Browsing by Author "Mohamed Sayeed, Cheryl Natasha."

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Disaster management: a case study of the South African COVID-19 policy governance response.
(2023) Phoko, Aobakwe Lionel.; Mohamed Sayeed, Cheryl Natasha.
Recently the number of disasters has been increasing, with South Africa experiencing various kinds of disasters, such as floods, droughts, fires, landslides, and storms. Vulnerable communities are exposed to extreme property and income loss risks, death, disease, homelessness, displacement, misery for many people, and colossal material damage. To prevent and mitigate disasters, international and local communities must formulate disaster risk reduction policies to build sustainability and resilience. Governments and other relevant partners in the disaster management department must develop appropriate policies that effectively provide responsive measures for disaster mitigation, decreasing threats to the vulnerable. The most recent disaster is the COVID-19 pandemic which required disaster management initiatives to be used by the South African government. This study aims to understand the disaster management of the COVID-19 policy response within South Africa through the Disaster Management Act of 2002. The disaster management act was developed to provide measures and practices to prevent and mitigate the risk of occurrence and the disaster impact. The Act also establishes and facilitates disaster management in national, provincial, and municipal governments. The preliminary literature of the study outlined and discussed disaster management policies internationally, including United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction in 2000 and the Third UN Global Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction: Sendai Framework 2015-2030. The literature shows South African legislation, like the White Paper on disaster management 1998 and Disaster Management Act 2002. The existence of disaster legislation in South Africa proved to be essential for the COVID-19 Policy response. This study adopted a qualitative case study approach as a research paradigm. It was conducted as a desktop study using secondary sources of information. Academic journals, government publications, and books were used to support the investigation. Qualitative thematic analysis was used to analyse data from the text thoroughly. A governance theory was used to investigate the practice of good governance, such as the rule of law, effectiveness, efficiency, transparency, and accountability during a disaster. Despite good governance challenges, the study concluded that governance was practiced in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Good food security governance extension workers in KZN : a public administration perspective.
(2014) Mohamed Sayeed, Cheryl Natasha.; Reddy, Purshottama Sivanarain.
This study responds to the question, “To what extent are the aims of the food security amongst Extension Workers within KwaZulu Natal being achieved within a good governance agenda?”. The main objective has been to firstly, understand the link between good governance, professionalism, service delivery and food security. Secondly, the objective is to review the existing food security policy and priorities for responding to the challenges of the National Development Plan and Millennium Development Goals. Thirdly, the objective is to contribute to new policy relevant knowledge on the potential impact of good governance, professionalism and service delivery on the achievement of food security in the Province. The empirical study was completed by way of a survey undertaken amongst the Extension Workers and their District Managers employed in the South Region of the KwaZulu Natal Department of Agriculture and Environmental Affairs (KZN DAEA). Two data collection methods were used. Firstly, a self-administered questionnaire was used to determine the extent to which good food security governance was being achieved amongst Extension Workers. Secondly, interviews with the District Managers in the South Region and the Provincial General Manager: Strategic Support Services, were conducted to solicit information on strategies in place to ensure good food security governance compliance by Extension Workers. The concept of good governance is used as the basis of the assessment and endorses the World Bank Framework for good governance as a lens for assessing the successes and failures of good food security governance in South Africa. The empirical study revealed that regular reporting and accounting is the practice within the KZN DAEA, and is managed through a system of verbal and written reports. The problem arises out of the disjuncture between the legislative guidelines, the policy frameworks, the strategic frameworks, against the abilities of the Extension Workers to work within the ambit of these guidelines. This disjuncture amongst Extension Workers comes largely out of their lack of understanding of the contents of such policies. As a result, the study found that this creates a disability amongst Extension Workers as implementers of food security related strategies. The empirical study thus revealed that despite clear targets being set and regular accounting being the practice of the KZN DAEA, the focus is on compliance rather than on stimulating real development. As a result, the essence of “extension” is lost. The study makes a number of