Horizon ScanSOUTHERN AFRICA

Issue 51, November 2013

The information and commentary expressed here are the selection and views of the scanning organisation and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the Rockefeller Foundation

POVERTY, DEVELOPMENT AND DONOR ISSUES 1

South Africa’s wealthy among most giving in world 1

How do you balance business and philanthropy? 1

ECONOMIC ISSUES 2

Employers need to give unemployed youth a fair go 2

Policy challenges around the spaza sector 3

POLITICAL ISSUES 5

SACU's day of reckoning has arrived 5

A new platform for social justice and accountability 6

SOCIAL ISSUES 7

New study again proves worth of social grants in South Africa 7

ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES 8

Making the case for Southern Africa’s dryland forests 8

Scenario planning yielding no different results than those of expert opinions 9

SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY & INNOVATION ISSUES 10

Survey suggests MOOCs are failing to educate the poor 10

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POVERTY, DEVELOPMENT AND DONORISSUES

South Africa’s wealthy among most

giving in world

Rich South Africans donated R8 billion(US$800 million) in cash, R5.1bn (US$510million) in goods and services and 7.9-millionhours of their time to charity last year,cementing South Africa’s place as the “thirdor fourth” most-giving nation.

This is according to Nedbank PrivateWealth’s second Giving Report, released onduring November. The report estimates that91% of South Africa’s nearly 300,000wealthy individuals gave because they “carefor a cause”, “want to make a difference” and“want to give back to my community”.

Religious beliefs and family traditionsranked fourth and fifth as reasons to give.South Africa’s wealthy gave from the heart,said Nedbank Private Wealth philanthropyspecialist Noxolo Hlongwane.

Nedbank defines “high net worth” asthose earning more than R1.5m (US$150000) a year or having investable assets(minus private residence) of at least R5m(US$500 000).

The global economic crisis hadknocked South Africa’s giving, cutting thepercentage of those ready to dip into theirpockets from 2010’s 94% to 91%. MsHlongwane said it was “quite funny” that70% of these donors did not measure thesuccess of their giving.

Nedbank surveyed 401 people, allrandomly selected and not all clients. Thesurvey showed the inclination to give wasless a factor of demographics than access toresources. Net worth was the best indicatorof giving status, and of the amount given.Source:http://www.bdlive.co.za/national/2013/11/01/sas-wealthy-among-most-giving-in-world

How do you balance business and

philanthropy?

An interesting (shortened) op-ed below byMichael Green, author of Philanthrocapitalismand Executive Director of the Social ProgressImperative, which is a Washington DC-basednon-profit that produces the Social ProgressIndex. His opinions were published on theWorld Economic Forum blog.

As the UN works on a post-2015development framework – the SustainableDevelopment Goals – there is a growingrealization that governments cannot identifyand address the world’s most pressingdevelopment issues alone. A big question

persists: how can government’s best involvebusinesses and philanthropists in the fightagainst poverty?

Business plays a crucial role intackling development challenges. HarvardBusiness School Professor Michael E. Portercalls this revolution in business thinking“shared value”. One of his case studies is thefood giant Nestlé, which has worked hard tobring social and economic benefits to smallfarmers in its supply chain and is nowshaping its future as a “nutrition” business.Obesity, for example, is a strategic risk tothe food industry and one that businesseslike Nestlé have the tools to tackle, notthrough philanthropy, but by changing whatthey sell and how they sell it.

Yet the question remains of how analliance of governments, business andphilanthropy could work together. Many aidorganizations are sceptical of the motives ofbusiness and suspicious of philanthropybecause, well, private actors just don’t playby the same rules as multilateralorganizations like the UN.

But the world needs that scepticismto change. William Eggers and PaulMacmillan call it “the Solution Revolution”and it has radical implications for globalgovernance. The Global Fund to Fight Aids,Tuberculosis and Malaria, for example, hasgiven private donors and businesses seats onthe board alongside governments. It’sexactly this kind of “grand alliance” that weneed to see more often.

It’s self-fulfilling to an extent: ifphilanthropic organizations and businessescan see that their money has a tangibleimpact, further support and engagement aremore likely. And it can be expected that theywill be more likely to pursue single-issuecampaigns that create solutions to specificproblems – regardless of whether thesecampaigns fall within the UN’s SustainableDevelopment Goals or not.

This is where a new global measureof national performance – the Social ProgressIndex – is trying to make a difference in thischanging environment. It attempts tomeasure the host of dimensions that make agood society and highlight issues that,although urgent, are not on the agenda forthe Sustainable Development Goals. Theseinclude obesity, gender equity and minorityrights: the kind of issues that philanthropicinvolvement and businesses can help toaddress.

