Informal Settlements In Cape Town Research Articles

Religious Knowledge Management Practices in a Pentecostal Denomination in South Africa

Religious organisations are significant producers of knowledge and in recent years, knowledge management (KM) has become a crucial necessity for organisations to achieve success and effectiveness. Pentecostal churches are frequently established, particularly in densely populated informal settlements in many parts of Africa. This study aimed to assess KM practices at a Pentecostal church in an informal settlement in Cape Town, South Africa, using the knowledge conversion model. The study objectives were to examine the level of awareness and uptake of KM practices, determine the level of openness to knowledge sharing and conversion among church leaders and members, and evaluate how knowledge conversion and management practices contribute to achieving the church’s goals of spreading the gospel and enhancing community services. The study population consisted of the church leadership and adult members. The results revealed that the level of awareness and uptake of KM practices was very low, with no documented training or responsible individuals identified for managing knowledge. Tacit knowledge was being shared informally through dialogue and religious meetings but was not formally extracted, documented, or converted into explicit knowledge for organisational productivity, sharing, and reuse. Some leaders were not keen on explicitly managing and sharing knowledge, a number of members thought it is very important for knowledge to be documented and shared. The study developed a conceptual model for implementing KM in Pentecostal religious organisations. The model provides a practical framework for improving knowledge sharing and enhancing organisational productivity, which can lead to more effective gospel dissemination and community service. This study highlights the importance of effective KM in religious organisations and provides valuable insights for leaders seeking to leverage knowledge to achieve their goals.

Spatiotemporal development of informal settlements in Cape Town, 2000 to 2020: An open data approach

Informal settlements are a major urban residential form globally yet they are marginalized in planning and policymaking. As part of wider interest in geospatial technologies to inform service provision and settlement upgrading, this study demonstrates the use of freely-available satellite and spatial datasets and accessible remote sensing techniques to track the spatiotemporal dynamics of informal settlements. Focusing on Cape Town over a period of rapid urbanization between 2000 and 2020, this study identified the number, location, and spatial distribution of informal settlements across the city, and the growth and decline in built-up land over time for individual settlements. Key findings include a recent increase in informal land use in Cape Town after a period of decline in the earlier part of the study period, and evidence of the impacts of policy interventions such as settlement upgrading and resident relocation initiatives, including those associated with the N2 Gateway project. By focusing on both the ‘where’ and ‘when’ of informal settlements this study provides important evidence of spatial and temporal dynamics useful for governments and grassroots actors alike, and demonstrates the potential of an accessible method that can be implemented without significant resources or technical expertise.

Mobility in informal settlements during a public lockdown: A case study in South Africa.

Many African countries quickly responded to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 with lockdowns of public life. Yet, many have large numbers of dense informal settlements where infrastructure is shared, houses are small, and residents live on low incomes. These conditions make complying with curfews extraordinarily difficult. Using pedestrian motion sensors installed throughout an informal settlement in Cape Town, South Africa, we study how the lockdown affected mobility in the evenings, early mornings, and during the nights between February 14 and June 18, 2020. We find that mobility was already decreasing in March prior to the start of lockdown by 23% in paths-about half of the overall decline-and by 19% in shared courtyards. Starting with the lockdown on March 27, pedestrian activity decreased by 48% in comparison to February 2020 across paths and by 61% in shared courtyards. We notice the biggest changes on weekends, normally key leisure times, and between 6:00 pm and 9:00 pm and between 6:00 am and 8:00 am, spanning typical commute hours, though these hours continue to have the most activity indicating some people continue to commute. The results show that mobility reduction is large, though generally smaller than reductions observed in high-income countries. We find that residents of informal settlements comply with state-mandated lockdowns to the best of their ability given the circumstances, but that awareness of COVID-19 with less strict regulations prior to lockdown also led to mobility declines.

Conflicts and synergies between customary land use management and urban planning in informal settlements

The ethnographical interpretivist study analyses how informal development is planned and regulated by customary land management systems (CLMS) and the collaboration between the customary regulation of informal development and urban planning of informal settlements in Cape Town. The combination of zoning bylaws and CLMS creates a legal grey zone in the townships. The CLMS has polycentric authority structures and a hybridity of regulatory practices. It delegitimises zoning bylaws, but it also creates a new role for urban planning away from traditional technical management by specialists to a more pragmatic and selective enforcement of zoning by lower-level municipal officials based on common law and substantial relations tests, in close collaboration with local councillors, the police and public representatives linked to CLMS. Although this is by no means without its challenges, such as the disregard of building lines, waste removal challenges and illegal electricity connections, it does, however, strengthen the role of the state as a final and objective authority and benevolent provider of services. Informal settlements, thus have the best of both worlds: a formally planned substructure and an informalised top-structure that provides citizenship and agency to the subaltern.

