The Impact of Financial Access on Firm Growth: Evidence from Ethiopian Grain Traders and Millers

Although both formal and informal financial institutions exist in developing economies, firms are often constrained by lack of access to financial services. Grain traders and millers in Ethiopia need a lot of finance to pay their suppliers (e.g. farmers) but it is not clear whether or not which sources of credit matter most for their growth and expansion. Using firm survey data collected for the purpose, we assessed access to and the impact of different sources of finance on growth of traders and millers in Ethiopia. Descriptive and econometric methods (e.g. ordered probit) were employed to address the issue. The results indicate that both formal and informal sources of credits are accessed by a small number of firms on a sporadic basis. With credit from commercial banks is mainly channeled to large businesses while microfinance institutions (MFIs) are designed to assist small and micro enterprises as part of a poverty alleviation strategy, medium firms such as most grain traders and millers have limited access to finance. Bank or MFI credit was found to have no impact on growth and expansion in the econometric analysis. Access to informal credit is also limited and largely used to meet short-term emergency cash requirements. Without improved and regular access to finance, grain traders and millers cannot make the necessary investment to provide effective marketing services for the transformation of agriculture.Key words: finance, financial access, Growth, Grain, Grain traders and millers, Ethiopi

Applying Front End Compiler Process to Parse Polynomials in Parallel

Parsing large expressions, in particular large polynomial expressions, is an important task for computer algebra systems. Despite of the apparent simplicity of the problem, its efficient software implementation brings various challenges. Among them is the fact that this is a memory bound application for which a multi-threaded implementation is necessarily limited by the characteristics of the memory organization of supporting hardware. In this thesis, we design, implement and experiment with a multi-threaded parser for large polynomial expressions. We extract parallelism by splitting the input character string, into meaningful sub-strings that can be parsed concurrently before being merged into a single polynomial. Our implementation targeting multi-core processors is realized with the Basic Polynomial Algebra Subprograms (BPAS). Experimental results show that the approach is promising both in terms of speedup factors and memory consumption

Climate Basics, Climate Information Service, Climate Risk Management Training Guide

Climate Basics, Climate Information Service, Climate Risk Management Training Guid

Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) Training Guide

Agriculture, as the backbone of the Ethiopian economy, contributes roughly 40% of GDP, more than 75% of employment, and 80% of foreign exchange earnings (FAO 2021). Ethiopian agriculture is heavily reliant on natural rainfall, with irrigation used on only about 5% of total cultivated land (USAID 2021). As a result, the sector is highly vulnerable to climate change. Climate change endangers the country's agriculture development, natural resources, biodiversity conservation, and government poverty-reduction efforts. Climate change-related impacts such as food insecurity, malnutrition, poverty, biodiversity loss, and loss of livelihood are deeply intertwined and continue to be the country's primary development challenges. In 2021/2022, climate change has caused Ethiopia to suffer one of its worst droughts that has ravaged vast parts of the country. The drought has ravaged livestock and wildlife resources. Future prediction suggest that Ethiopia will continue to suffer from climate change related problems. Thus action is needed to address problem

Integrating Climate Basics, Climate Information Service, Climate Risk Management and Climate Smart Agriculture into the undergraduate agriculture Curriculum in Ethiopian Higher Education

Agriculture contributes about 40% to the country’s GDP, more than 75% to employment, and 80% to foreign exchange earnings of the Ethiopia’s economy. However, climate change poses a serious risk to the sector. On the other hand, agriculture is a major contributor (i.e., about 55%) of the country’s greenhouse gas emission. To address the strong and bidirectional interrelationships between climate change and agriculture, the agricultural sector needs to transform in a climate-smart way. Climate change education will have paramount importance for tackling the problems associated with climate change through generating climate smart technologies for the enhancement of sustainable agricultural production and biodiversity conservation. Climate Change Educations (CCE) and trainings have long been recognized by the national CCE strategy (2017-2030), United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Paris Climate Change Agreement, and the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations (Agenda 2030) as key tools to unravel the complex and multi-sectoral challenges induced/posed by climate change. Thus, specifically, including the concepts of Climate Information Service (CIS) Climate Risk Management (CRM) and Climate smart agriculture (CSA) in the existing climate related courses is critical to build climate resilient agricultural sector in Ethiopia. Thus, Accelerating Impacts of CGIAR Climate Research for Africa (AICCRA) in collaboration with Ethiopian Higher Educations initiated to integrate the concept of CIS and CSA in the agricultural program in Ethiopia. Therefore, this document, explore if there is a gap between climate related course contents and the current CIS, CRM and CSA knowledge and innovations to addresses climate related agricultural challenges in ten undergraduate agricultural curricula of Ethiopian Higher Education Institutes. Ten climate related course descriptions were content analyzed to analyze gaps related to the concepts of CIS, CRM and CSA. The study found that there were gaps between the current curriculum and the desired knowledge and innovation of CIS, CRM and CSA to addresses the current and emerging climate change challenges in the agricultural sector. These results emphasize the need for curriculum review and reform to ensure CIS, CRM and CSA knowledge and innovations equipping the university graduates with comprehensive knowledge of climate change