The world is changing. Thedevelopment sector has to realize that theway it is funded will have to change too andthat, while traditional top-down government-led solutions will form part of the “input mix”,

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the private sector has an increasinglyimportant role to play.Source: http://forumblog.org/2013/11/how-do-you-balance-business-and-philanthropy/

According to the Social Progress Imperative“[n]umerous studies have found a highcorrelation between economic growth and awide variety of social indicators, yet there isgrowing awareness that economic measuresalone do not fully capture social progress”.Its mission, therefore, is to “advance globalhuman wellbeing, by combining nationalsocial performance and capacity indicatorswith solutions-oriented outreach to sectorleaders, and grassroots champions, whotogether can effect large-scale change. Socialprogress is defined as the capacity of asociety to meet the basic human needs of itscitizens, establish the building blocks thatallow citizens and communities to enhanceand sustain the quality of their lives, andcreate the conditions for all individuals toreach their full potential”. See herehttp://www.socialprogressimperative.org/data/spi for the Social Progress Index in whichSouthern African countries fare badly as perusual.

It is perhaps interesting to approach this blogpost’s argument through an African lenstaking into consideration the views of JoFord, a senior analyst at Oxford Analytica. Hebrings the politics of the private sector's rolein development into the argument ultimatelystating that: “…the decision to engagebusiness, and then the process of doing so, isfull of policy minefields and trade-offs andproblems; but these are not that differentfrom the problems and dilemmasencountered in dealing with governmentsand other familiar development actors. Thechallenges of our century are too big andinter-connected to be left to publicpolicymaking alone, quite apart from thereality of the huge de facto developmentimpact (for better or worse) that businessactivity has. One needs as many 'wins' asone can reasonably find. Public and aid policyin Africa should embrace embracing theprivate sector, and figure it out as we go”.

See also his blog post The private sector'srole in poverty-reduction, development andpeace for background.

ECONOMIC ISSUES

Employers need to give unemployed

youth a fair go

An edited op-ed by Andrew Donaldson who isa deputy director-general at the SouthAfrican Treasury.

The story of South Africa’s past and presentfailures, and the seeds of its future conflicts,are contained in a single declarative sentenceon page 13 of the latest Quarterly LabourForce Survey (QLFS).

“Approximately 3.3-million of the10.4-million youth aged 15-24 years werenot in employment, education or training inthe third quarter of 2013.”

The unemployment crisis — for howelse can you describe 6.8-million people [intotal] with no real hope of fending forthemselves — is evidence of a “co-ordinationfailure” with interconnected market andpolicy and administrative factors at play.This "co-ordination failure" manifests in threeways:

- Young people are leaving schoolwithout adequate numeracy andliteracy skills;

- Employers are shutting out high-potential youngsters because theschool-leaving certificate is no longeran indicator of either ability orpotential; and

- The economy is creating far too fewnew jobs.

However, as bleak as the situation is, and asintractable as the problems appear, thesolution is staring us in the face.

It doesn’t require a completeoverhaul of the legislative framework, asoften called for by business, nor does itrequire that business be bludgeoned intosubmission by increasingly onerous penalties,as called for by some in government andlabour.

It takes money, of which there isplenty; political will to implement policies,which is in short supply, and corporatewillingness to act in the interests of positivesocial change — the lack of which oftenmakes politicians look positively proactive.

Nicola Galombik, executive directorat Yellowwoods, the investment holdingcompany that founded Harambee — a youthemployment accelerator supported by thegovernment’s Jobs Fund, which preparesfirst-time workers for jobs in the formalsector — says that the key is to create avirtuous cycle of employers seeing value inemploying young work seekers.

She says while the governmentneeds to implement its many youth

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unemployment initiatives more effectively,the private sector also needs to step up itscommitment and change its employmentpractices to absorb and support youngpeople.

In partnership with the state’s R9billion (US$900 million) Jobs Fund, Harambeeplans to have, by the end of the year, placed4 500 18- to 24-year-olds from poor orindigent backgrounds in formal sectoremployment in six economic sectors. By theend of next year, this number will stand at10 000.

Harambee has to date focused onfinancial services, hospitality, retail and callcentres, but will be shifting some of its focusto getting people ready for artisanal andother technical training, as these skills aregoing to be in great demand when thegovernment’s infrastructure programmegathers momentum.

Ms Galombik says Harambee’ssuccess was driven by employers realisingthat business success and sustainability arelinked to growing the talent pool andimproving retention and progression.

This means that employers mustchange the way they recruit and managepeople to support young first-time workersrather than seeing youth unemployment as aproblem to be dealt with through corporatesocial investment (CSI) programmes.

Ms Galombik acknowledges thenumeracy and conversational English ofyoung people leaving school falls short oflevels required by even entry-level jobs, butsays this is not the biggest problem theyoungsters face in finding employment. “Thebiggest barrier is socioeconomic,” she says.

“Young people from poorcommunities do not have the social networksneeded to get their first jobs, they do nothave the financial resources to pay fortransport or internet cafes in order to look forwork, and they have incredibly limited andpoor information about what will be requiredof them when they do land a position,” shesays.

