Theses and Dissertations

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The Uptake Of Wildlife Research In Botswana: A Study Of Productive Interactions
(2021-04-19) Morrison, Monica
This study set out to identify and understand whether research carried out in or about Botswana Botswana has been focused on producing useful and used work in the area of wildlife and related natural resources, with a view to improving the management of these resources. The study investigated this by examining the interactions of researchers and stakeholders engaged in the management, conservation, and use of wildlife resources in northern Botswana. This work draws on the idea that broader societal impact of research can be estimated by following interactions of researchers with potential users of their research throughout the research process. This approach, based on the idea of productive interactions, acknowledges the difficulty of attributing the uptake, use, and impacts of research findings, and moves the focus of investigation from outcomes at the end point of investigation to all the stages and processes of research. Interactions of researchers with potential users of the research - its stakeholders - increase the likelihood of research findings being put to use. In the thesis, this process is viewed through the concept of an extended community of practice that demonstrates mutual engagement, joint enterprise, and shared repertoire. The study used a mixed methods case study approach including literature review, surveys of principal investigators working under Government of Botswana permits and audience members of a public outreach event, interviews, analysis of document content and bibliographic records, and ad hoc participant observation to establish patterns of interaction among researchers and stakeholders working in northern Botswana, and to investigate perceptions of research use. The study found that the northern Botswana's research community of practice consists of a strong core of researchers based in academic institutions and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) who interact with more loosely connected members of the private sector and several levels of government, and with local community members. Findings included that researchers who engage with non-academic stakeholders outside the inner core of this community of practice at early stages, and throughout the research process, are more likely to see their research applied. Their success also appears to be linked to their commitment to working longer-term in northern Botswana, which allows for more, and deeper, interactions with stakeholders. Findings of this study point to validation of the concept of productive interactions in a local community of practice, with effects that extend beyond Botswana and southern Africa. While productive interactions are already taking place in this community, many of them brokered by NGOs, increased deliberate incorporation of the productive interactions approach into the practice of government managers, researchers, and the tourism private sector is likely to increase the relevance, awareness, and uptake of the resulting findings, and to build trust and understanding among research stakeholders.
Tshoboko ya tiriso ya dipatlisiso tsa diphologolo tsa naga le tikologo mo Botswana (2)
(2021-05-17) Morrison, Monica; Botumile, Bontekanye
Translation from English to Setswana of complete abstract of the PhD thesis "The Uptake of Wildlife Research in Botswana: a Study of Productive Interactions" by Monica Morrison.
An Analysis Of Traditional Land-Use And Management Institutions Of Ngamiland, Botswana.
(2021-06-22) Botumile, Bontekanye
Mounting global dependence on natural resources has exacerbated natural resource depletion, land degradation and poverty levels worldwide. Scientists and planners acknowledging that science does not have all the answers to growing social, economic and ecological problems imply that the world collectively has a duty to use land and natural resources sustainably. This has opened attention to other disciplines such as traditional knowledge for possible solutions. According to scholars of traditional livelihoods, a country’s national, social and economic stability is determined by (i) the extent that policy incorporates traditional systems of its people (ii) its ecological wealth (iii) a secure land tenure system and iv) visionary leadership. Botswana is applauded by many countries for being one of the most socially, economically and politically stable countries in Africa. It is ecologically diverse and is home to more than thirty five ethnic groups (Tlou, 1971). A large part of the tourism, agriculture, mineral, energy and water extraction economy is based on natural resources (International Monetary Fund, 2017). Similarly, a large portion of the population subsists on natural resources (Kgathi, Ngwenya, & Darkoh, 2010). It is also counted amongst the few African countries with a secure land tenure system and visionary leaders. Nevertheless Ngamiland District in north-western Botswana, has one of the highest poverty levels in the country, has signs of unproductive land-use, natural resource depletion and loss of traditional skills once associated with survival. The Botswana Government has expressed interest in including traditional knowledge in various policies to improve resource use and livelihoods, but incorporation of the various traditional systems seems slow. This may be due to the need to determine the utility of traditional systems in the current era. Various works on traditional knowledge in Botswana have been done. However previous studies focused on general culture; the primary ethnic groups, or one era. There is a small knowledge gap on pre and post-independence traditional land-use and management institutions of miscellaneous groups with different emphasis on land along the periphery of the Okavango Delta in Botswana. This study uses the Berkes, Folke, and Colding (1998) social-ecological framework to fill that gap. It investigates traditional land-use and management institutions of the OvaMbanderu, WaYei and BaTawana groups in Ngamiland using five iterative data collection activities.