Can informality help create smart, sustainable cities? The vibrancy of self-organised informal settlements in Cape Town

Can informality help create smart, sustainable cities? The vibrancy of self-organised informal settlements in Cape Town

Surviving in Overcome Heights: living in and alongside crisis in Cape Town

What can surviving in Overcome Heights teach us about the concept of crisis? In the multi-ethnic informal settlement in Cape Town, residents faced multiple and continuously unfolding emergencies during our ethnographic, participatory fieldwork in 2018 and 2019. By taking an inductive approach to crisis, we explore the layered nature of crisis and foreground a sensitivity towards how differently positioned actors have distinct modes of being the protagonists of, confronting or engaging with crisis. By examining how intersecting inequalities on the margins of the city place people sometimes within and sometimes alongside crisis, we sketch out three different scales and temporalities of crisis: individual, communal and crisis as large-scale historical structures. Understanding survival in Overcome Heights as lives lived in and alongside crisis means resisting neat theorical definitions of crisis. Rather, we suggest that it may be an analytical heuristic to pose new questions as to how phenomena that may politically, institutionally and temporally be considered as separate intersect, compounding their negative effects, and how actors within these intersections are positioned differently along spatial lines and the temporal rhythms of urban life.

GoPro(blem)s and possibilities: Keeping the child human of colour in play in an interview

In response to the call for papers for this special issue and the questions it poses, the authors show how the ontological posthumanist shift of agential realism does not erase but keeps the child human of colour in play, despite the inclusion of the other-than-(Adult)human in its methodologies. Through a montaging technique, the authors explore the philosophical complexity of ‘decentering without erasure’ by re-turning to data from a large international research project – Children, Technology and Play (2019–2020). Through an agential realist reading of interview data ‘of’ ‘seven-year-old’ Henry when visiting him at home in an informal settlement in Cape Town, they show what else is going on, and the politically radical and subtle philosophical difference this makes for reconfiguring child subjectivity. To do more justice to the complexity of reality, the analysis bounces around like Henry's sack ball and zooms in on the role apparatuses such as GoPros play in research. The authors ‘follow the child’ literally but differently, without excluding or erasing the more-than-(Adult)human. In meeting Henry, they also meet Eshal, who introduces the GoPro(blem). By diffractively reading Karen Barad's scholarship through visual and aural texts, the authors respond to the question of how posthumanist research makes a difference to childhood studies. They show how the agential realist move(ment) from Object and Subject to Phenomenon explodes ageist, ableist, racist, extractive and settler-colonial logics in education research.

Knowledge Management Practices in a Religious Organisation in South Africa

Knowledge Management has developed over the years into a mainstream organisational necessity to achieve success and organisational effectiveness. Religious organisations are one of the most producers of knowledge. In many parts of Africa, several Pentecostal churches are established regularly, especially in crowded informal settlements. The knowledge conversion model was utilised to assess the knowledge management practices at a Pentecostal church in an informal settlement in Cape Town, South Africa. The objectives of the study were to examine the awareness and uptake of KM in the religious organisations, determine the level of openness of the members and leaders to knowledge sharing and conversion as well as assess how religious organisations leverage knowledge conversion and KM practices in achieving their goals in spreading the gospel and to enhance their community services. The church leadership and adult members of the church constituted the study population. The findings of this study revealed that the level of awareness and uptake of KM was very low because there was no documented training as well as responsible individuals responsible for the management of knowledge. Tacit knowledge is being shared informally through dialogue communication and religious meetings. However, this knowledge is not formally extracted, documented, or converted into explicit knowledge for organisational productivity, further sharing and future reuse. Although some of the leaders were not keen on knowing explicitly managed and shared in the organisation, religious members thought it is very important for knowledge to be documented and shared. Furthermore, as knowledge sharing is not prioritised within the organisation, the goal of spreading the gospel and to enhance their community services was found to be sluggish. The study developed a conceptual model for implementing knowledge management in Pentecostal religious organisations.

