http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11910/1569 Fri, 17 Apr 2026 18:19:51 GMT 2026-04-17T18:19:51Z http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11910/24734 White gold and thirsty communities: the cold war, apartheid, and the Lesotho Highlands Water Project The Lesotho Highlands Water Project (LHWP) does not sell water. Rather, it sells gravity.1 Put another way, it sells the difference in altitude between the Lesotho highlands and the Vaal River watershed.2 Let me explain. The LHWP transfers water impounded behind massive dams along the Orange/Senqu River and its tributaries in northern Lesotho. The project constructed a massive series of tunnels to take the water under the Maluti Mountains and the Caledon/Mohokare River, depositing it in the Ash River. From there, it flows into the Vaal and hence into the homes of Gauteng residents fortunate enough to have access to piped water. While South Africa transfers a large sum of money every month to Lesotho because of this project, the government is not paying for the water, per se. Rather, South Africa pays Lesotho to host the dam and tunnel infrastructure. They pay a premium on the water because it is cheaper to have water impounded in Lesotho than in South Africa. See, the water that starts in the high mountains of Lesotho would naturally run downhill, emerging from Lesotho where the Free State and Eastern Cape provinces meet, where it will, according to international water law, belong to South Africa. Thu, 05 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11910/24734 2026-03-05T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11910/19304 Agricultural land potential and spatial pressure in South Africa. Spatial Insights: Edition 19 Fri, 20 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11910/19304 2026-02-20T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11910/19290 How is business innovation shaping skills demand in South Africa?: an evidence review Digitalisation, the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) and the Just Energy Transition (JET) are among the main policy drivers shaping innovation in the South African business sector. Scholars have long characterised the relationship between innovation and skills demand in terms of skills-biased technological change, as part of which the introduction of new technologies requires and, indeed, favours workers with more advanced skills. However, the impacts of digitalisation, the 4IR and JET have also given rise to some technological alarmism, as labour and civil society role-players express legitimate concerns about the displacement of skilled and unskilled labour by firms adopting advanced and emerging technologies. In the South African labour market, which is characterised by high unemployment and large inequalities in skills levels and attainment despite a number of interventions, there is both a skills mismatch and a significant risk of polarisation undermining the achievement of national goals. In this context, reliable evidence is vital. This review of the available evidence, spanning a 30-year period from 1994 to 2024, finds that, for high skilled labour, there is rising demand for digital, green and soft skills. By contrast, for unskilled labour, there is evidence of displacement risks. Upskilling and reskilling initiatives, the evidence suggests, are critical to navigating these shifts in the labour market, while hiring new employees plays a more limited role in redressing labour imbalances due to talent shortages. The research also points to the need for closer alignment between the education and industrial sectors in establishing and implementing upskilling and reskilling investments in response to innovation – an alignment which may be promoted by government as an intermediary. The findings also indicate a need for further research covering a greater variety of sectors and professions, and for a greater focus on artificial intelligence (AI), the JET and gender in analysing the relationship between innovation and skills demand. Commissioned by the Department of Science, Technology and Innovation Mon, 09 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11910/19290 2026-02-09T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11910/24611 Innovation strategies for agricultural resilience: a dynamic capabilities approach to innovation during the COVID-19 pandemic in South Africa This study integrates the concepts of innovation strategies and dynamic capabilities as an analytical framework to investigate the innovation strategies agricultural businesses employed during the Covid-19 pandemic. The study assesses how these strategies influenced their resilience and innovation performance. Using data from the South African Agricultural Business Innovation Survey (AgriBIS 2019-2021), the study combined explorative data analysis techniques with an ordinary least squares (OLS) regression model, to assess the relationship between different innovation strategies and key outcomes such as revenue growth, cost reduction, market expansion, and the development of new intellectual property. The findings revealed the complex ways in which innovation strategies are shaped by dynamic capabilities in the face of disruptions. Specifically, this study found, contrary to conventional beliefs, that proactive innovation strategies are not always the best suited or volatile environments. Instead, the study found that innovation strategies that promote simplicity and adaptability proved more effective in shielding firms from external shocks of the Covid-19 pandemic. Firms with active innovation strategies, supported by strong dynamic capabilities of internal R&D and collaboration, showed the greatest resilience, while those relying on passive or reactive strategies were more vulnerable to disruption. These findings suggest that policymakers should encourage flexible and adaptable innovation strategies, particularly in sectors like agriculture that are prone to high volatility and external shocks of climate change. The findings of this study call for the importance of aligning innovation strategies and dynamic capabilities with the specific challenges of the sector to ensure long-term innovation success. Thu, 11 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11910/24611 2025-12-11T00:00:00Z