Fostering Socio-Economic Development in Ghana through Entrepreneurship and Innovation
(2022-09-28) Essuman, Bismark
The ongoing development problems on the continents, from Africa to Asia, have drawn attention from around the world on numerous occasions in the first few years of the twenty-first century. The gap between industrialized nations and emerging economies is getting wider as government initiatives to support innovation and entrepreneurship become more widespread in those nations. For developing nations, entrepreneurship and innovation have significant potential advantages. To that end, the majority of Sub-Saharan African nations support the growth of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) as a way to reduce poverty, provide jobs, and advance national economic development.
Amharic Online Handwriting Recognition
(2022-10-28) Azime, israel; Ebrahim, Kasim; Geta, Mehari; Yohannes, Mitiku
Growth in the demand of touch screen devices such as smartphones, tablets and PDAs on global market is influencing the way we interact with computers. because of their architectural design these devices does not include attached keyboards as a text entry mechanism rather they use their screen as input device and let the user touch the screen to operate them. This text entry is mostly similar to the traditional way of text entry. For example works that are usually done like text entry are done using virtual keyboards which have same functionality as the hardware keyboard. Amharic is the second most popular Semitic language in Africa and it is the working language of Ethiopia. Despite its popularity no valid and workable research is found that can simplify the text entry and input system of this language. In Spite of rapid technology advancements, text entry on handheld devices is still inconvenient since there is a chance of missing buttons due to their small size specifically input mechanism for Amharic language the use of a keyboard is awkward due to the number of alphabets present in the language. Recently developers are making different keyboard applications but that doesn't seem to solve the problem. Using the touch screen capabilities of handhelds input method which is similar to handwriting is the best way to replace the current text entry approach. most people learn writing by using a pen and a pencil not a keyboard so writing on a touchscreen device like you write on a piece of paper is the natural and easiest way for the users .users can stroke their hand on a given canvas and the application reads what they write . Online handwriting recognition (OHWR) is getting renewed interest as it provides data entry mechanism that is similar to natural way of writing. This project mainly focuses on using this technique to solve the problem mentioned above. The online handwriting recognition project is not new idea .in recent years many researchers are adopting this method for their language use.
LES SAVOIRS ENDOGENES DANS L'ENSEIGNEMENT DES SCIENCES AU CAMEROUN : Enjeux et stratégies d'intégration dans le curriculum
(2014-12-31) Mboa Nkoudou, Thomas Hervé
Nombre d’auteurs considèrent l’enseignement et l’apprentissage à l’école, comme la transmission et l’acquisition d’une culture. En Afrique, il s’agit de la culture occidentale qui est transmise et acquise au détriment de la culture propre des enseignants et des élèves. Cette hégémonie, qui s’est installée avec la colonisation, est entretenue jusqu’à nos jours par nousmêmes, sujets de l’assimilation culturelle. Cependant, des voix s’élèvent de par le monde, pour réclamer la prise en compte à l’école des cultures locales, ou encore mieux des savoirs endogènes. Dans cet essai, nous verrons qu’en considérant les savoirs endogènes dans l’enseignement des sciences, le Cameroun gagnerait tant aux niveaux économique et éthique, qu’aux niveaux de la santé et du développement durable. A cet effet, pour une prise en compte effective des savoirs endogènes dans le curriculum, nous proposons une stratégie basée sur le principe d’équivalence épistémologique et l’approche Science-Technologie-Société (STS). Laquelle stratégie prend pour exemple la Culturally-Aligning Classroom Science (CACS), qui est un modèle théorique développé par des chercheurs sud-africains.