“Nor do they know what jobs will suitthem or where they will be most likely tosucceed.” Vocational training is alsoessential. Success does not only depend onhaving the right skills and a lack ofbehavioural readiness for work — being ontime, being able to manage themselves andrelationships with managers, co-workers andcustomers, and fitting into workplace culture— is often a bigger barrier.

This is borne out by Harambee’sexperience of assessing more than 40 000young people for its programme. Theorganisation found that the correlation

between numeracy scores and learningpotential was very weak.

More than 60% of those assessedhad the learning potential required for entry-level jobs and yet more than half of thesecandidates had failed numeracy tests forentry-level positions.

This is a real problem for candidates:out of the 35 employers that Harambeeplaces people in, 34 use numeracy tests aspart of the selection process. A core part ofHarambee’s programme is boosting thenumeric proficiency of candidates toacceptable levels where required. This isdone through a short, intensive bridgingprogramme.

Mr Donaldson says that he is pleasedwith the success of the Jobs Fund so far,even though, he says, the initiative had gotoff to a slow start. The fund was set up to co-finance projects and initiatives aimed atsustainable job creation and overcoming thetransition between school and work.

Unlike the expanded public worksprogramme, which supports temporary publicsector jobs, the Jobs Fund partners with theprivate sector and nongovernmentorganisations has four focus areas: namelyenterprise development, infrastructureinvestment, support for work seekers, andinstitutional capacity building.

This melding of the capacities of theprivate and public sectors, as evidenced bythe Jobs Fund and projects like Harambee, issurely the path to the social compact andcollective action needed to deal with thepowder keg of having millions of youngpeople living in abject conditions of povertyand deprivation.

As Ms Galombik says: “We candebate the right laws, the wrong laws,whether there are too many or too few laws,their execution, but what we know is that totackle youth unemployment as a nation weneed a very deliberate effort fromgovernment and the private sector to eachdo their bit well.”Source:http://www.bdlive.co.za/national/labour/2013/11/25/news-analysis-employers-need-to-give-army-of-unemployed-youth-a-fair-go

Policy challenges around the spaza

sector

The February 2013 edition of the SouthernAfrica Scan newsletter featured an in-depthinvestigation into the spaza sector (informalretail outlets located in informal areas) inSouth Africa. Even though this research wasconducted in South Africa, it is relevant forthe whole region because spaza shops areubiquitous in every town and city in allSouthern African countries. They serve as asource of income for countless poor people,

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women in particular, and also provide easyaccess to much needed consumer goods andgroceries. This (shortened) article followsfrom that research, which examined thecontrasting business models in the spazashop sector, and compared foreign-runbusinesses with South African businesses.The article below argues for a two-prongedpolicy that would formalise larger shopswhilst permitting and encouraging informalmicro and survivalist businesses.

Since about 2005, there has been fiercecompetition between South African spazaoperators and businesses that are run byimmigrants. New research has sought tounderstand the nature of this competitionand the impact of the seeming dominance offoreign businesses over their South Africancounterparts. Whilst the decline of SouthAfrican spaza shops has long been predictedbecause they appear to be uncompetitive,the precise nature of this uncompetitivenesshas been poorly understood. Such knowledgewould touch on possible government efforts,including legislation and supportprogrammes, to bolster South African spaza(and other) entrepreneurship.

Spaza shops are small grocery shopsor convenience stores. (The name spazaderives from township slang meaning animitation of a real shop.) For decades spazashops have played an important role asretailers of household grocery items intownship communities. They are alsoimportant incubators of entrepreneurship,providing the business foundations forgenerations of South African families whilstbringing additional income to households.These small shops trade items that areregularly in demand by the locals and thatcan be easily acquired from wholesalers ordistributors. The core items are: bread, milk,grain staples, cool-drinks, soap, cigarettesand alcohol.

The majority of spaza shops areunregistered, informal businesses and mostlydo not adhere to the municipal rules forconducting business in residential areas. Inthe past, research on the spaza market hasfocused on two sets of issues: first, theentrepreneurial characteristics (ordeficiencies) of spaza operators; secondly,the impact of external factors on thesebusinesses, in particular competition fromsupermarkets.

The actual size and composition ofthe South African spaza market is poorlyunderstood. Data from StatsSA’s LabourForce Survey (2007) indicate that spazashops account for 6.6% of self-employment,whilst 9.2% of home-based self-employedpersons operate spazas. In terms of current

labour force estimates, this means thatapproximately 145 000 persons rely on spazashops. An industry trade source,spazanews.co.za, claims that the spazasector comprises more than 100 000enterprises with a collective annual turnoverof R7 billion (US$700 million).

A micro-enterprise survey conductedby the Sustainable Livelihoods Foundation ineight urban sites over the period 2010-2013identified 1 130 spaza shops amongst acombined population of approximately 325000 (98 000 households), i.e. approximatelyone spaza shop for every 86 households.Detailed interviews were conducted with 950shopkeepers. Almost 50% (470) wereoperated by foreign entrepreneurs and theiremployees. This finding confirms variousacademic studies and press reports thatforeign business owners have established astrong foothold in the spaza sector.

