scholarly journals Scrutinising Multidimensional Challenges in the Maloti-Drakensberg (Lesotho/South Africa)

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (15) ◽  
pp. 8511
Author(s):  
Jess L. Delves ◽  
V. Ralph Clark ◽  
Stefan Schneiderbauer ◽  
Nigel P. Barker ◽  
Jörg Szarzynski ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Development Policy ◽  
Water Transfer ◽  
Management Systems ◽  
Cultural Issues ◽  
African Region ◽  
Mountain System ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
Socioecological Change

The Maloti-Drakensberg (MD) is the largest and highest-elevation mountain system in southern Africa. Covering 40,000 km2 and reaching 3500 m, the MD provides a range of ecosystem services (ES) to the entire southern African region—benefitting diverse users and extending well beyond the mountains. Rapid socioecological change threatens the provision of ES and presents multidimensional challenges to sustainable development. However, the continued land degradation and persisting socioeconomic problems indicate that development policy has not been effective in tackling these issues. In this paper, a multidisciplinary literature review forms the basis of a discussion which takes an ES framing to scrutinise the multidimensional social, political, economic and cultural issues in the study area. Three critical management systems are presented, and their associated ES are discussed, namely, water transfer, rangelands and conservation and tourism. In particular, the diversity of ES uses and values in the MD is considered. The results reveal the main drivers of continued unsustainable development and highlight important information gaps.

A Microtopia of Arts Education: International Sustainable Development Policy Brought to Life in an Educational Project Involving Institutions in South Africa and Denmark

2021 ◽  
pp. 173-193
Author(s):  
Charlotte Svendler Nielsen ◽  
Gerard M. Samuel ◽  
Peter Vadim ◽  
Liesl Hartman ◽  
Fabian Hartzenberg ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Development Policy ◽  
Arts Education ◽  
Educational Project

Social Design for Services Framework

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Melanie SARANTOU ◽  
Satu MIETTINEN
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Research Group ◽  
Design Research ◽  
Service Design ◽  
Social Design ◽  
Practical Action ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World

This paper addresses the fields of social and service design in development contexts, practice-based and constructive design research. A framework for social design for services will be explored through the survey of existing literature, specifically by drawing on eight doctoral theses that were produced by the World Design research group. The work of World Design researcher-designers was guided by a strong ethos of social and service design for development in marginalised communities. The paper also draws on a case study in Namibia and South Africa titled ‘My Dream World’. This case study presents a good example of how the social design for services framework functions in practice during experimentation and research in the field. The social design for services framework transfers the World Design group’s research results into practical action, providing a tool for the facilitation of design and research processes for sustainable development in marginal contexts.

scholarly journals Geographic Information Systems and the Sustainable Development of Rural Areas

Land ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 6
Author(s):  
Krystyna Kurowksa ◽  
Renata Marks-Bielska ◽  
Stanisław Bielski ◽  
Audrius Aleknavičius ◽  
Cezary Kowalczyk
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Spatial Dimension ◽  
Geographic Information ◽  
Spatial Analyses ◽  
The Sustainable Development ◽  
Main Research ◽  
Current State ◽  
Gis Tools ◽  
Political Economic

Sustainable development is socioeconomic growth that integrates political, economic, and social measures alongside environmental protection to meet the needs of communities and citizens without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs. The sustainable development concept was initially based on three main pillars: environment, economy, and society. In successive years, this concept has been expanded to include new pillars. The awareness of these changes has influenced our research interests. The main research objective of this study was to evaluate the applicability of geographic information system (GIS) tools (data, tools, and multidimensional analyses) to the implementation of sustainable development principles in rural areas. The study covered rural and nonurbanized areas in Poland, especially farmland, forests, fisheries, and farms. The study presents the results of our research into environmental, economic, and social determinants of growth in the spatial dimension. GIS tools continue to evolve, which improves access to information and increases database managers’ awareness that highly accurate data are needed for spatial analyses. GIS systems allow us to formulate, in a structured and formal way, models that reflect both the current state and forecast changes that will occur in space. It is a very useful tool in the sustainable development of rural areas.

scholarly journals New Plant Breeding Technologies: An Assessment of the Political Economy of the Regulatory Environment and Implications for Sustainability

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (7) ◽  
pp. 3687
Author(s):  
Vincent Smith ◽  
Justus H. H. Wesseler ◽  
David Zilberman
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Development Policy ◽  
Regulatory Environment ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
International Policies ◽  
Modern Biotechnology ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Eu

This perspective discusses the impact of political economy on the regulation of modern biotechnology. Modern biotechnology has contributed to sustainable development, but its potential has been underexplored and underutilized. We highlight the importance of the impacts of regulations for investments in modern biotechnology and argue that improvements are possible via international harmonization of approval processes. This development is urgently needed for improving sustainable development. Policy makers in the European Union (EU) in particular are challenged to rethink their approach to regulating modern biotechnology as their decisions have far ranging consequences beyond the boundaries of the EU and they have the power to influence international policies.

