The Height of Women in Sub-Saharan Africa: the Role of Health, Nutrition, and Income in Childhood

Most of the variation in height across countries in Sub-Saharan Africa is due to fixed effects, however, we find that variations in cohort height over time are sensitive to changes in infant mortality rate, GDP per capita, and protein intake, both at birth and in adolescence.Infant Mortality, Nutrition, Women’s Height, Stature, Sub-Saharan Africa

The Mortality and Morbidity Transitions in Sub-Saharan Africa: Evidence from Adult Heights

In most developing countries, rising levels of nutrition and improvements in public health have led to declines in infant mortality and rising adult heights. In Sub-Saharan Africa we see a different pattern. Sub-Saharan Africa has seen large reductions in infant mortality over the last fifty years, but without any increase in protein and energy intake and against a background of stagnant, or declining, adult height. Adult height is a sensitive indicator of the nutrition and morbidity prevailing during the childhood of the cohort and can be taken as a measure of health human capital. Declining infant mortality rates in Sub-Saharan Africa appear to be driven by medical interventions that reduce infant mortality, rather than by broad based improvements in nutrition and public health measures, and may not be reflective of broad based health improvements.mortality, Sub-Saharan, morbidity, heights

Delayed marriage, contraceptive use, and breastfeeding: Fertility patterns over time and wealth quintiles in sub-Saharan Africa

The rate of fertility decline has been slow in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Using the Demographic and Health Surveys for 21 SSA countries between 1990 and 2014, we examine the within-country fertility patterns by wealth, applying the Bongaarts (2015) proximate determinants model. We find that overall, fertility has declined in SSA for the richest, but not for the poorest, and this translates to a slow decline in the national-level total fertility rate. We find that breastfeeding periods are generally declining, putting upward pressure on the fertility rate. Contraceptive use is increasing, particularly for the richest, reducing fertility for these quintiles alone

The Acceptance of E-learning as a Tool for Teaching Entrepreneurship during the COVID-19 Pandemic The Case of HITS of Sidi Bouzid and Ksar Hellal -Tunisia

A relentless mutation characterized universities around the world by the advent of the infamous virus that gave rise to the pandemic called COVID-19. This study aims at exploring e-learning readiness and its acceptance as a tool for teaching entrepreneurship in two higher institutes of technological studies in Tunisia, and it has become imminent to resort to e-learning. The desired results are more far-sighted in these new special circumstances, which have made this mode of learning the gateway to the entire educational system be called into question. The question is: How did students perceive this new mode of distance education? An online questionnaire was distributed to extrapolate a descriptive analysis. We have explored certain facets in both institutes that highlight many disadvantages between both students and areas: mastery of technology, poor internet connectivity, technological accessibility, and unkind study environments. Besides this, research highlights the role of new approaches to distance learning in entrepreneurship. It will end with the proposal of recommendations that are relevant for different stakeholders in the phenomenon of distance education in general and the entrepreneurial discipline in particular

Nurses’ International Migration and the Crystallizing ‘Culture of Exile’ in Nigeria: Historical Trends, Dynamics and Consequences

This paper examines an oft-neglected feature of international migration: social changes (disruptions and/or dislocations of their normal ways of living) in source societies in response to the exigencies of these migrations, and their eventual consequences. It demonstrates how policies in developed economies inadvertently impact on developing societies by creating new social conditions. An exploratory case of Nigerian nurses’ international migration, the paper takes the hypothetical perspective that the socioeconomic effects of migration have engendered a crystallizing ‘culture of exile’ among significant youth populations. It examines the lures/motivation of nurse training and establishes a new dominant drive – the urge to migrate to developed, high-income economies. This development is a direct result of the long-term ‘progressive impact’ of migrated nurses’ remittances in local societies. The paper shows how locals’ belief in the high probability of nurses to attract ‘overseas’ suitors/spouses also feeds into the narrative. The development dire consequences were also highlighted