Foreign, [in particularly Somali] shopkeepers are more successful than SouthAfricans because of the strength of theirsocial networks, which provides them withaccess to labour and capital and enablescollective purchasing and market domination.

The South African shopkeepers, incontrast, typically operate within a weaksocial network that often is limited tomembers of the immediate family whoprovide labour but little else.

The Somali entrepreneurial businessmodel [in the sub-area of Delft] is primarilybased on price competition based oncollective procurement and large distributionnetworks. The network also enablesshopkeepers to obtain important spazaproducts that cannot be obtained throughwholesale stores but which are available onthe black market, notably contrabandcigarettes.

The contrasting models are manifestin businesses of very different sizes. MostSomali-run ‘small’ businesses appear to bebig enough to be considered formal firms –while the South African shops are typicallysurvivalist micro-enterprises. Unable tocompete with the foreign-owned shops onprice or scale, South African spaza shopshave either closed, or have continued totrade but have had to diversify to alternativeactivities, such as the sale of alcohol ortakeaway food or the establishment ofarcade/game shops.

South Africa undoubtedly needs tofoster entrepreneurship. This includespermitting legal immigrants to establishbusinesses (including spaza shops).Furthermore, the opportunity for poortownship residents to procure cheaper foodsfrom competitive outlets is a real benefit.

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However, while we have focused onone geographical area, our research suggeststhat the general spaza sector is changing atsuch a rapid rate that it may have asignificant and lasting negative impact onentrepreneurship and self-employment in theinformal economy, at least in the home-based trade sector. However, the continuedoperation of the smaller spaza shops isimportant not only to address unemploymentand poverty, but also to provide anentrepreneurial learning experience and thetransfer of business skills to youngergenerations – an important benefit thatneeds to be nurtured.

An appropriate policy interventionwould be to regulate the retail grocery tradein the townships – not to create regulatorybarriers, but to ensure that businesses thatare large and independent enough toformalise are indeed formalised. Parallel tothis, opportunities could remain for smallerand/or more survivalist businesses to operateinformally. Given advantages such as theirspatial location (which secures niche marketsin areas of a township) or reduced overheadsdue to being able to work at home, theycould sustain a modest competitiveadvantage in serving local market niches.

The task facing policymakers thus isnot to exclude the new generation of savvyentrepreneurs in the spaza sector. Rather, itis to ensure that businesses which growbeyond a certain size – those large enough tostart negotiating price discounts andmerchandising services from producers, toemploy staff and to accumulate businessassets – start to comply with therequirements of formalisation, whether theyare run by foreigners or South Africans. Forthese shops it might mean having to relocateto the high street in compliance withmunicipal by-laws, registering staff, payingminimum wages and providing employeebenefits, submitting VAT and income taxreturns, and so forth (and with the ownerresiding off-premises, i.e. not within the shopitself).

Such a two-pronged policy that wouldformalise larger shops whilst permitting andencouraging informal micro and survivalistbusinesses would encourage successfulentrepreneurship whilst providing a space forrekindling and nurturing informal micro orsurvivalist spaza shops.Source: http://www.econ3x3.org/article/why-are-foreign-run-spaza-shops-more-successful-rapidly-changing-spaza-sector-south-africa

POLITICAL ISSUES

SACU's day of reckoning has arrived

The Southern Africa Scan newsletter hasreported on regional integration, tradeagreements and the Southern AfricanCustoms Union (SACU) in particular, on anon-going basis for the past four years. Theedited article below is a significant early signof fundamental change in this area. The ‘sowhat’ aspect of it is that Botswana, Lesotho,Namibia and Swaziland (BLNS) are allcompletely financially dependent upon theSACU transfers, and if they were to stop,there would be an economic catastrophe inSwaziland and Lesotho (which are 60-70%dependent for revenues from SACU) and justa serious financial disaster in Namibia andBotswana, which are somewhat lessdependent (30-40%). In Botswana, SACUhas over the last few years become moreimportant to the revenue of the country thandiamonds, the country’s main export.

As Professor Roman Grynberg of theBotswana Institute for Development PolicyAnalysis states: “As it stands at themoment, without real reform, the SACUrevenue sharing formula is the single andmost immediate impediment to theintegration of southern Africa. The SADC freetrade area can never deepen into a CustomsUnion and SACU can never widen to includecountries like Mozambique under the currentformula. It is in the long term interests of theBLNS to lead a real and radical reform ofSACU, rather than to try to negotiate minorrevision of the formula and wait untilPretoria, or worse still, the IMF, give the‘coup de grace’ to this very profitableapartheid era formula and finally end thedysfunctional relationship it has createdbetween the BLNS and South Africa”. Seeherehttp://www.trademarksa.org/news/SACU-deadman-walking#.UpnkVae8FX8.twitter forhis full commentary; and expect the(extravagant) lifestyle and spending habits ofthe Swazi king to change.

