AFFRIKA Journal of Politics, Economics and Society

Globalisation is a highly contested term and has become a site for tension. Whilst globalisation, in the context of Higher Education, must be lauded for giving students and scholars access to work on a global platform, it has also reinforced inequalities that are already prevalent and has even created new ones. The negative impact of globalisation is evident most explicitly in developing countries such as South Africa. Against this backdrop of rising global trends, the overarching aim of this paper is to unravel how global trends influence the functioning of universities in Africa, with special reference to South Africa. This will be achieved by a thorough critical engagement with contemporary literature. The global trends selected for discussion are as follows: Internationalisation, Africanisation, Marketisation and New Managerialism.

In most developing countries, the majority of rural areas are characterised by abject poverty, low levels of literacy amongst adult women, under-utilisation of natural resources, compromised access to socio-economic infrastructure, nonavailability of clean water for agricultural development and services, and a high dependency on social grants and unresolved land restitution and tenure issues (Hart & Jacobs, 2012). In the year 2009, the South African government undertook an initiative to resolve the challenges facing rural areas, thereby establishing a programme called the Comprehensive Rural Development Programme (CRDP). Obadire, et al. (2014) postulates that the Department of Rural Development and Agrarian Reform (DRDAR) introduced this programme in an attempt to fight poverty, hunger, unemployment and lack of development in rural areas. In the view of DRDAR (2013), the programme has a vision of creating vibrant, equitable and sustainable rural livelihoods.

This study is premised on the pathetic status of women, which has its origins from the apartheid past. Black African women have been discriminated and disadvantaged on cultural, business and political perspectives, and the poverty levels amongst women are higher than that of male-headed households. However, even though rural women have evolved to contribute in socio-economic roles to support their families; the development processes have been seen as inadequate (Osita-Njoku and Princewill, 2015:258). StatsSA (2014) stipulates that there is an increase in female-headed households in South Africa. This brings out a compelling reason for coming up with a study of this nature. The main aim of the study was to assess the influence of the CRDP in empowering women in the development site of the uMhlontlo local municipality. This study utilised a qualitative research approach. This is because the nature of the study required deeper understanding, illuminating and examining the participant’s experiences, ideas and attitudes in an etymological form. A non-probability technique, purposive sampling, and face-to-face interviews were used in this study.

The findings of the study revealed that rural women within the jurisdiction of the uMhlontlo local municipality benefited from the CRDP, and the government should continue implementing programmes of such a nature within the rural areas. The empowerment of women has resulted in improved living standards for their dependants and the community in general. It is clear from the findings that through the CRDP, the residents of the uMhlontlo local municipality, have obtained many benefits. In order to ensure that programmes such as the CRDP succeed and supported, it is recommended that the government create a good relationship with key local economic development stakeholders. Furthermore, it is recommended that the government create workshops or training aiming to capacitate the recipients.

South Africa is a developing country, and organisations are always in the process of having to improve operational, functional, as well as human resource components. Organisations focus on continuous improvement and as a result training and development of skills and knowledge of its personnel has become an important area. Training and development is key in any organisation and therefore should be a priority for any organisation. Lack of training and development leads to employee demotivation, as well as, an increase in labour turnover with the municipality (Muhammad, 2010). The main objectives of this study were to assess the influence of training and development on employees’ performance, and to understand employees’ perceptions towards training and development at Umzumbe Local Municipality. The qualitative research approach was used, and the data was collected using semi-structured interviews, which was analysed by applying the thematic analysis tool. The non-probability purposive sampling was employed for proper selection of the participants. Fifteen participants from different units (middle and lower structures) within the municipality participated in this study. The results of the study reflect that it is critical to proper align the objectives of the training and development programmes with the needs of employees so to better capacitate and motivate them to execute their duties efficiently. Furthermore, the results has shown that the municipality must have proper measures to ensure that the training and development programmes are in line with the needs of the municipality. This study recommended that municipality must conduct the skills audit in order to develop relevant training and development programmes for the employees. Furthermore, municipality must have measures in place that will assess the impact or benefit of training and development programmes on the performance of the employees.