation of Teacher's Competencies on Special Education Programs

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (2S9) ◽  
pp. 362-368
Keyword(s):  
Special Education ◽  
Natural Environment ◽  
Mixed Method ◽  
Educational Program ◽  
Professional Competence ◽  
Educational Programs ◽  
Education Programs ◽  
Special Education Programs ◽  
Mutual Relations ◽  
Method Approach

This study was based on the understanding that special education programs are educational programs which aim to teach -students with physical and/or, psychological illnesses. It is required to develop knowledge, attitudes, and professional skills individually or collectively and members of the community in mutual relations with the cultural, social and natural environment. In this case, teachers need to have the appropriate competence to carry out their duties and functions correctly. This research aimed to evaluate the competence of teachers in special education programs and his implication to the graduate competencies. The study was conducted by using a mixed method approach. The results indicated that teachers have tremendous personal competence, social competence, professional competence and pedagogic competence. Thus, it can be interpreted that teachers have adequate competence to support the achievement of educational program objectives for special students. Adequate competency of the three competencies has implications for the competence of students. Mastery of attitude competency in special education programs is essentially required good, as well as in mastery of knowledge competency.

The educational research landscape on GIS integration and challenges – globally and in South Africa

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 19-41
Author(s):  
Elfrieda Fleischmann ◽  
◽  
Christo van der Westhuizen ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Mixed Method ◽  
Basic Education ◽  
Education Institution ◽  
Mixed Method Study ◽  
Global Trend ◽  
Gis Integration ◽  
Depth Interviews

As Geographic Information Systems (GIS) have only been included in the curriculum in the last decade, many educators globally struggle to integrate GIS practice into their teaching strategies. Following the global trend, South African educators might feel ill equipped as they did not receive formal GIS training in a higher education institution. This paper highlights key global and South African challenges regarding GIS integration. To compare the challenges that South Africa faces with those experienced elsewhere, this mixed method study gleaned data from student educators (n=78) who completed a questionnaire regarding their GIS FET Phase education, followed by in-depth interviews with FET Phase educators (n=10) and two provincial heads of Geography for the Department of Basic Education (DBE). Results from this study indicate a clear global and national pattern of barrier categories.

Topic modelling of public Twitter discourses, part bot, part active human user, on climate change and global warming

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-53
Author(s):  
Ahmed Al-Rawi ◽  
Oumar Kane ◽  
Aimé-Jules Bizimana
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Mixed Method ◽  
Large Datasets ◽  
Online Discussions ◽  
Topic Modelling ◽  
Twitter Users ◽  
Method Approach ◽  
Different Parts ◽  
Natural Cycles

Twitter is a key site for understanding the highly polarized and politicized debate around climate change. We examined large datasets comprising about 15 million tweets from different parts of the world referencing climate change and global warming. Our examination of the twenty most active users employing the term ‘global warming’ are likely to be automated accounts or bots than the most active users employing the term ‘climate change’. We used a mixed method approach including topic modelling, which is a digital method that automatedly identifies the top topics using an algorithm to understand how Twitter users engage with discussions on ‘climate change’ and ‘global warming’. The percentage of the top 400 users who use the term ‘climate change’ and believe it is human-made or anthropogenic (82.5%) is much higher than users who use the term ‘global warming’ and believe in human causation (25.5%). Similarly, the percentage of active users who use the term ‘global warming’ were much more likely to believe it is a results of natural cycles (18%) than active users who use the term ‘climate change’ (5%). We also identified and qualitatively analysed the positions of the most active users. Our findings reveal clear politically polarized views, with many politicians cited and trolled in online discussions, and significant differences reflected in terminology.

South African Foreign Policy

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fritz Nganje ◽  
Odilile Ayodele
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
South African ◽  
Foreign Relations ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
African National Congress ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
The World ◽  
Role Conception ◽  
The Government

In its foreign policy posture and ambitions, post-apartheid South Africa is like no other country on the continent, having earned the reputation of punching above its weight. Upon rejoining the international community in the mid-1990s based on a new democratic and African identity, it laid out and invested considerable material and intellectual resources in pursuing a vision of the world that was consistent with the ideals and aspirations of the indigenous anti-apartheid movement. This translated into a commitment to foreground the ideals of human rights, democratic governance, and socioeconomic justice in its foreign relations, which had been reoriented away from their Western focus during the apartheid period, to give expression to post-apartheid South Africa’s new role conception as a champion of the marginalized interests for Africa and rest of the Global South. Since the start of the 21st century, this new foreign policy orientation and its underlying principles have passed through various gradations, reflecting not only the personal idiosyncrasies of successive presidents but also changes in the domestic environment as well as lessons learned by the new crop of leaders in Pretoria, as they sought to navigate a complex and fluid continental and global environment. From a rather naive attempt to domesticate international politics by projecting its constitutional values onto the world stage during the presidency of Nelson Mandela, South Africa would be socialized into, and embrace gradually, the logic of realpolitik, even as it continued to espouse an ethical foreign policy, much to the chagrin of the detractors of the government of the African National Congress within and outside the country. With the fading away of the global liberal democratic consensus into which post-apartheid South Africa was born, coupled with a crumbling of the material and moral base that had at some point inspired a sense of South African exceptionalism, Pretoria’s irreversible march into an unashamedly pragmatic and interest-driven foreign policy posture is near complete.

Strategic Litigation in South Africa and Uganda: Shared Perspectives and Comparative Lessons

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
John C Mubangizi
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Health Care Services ◽  
Bill Of Rights ◽  
Advocacy Groups ◽  
Care Services ◽  
The World ◽  
The Government ◽  
South African Constitution ◽  
Strategic Litigation

Abstract The South African Constitution, particularly its Bill of Rights, is regarded as one of the most progressive in the world. The Ugandan Constitution, adopted around the same time as its South African counterpart, also has a Bill of Rights. Lawyers and advocacy groups in both countries have taken advantage of their constitutions to challenge the government to enforce several rights ranging from health care services, education, water and sanitation, to housing and social security, albeit at a lower scale and with less impact and significance in Uganda than South Africa. The purpose of this paper is to discuss and determine the constitutional impact of strategic litigation in South Africa and Uganda. The paper begins with a conceptual context of strategic litigation. The specific reasons for the choice of the two countries are highlighted before focusing, in a comparative way, on some relevant organizations and the various court decisions that have emanated from strategic litigation in both countries. The paper identifies similarities and differences between Ugandan and South African approaches to strategic litigation. Conclusions are then made after highlighting the comparative lessons that both countries can learn from each other, but also what other African states can learn from these two countries’ experiences.

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