Increasing attacks on foreigners, including in April 2015, along with a succession of widely publicised incidents of racism, have triggered a new round of soul-searching in South Africa. Why, after the comprehensive defeat of apartheid and its ideology, does prejudice seem so intractable? What kinds of interventions could help reduce these troubling events? How can society be made more ‘cohesive’? Suggestions about what to do in the face of these challenges are sometimes speculative and wishful. They consist of appeals to the better nature of ordinary people, or an assumption that the feel good moments of the democratic transition can be re-enacted to bind everyone together. Calls for social cohesion and tolerance seem often to dodge the complex vicious cycles that lead to the instances of intolerance that erupt in the media or in communities. This Research Report centres on better understanding the current dynamics of social cohesion in Gauteng. It tackles five guiding questions, each of which corresponds to a chapter: 1. How has social cohesion become a goal in post-apartheid South Africa, and what are the key limitations resulting from this understanding of social progress? 2. In a global context, how is social cohesion defined and what are the main contestations about this ideal of social change? 3. How do the respondents in the GCRO's Quality of Life IV (2015/16) survey respond to questions on levels of trust, claims to belonging by different race groups, and the place of migrants and gays and lesbians in Gauteng? 4. How have past and present initiatives to improve social cohesion conceived of the problem they are attempting to address, and what is their scale of intervention? 5. What are the various methodologies that have been used in past and present initiatives to improve social cohesion? A key premise of this research was that our society has an enormous accumulation of experience in trying to tackle anti-social interactions and to address social injustices that are, in various ways, shaped by race, class, nationality, gender, sexuality and other identities. The last two chapters of this report are based on a review of more than 60 social cohesion initiatives. They analyse the wide variety of actors involved in such work, the different ways in which they conceive of their objectives, and the different scales at which they operate. These actors pursue dozens of different methodologies including sports and dialogue, arts, psychology, urban design, and public campaigns. This dispersed capacity through society is important because it represents experience-based responses to the ways in which anti-social behaviour and social injustice are reproduced. In attempting to determine a programme of action, we argue that we should learn from and extend existing and past attempts to tackle these difficulties.

The purpose of this occasional paper is to analyse well-being in Gauteng province from a capability perspective. The authors adopt a standard ‘capability approach’ consistent with Amartya Sen’s concept of capabilities.

This book analyzes e-participation in smart cities. In recent decades, information and communication technologies (ICT) have played a key role in the democratic political and governance process by allowing easier interaction between governments and citizens, and the increased ability of citizens to participate in the production chain of public services. E-participation plays and important role in the development of smart cities and smart communities , but it has not yet been extensively studied. This book fills that gap by combining empirical and theoretical research to analyze actual practices of citizen involvement in smart cities and build a solid framework for successful e-participation in smart cities. The book is divided into three parts. Part I discusses smart technologies and their role in improving e-participation in smart cities. Part II deals with models of e-participation in smart cities and the organization issues affecting the implementation of e-participation; these chapters analyze the efficiency of governance models in relation to the establishment of smart cities. Part III proposes incentives to motivate increased participation by governments and cititzenry within the smart cities context. Written by an international panel of experts and practitioners, this book will be a convenient source of information on e-participation in smart cities and will be valuable to academics, researchers, policy-makers, public managers, citizens, international organizations and anyone who has a stake in enhancing citizen engagement in smart cities.

Human movement has an influence on the socio-economic dynamics of people, regions, and countries. The schisms between host and immigrants impact how host countries utilize immigrant skills and expertise to benefit their economies. However, immigrants are impacted by negative diplomatic relations between countries that limit the free movement of people and the welfare of immigrants. In association, this brings about social challenges such as Afrophobia, racism, xenophobia, hatred, and violence within these countries. While these challenges are deeply rooted across the world, Africa has its own unique challenges. Still struggling with massive underdevelopment, Africa needs to remove all the negative factors that could impede its quest of achieving development imperatives. Impact of Immigration and Xenophobia on Development in Africa analyzes the genesis and evolution of immigration in Africa and how this has resulted in social challenges such as xenophobia within the continent. The book focuses on demonstrating how immigrant skills and expertise can be positively utilized to assist African development and asserts the existence of xenophobia in respective countries does not assist Africa’s quest of resolving its own challenges. The chapters within this book therefore explore how this subsequent output of xenophobia has impacted African development and focuses on the revival of Pan-Africanism as a uniting instrument and ideology for Africans. This book is a valuable reference tool for activists, retired and practicing politicians, governments, policymakers, practitioners, stakeholders, researchers, students, and academicians.

This book examines Africa-Europe relationships and intra-Africa relationships vis-à-vis migration. It analyses the African integration project that is being used to effectively manage migration within Africa and across its RECs, and harnessing it for development. The book presents debates related to the EU’s hardening and securitisation of its external border against migrants from Africa. It shows that migration actually challenges Africa-European relations, which is discussed as an important theme in this book. Authors in this book volume investigate several issues ranging from conundrums relating to migration between Africa and Europe to migration within Africa, but also in relation to borders and boundaries, its bearing on regional and continental integration and the significance of this in terms of relations between Africa and Europe. This book volume brings into conversation issues relating to the governance of migration for development, social cohesion and regional integration.

The authors of this volume provide a window into what influences the quality of life, why people live longer, and why we are relatively better off compared to decades ago. While the potential ways of measuring life quality are abundant, understanding what causes improvement requires careful study and consideration. This volume provides useful insight into these challenges and helps to highlight a clear and important separation between wellbeing and standard of living, both relevant to assessing the quality of life. Standard of living refers to the material welfare of a group. Wellbeing, on the other hand, encapsulates harder-to-measure subjective preferences. Together they help us to understand the quality of life of certain groups at specific times, and in specific communities.

Against the backdrop of South Africa’s achievements since the fall of apartheid, this Review evaluates measures to position economic development policy and to confront economic inequality in the Johannesburg/Pretoria region.

The aim of this occasional paper is to gain a better understanding of urban agriculture within the green infrastructure network in the City of Johannesburg and to identify the range of ecosystem services that could be delivered when maintaining and investing in these assets. The analysis in this paper adopts a multi-method approach to (1) identify the interlinkages between urban agriculture and social, economic and environmental systems in the City of Johannesburg; (2) validate these critical interlinkages with stakeholder input and ground-level experience of urban agriculture; and (3) visualise these interlinkages through a spatial analysis of food gardens in the City of Johannesburg.

Revitalizing Health for All examines thirteen cases of efforts to implement CPHC reforms from around the globe including Australia, Brazil, Democratic Republic of Congo, Iran, South Africa, and more.