AntiRetroviral Therapy In Second-line: investigating Tenofovir-lamivudine-dolutegravir (ARTIST): protocol for a randomised controlled trial

Background: Dolutegravir has superior efficacy and tolerability than lopinavir-ritonavir in second-line antiretroviral therapy after failure of a first-line non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors-based regimen, when dolutegravir is accompanied by at least one fully active nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor (NRTI). Resistance testing to select NRTIs is not feasible in low- and middle-income countries due to cost and limited laboratory capacity. Evidence suggests that recycling tenofovir plus lamivudine or emtricitabine backbone with dolutegravir could provide an effective second-line option. This study aims to determine the virologic efficacy of tenofovir-lamivudine-dolutegravir (TLD) with and without a lead-in supplementary dose of dolutegravir (to counteract the inducing effect of efavirenz) in patients failing a first-line regimen of tenofovir-emtricitabine-efavirenz (TEE). Methods: We will perform a parallel group, randomised (1:1), double blind, placebo-controlled, Phase II trial, comparing TLD fixed dose combination daily with a lead-in supplementary 50 mg dolutegravir dose versus matching placebo taken 12 hours later for the first 14 days, in patients failing a first-line TEE regimen. The trial will be set in two primary care clinics in Khayelitsha; a large, peri-urban informal settlement in Cape Town, South Africa. We will enrol 130 participants, with follow-up to 48 weeks. The primary endpoint is proportion achieving viral load <50 copies/mL at week 24 using a modified intention-to-treat analysis and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration snapshot algorithm. Secondary endpoints include virologic suppression at weeks 12 and 48, time to suppression, emergence of dolutegravir and new NRTI resistance mutations, safety, and tolerability. Discussion: Impaired viral fitness due to NRTI resistance mutations and dolutegravir’s high barrier to resistance provide rationale for switching patients from a failing TEE regimen to TLD; however, clinical evidence regarding virologic efficacy is lacking. This study provides estimates of such a strategy’s early virologic efficacy with and without a supplementary dolutegravir dosing. Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT03991013 (19/06/2019).

Experiential approaches to sanitation-goal assessment: Sanitation practices in selected informal settlements in Cape Town, South Africa

ABSTRACT Since 1977, the World Health Organisation has published global sanitation goals, targets and plans of action, all using numbers and ratios to assess success. Governments have done similarly. Such assessments ignore how informal settlement residents use and manage toilets and how sanitation practices reveal shortcomings in local authorities’ attempts to assess success in meeting sanitation-provision challenges. Using ethnographic data gathered between 2013 and 2014 in four Cape Town informal settlements, the article describes residents’ on-the-ground sanitation practices. It shows how those practices have limited or precluded some people’s access to facilities ostensibly provided for all; how socio-political factors lead to sanitation practices that thwart public health goals; and how such practices reflect popular aspirations to citizenship whilst undermining local authorities’ systems. Challenging numbers-based claims about the extent of sanitation access, the article suggests a need for ethnographic and functional experiential-behavioural modes of assessment.

Experiential approaches to sanitation-goal assessment: Sanitation practices in selected informal settlements in Cape Town, South Africa

Experiential approaches to sanitation-goal assessment: Sanitation practices in selected informal settlements in Cape Town, South Africa

Co-production to reframe state practices in informal settlements: Lessons from Malawi Kamp and Klipheuwel in Cape Town, South Africa

ABSTRACT Mass urbanisation in cities of the global South, is causing cities to evolve, with informal settlements being central to this evolution. While local government is the official point of interaction for urban informal settlement dwellers, those interactions are often characterised by a lack of meaningful participation. Engaging with the co-production literature and two case studies of informal settlements in Cape Town, South Africa, this paper examines how they shed light on the shifting and constantly evolving roles and practices of local government and community actors within a co-production engagement. Based on the findings from these cases, the paper argues that co-production as a practice of collaboration between the local state and citizens can allow for the forging of new relationships, built on trust, sharing of resources and a more equal distribution of power where communities can shape the outcomes of service delivery projects to respond to their needs and demands.

The influence of wind and the spatial layout of dwellings on fire spread in informal settlements in Cape Town

Fires in informal settlements are devastating to residents of these precarious urban environments. This paper highlights the use of spatial metrics and wind speed and direction for fire spread risk identification for informal settlement fires in Cape Town. Data on: fire incidents, dwelling footprints, and the wind conditions during a fire, are analysed both together and separately. Fire incidence data analysed with wind data reveals that the majority of fires occur in December with the most destructive fires taking place during moderate wind conditions. At higher wind speeds, the distance between the flame and adjacent dwelling is not reduced but the flame height is, leading to reduced radiation. Also, convective cooling at higher wind speeds increases the time-to-ignition and flashover of the adjacent dwelling. Analysis of dwelling data reveals that the average and standard deviation of distance to the first nearest neighbour together with edge density can be used to identify areas at risk of fire spread. A threshold approach using the distance to a dwelling's first nearest neighbour together with the range in distance from the dwelling's first to third nearest neighbours allow for the identification of specific dwellings within a settlement which are at risk of fire spread.

