http://hdl.handle.net/11189/2671 2026-08-12T17:01:49Z http://hdl.handle.net/11189/9537 Title: Poverty, protests and pandemics: what can we learn from community resilience? Authors: Ahmed, Rashid; Sayed, Yusuf Mohamed; Nell, Jonathan; Somhlaba, Nceba Z.; Karriem, Abdulrazak Abstract: The destruction of property, theft and violence that occurred in South Africa, particularly in KZN and Gauteng in the week of 12 July 2021 had a significant impact on the national psyche. As we try to come to terms with the magnitude of the consequences on the political, economic, psychological and social levels, what are the lessons that we can draw from this adversity? This commentary draws on the notion of community resilience to understand what has happened, and how it may provide markers for the future. The commentary begins with a short overview of the notion of community resilience, followed by a discussion of its utility to explain the events as well as lessons for the future. Resilience research has grown considerably, particularly in the last decade and has shifted from a narrow focus on individual mental health, particularly early in its development, to a more systemic approach. Nonetheless, concerns remain about its usage and it is a highly contested concept that needs to be problematized. Both terms (i.e., community and resilience) remain complex and contested, but the idea that collectives or groups (i.e., communities) have agency to respond to adversity is a useful framework for understanding the recent conflict and violence in South Africa. Description: Article 2021-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/11189/6068 Title: Supporting part-time Masters students towards successful research dissertations: a case study Authors: Pather, S; Erwin, Geoff; Striimpfer, C Abstract: Experience at many Higher Education Institutions (HEls) is that a large percentage of registered Masters students never complete their research dissertation. A number of reasons have been suggested for this. Coursework and dissertation mixed Masters degrees have been introduced in order to attract more Masters students, but the rate of completion is still low . The Faculty of Business Informatics (FBI) at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) has implemented several approaches to part-time Masters students' support, including the most recent one of offering a Structured Study Program (SSP) that is directly supportive of the skills and resources that a Masters student needs to complete a dissertation. This paper reports on various modes of offering Masters degrees, FBI's Masters student history, a survey of FBI's Masters students to assess factors influencing progress with research dissertations and the implementation of SSP 2005-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/11189/3424 Title: A Qualitative enquiry into customer care centres: The case of eThekwini Municipality’s Regional Centres Unit Authors: Ngcamu, Bethuel Sibongiseni Abstract: The Sphere of Local Government tends to appoint employees to specialised positions based on blind allegiance and political affiliation to the ruling political party, which has led to the malfunctioning of the customer care centres within eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality. This malfunctioning has also been seen through unequal distribution of centres, equipment and personnel throughout the municipality, whereby rural or peri-urban centres are characterised by incompetence, a lack of integrity and poor governance. The purpose of this paper is to assess whether distributions of the customer care centres, human capacity and services offered throughout eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality respond positively to the needs of communities. This paper used a qualitative research method, whereby in-depth-interviews were conducted amongst a population size of 53 employees employed within eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality’s Regional Centres Unit. The qualitative research findings have revealed disparities between human capacity, office equipment and the services offered by centres in the previously advantaged and disadvantaged customer care centres. This is evidenced by the absence of office equipment and dilapidated centres at peri-urban or rural areas, as compared to urban core centres. Consequently, this paper contributes to knowledge in the field of Public Administration fraternity as this area of research (customer care centres in the public sector) is still emerging. In many cases, customers in receipt of municipal services from the customer care centres are increasingly having their expectations raised by eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality who often fail to deliver the expected standards of services. 2013-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/11189/3423 Title: Responsiveness of Community Participation and Action Support Unit’s activities to local communities’ needs: A case of eThekwini Municipality Authors: Ngcamu, Bethuel Sibongiseni Abstract: Community participation by departments in local government have neglected their constitutional responsibility of consulting and influencing participation of the local communities in municipal governance, which has made them (local communities) inactive. This study investigates the responsiveness of the Community Participation and Action Support (CP and AS) Unit employee activities in terms of meeting both municipal and local community needs and identifying their impediments to executing them. This study adopted a qualitative approach whereby in-depth interviews were conducted by the researcher with a sample of 23 CP and AS unit employees. The findings of the study were analysed using NVivo software (version 10). The study revealed contradictory findings in that the majority of the research participants reported their function as coordinating and managing municipal programmes, although they claimed that these programmes were malfunctioning. The study findings showed less activities performed relating to capacity development, communicating with stakeholders, partnership, monitoring and evaluation as well as the implementation of programmes. This, even though the latter programmes form the cornerstone of the existence of community participation departments in municipalities. Furthermore, challenges advanced by the research participants were lack of human resources capacity, excessive political interference and malfunctioning of programmes. Understanding the extent to which CP and AS activities respond to their stakeholders and their impediments to execute them can enhance public participation, acceptability, accountability, ownership by local communities and smooth implementation of the council programmes. This study will contribute to the body of knowledge as there is a scarcity of published data relating to functioning of the community participation departments in local government, as well as their responsiveness to local communities. 2014-01-01T00:00:00Z