scholarly journals The readiness of South African law and policy for the pursuit of Sustainable Development Goal 11

2018 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 239 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anél Du Plessis
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
South African ◽  
Sustainable Development Goal ◽  
Development Goal ◽  
Law And Policy

scholarly journals SOUTH AFRICA’S INTEGRATED URBAN DEVELOPMENT FRAMEWORK AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOAL 11: POLICY MISMATCH OR SUCCESS?

Obiter ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Angela van der Berg
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Urban Development ◽  
South African ◽  
Sustainable Cities ◽  
Sustainable Development Goal ◽  
Development Goal ◽  
Development Framework ◽  
Strategic Goals ◽  
South African Cities

This paper critically questions the extent to which the Integrated Urban Development Framework, 2016 (IUDF) provides for strategic goals and policy levers towards the pursuit of sustainable cities in South Africa as understood in Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 11. Specific emphasis will be placed on the nine identified policy levers in the IUDF and whether these correspond with what is identified in SDG 11 as essential for the pursuit and maintenance of sustainable cities. SDG 11 has been heralded as “path-breaking” as it represents the strongest recognition to date of the significant role of cities in promoting sustainability on local, national, and global scales. The goal forms part of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development adopted in 2015. SDG 11 specifically seeks to ensure that cities and human settlements become inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable. The goal provides a broad framework for what the achievement of sustainable cities entails and lists specific targets to be met by 2030 to ensure urban sustainability around the globe. The South African government recently developed its first policy underscoring the country’s national urban agenda. Informed by SDG 11, the IUDF calls for the effective and improved management of urban spaces and recognises the need for South African cities to become “liveable, safe, resource-efficient cities that are socially integrated, economically inclusive and globally competitive”.

scholarly journals Monitoring changes in South Africa’s surface water extent for reporting Sustainable Development Goal sub-indicator 6.6.1.a

2021 ◽  
Vol 117 (5/6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Heidi van Deventer
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Surface Water ◽  
South African ◽  
Aquatic Ecosystems ◽  
The South ◽  
Sustainable Development Goal ◽  
Development Goal ◽  
The Sustainable Development ◽  
Progress Reporting ◽  
Global Statistics

For the first progress reporting on the Sustainable Development Goal sub-indicator 6.6.1a in 2020, the South African and global statistics related to wetlands were compared. Firstly, in terms of the total wetland extent, the South African National Wetland Map version 5 (NWM5) represented 87% more inland, surface aquatic ecosystems than the Global Surface Water (GSW) product. More than half of the lacustrine systems and none of the palustrine and arid systems in NWM5 are represented in the GSW layer. Secondly, in terms of changes in the extent of wetlands, both the global and South African statistics showed a decreasing trend in the spatial extent of surface aquatic ecosystems in South Africa. These trends should be further investigated against systematic assessments of decadal drought periods. The hydroperiod information (permanent, seasonal and ephemeral inundation periods) of the GSW products show that South African lacustrine wetlands do not have a single dominant class (≥70% of the extent of a polygon) of inundation, but consist of a mosaic of these classes.

Devolution, Urban Autonomy and Local Governance in the Cities of the SADC

2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 612-635
Author(s):  
Marius Pieterse
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Local Government ◽  
South African ◽  
Local Governance ◽  
Sustainable Development Goal ◽  
Development Goal ◽  
Financial Autonomy ◽  
Strategic Space ◽  
Urban Local Government ◽  
New Urban Agenda

This article considers the links between urban autonomy and the constitutional and legal powers, functions and responsibilities of urban local government in countries of the South African Development Community (SADC). It evaluates SADC cities’ constitutional status, their operational, functional and financial autonomy, their collaborative and strategic space and the different accountability structures to which they answer. It further reflects on structural and political challenges to effective urban autonomy in the region and suggests ways in which it may be better enabled, so as to equip the cities of the SADC for the role they must play in pursuit of targets in the New Urban Agenda and UN Sustainable Development Goal 11.

scholarly journals News media attention in Climate Action: latent topics and open access

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tahereh Dehdarirad ◽  
Kalle Karlsson
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Regression Analysis ◽  
Open Access ◽  
News Media ◽  
Latent Dirichlet Allocation ◽  
Topic Modelling ◽  
Sustainable Development Goal ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Development Goal ◽  
Climate Action

AbstractIn this study we investigated whether open access could assist the broader dissemination of scientific research in Climate Action (Sustainable Development Goal 13) via news outlets. We did this by comparing (i) the share of open and non-open access documents in different Climate Action topics, and their news counts, and (ii) the mean of news counts for open access and non-open access documents. The data set of this study comprised 70,206 articles and reviews in Sustainable Development Goal 13, published during 2014–2018, retrieved from SciVal. The number of news mentions for each document was obtained from Altmetrics Details Page API using their DOIs, whereas the open access statuses were obtained using Unpaywall.org. The analysis in this paper was done using a combination of (Latent Dirichlet allocation) topic modelling, descriptive statistics, and regression analysis. The covariates included in the regression analysis were features related to authors, country, journal, institution, funding, readability, news source category and topic. Using topic modelling, we identified 10 topics, with topics 4 (meteorology) [21%], 5 (adaption, mitigation, and legislation) [18%] and 8 (ecosystems and biodiversity) [14%] accounting for 53% of the research in Sustainable Development Goal 13. Additionally, the results of regression analysis showed that while keeping all the variables constant in the model, open access papers in Climate Action had a news count advantage (8.8%) in comparison to non-open access papers. Our findings also showed that while a higher share of open access documents in topics such as topic 9 (Human vulnerability to risks) might not assist with its broader dissemination, in some others such as topic 5 (adaption, mitigation, and legislation), even a lower share of open access documents might accelerate its broad communication via news outlets.

scholarly journals Leveraging CSR for Sustainability: Assessing Performance Implications of Sustainability Reporting in a National Business System

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 5987
Author(s):  
Labrini Sideri
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Banking Industry ◽  
Sustainability Reporting ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Sustainable Development Goal ◽  
Development Goal ◽  
Sustainable Solutions ◽  
Agenda 2030 ◽  
Business System ◽  
National Business

In the light of Agenda 2030 awareness of sustainability is steadily growing all over the world. Devastating phenomena like pandemics (Sustainable Development Goal 3 (SDGs—Agenda 2030)), poverty (Sustainable Development Goal 1 (SDGs—Agenda 2030)) as well as climate change (Sustainable Development Goal 13 (SDGs—Agenda 2030)) threaten humanity, calling for more sustainable solutions. Although economic growth (Sustainable Development Goal 8 (SDGs—Agenda 2030)) is one of the principal goals for a sustainable future, little research has been devoted to the interface of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainability and their contribution to the financial sector, in view of sustainable banking. Even fewer are the studies concerning sustainable banking in Greece. This paper attempts a comparative overview of sustainability integration into businesses, focusing on the banking industry. The current theoretical analysis initially provides an extended review of the CSR and sustainability concepts, which is followed by a comprehensive analysis of non-financial disclosures (NFDs) and their business value, providing some evidence from Greece. The following sections refer to the performance implications and sustainability integration in the banking industry. Eventually, sustainable banking seems to enhance banking performance in a national business system. This is a very important deduction for sustainability to be both the cause and effect of corporate banking. Along with the discussion, some avenues for future research are highlighted.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document