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Literature contends that not much is known about smallholder farmers’ perceptions of climate variability and the impacts thereof on agricultural practices in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Africa in particular. The purpose of this study is to examine the perceptions of smallholder farmers from Botlokwa (a semi-arid region in South Africa) on climate variability in relation to climatological evidence.

The study area is in proximity to a meteorological station and comprises mainly rural farmers, involved in rain-fed subsistence agriculture. Focus group discussions and closed-ended questionnaires covering demographics and perceptions were administered to 125 purposely sampled farmers. To assess farmers’ perceptions of climate variability, their responses were compared with linear trend and variability of historical temperature and rainfall data (1985-2015). Descriptive statistics were used to provide insights into respondents’ perceptions.

About 64% of the farmers perceived climate variability that was consistent with the meteorological data, whereas 36% either held contrary observations or were unable to discern. Age, level of education, farming experience and accessibility to information influenced the likelihood of farmers to correctly perceive climate variability. No significant differences in perception based on gender were observed. This study concludes that coping and adaption strategies of over one-third of the farmers could be negatively impacted by wrong perceptions of climate variability.

This study highlights discrepancies in perceptions among farmers with similar demographic characteristics. To guarantee sustainability of the sector, intervention by government and other key stakeholders to address underlying factors responsible for observed discrepancies is recommended.

This paper aims to present relevant literature review to build up the case pertaining to the impact of traditional leadership in the demarcation of municipal boundaries in South Africa. Municipal boundary demarcation remains a major contentious issue during the process of establishing municipalities. Little or no attention has been paid to the significance of traditional leadership in resolving issues around boundary demarcation between municipalities, hence this paper.

This paper adopted case study design. Data were collected from secondary sources and the contents were analyzed for this research purpose.

This paper put boundary in municipal context as a result of spatial reconfiguration process. It also discussed the impactful roles of traditional leadership as an institution involved in municipal (re)demarcation processes.

This paper focusses on the contemporary roles that traditional leadership is at vantage position to play in the process of municipal boundary demarcation. Therefore, the paper concludes that traditional leadership could resolve issue of ethnicity as a causal factor mitigating the redemarcation of municipal boundaries.

It contributes to existing knowledge by providing information on the roles of traditional leadership that could complement the resolution of the ethnic complexities arising from municipal (re)demarcation processes.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the challenges of transforming South Africa’s health sector through the country’s eHealth Strategy and particularly one of its key components, the implementation of an integrated Electronic Document and Records Management System (EDRMS).

The study conducted an extensive review of literature and used it as a basis to analyse the challenges as well as opportunities in South Africa’s transformation path within its health sector based on the nation’s eHealth Strategy.

South Africa’s health sector faces three main transformation challenges: inequity, legacy of fragmentation and a service delivery structure biased towards curative rather than preventive services. Health information systems provide a solid platform for improving efficiency but, within South Africa, these systems have been highly heterogeneous. A recent study showed the country had more than 40 individual health information systems scattered in all provinces, with over 50 per cent not adhering to any national or international standards and more than 25 per cent being stand-alone applications that shared information neither locally nor externally. The eHealth Strategy offers a robust platform to start addressing the legacy of fragmentation and lack of interoperability. However, it also raises a few other concerns, including the use of different terminology such as Electronic Medical Record (EMR) interchangeable with Electronic Health Record (EHR), or EDRMS parallel with Electronic Content Management (ECM). In addition, there is the opportunity to explore the use of the maturity model concept in the EDRMS implementation experiences within South Africa.

This paper demonstrated the complex nature of the legacy of fragmentation in South Africa’s health information systems and explored three aspects relating to terminology as well as maturity models that should be considered in the country’s future eHealth Strategy.

As an emerging discipline, information governance (IG) presents a number of challenges to organisations and countries. For example, IG has not yet been clearly defined and current proponents present the concepts as records management, information management, enterprise content management, privacy (data protection), freedom of information, corporate governance, information risk, information security and e-discovery, to mention just a few areas. At an organisational level, initiatives focus on one of these aspects, often conflicting with the other elements, and are initiated because of some immediate business challenge, such as the introduction of the Protection of Personal Information Act (data protection or privacy legislation) in South Africa. This is compounded by the fact that the country creates many fragmented policies and pieces of legislation on the same IG aspects which are conducted in a disjointed manner. This study aims to present an integrated IG framework at the country level, comprising key success factors, required instruments (policy and legislation), principles and a proposed list of elements or disciplines, which should be managed in a cohesive manner.