Baby Factories : Exploitation of Women in Southern Nigeria

Despite the writings of feminist thinkers and efforts of other advocates of feminism to change the dominant narratives on women, exploitation of women is a fact that has remained endemic in various parts of the world, and particularly in Africa. Nigeria is one of those countries in Africa where women are largely exposed to varying degrees of exploitation. This paper examines the development and proliferation of baby-selling centers in southern Nigeria and its impacts on and implication for women in Nigeria. It demonstrates how an attempt to give protection to unwed pregnant girls has metamorphosed into “baby harvesting” and selling through the notorious “baby factories,” where young women are held captive and used like industrial machines for baby production. The babies produced through this process were often sold illegally to adoptive parent(s) in dire need of them. In some other instances, they were used for child labour or trafficked for prostitution, ritual purposes, or organ harvesting. The paper argues that the hideous phenomenon of baby factories—which has high patronage in southern parts of Nigeria—does not only exploit and debase the status of women, but that the nature of its operation foreshadows a future danger for women in southern Nigeria regions

Courts and Horizontal Accountability in Climate Change Litigation

In La Oroya v Peru, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, in its quest to protect the “interest of future and present generations” based on the facts before it, suggested that the right to a healthy environment should have the status of a peremptory norm of general international law. The European Court of Human Rights has been at the centre of debates over its judgments, such as Verein Klimaseniorinnen Schweiz v Switzerland, where it established positive obligations with regards to climate change under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Under the African human rights system, regional courts have long sought to hold states to account for activities of state and multinational corporations that infringe on the right to a healthy environment. These developments reveal an emergent cadre of judges that are alive to the need to develop concrete normative standards on climate change litigation. To the untrained eye, these recent decisions suggest an erasure of the Global North–South divide that has stymied climate change negotiations. Consequently, this article examines the critical role of judge-made law in the potential cross-fertilization or “judicial globalization” of a normative body of climate change jurisprudence. It adopts a comparative approach by analysing recent jurisprudence emerging from regional courts in Africa and juxtaposing them with emerging trends in other international courts. Keywords: climate change litigation; judge-made law; horizontal accountability; peremptory norm; jus cogens; African, European and Inter-American human rights system

Capacity of health facilities for diagnosis and treatment of HIV/AIDS in Ethiopia

Background: There are dearth of literature on the capacity of the health system to diagnose and treat HIV/AIDS in Ethiopia. In this study we evaluated the capacity of health facilities for HIV/AIDS care, its spatial distribution and variations by regions and zones in Ethiopia. Methods: We analyzed the Service Provision Assessment plus (SPA+) survey data that were collected in 2014 in all regions of Ethiopia. We assessed structural, process and overall capacity of the health system based on the Donabedian quality of care model. We included 5 structural and 8 process indicators and overall capacity score was constructed by taking the average of all indicators. Multiple linear regression was done using STATA 14 to assess the association of the location and types of health facilities with overall capacity score. Maps displaying the average capacity score at Zonal level were produced using ArcGIS Desktop v10.3 (Environmental Systems Research Institute Inc., Redlands CA, USA). Results: A total of 873 health facilities were included in the analysis. Less than 5% of the private facilities provided antiretroviral therapy (ART); had national ART guideline, baseline CD4 count or viral load and tuberculosis screening mechanisms. Nearly one-third of the health centers (34.9%) provided ART. Public hospitals have better capacity score (77.1%) than health centers (45.9%) and private health facilities (24.8%). The overall capacity score for urban facilities (57.1%) was higher than that of the rural (38.2%) health facilities (β = 15.4, 95% CI: 11.7, 19.2). Health centers (β = − 21.4, 95% CI: -25.4, − 17.4) and private health facilities (β = − 50.9, 95% CI: -54.8, − 47.1) had lower overall capacity score than hospitals. Facilities in Somali (β = − 13.8, 95% CI: -20.6, − 7.0) and SNNPR (β = − 5.0, 95% CI: -9.8, − 0.1) regions had lower overall capacity score than facilities in the Oromia region. Zones located in emerging regions such as Gambella and Benishangul Gumz and in remote areas of Oromia and SNNPR had lower capacity score in terms of process indicators. Conclusions: There is a significant geographical heterogeneity on the capacity of health facilities for HIV/AIDS care and treatment in Ethiopia. Targeted capacity improvement initiatives are recommended with focus on health centers and private health facilities, and emerging Regions and the rural and remote areas

Development of a time-counter for the performance test of a cane harvester

論文http://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_650