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In contemporary times, Public–Private Partnership (PPP) in transport infrastructure has gained considerable attention in developing regions following its success in the developed countries. However, Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is among the developing regions with few transport PPP projects and among the regions with high number of failed projects. Meanwhile the region's transport infrastructure need far exceeds it current provision. This paper therefore aims to examine the project experiences (success and failure factors) of three highly profiled transport PPP projects, namely the Lekki toll road concession project (Nigeria), N4 toll road (South Africa/Mozambique) and Port of Maputo (Mozambique) in order to develop policy measures for effective future implementation. The experiences of the three projects show that transport PPP policy is indeed feasible in SSA. However, to realise its full applicability, proper policy actions and measures must be carefully observed and these include effective and efficient stakeholder management, transparent and competitive tendering process, high participation of local investors, stable macro-economic conditions and strong government commitment and regulatory framework. The projects experiences and policy actions developed are impactful in accelerating transport infrastructure development through PPP approach in SSA. Hence it is hoped that policy-makers and practitioners would be informed on the key strategies to employ in implementing future projects. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The aim of this paper was to review the contribution of private institutions to higher education in Africa and use Monash South Africa as a case study. A literature search was conducted to gain perspective on the current situation with respect to private higher education institutions in Africa and how they are perceived in relation to public higher education institutions. In comparison with public higher education institutions, private higher education institutions in Africa were successful in four areas:• Widening access to higher education in the continent • Improving the quality of education • Improving student experience • Increasing the recognition and marketability of their degrees However, private higher education institutions in Africa have failed in two areas:• Reducing the costs of higher education in Africa • Assisting with retention of skilled human capital in African countries. In fact, private higher education institutions in Africa, have exacerbated the two situations above. Monash South Africa was the first foreign university to be established in South Africa and one of over 100 private universities in the continent. As a campus of Monash University in Africa, it has seen a steady growth with over 3,500 students in the past 10 years of its existence. Like other private institutions, the campus was successful in the four areas above and also fails in the area of costs and assisting in retention of skilled staff in Africa. The campus has been successful in blending its private provider status with a public purpose mandate by offering degrees in social science, business and economics, information technology and health sciences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is well known that whilst wetlands deliver a wide range of services vital for human well-being, they are being rapidly degraded and lost. Losses tend to be higher where human populations are increasing most and demands for economic development are greatest. Multidisciplinary management approaches that integrate conservation and development objectives in wetlands are therefore urgently requested for by the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands. This paper describes the evaluation of 10 wetland management case studies from Asia, Africa and South America that adopted such an integrated approach. The evaluation assessed the outcomes of these integrated initiatives to identify conditions and processes for linking conservation and poverty reduction objectives in wetlands. The findings are also compared with other assessments of integrated approaches, particularly in terms of their effectiveness in optimizing conservation and poverty reduction outcomes. The results from our studies suggest an ongoing evolution of such integrated interventions, which also implies cycles of learning from past mistakes. Overall, our results highlight the significant variation between wetlands in types and quantities of services they provide and emphasize the need to view many ecological issues as social challenges for equitable solutions to both wetlands and people. The analysis further shows that the positive on-ground results owe much to the interdisciplinary problem analysis, whereby interventions can move from treating symptoms to addressing root causes. while no blueprint emerged on how to successfully integrate conservation and poverty reduction in wetlands, important lessons for future interventions were drawn. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to evaluate the crucial factors influencing international logistics operations for African landlocked countries. To this end, a case study and a questionnaire survey were conducted. A total of 147 usable responses from container shipping firms were obtained as a result of the questionnaire survey. The results of factor analysis revealed that transportation capability, external risks, information integration, logistics infrastructure, local agents' logistics capability, and national law and policy were crucial factors influencing the logistics operations of African landlocked countries. Specifically, local agents' logistics capability was perceived by respondents to be the most important factor. Moreover, the results of the study also indicated that the highest factor mean values of small shipping companies were related to transportation capability, external risks and the local agents' logistics capability, whereas container shipping companies that arranged trucks for inland transportation paid more attention to the external risks, logistics infrastructure, the local agents' logistics capability, and national law and policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This qualitative project is focused on the challenges that newcomer athletes revealed when they considered their earliest encounters with a receiving culture during general daily life. Conversational interviews with 24 national and international amateur newcomer athletes were subjected to interpretive thematic analysis and developed into a composite vignette. This vignette unearths three themes revealing hope (theme: opportunities abound); uncertainty and fear (theme: weighing the risks for the journey ahead); and anger, humiliation, and hardening (theme: public stonings). Understanding the fluidities within the vignette will permit practitioners to explore the uncertainties of acculturation and find entry points to support athlete acculturation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Asylum seekers and refugees experience a range of barriers