Energy poverty and cooking energy requirements: The forgotten issue in South African energy policy?

New Dimensions of Vulnerability to Energy and Transport Poverty

The South African government has pioneered several policy documents that emphasise the importance of sexual and reproductive health (SRH). We examined how national policies address access and provision of contraception to adolescents in South Africa. South African national policies. We systematically searched various academic databases such as EbscoHost, Science Direct, Google Scholar, PubMed and Scopus, and other relevant sources to obtain 854 policy documents. Using a set of explicit inclusion criteria, we screened and selected 11 South African policies for analysis. Next, we analysed three international policies and frameworks to extract the key elements from them. Thereafter, we used these key elements to develop an analytical framework for conducting the analysis of the South African national policies. We found that South Africa's SRH policies largely address the provision of contraception by following international guidelines. These policies recognise the value of providing contraception to adolescent girls. However, we also found gaps in some policies, which could impede how they are translated into practice. These include recognising that adolescent boys can play a role in contraception; adolescents have varying SRH needs and are a key stakeholder not only for policy development but also for monitoring and accountability. With a specific focus on South Africa's contraception services in the public sector, these findings are relevant to policymakers, providers and users of contraceptives.Contribution:This review proposes recommendations that will assist with strengthening health policy development and thus improve primary health care services related to contraception for adolescents.

In East Africa, household cooking energy use replicates the energy ladder theory. Many low-income families rely on traditional biomass because they cannot afford modern, clean cooking energy such as electricity and Liquefies Petroleum Gas (LPG). Introducing and disseminating the Pay-as-you-cook model offers an excellent opportunity for low-income households to use LPG. This study aims to appraise the influence of Pay-as-you-cook in assisting lower-income households in adopting LPG for cooking. Specifically, it examines the upfront costs, observes the running costs, and assesses the challenges facing Pay-as-you-cook service provision. The documentary review method was used to collect data, and MySQL databases were used to retrieve data. A deductive approach was applied, starting from general specific. In the first stage, general information on cooking energy was reviewed. This was followed by information on clean cooking initiatives, LPG adoption, and specific data on the Pay-as-you-cook model. At the later stage, the study focused only on the countries that have introduced Pay-as-you-cook. Results show that the Pay-as-you-cook model helps address LPG affordability challenges to low-income households. The model reduces upfront costs by allowing LPG users to lease the cylinder instead of paying the cylinder deposit. Results reveal that the model relieves the running cost by enabling gas recharge in smaller quantities instead of a complete cylinder refill or exchange. Additionally, the study discovered that reliance on imported fuel and its non-renewability status are potential risks to Pay-as-you-cook sustainability. Furthermore, it faces impenetrable roads, unreliable mobile money services, and poor internet connectivity. The study concludes that despite these challenges, Pay-as-you-cook is a better option for inspiring low-income households to use LPG. Clear policies and strategies, collaboration between the public and private sectors, and awareness-creation campaigns are recommended to support widespread deployment across the region.

Introduction: Basic Human Needs in Theory and Practice, Kevin Avruch and Christopher Mitchell PART 1: BASIC HUMAN NEEDS IN THEORY 1. Extending the Reach of Basic Human Needs(BHN): A Comprehensive Theory for the Twenty-First Century, Dennis J.D. Sandole 2. Basic Human Needs and the Dilemma of Power in Conflict Resolution, Kevin Avruch 3. Through Gender Lenses: Human Needs in Theory in Conflict Resolution, Ingrid Sandole-Staroste 4. Moral Judgements, Human Needs and Conflict Resolution: Alternative Approaches to Ethical Standards, Louis Kriesberg 5. Ethics of Conflict Resolution Mediator: From Scientific Gaze to Sensitive and Skillful Action, Tarja Vayrynen 6. Explaining Human Conflict: Human Needs Theory and the Insight Approach, Jamie Price 7. From Human Needs to the Moral Imagination: The Promise of Post-Burtonian Conflict Resolution, Solon Simmons PART 2: BASIC HUMAN NEEDS IN PRACTICE 8. Beyond the Classical Model of Problem Solving Workshops: 25 Years of Experience, Experiment and Adaptation, Christopher Mitchell 9: Basic Human Needs: Bridging the Gap Between Theory and Practice, Mohammed Abu-Nimer 10. Acknowledging Basic Human Needs and Adjusting the Focus of the Problem-Solving Workshop, Ronald J. Fisher 11. Basic Human Needs in Practice: The Georgian-South Ossetian Point of View Process, Susan Allen Nan and Jacquie L. Greiff 12. Human Needs and Conflict Resolution in Practice: Environment and Community, E. Franklin Dukes Afterword