South Africa has requested an urgentmeeting with members of the SouthernAfrican Customs Union (SACU) for as early asFebruary next year in what could be a make-or-break conference for the struggling union.

In July this year, a clearly frustratedTrade and Industry Minister Rob Davies toldParliament that there had been little progresson a 2011 agreement intended to advancethe region's development integration, and itwas stifling its real economic development.

South Africa's payments to SACUcurrently amount to R48.3-billion annually

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(US$4.3 billion) — a substantial amount,considering the budget deficit is presentlyR146.9-billion (US$14.6 billion) an estimated4.5% of gross domestic product.

In the past, South Africa has hadsome room to reposition itself, but asFinance Minister Pravin Gordhan has pointedout, the South African fiscus has come undera lot of pressure as a result of factors such asthe global slowdown, reduction in demandfrom countries such as China forcommodities, and reduced demand fromtrade partners such as the European Union.

South Africa, which according toresearch data, last year contributed 1.26% ofits GDP, or about 98% of the pool of customsand excise duties that are shared betweenunion countries including Swaziland,Botswana, Lesotho and Namibia, wants apercentage of this money to be set aside forregional and industrial development.

The four countries receive 55% ofthe proceeds, and are greatly dependent onthis money, which makes up between 25%and 60% of their budget revenue. SouthAfrica has very little direct benefit, exceptwhen it comes to exporting to thesecountries. It receives few imports.

Efforts to change the revenue-sharing arrangement so that money can beset aside for regional development wouldresult in less money going into the coffers ofthese countries.

It would also mean that a portion ofthe revenue that South Africa's SACUpartners now receive with no strings attachedwould in future include restrictions on how itis spent.

A source close to the departmentsaid adjustments to the revenue-sharingarrangement and the promotion of regionaland industrial development were issues onwhich the South African government was notwilling to budge.

So seriously is South Africa viewingthe lack of progress on the 2011 agreement,a document prepared for Cabinet discussionincludes pulling out of SACU as one of itsoptions, a source told the Mail & Guardian.

This could not be confirmed by thegovernment, but two senior sources saidSouth Africa was very aware of thedependence of its neighbours on income fromthe customs union, in particular Swazilandand Lesotho, and the impact its collapsecould have on these economies.

Professor Jannie Rossouw of theUniversity of South Africa's department ofeconomics believes a new revenue-sharingarrangement is essential for the long-termsustainability of SACU countries.

He also said that South Africa'scontribution as it presently stands should be

recognised as development aid and treatedas such by the international community.

Between 2002 and 2013, totaltransfers amounted to 0.92% of SouthAfrica's GDP, which exceeds the internationalbenchmark of 0.7% set by the Organisationfor Economic Co-operation and Development,he said in his research.

“It is noteworthy that South Africatransfers nearly all customs collections toSACU countries. Total collection since 2002amounted to about R249 billion (US$24.9billion), while transfers to SACU were aboutR242-billion (US$ 24.2 billion),” Rossouwsaid. The South African Revenue Service(Sars) recognises that inclusion of trade withSACU would have a substantial impact onSouth Africa's official trade balance.

South Africa's total trade deficit for2012 was R116.9-billion (US$11.6 billion)and, according to Sars, had trade with theunion been included, it would have beenmuch reduced to R34.6-billion (US$3.4billion).

The South African government istrying diplomacy as its first option. A seniorgovernment source said issues around SACUmade up a large part of talks last weekbetween Botswana and South Africa on theestablishment of co-operative agreements ontrade, transport and border co-operation.Source: http://mg.co.za/article/2013-11-29-00-SACUs-day-of-reckoning-has-arrived

A new platform for social justice and

accountability

On 28 November a new platform for socialjustice and accountability was initiated inSouth Africa. Called Awethu it is described bythe interim steering committee as a “meetingof [more than 40] civil society organisations”planning to “deepen democracy in SouthAfrica, to make politicians, of whateverpolitical persuasion, accountable to ordinarySouth Africans, to ultimately open a space forSouth Africans to have a say in the way thecountry is led”.

For details see herehttp://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2013-11-29-people-have-the-power-awethu/ andherehttp://www.cls.uct.ac.za/news/?id=77&t=int

Given South Africa’s history of civicorganisation and mobilisation during the‘struggle’ years, this development is one towatch.

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SOCIAL ISSUES

New study again proves worth of social

grants in South Africa

South Africa’s “bloated welfare state” tendsto attract a great deal of disapproval fromthe chattering classes. Part of what drivesthis is the number of urban myths incirculation about the abuse of the socialgrant system: that teenagers fall pregnant inorder to access child support grants, forinstance; or Sky News’ egregious claim thatSouth African women deliberately drinkalcohol during pregnancy in order tosubsequently claim a disability grant for thechild.

When the Daily Maverick debunkedthat one, we quoted African Centre forMigration & Society researcher MarliseRichter: “Research has consistently found acorrelation between social grants andpositive childhood development.”

