Decentralisation in Africa: Scope, Motivations and Impact on Service Delivery and Poverty

This paper reviews the literature on decentralisation in Africa, with a focus on impact on service delivery and poverty reduction. It notes decentralisation is not necessarily good or bad, but success depends on the details of policy design and context, particularly the political motivations of ruling elites and its relations with local power bases and constituencies. In Africa, decentralisation is widespread but not deep. Driven largely by political motivations, decentralisation experiences in the region have consisted mostly of deconcentration of administrative functions, rather than true devolution of powers. Although there is limited evidence available, the impact of decentralisation on service delivery is probably limited, judging by its impact on intermediate variables such as access to information, locus of power, administrative performance and accountability relations. The propoor character of decentralisation is also questionable. Available evidence does not confirm that decentralised governments perform better in delivering services to the poor, despite the fact they ofter are their largest constituency. In Africa, decentralisation has been essentially used to consolidate alliances with local elites and thereby reinforce central power, rather than to pursue pro-poor policies. Institutional weaknesses and fiscal constraints have also limited the success of decentralisation in Africa. Therefore, as an overarching governance process, decentralisation may have limited chances of success without a more structural transformation in African societies which reduces the polarisation of power and gives the median voter greater agency.DfI

Inclusive Land Governance in Mozambique: Good Law, Bad Politics?

This paper analyses inclusive land governance in Mozambique. It focuses on the country’s legal framework and the DUAT, the right to use and benefit from the land. The DUAT is a distinctive element of the Mozambican legislation that has land as the property of the state but recognises land use rights for occupants and users on the basis of a unitary system of tenure. The challenges of putting in practice what is thought to be one of Africa’s most progressive legal frameworks are discussed. These are set against a context where despite land abundance there are concerns over land grabbing and dispossession of rural communities, which constitute over 70 per cent of the country’s population. The law may be progressive but government politics are not, as an increasingly hegemonic elite controls Mozambique’s political system and resources

New Development Encounters: China and Brazil in African Agriculture

There is currently much talk of the role of the ‘rising powers’ in Africa, and whether their engagements represent a ‘new paradigm’ in development cooperation. This article introduces this IDS Bulletin and examines Brazilian and Chinese agricultural development cooperation in Ethiopia, Ghana, Mozambique and Zimbabwe. A wide variety of forms of support are seen, involving different financial modalities, including aid, concessional loans, trade deals and commercial investment. Our focus is on the ‘encounters’ that occur during negotiations and the intersection of wider framing discourses with practices on the ground in particular projects. Brazilian and Chinese domestic political dynamics, competing social imaginaries and histories of agrarian change all shape development cooperation. Meanwhile, African governments are not just passive recipients; they exert agency in negotiations, trading off different players. Outcomes depend on the particular context, and the new aid and investment scene in African agriculture is highly varied, presenting opportunities as well as challenges for the future

Priests, technicians and traders: actors, interests and discursive politics in Brazil’s agricultural development cooperation programmes with Mozambique

This research is about Brazil’s international development cooperation in agriculture. I take two cooperation programmes carried out by the Brazilian government in Mozambique – ProSAVANA and More Food International (MFI) – to analyse the processes whereby cooperation policy is formed and transformed. I ask how Brazil’s domestic politics interact with international affairs to shape agricultural cooperation with Mozambique. I consider the ‘priests, technicians and traders’ of Brazilian cooperation, following a caricature used by one respondent to characterise disputes in ProSAVANA. This triadic portrayal captures the diversity of actors, interests and discourse of Brazilian cooperation. It is also analytically useful to investigate how actors relate to one another and how alliances, networks or coalitions, held together on the basis of convenience, shared beliefs or common narratives, emerge and evolve over time. My analytical approach places actors and interests in the context of institutional processes, but also against policy narratives that are the product of history, state-society interactions and class-based struggles in Brazil. The latter are, in turn, at the root of those institutional processes and actors’ identities. Narratives may be used to pursue certain agendas but they also construct the agendas and the identity of the actors that articulate them. My research also emphasises the inter-spatial or travelling dimension of cooperation policy, with flows of influence occurring forwards and backwards. Brazilian actors, interests and discourse travel from Brazil to Mozambique, get interpreted and absorbed selectively and this has repercussions back to the point of origin. Finally, I argue that Brazil’s development encounters in Mozambique proved harder to manage than suggested by the presumed affinities and claims about horizontal relations in Brazilian cooperation. The experiences of ProSAVANA and MFI illustrate the challenges facing the Brazilian cooperation narrative and its governing principles. I discuss implications for the Brazilian ‘model’ and for the South-South paradigm

