Demystifying the Human Trafficking from the Human Rights Perspectives: A Comprehensive Review

Human trafficking is presently catching the attention of most governments and international organizations owing to its severe health consequences and issuant social crisis. It is thus resulting in severe impacts on the lives of trafficked people who are susceptibly in a condition beyond their control. More desperately, the problem is worsened because most governments and institutions haven’t taken the problem from the human rights perspectives. This particular particle makes a comprehensive review on the human trafficking from the human rights perspectives. After reviewing different literatures it was found that the human right violation on the trafficked person is committed in different stages of the process either by the government and traffickers themselves. Therefore, the responses against the human trafficking should make the human rights at the center

Fiscal Decentralization and Determinants of Property Tax Performance in Kenya: Cross-County Analysis

This study investigates determinants of property tax performance across 47 counties in Kenya. We aim to contribute to limited empirical research in developing countries on factors contributing to low property tax performance. Though property tax is considered ideal for sub-national governments, its performance in Kenya is not only low but its share in both gross domestic product and own-source revenues are declining. There is growing consensus among fiscal decentralization experts that adequate own-source revenue for sub-national governments is a precondition for successful fiscal decentralization. In 2010 Kenya promulgated a new Constitution that mandates sub-national governments with more fiscal responsibilities; hence performance of property tax in Kenya is of immense policy interests than ever before. Past policy efforts to reform property tax in Kenya has hardly yielded positive results. The results show that urbanization, population density and administration capacity are key factors explaining property tax performance across the Kenyan counties. The results have implications for developing countries in terms of design of horizontal revenue sharing, and the need to enhance administration capacity for sub-national governments. Key words: Property tax, developing countries, Keny

Exploring antenatal care experiences amongst pastoralist communities in Kenya: a focused ethnographic study

Background: Antenatal care (ANC) is a very important component of maternity care to ensure a healthy pregnancy and safer childbirth, particularly in areas where maternal health is poor. However, whilst progress has been made to reduce maternal deaths and increase ANC coverage globally, challenges remain in bringing ANC to specific remote or rural communities, such as pastoralist communities in sub-Saharan Africa. This PhD study focuses on ANC amongst a semi-nomadic pastoralist community in one part of Kenya. Pastoralist communities are herders of domesticated livestock, though some incorporate agriculture into pastoralism. Nomadic pastoralists organise their lives around the needs of their animals, which is characterised by migration depending upon weather patterns. In Kenya, there are at least 5.6 million rural pastoralists. Existing reports show that pastoralist communities tend to lack access to services and face long-standing marginalisation, poverty, and vulnerability. Further, in some African countries, including Kenya, gender norms mean that pastoralist women face double marginalisation in terms of decision making, access to education, and healthcare services. The research setting is Marsabit County in Kenya where 80% of the population is pastoralist. Marsabit has the fourth highest maternal mortality and morbidity rates in Kenya at 1,125 per 100,000 live births, and the highest teenage pregnancy rates. Pastoralist women’s access to and use of ANC services in Kenya has not been studied previously. Study aim: To explore the experiences of ANC amongst the pastoralist community in Marsabit County in Kenya in order to understand key barriers and facilitators of ANC service uptake. Specific objectives are: 1. To explore women’s knowledge, experiences, and perspectives on ANC services, and factors influencing ANC services use. 2. To understand men’s perspectives regarding factors influencing ANC and their suggestions for possible ways to enhance the use of ANC services. 3. To explore traditional birth attendants’ (TBAs) views about ANC, barriers to and potential facilitators for ANC use. 4. To explore nurses’ perceptions about the factors that influence the use of ANC services and to observe their practices at the clinic related to these. 5. To identify possible ways to enhance the use of ANC services amongst pastoralist community Methodology and Methods: This study adopted a qualitative approach, using a focused ethnographic (FE) methodology, underpinned by a philosophy of critical realism. Ethical approval was received from the University of Nottingham and Kenyatta National Hospital/University of Nairobi Ethics Research Committees (KNH/UoN). Fifty-eight participants were included. Methods of data collection included: (i) interviews with women (pregnant and postnatal); (ii) interviews with registered nurses; (iii) focus group discussions with men; (iv) focus group discussions with traditional birth attendants; and (v) observations of nurses’ interactions with women during ANC consultations. Data analysis adopted an inductive thematic approach, accompanied by a retroductive process to identify underlying causal mechanisms and structures that influenced ANC use. Data collection took place from January to June 2018. Findings: The pastoralist community is in a period of transition to contemporary healthcare service use. ANC services are only partially utilised due to two causal mechanisms that shape pastoralist women’s ANC experiences and health-seeking. First, government policy is shown to have a strong influence on ANC service utilisation through: (i) a patient record (a handbook), which emerged as a key mechanism that facilitates social inclusion and a gateway to accessing a range of government services; and (ii) re-framing the role of TBAs as referral agents, acting as conduits between community and healthcare services. The handbook acted as a strong incentive, compelling most women to attend ANC at least once, while the TBA’s referral roles created the potential to positively influence health-seeking behaviours around ANC. Secondly, there are multiple structural barriers that diminish women’s ability to access ANC. These include: (i) difficulties of pastoralist lifestyle and infrastructure challenges; (ii) social exclusion for women who experience out of wedlock pregnancy; (iii) health system limitations and women’s ANC experiences; and (iv) the nature of the relationship (in particular, a gap in information sharing) between nurses and women. Pastoralist women live in remote and hard-to-reach areas and the challenges related to their pastoralist lifestyle impact their ANC experience. In addition, accessing ANC services was hindered by normative cultural practices that made it hard for women with out of-wedlock pregnancy to disclose pregnancy, leaving them to endure social isolation and stigma. A new conceptual model of ‘partial utilisation’ of ANC was developed that encapsulates the key findings of this research. The model represents pastoralist women’s ANC use as partial rather than completely absent and the reasons for this. The notion of the community being in a transitional period between traditional and contemporary lifestyles further explains the observed patterns of ANC use. Implications: The existing model of ANC service organisation and delivery (where services are provided in static health facilities) do not address the ANC needs of pastoralist women. Therefore, in addition to existing aspects of ANC care, context-specific strategies should aim to: (i) provide a comprehensive ‘one-stop-shop’ ANC service during the initial visit; (ii) offer follow-up through mobile outreach services, and task-shifting by utilising available human resources e.g. community healthcare workers (CHWs) and TBAs; (iii) provision of outreach health promotion services for the community; (iv) sensitively engage with the community and address the cultural barriers related to out of wedlock pregnancy; and (v) address resource constraints in the health facilities and support for the nurses (e.g. skills development and commensurate remuneration). Implementation of these recommendations requires involvement of government, other stakeholders (e.g. NGOs, funders, donors) and community members (men and women). Conclusion: This is the first ethnographic study on ANC use amongst pastoralist communities in Kenya and East Africa. It provides novel information about ANC use in this under-researched population and its insights will be of relevance for similar populations globally. Eliciting the experiences and challenges of the pastoralist community provides a basis for developing services and policies that more realistically reflect their unique requirements