The new study, published inrenowned journal The Lancet Public Health,shows now that there is also a correlationbetween social grants and reduced instancesof risky sexual behaviour among adolescents:particularly the taking on of a ‘sugar daddy’who swaps food, money or school fees forsex. The study, led by the University ofOxford’s Dr Lucie Cluver, interviewed SouthAfrican adolescents between 10 and 18 yearsold, living in both urban and rural districts,between 2009 and 2012.

The reason for targeting youngpeople in the study is because they are atthe heart of sub-Saharan Africa’s HIVlandscape. Of the 1.8 million new HIVinfections in 2011, the report records, 41%were in people aged between 15 and 24 –and the prevalence rate was three timeshigher in girls than in boys.

Social grants available for children inSouth Africa are twofold: the child supportgrant (R280 (US$28) per month in 2012) isavailable to the primary caregivers ofchildren who earn below a certain amountper month. The take-up of this grant is farmore extensive than the second form, thefoster child grant (R770 (US$77) per month),which is available to the primary caregiversof children legally in their care.

Of the four districts chosen for thestudy, two were rural and two were urban,within Mpumalanga and the Western Cape.All had an antenatal HIV prevalence of morethan 30%, based on the national HIV testingof pregnant women.

All in all, 3,401 adolescents wereinterviewed over 2009-2010 and then againover 2011-2012, and asked questions aboutrisky sexual behaviour. Types of risky sexualbehaviour included transactional sex (having

sex in exchange for food, shelter, transportor money); “age-disparate sex” (having asexual partner more than 5 years older thanthe adolescent); unprotected sex (not alwaysusing condoms); having two or morepartners in the past year; and sex whiledrunk or after using drugs.

The results showed that there werecorrelations between types of risky sexualbehaviour engaged in. In other word,participants who had age-disparate sex weremore likely to have transactional sex thanthose who didn’t. Participants who hadtransactional sex were more likely to havehad sex while drunk or after taking drugsthan those who didn’t have transactional sex.Participants who had age-disparate sex werealso more likely to have had multiple sexualpartners. “All risky behaviours increased withage, for both girls and boys”, the studynotes.

The researchers found that receivinga social grant resulted in a reduction incertain types of risky sexual behaviour. Inhouseholds not receiving any child grants, forinstance, 5.5% of girls had had transactionalsex in the past year, as compared with 2,5%of girls in households which did receive agrant. When researchers returned a year ormore later, those figures stood at 6.2% and2.7% respectively. In households whichhadn’t received any child grants, 4.3% ofgirls had begun an age-disparate sexualrelationship in the past year. In houses whichwere given such a grant, that figure droppedto just 1.2%.

Dr Cluver explained the significanceof the findings to the Daily Maverick insimpler terms. “The most striking finding isthat our social grants are reducing HIV riskbehaviour for teenage girls,” Cluver said.“Girls who get a child support grant or fosterchild grant are half less likely to havetransactional sex (in exchange for food,school fees or money) and two thirds lesslikely to have a boyfriend who is 5 or moreyears older than them. These are major HIV-infection risks, and parts of the reason whyour Minister of Health says that ‘sugardaddies’ are one of the greatest risks to girlstoday.”

Such ‘sugar daddies’ are more likelyto be HIV-positive, Cluver notes, and younggirls are less likely to be able to negotiatecondom use with them. “This is part of thereason why we see up to five times the ratesof HIV in teenage girls compared to teenageboys,” Cluver said, citing a Human SciencesResource Council report from 2012.

It’s important to note that socialgrants are not a comprehensive magic bullethere. The study found that receiving a grantdid not significantly affect the likelihood of

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participants to have had unprotected sex,multiple sexual partners, or sex while drunkor after taking drugs. “So [social grants]don’t stop teenagers from doing stupidteenage stuff,” Cluver summed up. The studyalso found that most of the significant effectsof social grants on sexual behaviour arelimited to female adolescents. For boys,access to grants were associated with aslightly reduced incidence of multiplepartners, but not sustainably so. There were“no other significant effects” for the sexualbehaviour of boys.

“[Social grants] do reduce this onekey risk – getting this small amount ofmonthly money for the whole householdmeans that girls don’t have to choose theirsexual partners through economic need,”Cluver said.

It’s also significant that the studyidentified no adverse effects of cash transfersfor adolescents (whereas in Malawi, forinstance, there were short-term increases inrisky sex for men given cash transfers in atrial). The study reports: “Given the strongevidence of nutritional, educational, andother benefits of child-focused cash transfers,it is encouraging to identify no harmfuleffects on risky sexual behaviours in thissample”.

For Cluver, one of the most strikingfindings of the study was the debunking ofthe popular understanding of the relationshipbetween young girls and sugar daddies.

