On handling urban informality in southern Africa

In this article I reconsider the handling of urban informality by urban planning and management systems in southern Africa. I argue that authorities have a fetish about formality and that this is fuelled by an obsession with urban modernity. I stress that the desired city, largely inspired by Western notions of modernity, has not been and cannot be realized. Using illustrative cases of top–down interventions, I highlight and interrogate three strategies that authorities have deployed to handle informality in an effort to create or defend the modern city. I suggest that the fetish is built upon a desire for an urban modernity based on a concept of formal order that the authorities believe cannot coexist with the “disorder” and spatial “unruliness” of informality. I question the authorities' conviction that informality is an abomination that needs to be “converted”, dislocated or annihilated. I conclude that the very configuration of urban governance and socio-economic systems in the region, like the rest of sub-Saharan Africa, renders informality inevitable and its eradication impossible

Public health, conflict and human rights: toward a collaborative research agenda

Although epidemiology is increasingly contributing to policy debates on issues of conflict and human rights, its potential is still underutilized. As a result, this article calls for greater collaboration between public health researchers, conflict analysts and human rights monitors, with special emphasis on retrospective, population-based surveys. The article surveys relevant recent public health research, explains why collaboration is useful, and outlines possible future research scenarios, including those pertaining to the indirect and long-term consequences of conflict; human rights and security in conflict prone areas; and the link between human rights, conflict, and International Humanitarian Law

Antenatal care in practice: an exploratory study in antenatal care clinics in the Kilombero Valley, south-eastern Tanzania

BACKGROUND: The potential of antenatal care for reducing maternal morbidity and improving newborn survival and health is widely acknowledged. Yet there are worrying gaps in knowledge of the quality of antenatal care provided in Tanzania. In particular, determinants of health workers' performance have not yet been fully understood. This paper uses ethnographic methods to document health workers' antenatal care practices with reference to the national Focused Antenatal Care guidelines and identifies factors influencing health workers' performance. Potential implications for improving antenatal care provision in Tanzania are discussed. METHODS: Combining different qualitative techniques, we studied health workers' antenatal care practices in four public antenatal care clinics in the Kilombero Valley, south-eastern Tanzania. A total of 36 antenatal care consultations were observed and compared with the Focused Antenatal Care guidelines. Participant observation, informal discussions and in-depth interviews with the staff helped to identify and explain health workers' practices and contextual factors influencing antenatal care provision. RESULTS: The delivery of antenatal care services to pregnant women at the selected antenatal care clinics varied widely. Some services that are recommended by the Focused Antenatal Care guidelines were given to all women while other services were not delivered at all. Factors influencing health workers' practices were poor implementation of the Focused Antenatal Care guidelines, lack of trained staff and absenteeism, supply shortages and use of working tools that are not consistent with the Focused Antenatal Care guidelines. Health workers react to difficult working conditions by developing informal practices as coping strategies or "street-level bureaucracy". CONCLUSIONS: Efforts to improve antenatal care should address shortages of trained staff through expanding training opportunities, including health worker cadres with little pre-service training. Attention should be paid to the identification of informal practices resulting from individual coping strategies and "street-level bureaucracy" in order to tackle problems before they become part of the organizational culture

Boundaries of community engagement in enhancing performance of government programmes at the local level: a lesson drawing from National Agricultural Advisory Services (NAADS), Uganda

The National Agricultural Advisory Services (NAADS) programme in Uganda arises out of the Poverty Eradication Plan of 1997, a framework aimed at ensuring sustainable development of the Ugandan economy. NAADS was launched as one of the seven pillars of the Plan for Modernisation of Agriculture meant to commercialise agriculture through improved agricultural service delivery. The NAADS Implementation Framework consists of multiple actors. Most notable of these are the farmer institutions formed with the cardinal aim of controlling and gaining access to the intended agricultural advisory services. NAADS was structured to deliver agricultural extension services as a private sector-led programme in line with government agricultural sector policy that hinges on farmer groups. Although farmer groups are formed at local government level, they do not always have the required numbers and their formation has lagged behind in successive years. This has been attributed to farmers’ false expectations of remuneration and their failure to pay group fees. The frequent split of districts and sub-counties into new local governments has stunted group formation, which in turn has reduced the farmers’ capacity to effectively enhance NAADS’s performance. The paper reveals that community engagement in government programmes may fully realise its potential in a well-designed approach that considers public participation as a continuum of well-coordinated rather than isolated activities. It concludes that the principles of community empowerment need to be appreciated by engaging organisations.Key words: NAADS, farmer institutions, community engagement, public participatio

Occurrence of salmonellae in retail raw chicken products in Ethiopia

A cross-sectional study was undertaken to determine the presence and prevalence of salmonellae in retail raw chicken meat and giblets (gizzard and liver) in supermarkets in Addis Ababa (Ethiopia). A total of 301 samples (244 chicken meat, 32 gizzards and 25 livers) were collected from 22 randomly selected supermarkets and examined for the presence of Salmonella. For the isolation and identification of salmonellae, the technique recommended by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO 6579, 1998) was used. Salmonellae were detected from 54 (17.9%) of the 301 samples examined. Chicken meat and giblet samples in 68.2% (15/22) of the supermarkets were contaminated with salmonellae. The contamination level of Salmonella was higher in chicken giblets as compared to chicken meat, which were respectively 12.3%, 53.1% and 28.0% in chicken meat, gizzard and liver samples. Out of the 54 Salmonella isolates, nine different serotypes were identified: Salmonella Braenderup (31.5%), S. Anatum (25.9%), S. Saintpaul (14.8%), S. Uganda (11.1%), S. Haifa, S. Group B, S. Rough form and S. Typhimurium (each 3.7%) and S. Virchow (1.8%). The high level of Salmonella contamination of chicken meat and giblets observed in the present study indicated the need in an improvement in the microbiological quality of retail chicken in Ethiopia

Antimicrobila resistance to Salmonellae isolated from retail raw chicken meat and giblets in Ethiopia

No Abstract. Bulletin of Animal Health and Production in Africa Vol. 50 (2) 2002: pp.86-9