Influência da Crise Económica na Saúde Mental dos Profissionais de Saúde

Resumo Introdução: Atualmente, é reconhecida a influência que a crise económica desempenha na saúde mental dos profissionais de saúde. As crises económicas são momentos de risco e podem levar a um estado de desequilíbrio do bem-estar mental da população. Assim, em Portugal, com uma prevalência de perturbações mentais e um consumo médio de antidepressivos superiores aos da média europeia, estes são factos alarmantes. Objetivos: Analisar a influência da crise económica, situação laboral e redução do poder económico na saúde mental dos profissionais de saúde; analisar a influência da crise económica atual na redução do poder económico dos profissionais de saúde; conhecer a influência das variáveis sociodemográficas e do impacto da situação laboral na saúde destes profissionais. Material e Métodos: Estudo descritivo-correlacional, transversal, numa amostra não probabilística, em 181 profissionais de saúde (61 enfermeiros, 60 médicos e 60 assistentes operacionais de saúde AOS) do Centro Hospitalar Tondela – Viseu e Agrupamento de Centros de Saúde Dão Lafões, no período de tempo compreendido entre fevereiro e junho de 2014. Como instrumento de colheita de dados utilizou-se um questionário e a Escala de Saúde Mental de Pais Ribeiro (2001). Resultados: Constatámos que 91.2% dos inquiridos se sentem afetados pela crise económica, declarando que esta tem influência na saúde mental dos profissionais de saúde, no entanto a maioria dos inquiridos possui uma boa saúde mental. Esta variável está associada a um nível de literacia mais elevado, sendo que os profissionais de saúde que trabalham por turnos são os mais afetados. A maioria reduziu, no último ano, as despesas com alimentos, restaurantes, lazer, compra de equipamentos eletrónico e vestuário, despesas com água, luz, telefone, utilização do carro e, ainda, as despesas com a decoração da casa. No que diz respeito aos gastos na educação, atividades extracurriculares e mesada dos filhos, a maior parte dos profissionais referiu não ter reduzido esses custos. Conclusão: A maioria dos profissionais de saúde sentiu a influência dos cortes salariais, do aumento da carga horária e de sentimentos de pressão laboral, com repercussão na sua saúde mental.Abstract Background: Nowadays, it is recognized the influence that the economic crisis plays in the mental health of health professionals. Economic crisis are moments of risk that could take to the imbalance in the mental wellbeing of the population. Portugal presents a prevalence of mental disorders and an average consumption of antidepressants higher than the European average, which turnout to be alarming facts. Objectives: Analyze the influence of the economic crisis, the employment situation and the reduction of economic power in the mental health of health professionals. Verify the influence of the current economic crisis in reducing the economic power of health professionals. Verify the association between socio-demographic variables in mental health of these professionals groups. Material and Methods: This is a correlational-descriptive, cross-sectional and non-experimental study, with a non-probabilistic sample of 181 health professionals (61 nurses, 60 doctors and 60 operational health assistants AOS) of the Hospital Tondela - Viseu and ACES Dão Lafões in the time period between February and June 2014. As an instrument for data collection, we used a questionnaire that includes the Mental Health Scale of Pais Ribeiro (2001). Results: In sum, 91.2% of the interviewed participants claimed to have felt affected by the economic crisis which has influence on the mental health of health professionals, however, most of the inquired ones are mentally healthy. This variable it is associated with a higher level of literacy, and the shift work professionals are the most affected. The majority reduced in the last year, the costs with food, restaurants, leisure time, purchase of electronic equipment and clothing, water costs, electricity, telephone, car use and the costs of home decor. With regard to spending on education, extracurricular activities and monthly allowance of the children, most referred not having reduced their costs. Conclusions: Most health professionals felt the influence of wage cuts, increased workload and feelings of work pressure, with repercussions on their mental health