Studio In-Situ

This photo essay explores the possibility of radically shifting the understanding of the design studio as a spatial construct. By considering the seven-year evolution of a (socalled) design-build project known as the Imizamo Yethu Water Platforms, it recognises the possibility of dislocating the design studio from its traditionally centralised space in the academy and moving it to the site of its investigation or intervention for the duration of a project. The Imizamo Yethu Water Platforms aimed to improve water and sanitation infrastructure in a severely under-resourced informal settlement in Cape Town, South Africa, through the insertion of small permanent public spaces. Due to a number of reasons, including the physical characteristics of the sites selected for these spaces, the design studio gradually shifted its physical location to such an extent that virtually the entire design, documentation and construction process took place in-situ.

Exploring men’s vulnerability in the global South: Methodological reflections

AbstractIn South Africa, young men are generally considered to generate many of the risks associated with informal settlement life, yet their own vulnerability in these environments is seldom considered. Seeking insights into male susceptibility in these impoverished urban spaces is methodologically challenging. How does one encourage poor marginalised young men to speak with candour about their insecurities and challenges? The research methods used, while facilitating openness, should also build their confidence as they reflect on the challenges of everyday life. This paper describes the methodological journey undertaken in a study of young Black men living in informal settlements in Cape Town, South Africa, revealing how they perceive their vulnerability in these environments. It demonstrates how a suite of methods gradually developed through trial and error, with the young men themselves assisting in the adaptation of tools, ranging from interviews using adapted participatory methods to non‐prescriptive diary‐writing. Together they delivered deep and penetrating insights into the lives of the young men, and the nature of their vulnerability.

Strengthening participatory local governance for improved service delivery: The case of Khayelitsha

Background: The need for participatory local governance is urgent, especially in the developing countries of the Global South, where local citizens have been disenfranchised for many years. The common practice in developing countries is that public policies, programmes and projects are designed by public officials and external ‘experts’ on behalf of local communities. Externally designed public interventions may fail to meet the needs of communities.Aim: This article seeks to explore the mechanisms to strengthen participatory local governance for improved service delivery in South Africa. Specifically the article examines the mechanisms that could be put in place to enhance participatory local governance for improved service delivery in Khayelitsha.Methods: The article is based on a qualitative case study conducted in Khayelitsha, an informal settlement in Cape Town. A combination of primary data collection instruments and secondary data collection instruments to gather qualitative data was employed.Results: Participatory local governance enhances the support and ownership of public interventions by local communities. Without community participation in local governance, public policies, programmes and projects are bound to fail due to lack of local support and ownership. In instances where local communities or their representatives are excluded from decision-making processes, a structural vacuum is created. Often the community were not consulted for their input, hence the failure of many public interventions.Conclusion: A number of mechanisms can help promote and strengthen public participation in local governance, including: the creation of an enabling environment for citizen participation; building strong social capital; promoting collaborative engagements; increase capacity in the local community; holding regular public meetings and building strong ward committees.

Strengthening community-based adaptation for urban transformation: managing flood risk in informal settlements in Cape Town

ABSTRACT Urban citizens increasingly need to adapt to climate risk. This is especially the case in informal settlements that have limited state engagement and are particularly vulnerable to climate change. Community-based adaptation (CBA) in the informal settlement has the potential to support the transformation that re-shapes power relations as well as reducing climate risk. This paper explores how multiscalar governance in Cape Town can either empower or undermine CBA to flooding in informal settlements. Drawing on urban political ecology, the analysis reveals significant tension around differing ideas of the temporality of informal settlements, as well as token community inclusivity in participatory planning processes. While everyday governance practices have been used by the City of Cape Town at the local scale, a local community-based organisation has used insurgent planning to envision and enact a more just city. A community designed and spear-headed reblocking process (rearranging shacks in a settlement to allow for flood drainage and service delivery) is a powerful example of CBA and represents the potential of community-based organisations to take steps towards transformative action. In order to enable more widespread urban transformative CBA, it is important to address the drivers of vulnerabilities and underlying power dynamics of political decision-making to destabilise the status quo and move towards real adaptation.