Jimmy Volmink: shaping the evidence base in South Africa

Evaluation of cooking energy cost, efficiency, impact on air pollution and policy in Nigeria

Energy poverty related to a reliance on traditional biomass for cooking has a strong association with environmental degradation, gender inequity and human health. Reduction of energy poverty is a growing concern in public policy agenda globally. In India, the last decade has seen concerted efforts to provide clean cooking fuel to the population. Despite this, wide regional disparities in energy poverty exist in India, indicating differential regional impacts of policies. A shift to universal access to clean modern cooking fuel requires the redesign of policies, with insights from a decentralized understanding of actual drivers of household cooking energy choices across diverse regions. The paper attempts to explain household cooking fuel choices under multiple fuel use (fuel stacking) scenarios in two states of India, differentiated by their socio-economic status and development trajectories. The paper employs multinomial logistic (MNL) regression on household level data from the Indian Human Development Survey 2015 to identify factors determining fuel choices. Urbanization, per capita income, the educational attainment of the household head and women in the household, having a separate kitchen for cooking and not living in one’s own house were observed to be positively influencing a switch to clean cooking energy in both the states. The results of the study indicate that shifting out of energy poverty and achieving the goal of universal clean cooking energy would require combining ongoing welfare policies with policies on provisioning clean cooking energy in India.

Mantombazana Tshabalala-Msimang: South Africa's controversial health minister

This study focuses on the challenges that governments face in addressing water equity and efficiency. Specifically, it analyzes the implementation of new water governance in post-apartheid South Africa and the central and local governments’ responses to water reform challenges. Using secondary data collected from the digital database LexisNexis, we find that the South African government has made juridical, organizational, and institutional changes to achieve a progressive realization of the right to water and to increase the financial viability of water service. First, the central government has made juridical changes such as the establishment of the 1996 Constitution that recognizes the human right to water and the 1998 National Water Act that abolishes the concept of riparian rights. In addition, the government attempted to build an equitable share of fiscal burdens between the central and local governments under the objective of decentralization. Second, organizational changes have been made to de-politicize water entities as well as transform “non-payment culture” under public water provision which became prevalent as a political contestation over discriminatory rules and poor service provision to black areas during apartheid. For example, the city of Johannesburg has created Johannesburg Water company, a corporation unit that has been owned by the city government but operated under the private business law. This corporatizing process results in improved operational efficiency while posing theoretical and empirical risks to equity considerations and democratic governance. Third, new institutional approaches including free basic water, prepaid meter, and increasing block tariff have been implemented to meet a basic human need and to achieve partial cost recovery at the same time. The case of South Africa water reform indicates that achieving a human right to water is in tension with financially viable water services within a corporate structure.KeywordsWater governanceEfficiencyEquityWater reformRight to waterGovernment reformWater managementWater policy