Incidence and predictors of puerperal sepsis among postpartum women at Debre Markos comprehensive specialized hospital, northwest Ethiopia: A prospective cohort study

Background: Puerperal sepsis is one of the leading causes of maternal mortality, particularly in low and middle-income countries where most maternal deaths occur. Women with puerperal sepsis are prone to long-term disabilities, such as chronic pelvic pain, blocked fallopian tubes, and secondary infertility. Besides this, puerperal sepsis has received less attention. For this reason, this study aimed to determine the incidence of puerperal sepsis and its predictors among postpartum women at Debre Markos Comprehensive Specialized Hospital. Methods: A prospective cohort study was conducted among 330 postpartum women from September 2020 to 2021. A pre-tested interviewer-administered questionnaire with a data extraction checklist was used to collect the data. Data were entered into Epi data 4.2 and analyzed using STATA 14.0. The incidence rate of puerperal sepsis was calculated, and a Kaplan-Meier survival curve was used to estimate the survival probability of developing puerperal sepsis. The cox-proportional hazards regression model was fitted to identify predictors of puerperal sepsis. Results: The study participants were followed for a total of 1685.3 person-week observations. The incidence rate of puerperal sepsis was 14.24 per 1,000 person-weeks. However, the overall incidence of puerperal sepsis was 7.27%. Not attending formal education [AHR: 3.55, 95% CI: (1.09–11.58)], a cesarean delivery [AHR: 4.50; 95% CI: (1.79–11.30)], premature rupture of the membranes [AHR: 3.25; 95% CI: (1.08–9.79)], complicated pregnancy [AHR: 4.80; 95% CI: (1.85–12.43)], being referred [AHR: 2.90; 95% CI: (1.10–7.65)], and not having birth preparedness and complication readiness plan [AHR: 2.95; 95% CI: (1.08–10.50)] were statistically significant predictors of puerperal sepsis. Conclusion: The incidence of puerperal sepsis was 7.27%. Not attending formal education, cesarean delivery, premature rupture of membranes, complicated pregnancy, referral status, and absence of birth preparedness and complication readiness plan were predictors associated with the incidence of puerperal sepsis

Assessment of subpatent Plasmodium infection in northwestern Ethiopia.

BACKGROUND: Ethiopia has set a goal for malaria elimination by 2030. Low parasite density infections may go undetected by conventional diagnostic methods (microscopy and rapid diagnostic tests) and their contribution to malaria transmission varies by transmission settings. This study quantified the burden of subpatent infections from samples collected from three regions of northwest Ethiopia. METHODS: Sub-samples of dried blood spots from the Ethiopian Malaria Indicator Survey 2015 (EMIS-2015) were tested and compared using microscopy, rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs), and nested polymerase chain reaction (nPCR) to determine the prevalence of subpatent infection. Paired seroprevalence results previously reported along with gender, age, and elevation of residence were explored as risk factors for Plasmodium infection. RESULTS: Of the 2608 samples collected, the highest positive rate for Plasmodium infection was found with nPCR 3.3% (95% CI 2.7-4.1) compared with RDT 2.8% (95% CI 2.2-3.5) and microscopy 1.2% (95% CI 0.8-1.7). Of the nPCR positive cases, Plasmodium falciparum accounted for 3.1% (95% CI 2.5-3.8), Plasmodium vivax 0.4% (95% CI 0.2-0.7), mixed P. falciparum and P. vivax 0.1% (95% CI 0.0-0.4), and mixed P. falciparum and Plasmodium malariae 0.1% (95% CI 0.0-0.3). nPCR detected an additional 30 samples that had not been detected by conventional methods. The majority of the nPCR positive cases (61% (53/87)) were from the Benishangul-Gumuz Region. Malaria seropositivity had significant association with nPCR positivity [adjusted OR 10.0 (95% CI 3.2-29.4), P < 0.001]. CONCLUSION: Using nPCR the detection rate of malaria parasites increased by nearly threefold over rates based on microscopy in samples collected during a national cross-sectional survey in 2015 in Ethiopia. Such subpatent infections might contribute to malaria transmission. In addition to strengthening routine surveillance systems, malaria programmes may need to consider low-density, subpatent infections in order to accelerate malaria elimination efforts