AntiRetroviral Therapy In Second-line: investigating Tenofovir-lamivudine-dolutegravir (ARTIST): protocol for a randomised controlled trial.

Background: Dolutegravir has superior efficacy and tolerability than lopinavir-ritonavir in second-line antiretroviral therapy after failure of a first-line non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors-based regimen, when dolutegravir is accompanied by at least one fully active nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor (NRTI). Resistance testing to select NRTIs is not feasible in low- and middle-income countries due to cost and limited laboratory capacity. Evidence suggests that recycling tenofovir plus lamivudine or emtricitabine backbone with dolutegravir could provide an effective second-line option. This study aims to determine the virologic efficacy of tenofovir-lamivudine-dolutegravir (TLD) with and without a lead-in supplementary dose of dolutegravir (to counteract the inducing effect of efavirenz) in patients failing a first-line regimen of tenofovir-emtricitabine-efavirenz (TEE). Methods: We will perform a parallel group, randomised (1:1), double blind, placebo-controlled, Phase II trial, comparing TLD fixed dose combination daily with a lead-in supplementary 50 mg dolutegravir dose versus matching placebo taken 12 hours later for the first 14 days, in patients failing a first-line TEE regimen. The trial will be set in two primary care clinics in Khayelitsha; a large, peri-urban informal settlement in Cape Town, South Africa. We will enrol 130 participants, with follow-up to 48 weeks. The primary endpoint is proportion achieving viral load <50 copies/mL at week 24 using a modified intention-to-treat analysis and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration snapshot algorithm. Secondary endpoints include virologic suppression at weeks 12 and 48, time to suppression, emergence of dolutegravir and new NRTI resistance mutations, safety, and tolerability. Discussion: Impaired viral fitness due to NRTI resistance mutations and dolutegravir's high barrier to resistance provide rationale for switching patients from a failing TEE regimen to TLD; however, clinical evidence regarding virologic efficacy is lacking. This study provides estimates of such a strategy's early virologic efficacy with and without a supplementary dolutegravir dosing. Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT03991013 (19/06/2019).

Legal empowerment as a tool for engendering access to justice in South Africa

This article examines the concept of access to justice and the challenges vulnerable and marginalised groups encounter in accessing justice. The article further discusses the recognition of access to justice as human rights imperative under international and regional human rights instrument. It then discusses barriers to access to justice for women. It argues that while access to justice remains a challenge for many vulnerable and marginalised groups, women particularly encounter serious barriers to access to justice in society. Furthermore, it discusses the notion of legal empowerment and the significance of this for the realisation of access to justice for vulnerable groups, especially women in disadvantaged communities. This is followed by the discussion on the experience of the Dullah Omar Institute in providing legal empowerment training for women in informal settlements in Cape Town and some of the, important lessons from this process. It concludes by making useful recommendations in ensuring access to justice for vulnerable women in informal settlements.

Comparison of Lymphocyte Subset Populations in Children From South Africa, US and Europe.

Background: Typically, African healthcare providers use immunological reference intervals adopted from Europe and the United States (US). This may be inappropriate in a setting with many differences including exposure to different environmental stimuli and pathogens. We compared immunological reference intervals for children from Europe and the US with South African children to explore whether healthy children living in settings with high rates of infectious diseases have different baseline immunological parameters.Methodology: Blood was taken from 381 HIV-uninfected children aged between 2 weeks and 13 years of age from a Child Wellness Clinic in an informal settlement in Cape Town to establish local hematological and lymphocyte reference intervals for South African children. Flow-cytometry quantified percentage and absolute counts of the B-cells, NK-cells, and T-cells including activated, naïve, and memory subsets. These parameters were compared to three separate studies of healthy children in Europe and the US.Results: Increased activated T-cells, and natural killer cells were seen in the younger age-groups. The main finding across all age-groups was that the ratio of naïve/memory CD4 and CD8 T-cells reached a 1:1 ratio around the first decade of life in healthy South African children, far earlier than in resource-rich countries, where it occurs around the fourth decade of life.Conclusions: This is the largest data set to date describing healthy children from an African environment. These data have been used to create local reference intervals for South African children. The dramatic decline in the naïve/memory ratio of both CD4 and CD8 T-cells alongside increased activation markers may indicate that South African children are exposed to a wider range of environmental pathogens in early life than in resource-rich countries. These marked differences illustrate that reference intervals should be relevant to the population they serve. The implications for the developing pediatric immune system requires further investigation.