Sector level cost of equity in African financial markets

This paper assesses the effectiveness of Liu (2006) metrics in measuring illiquidity within a multifactor CAPM pricing model. Costs of equity are estimated using this model for the major sectors within Africa’s larger equity markets: Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria, Zambia, Botswana and South Africa. In all countries, the cost of equity is found to be highest in the financial sector and lowest in the blue chip stocks of Tunisia, Morocco, Namibia and South Africa. At an aggregate level, Nigeria and Zambia have the highest cost of capital

The extent of corporate governance disclosure and its determinants in a developing market: The case of Egypt

This paper assesses the extent of corporate governance voluntary disclosure and the impact of a comprehensive set of corporate governance (CG) attributes (board composition, board size, CEO duality, director ownership, blockholder ownership and the existence of audit committee) on the extent of corporate governance voluntary disclosure in Egypt. The measurement of disclosure is based on published data created from a checklist developed by the United Nations, which was gathered from a manual review of financial statements and websites of a sample of Egyptian companies listed on Egyptian Stock Exchange (EGX). Although the levels of CG disclosure are found to be minimal, disclosure is high for items that are mandatory under the Egyptian Accounting Standards (EASs). The failure of companies to disclose such information clearly shows some ineffectiveness and inadequacy in the regulatory framework in Egypt. Moreover, the phenomenon of non-compliance may also be attributed to socio-economic factors in Egypt. Therefore, it is expected that Egyptian firms will take a long time to appraise the payback of increased CG disclosure. The findings indicate that that—ceteris paribus—the extent of CG disclosure is (1) lower for companies with duality in position and higher ownership concentration as measured by blockholder ownership; and (2) increases with the proportion of independent directors on the board and firm size. The results of the study support theoretical arguments that companies disclose corporate governance information in order to reduce information asymmetry and agency costs and to improve investor confidence in the reported accounting information. The empirical evidence from this study enhances the understanding of the corporate governance disclosure environment in Egypt as one of the emerging markets in the Middle East