“When you read in the newspapersabout sugar daddies, it’s often talked aboutlike it’s a lifestyle choice that girls make:they want luxuries or cellphones or niceclothes,” Cluver said. “But these findingsreally tell us something different. That if wegive a small amount of regular money forsurvival, girls will choose not to have a sugardaddy. If we really want to reduce HIVincidence for our teenage girls, we can't justtell them not to take risks. We have to makeit possible for them to do so.”

With this further evidence of theutility of social grants in hand, Cluver saysit’s essential to work harder to make surethat eligible children are accessing thegrants. “Although a huge amount of work hasbeen done on this, a Children’s Institutereport last year found that 30% of eligiblechildren are not getting a grant, and theseare likely to be the most vulnerable to HIVinfection.”

It’s Cluver’s belief that the grantsshould be scaled up, not down. “We alreadyknow from a UNICEF study last year thatthese grants improve education and childdevelopment,” she says. “Now we know thatthey can also protect teenagers from HIV.”

Source:http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2013-11-27-new-study-again-proves-worth-of-social-grants-in-south-africa/

A solid-looking piece of research thatconfirms the importance of social protectionmeasures and highlights the nuances ofadolescent girls’ sexual behaviour andchoices which is directly linked to HIVprevalence.

ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES

Making the case for Southern Africa’s

dryland forests

On 22 and 23 October 2013 South AfricanInstitute of International Affair’s (SAIIA)Governance of Africa’s Resources Programmeand the Food, Agriculture and NaturalResources (FANR) Directorate of theSouthern African Development Community(SADC) co-hosted a conference titled ‘Bestpractice in the governance of Africa’s drylandforests: Implications for Southern Africa’. Theevent aimed to galvanise support for thedryland forests of Southern Africa among thepublic and private sectors, civil society anddevelopment partners.

Close to half of the African continentis covered by drylands, spread over 15countries of the Sahel, and 15 countries ofEast and Southern Africa. These ecosystemssupport over 60% of Africa’s people with awide range of environmental goods andservices, many of which are derived from theregion’s dryland forests and woodlands.

The value of dryland forests stretchesbeyond the products they provide; beyondtimber and even non-timber forest products(NTFPs). There is increasing globalrecognition of the multiple ecosystemservices provided by forests. In addition tosequestering carbon, forests provide servicesrelated to the protection of watersheds andbiodiversity.

If properly valued and sustainablymanaged, Africa’s dryland forests have thepotential to contribute to economicdevelopment, poverty reduction and foodsecurity. However, these ecosystems areexposed to a range of acute threats.Environmental challenges includingencroaching desertification and climatechange-related phenomena are furthercompounded by governance-related ones.Moreover, the contribution of forests andwoodland resources to regional economiesand livelihoods is not sufficiently recognised.This has led to the marginalisation of theforestry sector throughout the region.

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These very real challenges threatento obscure a repository of best practiceexamples that exist across the drylandforests of sub-Saharan Africa and beyond.Southern Africa is well-placed to build onexamples such as the Great Green WallInitiative – a mosaic of sustainable landmanagement practices across the Sahelianbelt that has managed to galvanise thesupport of policymakers, civil society,farmers and implementation partners alike.Similarly, best practice examples exist inEast and Southern Africa, though these havenot yet attained the global prominence ofthose in the Sahel.

It is with this in mind that speakersat the joint SAIIA-SADC conference sharedlessons and best practice examples in thegovernance of dryland forests from SouthernAfrica, the Sahel and East Africa.

The event was designed so as to addimpetus to the SADC Forestry Strategy 2010-2020, with panel discussions based onpriority themes identified in the Strategy,namely:

1. climate change mitigation andadaptation;

2. forests, water and biodiversity;3. energy supply and poverty reduction;4. the trade in forest products; and5. transfrontier areas and participatory

forest management.

See herehttp://www.saiia.org.za/events/making-the-case-for-southern-africas-dryland-forests forthe conference resources including keynotespeeches, papers and presentations.

Scenario planning yielding no different

results than those of expert opinions

In a study recently published in Ecology andSociety, [Stockholm Resilience Centre]researchers Rebecka Malinga and LineGordon, together with colleagues fromStockholm university and University ofKwaZulu-Natal in South Africa, have studiedwhether the use of planning scenarioplanning provides other insights in theselection of ecosystem services in changinglandscapes.

Using an agricultural landscape inSouth Africa they compared different sets ofecosystem services selected by four differentsources: stakeholders participating inscenario planning exercises, experts whowere given access to the same scenarios, athird group of experts who had not read thescenarios but have in-depth knowledge of thestudy area, and a list of ecosystem servicesderived from literature.

The results showed that the list ofecosystem services selected by experts and

the scenario stakeholders were overall thesame, indicating that knowledge of a studyarea gained through the scenario exercise isnot very different from that of expertsworking actively in the area.

“Scenario development takes a lot ofresources, and carrying out scenario planningsolely for the purpose of identifyingecosystem services might be costineffective,” Rebecka Malinga warns.