Mapping and modelling the geographical distribution and environmental limits of podoconiosis in Ethiopia

BACKGROUND Ethiopia is assumed to have the highest burden of podoconiosis globally, but the geographical distribution and environmental limits and correlates are yet to be fully investigated. In this paper we use data from a nationwide survey to address these issues. METHODOLOGY Our analyses are based on data arising from the integrated mapping of podoconiosis and lymphatic filariasis (LF) conducted in 2013, supplemented by data from an earlier mapping of LF in western Ethiopia in 2008-2010. The integrated mapping used woreda (district) health offices' reports of podoconiosis and LF to guide selection of survey sites. A suite of environmental and climatic data and boosted regression tree (BRT) modelling was used to investigate environmental limits and predict the probability of podoconiosis occurrence. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS Data were available for 141,238 individuals from 1,442 communities in 775 districts from all nine regional states and two city administrations of Ethiopia. In 41.9% of surveyed districts no cases of podoconiosis were identified, with all districts in Affar, Dire Dawa, Somali and Gambella regional states lacking the disease. The disease was most common, with lymphoedema positivity rate exceeding 5%, in the central highlands of Ethiopia, in Amhara, Oromia and Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples regional states. BRT modelling indicated that the probability of podoconiosis occurrence increased with increasing altitude, precipitation and silt fraction of soil and decreased with population density and clay content. Based on the BRT model, we estimate that in 2010, 34.9 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 20.2-51.7) million people (i.e. 43.8%; 95% CI: 25.3-64.8% of Ethiopia's national population) lived in areas environmentally suitable for the occurrence of podoconiosis. CONCLUSIONS Podoconiosis is more widespread in Ethiopia than previously estimated, but occurs in distinct geographical regions that are tied to identifiable environmental factors. The resultant maps can be used to guide programme planning and implementation and estimate disease burden in Ethiopia. This work provides a framework with which the geographical limits of podoconiosis could be delineated at a continental scale

Low-cost liquid medium for in vitro cultivation of Leishmania parasites in low-income countries

