Towards a Digital Resource Mobilisation Approach for Digital Inclusion During COVID-19 and Beyond: A Case of a Township School in South Africa

COVID-19 is affecting the functioning of most countries globally, creating a situation now described as the “new normal”—a time of unexpected educational change. The national lockdown, accompanied by the closure of educational institutions, brought economic hardship and deepened the digital divide between the rich and the poor. Educational institutions capable of transitioning to an online mode of delivery made that shift, while the majority of South Africa’s schools remained excluded due to poverty and lack of technological infrastructure. The educational sector is at wits’ end to find strategies to curtail the growing digital divide. This paper offers a digital resource mobilisation approach as framework to keep schools on the path to achieving the National Development Plan’s aim of ICT capacitation. To consider developmental possibilities and respond to the digital exclusion of township schools, we asked the question: “What are the online teaching and learning experiences of school stakeholders?” Responses to this question assisted development of a digital resource mobilisation theory that is offered as a viable approach to digital inclusion and social change. Data were collected by telephonic interviews with three teachers, three learners, three school governing body parents, and one school principal. Based on the findings, recommendations for digital inclusion are suggested.

Mobilising Social Movement for Peace

Informed by the resource mobilisation theory, this article conducts a case study on Christianity in Korea, in order to explore the nexus between religion and social movements, and how this nexus could contribute to peace, rather than violence. Given its geopolitical dimensions, involving nuclear weapons and the legacy of the Cold War, the role of religion in the Korean conflict has been under-researched. Nonetheless, Christianity has influenced the Korean conflict, with its association with anticommunism, as well as with peace movements. This article argues that Christian ecumenical organisations in the context of the Korean conflict utilised their social resources for peace and reconciliation, when they rediscovered the just peace tradition in Christianity. This article contributes to theoretical and practical discussions surrounding religion, war, and peace, by conceptualising just peace in the Christian tradition, and by adding empirical substance to the nexus between ecumenism and social movement for just peace.

Financial Resource Mobilisation Strategies and Sustainability of Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs): Evidence from Nigeria

Background The challenge facing NGOs in most developing countries is the need to emerge as valuable forces that affect development in order to improve the living conditions of the people in several communities. Funding is necessary for the survival and development of these NGOs. Research aims: This study, therefore, sought to find out the efect of financial resource mobilisation strategies on the sustainability of NGOs in Nigeria, with particular reference to the Minna metropolis. Research aims The purposive sampling technique was used to select 118 staf from 50 NGOs as a sample size for the study. Three alternative hypotheses were raised to be tested at P<.05 and a structured questionnaire was adopted for data collection. The data were analysed using descriptive statistics, Pearson Correlation, and the Ordinary Least Square method of estimation. Methodology The result revealed the existence of a statistically significant and positive relationship between private contributions and the sustainability of NGOs, a positive but insignificant relationship between commercial activities and sustainability of NGOs, and an inverse relationship between government funding and sustainability of NGOs. Findings The study established that private contributions affect the sustainability of NGOs to a very large extent; government funding does not improve the sustainability of NGOs, and commercial activities do not have a significant impact on the sustainability of NGOs. Consequently, the study recommended that management and staf of NGOs should create more awareness about their operations in order to attract better contributions from private individuals and organisations.

COVID-19 in West Africa: regional resource mobilisation and allocation in the first year of the pandemic

The world continues to battle the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Whereas many countries are currently experiencing the second wave of the outbreak; Africa, despite being the last continent to be affected by the virus, has not experienced as much devastation as other continents. For example, West Africa, with a population of 367 million people, had confirmed 412 178 cases of COVID-19 with 5363 deaths as of 14 March 2021; compared with the USA which had recorded almost 30 million cases and 530 000 deaths, despite having a slightly smaller population (328 million). Several postulations have been made in an attempt to explain this phenomenon. One hypothesis is that African countries have leveraged on experiences from past epidemics to build resilience and response strategies which may be contributing to protecting the continent’s health systems from being overwhelmed. This practice paper from the West African Health Organization presents experience and data from the field on how countries in the region mobilised support to address the pandemic in the first year, leveraging on systems, infrastructure, capacities developed and experiences from the 2014 Ebola virus disease outbreak.

Taxation and Customs Reforms in Fragile States: Between Bargaining and Enforcement

In the last decade, African authorities and the international community have called for support to increase taxation capacity in order to reduce reliance on aid flows. This commitment to support tax administrations was reflected in the 2015 Addis Tax Initiative (ATI), which advocated ‘to double assistance to developing countries in order to strengthen their tax systems and administrations’ by the year 2020 (IMF 2017: 6). Increasing domestic resource mobilisation is even more salient for state-building in fragile states, in terms of providing costly services to citizens, including security, across national territory. There is a rich literature (Acemoglu and Robinson 2012; Besley and Persson 2009) arguing that robust and inclusive fiscal institutions are essential for state-building and economic growth. This is not the situation in fragile states.