Ten Pages that Changed the World: Deconstructing Ricardo∗

2009 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Peet
Keyword(s):  
Free Trade ◽  
Economic Geography ◽  
Comparative Advantage ◽  
Development Policy ◽  
Open Market ◽  
Trade Theory ◽  
The World ◽  
Neoliberal Development ◽  
Trading Scheme ◽  
Political Economic

Powerful ideas that shape the world become taken-for-granted verities, in two senses of the term: as the only world that is known; and as the only world that can be imagined. When hegemony controls the imagination, fundamental criticism becomes difficult, and perhaps, impossible. Yet what if there were flaws in the original idea, from which new worlds were constructed, that have materialized in a political-economic geography beset with seemingly unsolvable problems? For example, what if there have always been fundamental flaws in the free trade, open market, competitive, global system that dominates both the world as we know it and the conventional political-economic-geographical thought we know it through? This article speculates that a psycho-discursive act of deconstruction might unravel the entire, subsequent discourse. It aims deconstruction at a founding statement in the free trade, global ideal, by looking critically at David Ricardo's theory of comparative advantage. Ricardo's argument that specialization and free trade are universally beneficial, became a founding premise of conventional economic theory and a basic prescription of liberal and neoliberal development policy. The article looks critically: at the logical consistency and representational accuracy of Ricardo's theory, especially the claim that all participants benefit from participation in a free trading scheme, so that trade brings about a far better world. The article reaches two main, critical conclusions: free trade theory based in comparative advantage has, from the beginning, been an ideology for creating economic spaces open to domination by powerful, leading countries; economics and economic geography have, since their classical beginnings, been biased in that their founding statements reverse the reality they pretend accurately to represent.

Overcoming Extreme Poverty by Social Protection Floors – Approaches to Closing the Right to Social Security Gap

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Markus Kaltenborn
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Social Security ◽  
Development Policy ◽  
Social Transformation ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
Social Rights ◽  
Extreme Poverty ◽  
The Right ◽  
Security Guarantees ◽  
Security Gap

AbstractThe 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development contains a very ambitious poverty reduction schedule: According to Sustainable Development Goal 1 extreme poverty shall be completely eradicated within the next 15 years (SDG 1.1), and also other forms of poverty shall be reduced within the same period at least by half the proportion of men, women and children of all ages (SDG 1.2). Governments are requested to “(i)mplement nationally appropriate social protection systems and measures for all, including floors, and by 2030 achieve substantial coverage of the poor and the vulnerable” (SDG 1.3). The authors of the Agenda refer to the concept of so-called social protection floors which has been identified as an important instrument in the fight against extreme poverty and therefore has attracted much attention in recent development policy debates. In June 2012 the General Conference of the International Labour Organization (ILO) had adopted the Social Protection Floors Recommendation. In this document ILO members are urged, as a first step, to establish basic social security guarantees, including access to essential health care and basic income security for all residents of their countries and, as a second step, to systematically extend these basic social security guarantees into more comprehensive strategies. If we look for legal answers to the global challenge of extreme poverty, then social protection law – and in particular the human right to social security – deserves special attention. Based on the research framework which has been presented by Haglund and Stryker in their book Closing the Rights Gap. From Human Rights to Social Transformation (2015) this article will try to analyze which role the legal systems in the Global South will play in implementing SDG 1 at the national level and in closing the “right to social security-gap”. Haglund and Stryker describe, inter alia, two models for social rights realization which represent alternative approaches to the MDG/SDG concept: (a) the so-called multistage spiral model whose main focus lies on the different phases which new norms have to go through when they are implemented in a state’s society, and (b) the “policy legalization model” which highlights the role of litigation in ensuring social rights compliance. Furthermore the article will deal with the responsibility of the international community in this area of development policy.

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