recommendations. Firstly, the finalisation of the proposed Food Security Policy currently under discussion is seen as a priority. Secondly, the adoption of a brief induction programme, or policy awareness workshops, by the KZN DAEA, as part of their training programmes, is seen as essential to translate the key areas of the legislative mandates to Extension Workers. The incorporation of accountability and transparency mechanisms into all the activities of the functioning of Extension workers is the third recommendation. Fourth, the mainstreaming of monitoring and evaluation is seen as a crucial component for overall successful policy implementation. This, the study argues has the potential to improve the levels of professionalism displayed by Extension Workers. Fifth, it is recommended that Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) offering Agriculture Extension network with each other and government bodies to offer programmes and courses that are more appropriate for the implementation of public policies. Recommendation six and seven call for the adoption of a broader more systemic and holistic view of poverty and food insecurity as the attainment of food security can no longer be viewed as an exclusive agricultural issue. Eighth, it is recommended that an Extension Framework be adopted to revert to the tradition behind Extension methodologies. Last, it is recommended that Extension Workers be registered to a professional body in order to enhance the dissemination of the key values, roles and responsibilities of the Extension Worker. In conclusion, this study has shown that government needs to benchmark the advantages and disadvantages of institutional arrangements for good food security governance. Furthermore, whilst no one measure can be seen as the solution to the problems, it offers an opportunity to move in the direction of poverty reduction and food security. This study contributes to the body of knowledge in public administration and the food security discourse.
The internship policy gap: a case study of uMgungundlovu District Municipality.
(2019) Mkhize, Msizi Errick.; Mohamed Sayeed, Cheryl Natasha.
The focus of this research investigation is to examine the Internship Policy Programme, its implementation and effectiveness in addressing graduate unemployment in the uMgungundlovu District Municipality in particular, and more broadly within South Africa. The literature study began by examining the political and economic transition post 1994, its influence on unemployment of youth within different races, and positioned the relevance of the Internship Policy Programme in a post-apartheid South Africa. The core objective has been to start by examining the current policy context concerning graduate unemployment in the uMgungundlovu District, and within South Africa. Secondly, the study explored the role and purpose of the Internship Policy Programme, which was established to be aimed at addressing the issue of graduate and youth unemployment through providing graduates with practical job experience relevant to the labour market in South Africa as stipulated under the Skill Development Act. This enabled the researcher to identify the success and challenges of the Internship Policy Programme, however, the focus was specifically on the implementation process. This allowed the researcher to focus on other factors influencing the growth of graduate unemployment including race, high education institution, and types ofqualifications. Thirdly, the effectiveness of internship was examined from an international perspective, which allowed the researcher to narrow the study to those issues relevant for understanding the implementation of Internship Policy Programme within the South African perspective. In the international arena, the literature showed that internships are limited in terms of addressing graduate unemployment. The literature study lent emphasises for the idea that skills development initiatives should be supported by Higher education institutions commitment to respond to the labour demand trends. The researcher advanced the study by focusing the investigation to the uMgungundlovu District Municipality. The study adopted a mixed methods approach which included the use of interviews as part of the qualitative component, and self-administered questionnaires as part of the quantitative approach. The findings from the field study from both the interviews and questionnaires were gathered into pre-defined variables. The variables were inserted into IMBS, where the researcher tested the relationship between the variables through a correlation test. Several significant correlations between variable resulted from the test. The correlation test reflected a very strong negative correlation between the age of respondents and gender of respondents. A significant positive correlation between education qualification obtained and the adequateness of the working equipment and relevant support given to the interns and a significant negative correlation between the ethnicity of participants and a direct link between the tertiary qualification of the interns and the task allocated to them in the job place. The main conclusion based from the findings lent emphasis of the “good government” character in implementation of the Internship Policy Programme, considering policy gap dues to a lack of good government characters in several labour policies including the Skills Development Act.