The global adoption of sustainable development practices is gaining momentum, with an increasing emphasis on balancing the social, economic, and environmental pillars of sustainability. This study aims to assess the current state of these pillars within the uMlalazi Local Municipality, South Africa, and evaluate the initiatives in place to address related challenges. The purpose is to gain a deeper understanding of how effectively these three pillars are being addressed in the context of local governance. Using qualitative research methods, the study gathered data from a sample of five key informants, including three local government officials, one councillor, and one chief information officer from the local police. Data was collected through open-ended interview questions, with responses recorded, transcribed, and analysed for thematic content. The findings reveal significant gaps in the municipality’s approach to sustainability, including the absence of formalized trading areas, limited community input in planning and decision-making, high crime rates, and persistent unemployment. These issues were found to be interlinked with other challenges, such as inefficiencies in solid waste management. Additionally, the study confirms that the three pillars of sustainability are not treated equally, with economic and social aspects often receiving less attention compared to environmental concerns. This highlights the need for the municipality to focus on formalizing trading areas, encouraging local economic growth, and enhancing public participation in governance. By implementing incentives for greater community involvement and addressing the imbalances between the sustainability pillars, uMlalazi can make significant progress toward achieving more sustainable development.
The target date for achieving the 2030 UN Agenda [Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)] is fast approaching. The construction sector is critical to achieving many SDGs, including Goal 5. Studies regarding achieving Goal 5 (Gender Equality) in the construction industry, especially women’s consultancy participation in developing countries, are scarce and complexly interrelated. Societal problems and divergence may have contributed to this. Therefore, this study explores issues hindering gender equality and suggests measures to promote more women construction consultants through policy to improve achieving Goal 5 in Nigeria. The research employed face-to-face data collection via a qualitative mechanism to achieve this. The study covered Abuja and Lagos. It accomplished saturation at the 20th participant. The research utilised a thematic method to analyse the collected data from knowledgeable participants. The perceived hindrances facing Nigerian construction consultants’ gender equality were clustered into culture/religion-related, profession-related, and government-related encumbrances. Achieving Goal 5 will be a mirage if these issues are not addressed. Thus, the study recommended measures to motivate women to study construction-related programmes and employment opportunities, including consultancy services slots through programmes and policy mechanisms to achieve Goal 5. As part of the implications, the study suggests that Nigerian construction consultants and other stakeholders need to make feasible improvements to achieve gender equality (Goal 5).
The growth of buildings in big cities necessitates Design Review (DR) to ensure good urban planning. Design Review involves the city community in various forms; however, community participation remains very limited or even non-existent. There are indications that the community has not been involved in the Design Review process. Currently, DR tends to involve only experts and local government, without including the community. Therefore, this research aimed to analyze the extent of opportunities for community participation by exploring DR analysis in developed countries and related policies. In-depth interviews were also carried out with experts and Jakarta was selected as a case study since the city possessed the most intensive development. The results showed that the implementation of DR did not consider community participation. A constructivist paradigm was also applied with qualitative interpretive method by interpreting DR data and community participation. The strategy selected was a case study and library research adopted by examining theories from related literature. Additionally, the data was collected by reconstructing different sources such as books, journals, existing research, and secondary data from related agencies. Content and descriptive analysis methods were also used, where literature obtained from various references was analyzed to support research propositions and ideas.
This study, through the method of canonical correlation analysis, revealed significant correlations between various dimensions of learning attitudes of students and various dimensions of teacher knowledge. An analysis of data from a group of 221 high school students showed that teacher knowledge of teaching content, theoretical knowledge, and teaching practice and classroom management significantly impact learning attitudes of students. Specifically, teacher knowledge of teaching content plays a crucial role in promoting students' behavioral inclination to learn chemistry, teachers' theoretical knowledge significantly enhances students' liking for chemistry laboratory courses, while teachers' teaching practice and classroom management have a suppressive effect on students' evaluative beliefs about school chemistry. The results of this study provide effective guidance for both the theory and practice of high school chemistry education.
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