The Privilege to Select. Global Research System, European Academic Library Collections, and Decolonisation
(2020-09-02) Schmidt, Nora
A large part of the literature published in the ‘Global South’ is barely covered by bibliographic databases. Institutional policies increasingly require researchers globally to publish in ‘international’ journals, draining local infrastructures. The standard-setting power of ‘Global South’ scholars is minimised further. My main aim is to render visible the ways in which European academic libraries contribute to this situation. It is explained as a consequence of specific features of current world society, referred to as coloniality, social injustice, and quantified communication. The thesis analyses peripherality conceptually and scientometrically: based on a sample, how is Southeast African basic social sciences and humanities (SSH) research integrated in global scholarly communication, and how do local dissemination infrastructures develop under these conditions? Finally, how are professional values, specifically neutrality, and workflows of European academic libraries, interrelated with these developments? The methodological approach of the thesis is multi-faceted, including conceptual analyses, scientometrics, and a short survey of collection managers and an analysis of the corresponding libraries' collection policies. The off-mainstream decolonial scientometric approach required the construction of a database from multiple sources. Southeast Africa was selected as a field for some of the empirical studies included, because out of all rarely studied local communities to which a peripheral status is commonly attributed, the large majority of Southeast African authors use English as their primary academic language. This excludes linguistic reasons for the peripheral attribution. The theoretical and conceptual point of departure is to analyse scholarly communication as a self-referential social system with global reach (Luhmann). In this thesis, an unorthodox understanding of social systems theory is developed, providing it with cultural humility, inspired by decolonial thinking. The value of the approach lies in its in-built capacity for social change: peripheries are constructed communicatively, and culturally humble communication avoids adding to the accumulation of peripheral references attributed to the ‘Global South’, for instance by suspending the incarceration of area studies which tends to subsume any research from and about Africa as African studies, remote from the core of SSH. While centrality serves the necessary purpose of reducing the overwhelming complexity of global research, communicative centres can just as well be constructed as topical, and do not require a spatial attachment to be functional. Another advantage of this approach is its awareness of different levels of observation, differentiating, for instance, between whether the academic librarian's neutrality is imagined as playing out in interaction with the user (passive neutrality), as representing the diversity of the research system (active neutrality), or as balancing social bias running through society at large, and hence furthering social justice (culturally humble neutrality).
Les makerspaces en Afrique francophone, entre développement local durable et technocolonialité Trois études de cas au Burkina Faso, au Cameroun et au Sénégal
(2020-11-23) Mboa Nkoudou, Thomas Hervé
Au cours de la dernière décennie, de nombreux pays occidentaux ont vu leurs espaces publics investis par la présence d’ateliers de fabrication collaboratifs ouverts et partagés, connus sous le nom générique de makerspaces. Souvent décrits comme des vecteurs de changement social et d'industrialisation, les makerspaces se sont rapidement exportés de l’Occident vers le reste du monde et en Afrique en particulier. Au vu de cette expansion, je me suis interrogé sur les finalités sociétales et la neutralité de ces ateliers collaboratifs dans le contexte africain. Aborder ces interrogations demande d’établir un cadre commun de lecture du contexte sociohistorique et économique de l’Afrique. C’est dans ce sens que je me suis inspiré de la pensée décoloniale, pour développer un cadre conceptuel constitué de la technocolonialité et du développement local durable. Le concept de développement local durable est une alternative au paradigme dominant actuel des approches de développement à savoir les objectifs de développement durable (ODD). Il est né des travaux sur la justice cognitive