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12 January 2024 | Story Nonsindiswe Qwabe | Photo Sonia Small
Dr Grey Magaiza read more
Since joining the UFS in 2008, Dr Grey Magaiza has worked extensively on approaches that can foster the socio-economic transformation of societies.

“The future should be one where communities can decide on their development agenda and futures. That’s the most important for me.” Dr Grey Magaiza, Deputy Director of the Centre for Gender and Africa Studies (CGAS) and Head of the Community Development programme on the Qwaqwa Campus, is passionate about capacitating communities to be agents of change and advancement. His vision for the future emphasises the empowerment of communities to take charge of their development by actively participating in decision making and the implementation of development projects that can improve their lives.

Since joining the UFS in 2008, Dr Magaiza has worked extensively on approaches that can foster the socio-economic transformation of societies. Over the years, he has crafted his research speciality into one that he is most proud of – being an interdisciplinary scientist immersed in the development of communities.

Social entrepreneurship

“I’m in a fortunate position of researching what I like. I say ‘fortunate’, because I’ve taken the time to understand what I’m passionate about, which is the overall field of rural livelihoods and livelihood futures – in short, community development. My research starts from an engaged university, understanding the elements that a university must use to enhance transformation and relevance to its immediate community in terms of development.”

One of the ways he has done this is by looking at social entrepreneurship as a development approach for young people in a rural setting. Through workshops with non-profit and civic organisations in Qwaqwa, Dr Magaiza has been helping these organisations to map out their needs and actively meet them through the involvement and support of external role players.

Community organising

“We understand that communities are part of the national development agenda, but even that national agenda respects community knowledge and intentions and allows communities to shape their identity. A critical enabler of this is community organising. You bring back the capacity in communities to have dialogues on issues affecting them as spaces for engagement, knowledge exchange, and for people to just talk about their way forward.”

By enabling communities to define their development agenda, they can address their specific needs, challenges, and aspirations, he said. “When I look at livelihood futures, it’s quite an exciting aspect of my work – it’s like looking into a fortune tellers’ globe, because you’re not deciding for communities what they should do, but the communities themselves take those decisions.”

News Archive

Unconventional oil and gas extraction – study for Water Research Commission reveals possible impacts
2014-11-05

 

Photo: Legalplanet.org
The Centre for Environmental Management (CEM) at the University of the Free State (UFS) recently completed a three-year project for the Water Research Commission. The purpose was to develop an interactive vulnerability map and monitoring framework for unconventional oil and gas extraction (final report still to be published).

Due to the complexity of this field, a number of participants across different disciplines and universities were involved in this trans-disciplinary study. Contributors included the Departments of Sociology, Physics and Mathematical Statistics from the UFS, the University of Pretoria Natural Hazard Centre, Africa, as well as the Institute of Marine and Environmental Law from the University of Cape Town.

Unconventional oil and gas extraction, its related impacts and the management of this activity to ensure environmental protection, is a controversial issue in many countries worldwide. Since the extraction of oil and gas using unconventional techniques is an unprecedented activity in South Africa, the project focused on understanding this extraction process as well as hydraulic fracturing and identifying possible environmental and socio-economic impacts associated with this activity in the South African context. An understanding of the possible impacts could aid government during the development of policy aimed at protecting the environment.

The researchers subsequently identified indicators to develop an interactive vulnerability map for unconventional oil and gas in South Africa. The vulnerability map focuses on specific mapping themes, which include surface water, groundwater, vegetation, seismicity and socio-economics. In addition, the map provides information on the vulnerability of the specified mapping themes to unconventional gas extraction on a regional scale. This map is intended as a reconnaissance tool to inform decision-makers on areas where additional detail field work and assessments may be required. It can also be used during Environmental Impact Assessments and determining licensing conditions.

Lastly, a monitoring framework was developed, which describes monitoring requirements for specific entities – surface water, groundwater, vegetation, seismicity and socio-economics – for the different phases of unconventional oil and gas extraction. Such monitoring is an important part of environmental protection. It is especially important for South Africa to perform baseline monitoring before exploration starts to ensure that we will have reference conditions to identify what impact oil and gas extraction activities has on the biophysical and socio-economic environments.


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