The main objective for the study wasto develop a set of qualitative scenarios inthe Upper Thukela region in KwaZulu-Natal,South Africa, where a future extendedecosystem services assessment is planned.The scenarios were developed as story linesof how the area would change until 2030.Three scenarios were developed.

In the first, called “EqualEnvironment”, the national government wasdevoted to sustaining the natural resourcebase of the country and invest substantiallyin the rural countryside. For commercialfarmers, however, the situation had becomemore difficult due to higher costs and taxes.

In the second scenario, “Divergingclimate”, the area had benefited from climatechange, although many smallholder farmersstruggled with low productivity due to fewrural investments. In the third scenario,“Adaptive Collaboration”, the Upper Thukelaregion had suffered from extreme weatherevents but the government were unable tocover the losses. However, strong bondsbetween local farmers and NGOs create anew way of dealing with the hardships andcollaboration in agricultural production turnedout successful for many smallholder farmers.

Based on these scenarios, lists ofecosystem services considered to be mostimportant for the region were selected by thescenario participants and the experts inaddition to a list extracted from a literaturereview.

Although the scenarios failed toproduce other insights than what the expertsdid, Malinga and her colleagues highlightseveral advantages with participatoryscenario planning. Above all, it can help acommunity to push its development in theright direction.Source:http://www.stockholmresilience.org/21/research/research-news/11-18-2013-theres-a-reason-why-they-are-called-experts.html

A wonderfully affirming piece of research forthose who believe in the benefits ofparticipatory scenario planning despite thefact that it takes more time and resourcesthan a “desk top” analysis. Some of thescenario planning benefits mentioned in thisstudy include;

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Southern Africa Horizon Scan, Issue 51, November 2013

- it is a useful tool to learn about some ofthe major fears and expectations aboutthe future among people in the area.

- it explored key trends and uncertaintiesand identified major potential changes topeople and to ecosystem services in theregion over the next 20 years

- it improved the understanding of eventsand processes that may either challengethe project or provide opportunities for it,

- encouraged project participants to thinkabout factors that might alter theexpected development path, and toconsider a number of interacting drivingforces and how they are linked toecosystem service generation throughtime, and

- by identifying opportunities and threatsthat might present themselves in thefuture, it helped a community push itsdevelopment in a more desirabledirection.

SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY & INNOVATIONISSUES

Survey suggests MOOCs are failing to

educate the poor

Massive open online courses (MOOCs) maynot be reaching the poor, but instead becatering to the rich and well-educated indeveloping nations, research shows.

A global survey of almost 35,000MOOC students engaged in courses of theonline education service Coursera found thatthe majority were already well-educated andemployed, and mostly males.

The survey’s results, published [on21 November] in a letter to Nature, suggeststhat MOOCs reinforce the advantages of therich rather than educating those who mostneed access to free education.

According to the survey, conductedby researchers at the University ofPennsylvania, United States, more than 80%of MOOC students already had a collegedegree and 44% had a postgraduatequalification.

“If you look into what some of thecommentators say about what MOOCs coulddo, the goal is revolution in education access.They have said things like: ‘Nothing has thepower to unlock a billion more brains thanthe massive online courses’,” GayleChristensen, co-author of the survey, tells

SciDev.Net. “So we looked at the data to seeif that is the case. At this point, MOOCs aregiving more to those who already have a lot.”

This disparity proved particularlystark in Brazil, China, India, Russia andSouth Africa, where almost 80% of MOOCstudents came from the wealthiest and most-educated six per cent of the population.

The letter in Nature says that betteraccess to technology and improved basiceducation are needed worldwide beforeMOOCs can live up to their promise.

The survey also found that menmake up about two-thirds of all MOOCstudents in countries outside theOrganisation for Economic Co-operation andDevelopment, a group of mostly rich nations.

Claire Davenport, director ofcommercial, operations and internationaldevelopment at FutureLearn a companyowned by UK distance learning institute theOpen University, and a MOOC provider says:“The whole point about MOOCs being freeand not requiring previous experience orqualifications is about the democratisation ofeducation and broadening access.

“Almost everything about thesecourses is actually about trying to makethem accessible to as many people aspossible,” she says. “Obviously, in areaswhere there is no Internet access, thenonline learning is going to be more of achallenge. But an interesting thing aboutMOOCs is that it’s very possible for people toshare a computer,” Davenport says.Source:http://www.scidev.net/global/education/news/survey-suggests-moocs-are-failing-to-educate-the-poor.html

A sobering article for those who think thatmassive open online courses and the role oftechnology in education are a silver-bullet forthe wicked problems of educational backlogand youth unemployment in Africa. However,if Africa is to leapfrog into deindustrialisedeconomies it is exactly this technology thatwill be required.

For an interesting article ondeindustrialisation, that has begun to set inmuch sooner, and at far lower levels of percapita income in the developing world, seehere http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/dani-rodrikdeveloping-economies--missing-manufacturing#iUjgZcKqoaLK7lEH.99