HIV and orientation of subsistence and commercial home gardens in rural Ghana: Crop composition, crop diversity and food security

An empirical study was conducted to explore differences and similarities in biodiversity in subsistence and commercial home gardens of HIV-positive and HIV-negative rural households in the Eastern Region of Ghana and their significance in household food security. Data were obtained through a household and home garden survey of a purposive sample of 32 HIV-positive and a random sample of 48 HIV-negative rural households and through in-depth interviews. A higher proportion of species common to all four home garden types consisted of food crops: vegetables, staples and fruits. In HIV-positive households, commercial home gardens were significantly larger, had significantly more species and individual plants, more perennial food crops and more species that were harvested all year round and evenness was lower, but there was no significant difference in species diversity compared with subsistence home gardens. Significantly, more HIV-positive and HIV-negative households with a commercial home garden consumed a staple crop cultivated in the home garden in the 24-h period prior to the survey than HIV-positive households with subsistence home gardens. Rural households with HIV that manage commercial home gardens cultivate a dual purpose home garden which supplies subsistence food and also provides cash income; such households may have better food security than households that cultivate subsistence home garden

Food aid: a trojan horse?

An inter-faculty lecture delivered at the University of Ghana on 12th February, 198

The City of Buffalo Budget Fiscal Year 2008-2009

The City asserts that it has the ability to: afford three successive property tax cuts”, thereby reducing the overall property tax rate on residential properties by nearly 12%; maintain an unprecedented unreserved fund balance of $105 million with$76 million undesignated; set aside $30 million in City surplus funds and up to$15 million in a separate capital reserve to ensure the City never again faces a fiscal crisis; move the City from a fiscal control period to an advisory one; benefit from two successive credit upgrades from Wall Street; and increase the margin for use from a low of 8% in 2005-06 to just over 25% projected for 2008-09

Language Choice in Multilingual Communities: The Case of Larteh, Ghana

In a multilingual community, the multilingual speaker needs to make the right language choice which principally depends on the domain of usage and the linguistic repertoire of speech participants. This paper investigates factors that govern language choices that multilingual speakers make in Larteh, a multilingual community. The study is informed by insights from the Markedness Model, developed by Myers-Scotton (1993, 1998). Larteh is a non-reciprocal bilingual community, where the people speak Leteh and Akuapem Twi (Johnson, 1973, p. i). English is the third language for those who have had formal education. In this paper, three domains of language use are examined: education, tradition, and religion. Data from an interview survey on language use and participant observations are employed. The paper notes that due to changes in various spheres of life in Larteh, current language use patterns in the community differ from what pertained about three decades ago (Johnson, 1973, 1975). Subsequently, factors that determine language choice are gradually undergoing some modification.Keywords: language choice, multilingualism, education, tradition, Christianit

Expressing Property Concepts in Leteh (Larteh)

No Abstract

A Comparative Analysis of Debt Equity Swap Programs in Five Major Debtor Countries

Since the onset of the debt crisis, developing countries have resorted to several debt reduction and debt management techniques in order to sustain their debt servicing. One of the most popular of such techniques is debt-equity swaps. Its popularity is illustrated by the fact that several countries have either implemented formal debt-equity swap programs or are contemplating doing so. Despite the popularity of this technique, it is important to note that the features of each program are designed to suit the needs of each debtor country. Accordingly, the modalities for converting foreign debt to equity vary from country to country. This Article examines the different modalities for converting foreign debt into equity in five major debtor countries: namely, Chile, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, and the Philippines. Using the common features of the various debt conversion programs, it analyzes the impact of such debt conversion programs on the debt reduction efforts of these countries and on their economies at large