New Development Encounters: China and Brazil in African Agriculture

There is currently much talk of the role of the ‘rising powers’ in Africa, and whether their engagements represent a ‘new paradigm’ in development cooperation. This article introduces this IDS Bulletin and examines Brazilian and Chinese agricultural development cooperation in Ethiopia, Ghana, Mozambique and Zimbabwe. A wide variety of forms of support are seen, involving different financial modalities, including aid, concessional loans, trade deals and commercial investment. Our focus is on the ‘encounters’ that occur during negotiations and the intersection of wider framing discourses with practices on the ground in particular projects. Brazilian and Chinese domestic political dynamics, competing social imaginaries and histories of agrarian change all shape development cooperation. Meanwhile, African governments are not just passive recipients; they exert agency in negotiations, trading off different players. Outcomes depend on the particular context, and the new aid and investment scene in African agriculture is highly varied, presenting opportunities as well as challenges for the future

Expectativas con respecto a habilidades de alcohol y de autorregulación de los adolescentes

Endereço scielo: http://www.scielo.mec.pt/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1647-21602016000200005CONTEXTO: O consumo de álcool na adolescência está associado a comportamentos de risco, baixo rendimento académico, dificuldades de aprendizagem, baixo nível de desenvolvimento de competências sociais e emocionais. Pode causar alterações no desenvolvimento da personalidade e prejudicar funções como memória e atenção. O desenvolvimento de comportamentos auto-regulados permite ao adolescente o controlo das necessidades mais imediatas (controlo de impulsos) assim como a mobilização de pensamentos, sentimentos e comportamentos para objetivos de saúde a longo prazo. OBJETIVO(S): Analisar a relação entre as expectativas face ao álcool e as competências de auto-regulação em adolescentes. METODOLOGIA: Recorreu-se a um modelo de investigação quantitativo, transversal, analítico, descritivo e correlacional. Participaram 971 estudantes do ensino secundário público e cooperativo. O protocolo de avaliação inclui o questionário sociodemográfico, a Escala de Envolvimento com o Álcool para Adolescentes de Mayer & Filstead (1979) adaptada por Fonte e Alves (1999), o Questionário Reduzido de Auto-regulação (Carey, Neal & Collins, 2004 adaptado por Castillo & Dias, 2009) e o Questionário de Expectativas face ao Álcool para Adolescentes (Pilatti, Godoy & Brussino, 2010). RESULTADOS: Os estudantes com idades compreendidas entre os 14–21 anos, na sua maioria rapazes (50,80%), com idade igual ou inferior a 16 anos (43,40%), residentes em meio rural (66,40%), em coabitação com os pais (77,30%) e inseridos em agregados familiares com um rendimento médio mensal médio - alto ou alto (56,70%). Revelaram-se bebedores habituais sem problemas (75,30%) e com elevadas expectativas face ao álcool (45,10%). A auto-regulação foi influenciada pelo envolvimento com o álcool e pelas expectativas face ao álcool. CONCLUSÃO: O desenvolvimento de competências de auto-regulação revela-se um investimento em saúde uma vez que, o adolescente com um comportamento auto-regulado assume estilos de vida mais saudáveis, revelando um menor envolvimento com o álcool.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio