Participatory Grant Making: A Success Story from Southern Africa

The Other Foundation (tOF) is an African trust dedicated to advancing human rights in southern Africa, with a particular focus on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people. Our primary purpose is to expand resources available to defend and advance the rights and wellbeing of LGBTI people in the southern African region. We do this by working both as a grant-maker and a fundraiser.The founding board of tOF was first convened in Johannesburg, South Africa, in August 2013. At that initial meeting concern was expressed about the need for the membership of the board to better reflect the diversity of the southern Africa region. However, it was also noted that the funding for the establishment of the Foundation was a generous challenge grant from Atlantic Philanthropies, that set very specific fund raising targets within specified time-frames. It was therefore agreed that the founding board would set a limited number of tasks to fulfill, leading to the establishment of a board more appropriately reflective of the community it was established to serve. The three tasks were: (a) appoint the founding CEO; (b) undertake a pilot grant making initiative; and (c) work with the incoming CEO on a strategic plan.This report outlines the work that was involved in the development and implementation of the pilot grant making initiative, as well as reporting on the first grants that were allocated by the foundation. tOF received 114 applications for funding, from seven different countries, through an open call to support work that 'advances the rights and well-being of LGBTI people in Southern Africa'. 12 peer reviewers from six different countries in southern Africa, were selected through an open call for nominations to work with the board to select the proposals to be funded. The peer reviewers worked in four teams of 3 reviewers each, facilitated by a board member, to come to a consensus about which projects to recommend for funding. The process began by each reviewer individually assessing a number of applications, and then coming together in teams to share their findings.32 proposals were recommended for funding to the Board. About R3.1 million rand was awarded in grants ranging in size from R 10,000 to R 500,000. Grants were allocated in South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe, and Malawi. Work that tOF will be supporting includes: investigating how midwives deal with inter-sex babies in Botswana; a holiday camp for children of LGBT people in South Africa; research into gender non-conformity in Swaziland; a book on Queer African Theology; mainstreaming issues related to sexual orientation in religious curricula in a university in Zimbabwe; as well as supporting anchor institutions in the region that are responsible for doing ground breaking work around the region through the Out in Africa film festival, the gay and lesbian archives, and trans and gender identity based advocacy work

Equity, efficiency and sustainability in higher education in sub-Saharan Africa: A case study of Makerere University, Uganda.

The World Bank is one of the most dominant influences in higher education policy in Sub Saharan Africa. Throughout the 1990s, the Bank consistently asserted that a reduced role of the state in providing and organising educational services, and a greater reliance on pricing systems in the allocation of those services would have a positive effect on both equity and efficiency in higher education. Critics of this approach countered that the Bank's neo-liberal framework was inappropriate to the provision of a public good such as education and that, in particular, the introduction of user charges was risky, inequitable and inefficient. This thesis explores these claims and counterclaims through an exploratory case-study of Makerere University (Uganda). Its particular focus is on the introduction of a series of cost-sharing measures, most notably the acceptance of 'privately sponsored students' to the University from the mid-1990s onwards. The thesis examines what impact these initiatives have had on questions of equity and efficiency within the institution, while also interrogating their sustainability. Using a series of semi-structured interviews with senior university and government officials, as well as official university documents and World Bank reports, the major changes to student financing at Makerere are studied and described. The impact that the changes have had on the question of efficiency, equity and sustainability are analysed, using both qualitative and quantitative research methods, including a series of semi-structured interviews with senior academics and administrators; focus discussion groups with students; and a student survey (n 1,030). It is demonstrated that the major effect of the changes to student financing has been the rapid increase of students being able to come to Makerere, as well as the associated increase in resources which these students have brought with them to the institution. It is argued that the injection of new resources has positively affected the efficiency of the university, but that increasing concerns are being raised about equity, as the poor are disproportionately excluded from the opportunities offered by the new funding approach. It is suggested further that the heavy reliance on extended family networks for financing ultimately raises questions about the sustainability of the new programmes. Much of the debate over the financing of higher education has been underpinned by the concern that the way in which a higher education system receives funding has a powerful influence in determining what it does - in particular the impact that a shift away from public funding will have on the sector's contribution to national development. It is concluded here that that the way in which the debate over the financing of higher education is currently constructed encourages an overly economistic view of the sector and its role. It is argued that higher education is especially unsuited to this role. The case study demonstrates that currently there is less to be gained from being dogmatic about the role of either the state or the market, than a greater acceptance that failures of either can result in distorted development. Policy implications point towards a greater understanding of the need to identify what is the most appropriate role for each to play to complement one another in a given context. This is needed so that a particular mix is not at the expense of either equity or efficiency, and to ensure that mix remains sustainable

Putting menarche and girls into the global population health agenda

Abstract: Menarche, the onset of menstruation is a fundamental part of a girl’s transition from childhood to adolescence. Studies show that girls in many countries experience menarche with insufficient information and support. Girls from around the world report feeling ashamed and afraid. The potential health effects of such experiences include a weakening of girls’ sense of self-confidence and competence, which in turn may comprise girls’ abilities to assert themselves in different situations, including in relation to their sexuality and sexual and reproductive health. There is an important need for the public health community to assure that girls receive the education and support they need about menstruation, so they are able to feel more confident about their bodies, and navigate preventable health problems – now and in the future. For too long, the global health community has overlooked the window of opportunity presented by menarche. Family planning programs have generally focused their efforts on married couples and HIV programs have focused safer sex promotion on older adolescent girls and boys. Starting the conversation at menarche with girls in early adolescence would fully use this window of opportunity. It would engage young adolescent girls and be a natural first step for later, more comprehensive conversations about sexuality, reproduction and reproductive health. There are a number of initiatives beginning to tackle the provision of puberty information to girls and boys, but the global health community is overdue to set a global standard for the provision of such guidance. Keywords: Menarche Adolescent girls Population healt

Unnecessary Workup of Asymptomatic Neonates in the Era of Group B Streptococcus Prophylaxis

Asymptomatic term neonates born to mothers who are Group B Streptococcus (GBS) unknown or GBS positive but “inadequately” treated prior to delivery do not require invasive laboratory evaluation. We conducted a retrospective cohort study of mother/baby dyads born from January 1, 2005 until September 30, 2007 at the Medical College of Georgia. Their current protocol is to obtain a Complete Blood Count with Differential (CBC with D), Blood Culture (BC), and C-reactive protein (CRP) after birth. Mother/baby dyads (n = 242) that met inclusion criteria were reviewed. Of these 242 babies 25 (10%) were started on antibiotics after the initial lab values were known. None of the blood cultures were positive and the CRP's were normal. The 2002 GBS guidelines call for laboratory evaluation of “at-risk” neonates, but the workup of these babies is not only costly, it does not provide any advantage over old fashioned clinical observation for the evaluation and treatment of early onset GBS sepsis

Probabilistic Phase Labeling and Lattice Refinement for Autonomous Material Research

X-ray diffraction (XRD) is an essential technique to determine a material's crystal structure in high-throughput experimentation, and has recently been incorporated in artificially intelligent agents in autonomous scientific discovery processes. However, rapid, automated and reliable analysis method of XRD data matching the incoming data rate remains a major challenge. To address these issues, we present CrystalShift, an efficient algorithm for probabilistic XRD phase labeling that employs symmetry-constrained pseudo-refinement optimization, best-first tree search, and Bayesian model comparison to estimate probabilities for phase combinations without requiring phase space information or training. We demonstrate that CrystalShift provides robust probability estimates, outperforming existing methods on synthetic and experimental datasets, and can be readily integrated into high-throughput experimental workflows. In addition to efficient phase-mapping, CrystalShift offers quantitative insights into materials' structural parameters, which facilitate both expert evaluation and AI-based modeling of the phase space, ultimately accelerating materials identification and discovery.Comment: 13 pages, 6 figure

Optical Identification of Materials Transformations in Oxide Thin Films

Recent advances in high-throughput experimentation for combinatorial studies have accelerated the discovery and analysis of materials across a wide range of compositions and synthesis conditions. However, many of the more powerful characterization methods are limited by speed, cost, availability, and/or resolution. To make efficient use of these methods, there is value in developing approaches for identifying critical compositions and conditions to be used as a-priori knowledge for follow-up characterization with high-precision techniques, such as micron-scale synchrotron based X-ray diffraction (XRD). Here we demonstrate the use of optical microscopy and reflectance spectroscopy to identify likely phase-change boundaries in thin film libraries. These methods are used to delineate possible metastable phase boundaries following lateral-gradient Laser Spike Annealing (lg-LSA) of oxide materials. The set of boundaries are then compared with definitive determinations of structural transformations obtained using high-resolution XRD. We demonstrate that the optical methods detect more than 95% of the structural transformations in a composition-gradient La-Mn-O library and a Ga$_2$O$_3$ sample, both subject to an extensive set of lg-LSA anneals. Our results provide quantitative support for the value of optically-detected transformations as a priori data to guide subsequent structural characterization, ultimately accelerating and enhancing the efficient implementation of $\mu$m-resolution XRD experiments