Background: Cutaneous Leishmaniasis (CL) induced by Leishmania aethiopica has two clinical manifestations: ulcerating, self-healing CL and non-ulcerating, non-healing CL. The grossly disfiguring multiple nodules on the face and exterior surface of limbs during non-ulcerative CL are sometimes misdiagnosed as other skin infections. Thus the need for definitive and prompt laboratory diagnosis will be required. Identifying Leishmania parasite by culture method is considered as a definitive method for initiation of treatment and as an effective component of leishmaniasis control methods. Recently the involvement of Fas (CD95) and Tumor Necrosis Factor (TNF) Related Apoptosis Inducing Ligand (TRAIL) induced apoptotic pathways were proposed to be involved in tissue destruction and ulceration during L. major induced CL. Aims: 1) to develop an alternative culture media that could minimize the cost for culturing Leishmania from patient lesions. 2) to investigate if the expression of FasL and TRAIL differs in ulcerating and non- ulcerative CL. Methods: GALF-1 media was formulated in our lab and compared to RPMI 1640 medium and conventional Locke s semi solid media (LSSM) which is one of the modifications of Novy-MacNeal-Nicolle (NNN) culture media. Amastigotes transformation, cryopreservation, recovery of parasites, cost and mass cultivation were analysed. Expression of Fas ligand (FasL), TRAIL and apoptosis were assessed by immunohistology in human skin biopsies from L. aethiopica induced ulcerative or non-ulcerative CL. FasL and TRAIL blocking experiments were performed in a murine model of CL. Results and discussion: GALF-1 is cheap and its ingredients available in a low income country such as Ethiopia. GALF-1 was able to transform amastigotes from Ethiopian patients samples and could be used to cultivate promastigotes in large quantities. Cost analysis showed 80% to 95 % decreased costs as compared to conventional media. Promastigotes cultured with GALF-1 could be cryopreserved in liquid nitrogen with comparable re-culture potential to conventional media. Affordability of diagnostic assays is a key issue for resource poor countries and the possibility to cut the cost of the efficient culture method for diagnosis through the use of inexpensive local formulated reagents could improve the diagnosis of leishmaniasis in low income endemic countries. More FasL expressing cells were detected in dermis of ulcerative CL as compared to non-ulcerative CL and controls. TRAIL expression was higher in ulcerative CL as compared to non-ulcerative CL and controls in both epidermis and dermis. Increased dermal expression of FasL and TRAIL was associated with ulcer formation during CL. This correlated with an inhibition of the ulcerative process in a murine CL model during FasL and TRAIL neutralisation.The mechanisms of the involvement of FasL and TRAIL in ulceration was not elucidated and putative reason(s) for the difference in dysregulation of apoptosis are discussed

Comparison of artemether-lumefantrine and chloroquine with and without primaquine for the treatment of Plasmodium vivax infection in Ethiopia: A randomized controlled trial

Background: Recent efforts in malaria control have resulted in great gains in reducing the burden of Plasmodium falciparum, but P. vivax has been more refractory. Its ability to form dormant liver stages confounds control and elimination efforts. To compare the efficacy and safety of primaquine regimens for radical cure, we undertook a randomized controlled trial in Ethiopia. Methods and findings: Patients with normal glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase status with symptomatic P. vivax mono-infection were enrolled and randomly assigned to receive either chloroquine (CQ) or artemether-lumefantrine (AL), alone or in combination with 14 d of semi-supervised primaquine (PQ) (3.5 mg/kg total). A total of 398 patients (n = 104 in the CQ arm, n = 100 in the AL arm, n = 102 in the CQ+PQ arm, and n = 92 in the AL+PQ arm) were followed for 1 y, and recurrent episodes were treated with the same treatment allocated at enrolment. The primary endpoints were the risk of P. vivax recurrence at day 28 and at day 42. The risk of recurrent P. vivax infection at day 28 was 4.0% (95% CI 1.5%–10.4%) after CQ treatment and 0% (95% CI 0%–4.0%) after CQ+PQ. The corresponding risks were 12.0% (95% CI 6.8%–20.6%) following AL alone and 2.3% (95% CI 0.6%–9.0%) following AL+PQ. On day 42, the risk was 18.7% (95% CI 12.2%–28.0%) after CQ, 1.2% (95% CI 0.2%–8.0%) after CQ+PQ, 29.9% (95% CI 21.6%–40.5%) after AL, and 5.9% (95% CI 2.4%–13.5%) after AL+PQ (overall p < 0.001). In those not prescribed PQ, the risk of recurrence by day 42 appeared greater following AL treatment than CQ treatment (HR = 1.8 [95% CI 1.0–3.2]; p = 0.059). At the end of follow-up, the incidence rate of P. vivax was 2.2 episodes/person-year for patients treated with CQ compared to 0.4 for patients treated with CQ+PQ (rate ratio: 5.1 [95% CI 2.9–9.1]; p < 0.001) and 2.3 episodes/person-year for AL compared to 0.5 for AL+PQ (rate ratio: 6.4 [95% CI 3.6–11.3]; p < 0.001). There was no difference in the occurrence of adverse events between treatment arms. The main limitations of the study were the early termination of the trial and the omission of haemoglobin measurement after day 42, resulting in an inability to estimate the cumulative risk of anaemia. Conclusions: Despite evidence of CQ-resistant P. vivax, the risk of recurrence in this study was greater following treatment with AL unless it was combined with a supervised course of PQ. PQ combined with either CQ or AL was well tolerated and reduced recurrence of vivax malaria by 5-fold at 1 y