Non Communicable Diseases and Infections Refuse to go away Despite Current Knowledge and Scientific Advances.

No abstract available

Journal of African Christian Biography: v. 2, no. 3

A publication of the Dictionary of African Christian Biography with U.S. offices located at the Center for Global Christianity and Mission at Boston University. This issue focuses on: 1. Agnes Okoh. 2. Self-Sacrificial Christian Pioneers of Uganda. 3. Apolo Kivebulaya. 4. Njangalia. 5. Spetume Florence. 6. Luwum. 7. Janani Jakaliya. 8. Anglican Church in Uganda. 9. Lamin Sanneh

Journal of African Christian Biography: v. 3, no. 3

A publication of the Dictionary of African Christian Biography with U.S. offices located at the Center for Global Christianity and Mission at Boston University. This issue focuses on: 1. Aberi K. Balya, Stefano Reuben Moshi, and John Mary Waliggo: Faithful African Christian Ancestors by Edison M. Kalengyo. Biographies by John Kateeba Tumwine and Louise Pirouet. 2. Wellington Mulwa and Harambee: Leading the Church in Partnership with Western Missionaries, a Biography by F. Lionel Young. 3. African Retrospect and Prospect: A Christian view from Kenya - Interview with Jesse Mugambi, with Jonathan Bonk, interviewer. 4. Recent Print and Digital Resources Related to Christianity in Africa

Assessment of the impacts of farmer participation in farmer research groups in the highlands of Kabale, Uganda

The African Highlands Initiative (AHI) is promoting community-based participatory research approaches using farmer research groups (FRG) to catalyse farmer participation in research, and to widen the impact of participatory research. However, there is dearth of systematic empirical studies that evaluates the quality of participation in FRGs, and their impacts. This report summarises the results of an empirical study that investigated the types of participatory research that occurred at the different stages of the research process, how farmer participation occurred, who participates in FRG, what are the factors that determined farmers' participation in FRG, and what criteria to use in monitoring and evaluating the performance of FRG. Results showed that the types of participation were more of functional consultative and collaborative types, but varied in the different stages of the research process as farmers were increasingly taking on more roles and responsibilities. Farmer participation in FRG tend to follow a "U" shaped curve, with high participation at the initial stages of the process, followed by dramatic decrease as many farmers drop out from the groups, and slow increases towards the end of the first seasons. Similarly, there was a significantly higher participation of male farmers at the beginning of the process, compared to women. However, as FRGs progressed, the proportion of men decreased while the relative proportion of women increased dramatically to reach about 67% of farmers in mixed groups, and 24% of the FRGs were women only. These results suggest that FRG proved to be a more effective mechanism to involve women and the resource-poor farmers in research who would otherwise be bypassed by conventional approaches. The results of the Logit regression model confirmed that the probability of participating in FRG was higher for women compared to men, and that there were no significant differences in wealth circumstances between FRG members and the rest of the community. We argue that FRG as an approach has a great potential for catalyzing the participation of farmers as partners in research and development activities. However, this requires significant support and personal commitment of researchers to broaden the scope of FRGs from a functional consultative type to a more collegial empowering type, and from variety evaluation to broader natural resources management research and other developmental issues

Editorial: Non-communicable diseases are reaching epidemic proportions: evidence from low and middle income countries

Editorial - no abstract available

Capacity Development for Healthcare Systems in Low- and Middle-Income Countries. Assessing the effectiveness of an advanced international training programme in sexual and reproductive health and rights in Africa and Asia.

Background: The 2030 agenda for sustainable development calls upon all nations to make critical investments in their health systems to deliver universal access to Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR). Capacity development is listed among the strategies for achieving sustainable development goals. Although capacity development has been a major component of international development for decades, its effectiveness has limited evidence. This thesis aims at evaluating the effectiveness of an International Training Programme (ITP) in sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) and to understand the role of different actors and contextual factors in capacity development for health systems in low-and middle-income countries. Religion and culture were hypothesised to be significant determinants for changing healthcare practitioners’ SRHR attitudes and practices. Methods: The study population was healthcare practitioners (HCPs) enrolled in the ITP from 13 countries in Africa and Asia. In study I, in-depth interviews with 28 HCPs were conducted and analysed using qualitative content analysis. Studies II and III were based on quantitative data from a sample of 115 healthcare practitioners and analysis was done using multivariate linear regression. Study IV utilised data from an instrument designed for evaluating the ITP change projects. Data analysis was done using logistic regression and 99 change projects were included in the final analysis.Results: Findings from study I indicate that local context, personal values, and social norms influence healthcare practitioners’ SRHR attitudes and practices. In study II, high level of self-rated SRHR knowledge, normative SRHR attitudes and active knowledge seeking behaviour were significant predictors of normative SRHR practices before the ITP intervention. Study III indicates that the ITP intervention was effective in improving the participants’ SRHR knowledge, attitudes, knowledge seeking behaviour and SRHR practices. Improvement in active knowledge seeking behaviour was a significant predictor of changing SRHR practices. Study IV, indicates that improved team capacity resulted in significant improvement in organisational effectiveness and support from partner organisations increased awareness of and demand for SRHR services. Conclusion: The findings suggest that the ITP approach for improving the capacity of healthcare practitioners (as change agents) was associated with improved organisational effectiveness. Other factors that positively contributed to organizational effectiveness were support from partner organizations and involvement of the media. Support from partner organization was also critical in increasing access to, and demand for, SRHR services. The use of new SRHR approaches seemed to negatively influence the effectiveness of organizations. Additionally, the findings suggest that although healthcare practitioners understand the importance of rights in SRH, they did not conform to the principle that rights apply to all components of SRHR and all persons in all settings. Howver, contrary to the evaluation hypothesis, religion and culture did not have a significant influence on changing SRHR practices. Instead, it was the improvements in participants’ knowledge seeking behavior that significantly predicted positive changes in SRHR practices at the end of the intervention.These findings highlight the potential of training interventions in contributing to the capacity development of healthcare systems in low-and middle-income countries

Editorial

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Ebola and other issues in the health sector in Africa

No abstract

Editorial: Sexuality, reproductive health, and other challenges that stubbornly refuse to go away

No Abstract