Getting real about food prices

The 2008 price spike in world grain prices had serious impacts on food security and poverty but analysts have consistently described these real food prices as low in historical terms. The inconsistency between the severity of the food crisis and low real prices results from the use of advanced and global economy price indices to calculate real prices. This ignores the high share of food in poor people’s expenditures and indirect effects of income growth on expenditure patterns of rich and poor consumers. Poor consumers have not experienced the same falls in real food prices as those with growing incomes and are more vulnerable to price shocks. As high and fluctuating international grain prices appear to be a feature of the current world economy, food price and policy analysis must recognise this, and develop and use different price indices that take account of differences between consumer groups

Draft Preservation and Development of Agricultural Land Framework Bill and Policy

The Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) is a constituent unit of the School of Government at the University of the Western Cape. PLAAS engages in research, training, policy development and advocacy in relation to land and agrarian reform, rural governance and natural resource management. PLAAS aims for rigour in its scholarship, excellence in its training, and effectiveness in its policy support and advocacy. It strives to play a critical yet constructive role in processes of social, economic and political transformation. PLAAS has read and considered the implications of the Preservation and Development of Agricultural Land Framework Bill and Policy, and submits the following comments and recommendations to the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. We wish to place on record that we request further involvement in discussion of the Bill and Policy and to provide further written and oral submission where there is opportunity to do so, to substantiate the points made in this submission

Building learning systems for Honduran development

Spanish version available in IDRC Digital Library: Construcción de sistemas de aprendizaje para el desarrollo de Hondura

An overview of Uganda's mental health care system: results from an assessment using the world health organization's assessment instrument for mental health systems (WHO-AIMS)

BACKGROUND: The Ugandan government recognizes mental health as a serious public health and development concern, and has of recent implemented a number of reforms aimed at strengthening the country's mental health system. The aim of this study was to provide a profile of the current mental health policy, legislation and services in Uganda. METHODS: A survey was conducted of public sector mental health policy and legislation, and service resources and utilisation in Uganda, in the year 2005, using the World Health Organization's Assessment Instrument for Mental Health Systems (WHO-AIMS) Version 2.2. RESULTS: Uganda's draft mental health policy encompasses many positive reforms, including decentralization and integration of mental health services into Primary Health Care (PHC). The mental health legislation is however outdated and offensive. Services are still significantly underfunded (with only 1% of the health expenditure going to mental health), and skewed towards urban areas. Per 100,000 population, there were 1.83 beds in mental hospitals, 1.4 beds in community based psychiatric inpatient units, and 0.42 beds in forensic facilities. The total personnel working in mental health facilities were 310 (1.13 per 100,000 population). Only 0.8% of the medical doctors and 4% of the nurses had specialized in psychiatry. CONCLUSION: Although there have been important developments in Uganda's mental health policy and services, there remains a number of shortcomings, especially in terms of resources and service delivery. There is an urgent need for more research on the current burden of mental disorders and the functioning of mental health programs and services in Uganda

A Project Development Checklist for Community-Based Research

This Community-Based Research Toolkit is intended for community organizations trying to decide if they want to conduct research, and whether they should seek an academic partner to work with to conduct this research. This toolkit is designed as a project development checklist that acts as a guide for things to consider for community organizations conducting a research project

Excited Ω\Omega's as heavy pentaquarks

We briefly summarize recent works on the identification of the excited $\Omega_c$'s found by the LHCb Collaboration. Within the framework of a pion mean-field approach, the following scenario is the most favorable: While three of the excited $\Omega_c$'s belong to the excited baryon sextet, two of them with the smaller decay widths can be identified as the members of the anti-decapentaplet which is one of the lowest-lying representations. It implies that these two $\Omega_c$'s, i.e. $\Omega(3050)$ and $\Omega(3119)$ are most probably the exotic heavy pentaquark baryons.Comment: 6 pages. 3 figures. Contribution to the Proceedings of the 22nd International Conference on Few-Body Problems in Physics (FB22

‘Talent-spotting’ or ‘social magic’? Inequality, cultural sorting and constructions of the ideal graduate in elite professions

Graduate outcomes – including rates of employment and earnings – are marked by persistent inequalities related to social class, as well as gender, ethnicity and institution. Despite national policy agendas related to social mobility and ‘fair access to the professions’, high-status occupations are disproportionately composed of those from socially privileged backgrounds, and evidence suggests that in recent decades many professions have become less socially representative. This article makes an original contribution to sociological studies of inequalities in graduate transitions and elite reproduction through a distinct focus on the ‘pre-hiring’ practices of graduate employers. It does this through a critical analysis of the graduate recruitment material of two popular graduate employers. It shows how, despite espousing commitments to diversity and inclusion, constructions of the ‘ideal’ graduate privilege individuals who can mobilise and embody certain valued capitals. Using Bourdieusian concepts of ‘social magic’ and ‘institutional habitus’, the article argues that more attention must be paid to how graduate employers’ practices constitute tacit processes of social exclusion and thus militate against the achievement of more equitable graduate outcomes and fair access to the ‘top jobs

Understanding social exclusion in elite professional service firms: field level dynamics and the 'professional project

This article explores social exclusion in elite professional service firms (PSFs) through a qualitative study of six legal, accounting, investment banking and consulting firms. Employing a Bourdieusian perspective we find that all six firms privilege candidates with the same narrow forms of cultural capital, while acknowledging that this contradicts their professed commitment to social inclusion and recruiting the best ‘talent’. We find that this behaviour is enshrined within the habitus of elite firms. We argue that it represents an organizational strategy generated by a compulsion to achieve legitimacy in a specific field of London-based elite PSFs. We identify a ‘professional project’ of sorts, but argue that this can no longer be mapped on to the interests of a discrete occupational group. As such, we contribute to studies of elite reproduction and social stratification by focusing specifically on the role of elite professional organizations in the reproduction of inequality