to health service access and competent use. The Refugee Health Nurse Liaison initiative was piloted at a hospital in a high-settlement region of Victoria, Australia. This initiative aimed to build capacity within the health sector to more effectively respond to the needs of asylum seekers and refugees. A mixed-methods evaluation was undertaken to: describe issues encountered by asylum seekers and refugees within the hospital setting; capture the nature of the Refugee Health Nurse Liaison position; and document key outputs. Throughout the pilot period, 946 patients were referred to the role, of which 99% received an assessment of physical, mental, and social health. Refugee Health Nurse Liaisons effectively provided clinical support, advocacy, education, referrals, and both formal and informal capacity building. Learnings from this model are transferable to services in high-settlement regions, and could have application in improving patient care more broadly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article is a qualitative study that focuses on the authenticity and self-constructions of Christian millennials in Africa. While exploring how 15 respondents manifested their authentic self-behaviours using a case study design, the hallmark of the study was to observe the common coping mechanism of self-regulation, adopted by respondents to deal with their internal crisis. This coping strategy was employed as they remained true to self by creating new “authentic” images of themselves in the forms of theborderline self, thepromissory self, thehyphenated self, and thereligious self. By implication, looking at the issue of authenticity from an African context has produced an African conceptualisation of authenticity. I argue that African authenticity can be understood by interpreting Africa’s voices of self-expression and images of self-definition, resonating within various African contexts in hope for some kind of cathartic and authentic living experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is widely recognised that higher education is crucial for socio-economic growth in developing countries. Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is lagging behind in this regard in spite of a strong expansion of universities in the last decades. However, this growth may have led to a deterioration of the quality of higher education. There is no dearth of recommendations how to improve this situation, but empirical studies about the concrete situation of tertiary education in SSA are largely missing. This study attempts to balance this dearth. A survey was carried out among 500 students of St Augustine University of Tanzania, the largest private institution of higher education in that country. Three topics were investigated: the social background of the students, their present socio-economic situation and the evaluation of the living and study conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How to set up successful multicultural human resource management programmes remains a contentious issue. This study examined variables that influenced job satisfaction in the workforce of a multinational company operating in Mozambique. It took a mixed methods approach and analysed case study data using a combination of content, thematic, descriptive and statistical techniques. The results indicate that the level of job satisfaction of these employees was comparable to that of employees in former Soviet Bloc countries; however, it varied significantly across levels of employee. The results also demonstrate that, to be more successful, 'foreign' management practices should be adapted to the local culture and, further, that humanism in the African workplace can positively mediate a traditional instrumentalist rewards system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article applies evolutionary theory of path dependency to explain the past, present, and future trajectories of decentralisation and local government (LG) institutional development in Ghana and Uganda. The article argues that in the pursuit of local governance, Uganda followed a sequence of political, administrative, and fiscal decentralisation whereas Ghana pursued an administrative, political, and fiscal decentralization. As a result, Uganda has made a little progress but more than Ghana's, in strengthening LG institutions. However, given that neither Uganda nor Ghana followed an ideal sequence of decentralisation reforms that would have strengthened LGs against unbridled central government (CG) interference, currently CGs in both countries are retaking much of what was initially decentralized. The article concludes that recentralization and further weakening of LGs are likely to continue in both countries and much of Africa because the initial path that was created benefited CG politicians and bureaucrats and they are committed to staying on that course. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Poor academic success by African engineering students is currently experienced in many higher educational institutions, contributing to lower financial subsidies by local governments. One of the contributing factors to this low academic success may be the poor time management skills of these students. This article endeavours to explore this relationship by means of a theoretical literature review and an empirical study. Numerous studies have been conducted in this regard, but with mixed results. The case study of this article involves a design module termed Design Projects III, where the empirical study incorporated an ex post facto study involving a pre-experimental/exploratory design using descriptive statistics. The results of this study were applied to various tests, which indicated no statistically significant relationship between time management skills and the academic achievement of African engineering students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An outstanding problem that has haunted most development workers in Africa has been how to effectively engage rural communities who often have no access to modern technological media like newspapers, radio, television, video and film. The tendency has been for development workers to resort to top-down or blueprint development approaches that usually undermine the very purpose for which they were intended. Instead of inspiring community-driven action, such exogenous approaches tend to treat development as an event rather than a process. This article looks at an alternative development approach that has come to be called integrated popular theatre. In particular, the article focuses on a case study that demonstrates how development can be turned into a combined learning process between rural communities and outside experts. Integrated popular theatre thus marks an innovative paradigm shift in which the grassroots and development experts become partners in development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on issues involving attempts to alter colonial boundaries in Africa. Discussion on ethnic and territorial nationalism in the region; Prospects for boundary revisions; Details on case studies about border rectification.