et est composé des dimensions suivantes : la quête de justice cognitive, l'économie informelle, les biens communs, l'inclusion et l'autonomisation, la pensée alternative africaine et l'innovation sociale. Quant au concept de technocolonialité, il émerge de la colonialité et de la matrice coloniale des pouvoirs dans les technologies numériques. Il est constitué des dimensions suivantes : le discours techno-utopique, les pratiques néo-capitalistes et la colonialité des savoirs liée au transfert de technologie. Ce cadre conceptuel m’a permis de reformuler mon interrogation en la question de recherche suivante : à quel type de développement les makerspaces contribuent-ils en Afrique francophone ? De façon spécifique, il s’agit de savoir si les ateliers collaboratifs peuvent réellement contribuer au développement local durable en Afrique ou s’ils contribuent à renforcer la technocolonialité. Pour répondre à ces questions, j'ai mené trois études de cas en Afrique francophone : le Ouagalab au Burkina Faso, l'Ongola Fablab au Cameroun et le Defko Ak Niep Lab au Sénégal. Pour chaque cas, j'ai collecté des données en combinant trois méthodes : l'observation participante, les entretiens semi-dirigés avec les membres et les promoteurs des makerspaces, et l’analyse documentaire. Après avoir traité les données, j’ai procédé à une analyse qualitative à l'aide du logiciel Nvivo. Les différentes catégories de mon analyse ont ensuite été comparées et interprétées en utilisant le cadre conceptuel construit au préalable. Mon étude révèle que les makerspaces sont des communs de la connaissance qui permettent de lutter contre les injustices cognitives. À ce titre, ils assurent l'éclosion des connaissances, favorisent l'inclusion et l'autonomisation des membres et catalysent l'innovation sociale. En d'autres termes, la dynamique au sein des espaces de fabrication collaboratifs est très favorable au développement local durable. Par-dessus tout, les espaces de fabrication collaboratifs offrent un cadre d’épanouissement et d’expression du leadership des femmes, tout en leur donnant la possibilité de lutter contre les préjugés auxquels elles sont souvent confrontées dans la société et le milieu des STEM (Science-Technologie-Ingénierie et Mathématiques), cependant, les makerspaces sont exposés à des risques de technocolonialité qui pourraient sérieusement entraver la dynamique interne et par conséquent, leur contribution au développement local durable. Pour contrecarrer ces risques de technocolonialité, quelques propositions sont faites à la fin de cette thèse, à l’endroit des acteurs et actrices impliqué-e-s dans l'écosystème des makerspaces.
Health Monitoring Of African Leopard (Panthera Pardus Pardus): Ratio Of Wbc To Rbc Of Captive Vs. Wild Leopards
(2022-12-01) Lehloenya, Caroline
This is a BSc Thesis
Impact Of Enclosures On Range Productivity In Chepareria West Pokot County, Kenya
(2023-01-25) Waiganjo, Regina Wambui
In the semi-arid areas of West Pokot particularly Chepareria, the majority of the people live semi sedentary lives while others are nomadic pastoralists. In the last three decades, there have been concerted efforts to restore and improve rangeland in this area. Use of enclosures, which is one of the key interventions, by the Vi Agro- forestry a Non-Governmental Organisation, enhancing with many ecological processes such as disturbance, is a method of rehabilitating degraded rangeland, which in turn affects vegetation dynamics. Adoption of these strategies by farmers has been gradual and some areas are still open and degraded. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of enclosures on range productivity in the semi-arid rangeland in West Pokot. Plant productivity, diversity and density were assessed in enclosures of different ages and in adjacent open land used for communal grazing. Questionnaires were also used to assess local community perception of the range restoration and improvement. Modified Whittaker plot was used for sampling in the selected enclosures and open areas. Herbaceous biomass and plant cover were greater in enclosures than in open areas. The average herbaceous cover in the enclosed area was 76% while that in the open it was 55% which was significantly different, p<0.001. The average herbaceous biomass in the enclosure was 137.2kg/ha while in the open it was 37.8kg/ha respectively. Enclosed areas are more productive than open areas and should be adopted in other dry areas as a method of rehabilitating degraded grazing lands.
Community Knowledge-Based Assessment of Smallholder Farmers' Perception of Cluster Farming and its Potential Role in Sustainable Accessibility to Farmer-Centric Support in Nigeria
(2023-02-26) Hamzat, Azeez Adewale
This study aimed to understand the views of smallholder farmers in Oyo State, Nigeria, towards cluster farming as a means of promoting sustainable farmer-centric support. Cluster farming is an economic approach for small, limited resource, and socially disadvantaged farmers to increase productivity, reduce risk, and improve community growth by organizing smallholder farmers into a collective unit through a participatory approach. Data was collected from 300 smallholder farmers through a combination of structured questionnaires and deliberative surveys. The study evaluated the farmers' views on cluster farming using five key frameworks: productivity, knowledge, collaboration, efficiency, and support. The closed-ended questions were analyzed using descriptive statistics, while the open-ended questions were analyzed through natural language processing. The results showed that only 9% of the farmers had participated in cluster farming, despite 85% of them being aware of its existence. 79% believed that cluster farming can be an efficient solution for crop farmers, but 83% thought that the lack of investors could limit its effectiveness. Additionally, 25% of the farmers felt that legal documentation between cluster members and stakeholders may be necessary in case of conflicts of interest or to ensure uniformity and genuine support. The results also revealed that access to cluster markets, finance, yield improvement, participation in extension training/services, and engagement were factors significantly impacting the farmers' positive perception of cluster farming. This information can be used by policymakers to understand the challenges faced by smallholder farmers, predict their actions and demands, and provide high impact support programs through cluster farming.
Generic Competitive Business Strategies and Performance of Micro and Small Enterprises in Nairobi: An Empirical Validation of the MSE Typology
(University of Nairobi, 2014-11) Ogot, Madara
Competitive business strategy typologies classify business strategies based on common elements and provide a framework for gaining competitive advantage in the market. In Sub-Saharan Africa, it is estimated that the informal sector, mainly consisting of micro and small enterprises (MSEs) accounts for approximately 90% of all new jobs and up to 85% of total employment. In Kenya, the significance is evident in that the sector employs approximately 8.8 million people or 81.1% of those employed. In Nairobi, informal manufacturing MSEs have sprung up in clusters in areas that have combinations of high vehicular and human traffic, high populations densities, as well as transport arteries. Despite the significant role informal sector MSEs play in Sub-Saharan Africa national economies, few transition to formal medium or large size enterprises due to a wide array of challenges that include lack of access to markets; information on and access to finance; low ability to acquire necessary technical and managerial skills, and limited access to technology. The MSE competitive business strategies typology posits that combining Porter’s theory of competency and strategic alliance theory is better suited to MSEs than the use of competency theory alone, as has traditionally been the case. Using manufacturing and agro-food processing MSEs in Nairobi as the study population, the research objective of this study was to empirically determine if the use of competitive business strategies based on a combination of competency and strategic alliance theories by informal sector MSEs leads to better business performance, as compared to those who employ competency-based theories only. The results from the study established the following. First, from the study population, the adoption of Broad Hybrid, Hybrid Differentiation, Hybrid Mentor and Peer differentiation strategies corresponded to better performance, providing support to the proposition that collaboration may provide MSEs with access to additional resources that they may have lacked due to their small size, allowing them to better address threats and take advantage of opportunities available to them. Adoption of Mentor Differentiation, Peer Low Cost, Mentor Low Cost, Hybrid Peer and Hybrid Low-cost strategies, however, did not correspond to better performance. Businesses adopting these strategies were statistically neither better nor worse than those businesses that adopted none. Lack of support for Hybrid Peer, Hybrid Low Cost and Peer Low Cost may have been due to the low numbers of businesses that were within these categories, which may have affected the validity of the statistics tests. Third, the study compared the business performance of those adopting Porter’s strategies (competency-based) with those adopting strategies in the MSE typology. From the results, MSEs adopting strategies defined within the Peer Differentiation, Hybrid Differentiation, Hybrid Mentor or Broad Hybrid ideal types performed better than those adopting low cost, differentiation or mixed strategies under the Porter typology. These results suggest that strategies that incorporate collaboration both with peers and mentors, should lead to superior business performance of MSEs.

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