This study adopted the Information Governance Initiative’s pinwheel facets of IG to design an integrated framework of elevating IG to country level. The pinwheel helped to identify different facets of information disciplines and the responsible oversight mechanism for implementation in South Africa. The study relied on data obtained through content analysis of policy documents, legislative frameworks, and literature review regarding the identified facets of IG in South Africa.

The study established that only some aspects/domains/facets of IG are legislated and driven by policy in South Africa. These domains are at different levels of maturity and different stakeholder groups are responsible for each domain; for instance, the National Archives of South Africa is responsible for records management and the State Information Technology Agency is responsible for information technology, while the newly established Information Regulator is responsible for freedom of information and data privacy. There is generally no over-arching structure responsible for overall IG in South Africa as the elements are fragmented in various oversight mechanisms and institutions. As a result, domains compete for limited resources and often lead to “knee-jerk” responses to legislative, legal or risk drivers.

It is concluded that if IG is not regulated and modelled at a country level, it is highly unlikely to filter down to organisations. Implementing IG at country level will go a long way in helping to filter it down to an organisation level.

The study is useful by presenting a framework to ensure that IG is implemented at the country level with a single coordinating body established for oversight mechanisms such as the Information Regulator (which currently has a narrow scope of privacy and freedom of information, although with limited resources).

This study aims to assess the Venda indigenous archives incorporation into the Limpopo Provincial archives to promote archives decolonisation.

This research is based on a qualitative research method. Interviews conducted with the 10 Limpopo Provincial Archivists and 25 community leaders based in the Venda area were conducted. The semi-structured interview was used to collect data.

It is a South African constitutional mandate for each province to manage its archives. As the former Venda was now part of the Limpopo province, its archives were incorporated into the Limpopo Provincial Archives. The Venda archives incorporation to the Limpopo Provincial Archives did not consider the will of a community member to travel a long distance. Furthermore, challenges faced by archivists such as lack of skills and knowledge to process archival materials, lack of funding and participation in the incorporation of archives materials.

This research confines itself to the Venda indigenous archives created from 1979 to 1993.

This paper addresses archives decolonisation.

The paper has the potential to demonstrate the value of the indigenous archive.

The study can be replicated for other research practices. This case study can be implemented in other parts of the world that face similar circumstances so regarding the transfer of archives and the challenges faced to maintain community knowledge and make them accessible.

The paper aims to enhance the understanding of the impacts of climate change on rural communities in Africa, including people’s livelihoods, their adaptive capacity, coping practice and ability to engage in sustainable forest use and management of climate change adaptation.

The paper opted for a desktop review approach, using the forest-based rural communities of South Africa as a case study.

This review shows that climate variability and change are affecting rural people and their livelihoods negatively. Forest-based livelihoods are particularly vulnerable. Nevertheless, the people have developed coping mechanisms to cushion the effects of climate variability and change. However, the effectiveness and efficiency of these strategies are greatly constrained by factors that are related mostly to their socioeconomic characteristics (for example, skill level, educational status and health) and the functionalities of infrastructures and services in their communities.

Given that the study focused on forest-based rural communities and livelihoods, the results may be limited in generalizability. This may have particular implications for other categories of rural communities and livelihoods in Africa and developing countries in other continents.

The study showed that opportunities for planning and implementing effective climate change adaptation at rural community level in South Africa are reliant on effective strategies to overcome the constraints identified by the study. The authors thus recommend that climate change adaptation initiatives in rural communities of Africa should focus on improving people’s socioeconomic conditions and the overall sustainable development of the community.

This paper fulfils an identified need to study how climate change affects rural forest-based communities and livelihoods.

The study explored the impacts of climate change on water resources, and the community-based adaptation practices adopted to ensure water security in a rural community in Limpopo Province, South Africa.

The study was conducted in Limpopo Province, South Africa. The participatory approach was used to allow community members to share their challenges of water scarcity, and the measures they have developed to cope with inconsistent water supply.

The study results show that the community obtains water for household consumption from the reticulation system supplied by Mutale River and the community borehole. These resources are negatively impacted by drought, change in the frequency and distribution of rainfall, and increased temperature patterns. The water levels in the river and borehole have declined, resulting in unsustainable water supply. The community-based adaptation practices facilitated by the water committee include observance of restrictions and regulations on the water resources use. Others involve securing water from neighbouring resources.

This type of community-based action in response to climate change could be used as part of rural water management strategies under climate change.