CONSTRUCTIVE ENGAGEMENT IN SOUTH AFRICA: A VIABLE U.S. POLICY John Seiler .he new Reagan administration must promptly consider its policy toward southern Africa. The Namibian negotiations remain unsettled, and because of that potential crisis the prospects for an uncontrollable regional war involving major international powers have grown. Underlying any review ofregional policy must be a clearheaded assessment of U.S. interests in and policy toward South Africa itself. Are we as a nation genuinely concerned about furthering constructive changes in that troubled, complex society, or have our protestations over South African domestic policies during the past two decades been essentially reflexive and rhetorical, aimed at UN and domestic constituencies and at easing guilt about our own social shortcomings? If the concern is genuine, then a conjunction of events—rapid changes in southern Africa since the 1974 Portuguese coup, the tentative but substantial commitment to change made by the P.W. Botha government in South Africa since it took office in September 1978, the tacit acknowledgment by career Carter administration officials that the approach initiated in the first months of 1977 had failed, the massive Reagan victory, the Senate's Republican majority, and a conservative shift in the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives—gives us a momentary opportunity to launch a redirected policy intended to boost peaceful change in South Africa: a policy of constructive engagement. John Seiler taught political science at Rhodes University in South Africa from 1972-76. He edited Southern Africa Since the Portuguese Coup, and publishes The Seiler Report, a monthly analysis of southern African issues in American politics. He is now completing a book on South Africa.© 1980 John Seiler 161 162 SAIS REVIEW Any new policy starts with a great disadvantage engendered by Carter policy. That policy assumed originally that U.S. public criticism of apartheid would have no effect on simultaneous U.S. efforts to win South African support for peaceful change in Zimbabwe and in Namibia . U.S. officials were quickly disabused ofthat naive notion, as first John Vorster and then his successor, P.W. Botha, shrewdly channeled white resentment of U.S. criticism into support for South African domestic and regional policies. The South African government had already lost its residual faith in U.S. intentions in the aftermath of the 1975 Angolan intervention. By the end of 1978, it concluded that it need not succumb to any combination of foreseeable U.S. threats and blandishments. Its sense of confidence was bolstered by the conspicuous shift in U.S. rhetoric and attitude from the April 1977 apogee represented by Vice President Mondale's critical "one-man, one-vote" comment in Vienna to the modest and even sympathetic statement made by Richard Moose, assistant secretary ofstate for African affairs, to the House subcommittee on African affairs on April 30, 1980. Pretoria now calculates accurately that it can withstand any economic pressures short offull-scale mandatory economic sanctions and any military pressures short of a conventional invasion led by either the Soviet Union or the Western powers. Neither action is anticipated. Given the present South African emphasis on self-reliance and their distrust of U.S. intentions, two polar policy options which are occasionally suggested have a momentary appeal. One would require unequivocal support for black nationalists in Namibia and South Africa as represented by the South West African People's Organisation (SWAPO) and the African National Congress ofSouth Africa (ANC) in international bodies. The other involves a tacit laissez-faire attitude toward South Africa, effectively ignoring its domestic policies, in order to maximize U.S. economic and strategic interests. Neither alternative makes good policy—a perception shared by successive administrations starting with Eisenhower, although none were successful in straddling interests in the Republic and in black Africa. Support for black nationalists will not emerge from a Reagan administration, but it is possible that a laissez-faire policy might—with considerable cost to longerterm U.S. regional interests. The key argument for constructive engagement rather than either of these two alternatives is that sufficient constructive change is now underway in South Africa to give some hope for the success of this policy. Granted that the change is not impelled by altruism, but by...

Nursing care involves a continuous interaction between nurses and people with disabilities. This has created a need for assessment tools that measure nurses’ knowledge about the basic human needs of people with disabilities. The aim of this cross-sectional study was to develop a Knowledge of Basic Human Needs Scale and investigate nurses’ levels of knowledge about the basic human needs of people with disabilities and their association with nurses’ education. Data were analyzed using principal component analysis to test the construct validity and to identify factors using principal varimax rotation. The reliability estimate was based on Cronbach’s alpha coefficient. Linear regression models were used to assess the association between knowledge about basic human needs and predictors. Factor analysis extracted eight factors, explaining 66.3% of the total variance. The sampling adequacy, criterion validity, and internal consistency were satisfactory. The nurses’ levels of education was associated with their knowledge about the basic human needs of people with disabilities. The questionnaire constitutes a valuable contribution to improving nurses’ knowledge and practice, as well as the quality of healthcare, and it provides a contribution to improving the quality of life for people with disabilities.