Network resource mobilisation limitations and the alliance portfolio network

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to examine how access and mobilisation of network resources influence a firm's performance. It has been established that alliance portfolio (AP) network parameters shape the access to network resources; however, resource access understood as value creation differs from resource mobilisation understood as value capture. Hence, the paper contributes towards the comprehension of AP performance by examining the extent to which a firm's level of network resource mobilisation (NRM) plays a role in improving financial performance and how this strategy conditions the benefits obtained from a firm's AP.Design/methodology/approachThis study employs an interorganisational network approach to describe the APs of firms; subsequently, it examines how AP network parameters and resource mobilisation determine financial performance. To this end, sequential multiple regression models are applied to a sample from the Top International Airlines database, covering 135 portfolios that correspond to 1117 codeshare partnerships.FindingsThe analyses show that the NRM level has an inverted U-shaped relationship with revenue performance, thereby revealing the limitations and considerations in the strategic alliance strategy. In addition, the authors show how the resource mobilisation decision moderates the faculty of AP parameters to influence a firm's financial performance, thereby exposing the nuanced relationship between AP size, diversity and redundancy. The findings convey strategic and practical implications for managers regarding how to capture value from their APs.Practical implicationsThe findings suggest the need for NRM to form part of a firm's AP management capability, so that, by acquiring superior strategic knowledge in NRM, the firm is able to extract value from its AP through the optimal exploitation of complementary assets.Originality/valuePrevious research has highlighted the multidimensional nature of APs at the theoretical level; however, no simultaneous empirical analysis of various AP parameters has yet been produced. The research empirically analyses an AP network and how its parameters affect financial performance in the presence of a resource mobilisation strategy. Not only do the authors introduce the analysis of the curvilinear relationship between the level of NRM and a firm's performance, but also of its role in advancing the AP literature.

Problem of expanding the management of VAT to the synthetic tax centers of DR Congo

The tax reform to replace turnover tax with value-added tax (VAT) in Congolese tax legislation, in order to broaden the tax base, was justified by the government’s desire to increase levels of state revenue. This tax was introduced in 2010 and implemented in 2012. Although its contribution has improved the level of tax revenue, certain managerial aspects linked to it have not been exploited to significantly improve resource mobilisation objectives. In particular, the fixed threshold has excluded certain structures, the synthetic tax centres in particular, who are in direct contact with the vast majority of consumers, from the management of this tax.

Analysis of the potential and fiscal effort of the countries of the West African Economic and Monetary Union

This article aimed to analyse the fiscal potential of member countries of the West African Economic and Monetary Union Commission (WAEMU) space. This issue seems to be relevant insofar as fiscal resources are a function of the states’ budget. The method of analysis used in this paper is the stochastic frontier model of Kumbakar, Lien & Hardaker (2014) for the period 1987-2017. The results showed that the tax burden is determined by structural factors and that in most countries the tax potential can be further exploited. Similarly, the tax effort can be improved for a more visible performance in terms of resource mobilisation in the majority of countries. These results can contribute to improving the choice and decisions of the WAEMU Commission on fiscal policies.

Hierarchical Forecasting of the Zimbabwe International Tourist Arrivals

The objectives of the paper is to: (1) adopt the hierarchical forecasting methods in modelling and forecasting international tourist arrivals in Zimbabwe; and (2) coming up with Zimbabwe international tourist arrivals Prediction Intervals (PIs) in Quantile Regression Averaging (QRA) to hierarchical tourism forecasts. Zimbabwe’s monthly international tourist arrivals data from January 2002 to December 2018 was used. The dataset used was before the COVID-19 period and were disaggregated according to the purpose of the visit (POV). Three hierarchical forecasting approaches, namely top-down, bottom-up and optimal combination approaches were applied to the data. The results showed the superiority of the bottom-up approach over both the top-down and optimal combination approaches. Forecasts indicate a general increase in aggregate series. The combined methods provide a new insight into modelling tourist arrivals. The approach is useful to the government, tourism stakeholders, and investors among others, for decision-making, resource mobilisation and allocation. The Zimbabwe Tourism Authority (ZTA) could adopt the forecasting techniques to produce informative and precise tourism forecasts. The data set used is before the COVID-19 pandemic and the models indicate what could happen outside the pandemic. During the pandemic the country was under lockdown with no tourist arrivals to report on. The models are useful for planning purposes beyond the COVID-19 pandemic.