Increasing attention is being paid to the ‘basic human needs' approach for reducing imbalances within a developing country, urban—rural imbalances being important among them. However, as investment for meeting basic human needs is not directly productive, the future growth of the economy would have to be sacrificed if this approach is taken. In this paper the development implications of two approaches, the economic growth and the basic human needs approaches, are projected through a simulation model, and they are evaluated relative to each other. It is shown that, even if the evaluation is based on the criterion of the relative position of the rural population to the urban population, low-income countries would be better off with the economic growth approach after about ten years. For middle- and high-income countries, the basic human needs approach deserves serious consideration.

Access to sources of cooking energy has potential impacts on food security, however, there is a paucity of information and empirical evidence on their linkages. This study sought to ascertain the impacts of access to cooking energy on household food security in Nigeria, using the nationally representative Living Standards Measurement Study data. The data covered the period 2010/2011 to 2015/2016. The Household Dietary Diversity Score (HDDS), and the Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS) were used to measure household food security, while the major cooking fuel type utilized by households was used as a proxy for cooking energy access. To unravel the effects of access to different cooking energy sources on food security, inferential analysis was conducted using the Generalized Estimating Equations (GEE). The findings of the study revealed that traditional/biomass (firewood, grass and charcoal) cooking energy sources are still widely used by households across Nigeria. The empirical analysis showed that households that use transition and clean cooking energy sources were eating more diverse diets than those that use biomass. Furthermore, households using clean cooking energy sources had lower HFIAS than those using biomass. It is imperative that more households in Nigeria should have improved access to cleaner sources of cooking energy to reduce carbon emissions and enhance health outcomes, and food and nutrition status. This will significantly improve the national food security outlook, and foster the attainment of national and SDG (2 and 7) goals.

This research examines the intersection of energy economics and energy poverty in South Africa, focusing on the impacts of renewable energy adoption, market liberalization, and decarbonization policies. The study employs a qualitative, exploratory approach, utilizing in-depth interviews, focus groups, and case studies to capture the diverse experiences of stakeholders, including policymakers, energy professionals, business owners, and low-income households. The findings reveal significant economic and social impacts of renewable energy integration, highlighting both opportunities for investment and challenges related to grid stability, market inequality, and job losses in coal-dependent regions. The research also critically assesses the effectiveness of South Africa’s energy transition policies, identifying key barriers such as regulatory uncertainty, insufficient enforcement, and social resistance. Energy poverty is framed as a multidimensional issue, encompassing access, affordability, quality, and reliability of energy services, with severe health and socio-economic consequences for vulnerable populations. The study provides practical recommendations for enhancing policy coherence, supporting a just transition for affected communities, and promoting inclusive energy access through targeted interventions and behavioural change strategies. By offering a comprehensive understanding of the complex dynamics of energy economics and energy poverty, this research contributes valuable insights for policymakers, energy sector stakeholders, and community organizations striving to create a more sustainable and equitable energy future in South Africa.

The South African government has publicized plans to install one million solar water heaters in households throughout South Africa by the year 2014, with the goals of reducing strain on existing electricity resources, mitigating greenhouse gas emissions, creating employment and alleviating poverty. This paper examines two existing solar water heater installation projects with the aim of investigating the social contribution of the installation of solar water heaters in low-income households in South Africa. The Sustainable Urban Livelihoods approach (SULA) was adjusted to provide an analytical framework for the development of suitable indicators of social change in the context of renewable energies and energy poverty. Increases in household capital and the reduction of household vulnerability to shocks, stressors and seasonal variability as the result of solar water heater installation were investigated in projects in low-income housing developments in the cities of Cape Town and Port Elizabeth, South Africa.Data collected from paired household surveys (before and after installation) in over 600 households and qualitative information (Most Significant Change stories) show that the provision of a constant, cheap source of heated water contributed positively to the alleviation of energy poverty. Household capitals (categorised as Human, Social, Financial, Physical, Natural and Gender capital), including aspects such as health benefits and time and financial savings, were all positively effected by the installation of solar water heaters. In addition, improved energy security greatly reduced household vulnerability to shocks, stressors and seasonal variability. Comparison between the two projects revealed that the geographical setting (climatic conditions in particular), and the approach and strategies adopted by the implementers of the solar water heater installation project, greatly determine the extent to which benefits to the households are realised.