Evaluating anti-money laundering initiatives: a country perspective

Kenya faces a number of challenges in countering anti-money laundering (AML) activities and developing appropriate policy measures to avert and contain the adverse socioeconomic consequences of money laundering. Through textual documentation, direct observation and semi-structured interviews, this article outlines the findings of a study about the awareness and attitudes of key Kenyan stakeholder groups towards recent anti-money laundering legislation. Invoking Brown, Tower and Taplin's (2004) typology of financially classified stakeholder groups, this study finds that the proposed anti-money laundering legislation raises a number of diverse views on Kenyan AML initiatives that makes carrying out the results of an evaluation of the AML legislation highly problematic. </jats:p

HIV/AIDS Information by African companies:an empirical analysis

This article investigates the extent of Human Immunodeficiency Virus/Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome Disclosures (HIV/AIDSD) in online annual reports by 200 listed companies from 10 African countries for the year ending 2006. Descriptive statistics reveal a very low level of overall HIV/AIDSD practices with a mean of 6 per cent disclosure, with half (100 out of 200) of the African companies making no disclosures at all. Logistic regression analysis reveals that company size and country are highly significant predictors of any disclosure of HIV/AIDS in annual reports. Profitability is also statistically significantly associated with the extent of disclosure. </jats:p

Understanding antenatal care use in pastoralist communities: a focused ethnographic study in Kenya

Background/AimsThe provision of high-quality antenatal care improves maternal and child health outcomes. Pastoralist communities face unique challenges in accessing healthcare associated with a nomadic, marginalised lifestyle, and have high rates of maternal morbidity and mortality. There is minimal evidence on antenatal care use globally among this group. To develop optimal services for pastoralist communities, there is an urgent need to understand pastoralist women's use of antenatal care services. This study's aim was to explore experiences of antenatal care among pastoralist communities in Kenya, to identify key barriers and facilitators of uptake.MethodsThis focused ethnographic qualitative study was underpinned by a philosophy of critical realism. A total of 58 participants (women, husbands, traditional birth attendants and nurses) were included. Data were collected using interviews, focus group discussions and observation. Data were collected for 6 months in six villages and five health facilities in a pastoralist region of northern Kenya. Inductive thematic analysis and retroduction were used to identify concepts, structures and mechanisms that influenced antenatal care use.ResultsPastoralist women's antenatal care experiences and use were linked to two main themes. The first was government policies that incentivised antenatal care use by linking the provision of the baby's health and citizenship records to antenatal care uptake and encouraging traditional birth attendants to adopt defined referral roles. The second highlighted multiple structural barriers that impeded consistent antenatal care uptake, including the pastoralist lifestyle, cultural barriers, health system constraints and a gap in information sharing. The dissonance between these led to partial, sub-optimal use patterns of antenatal care.ConclusionsGovernment policy created an impetus for the pastoralist community to use contemporary healthcare services. At the same time, multiple barriers impeded access to services. This explains the partial use of antenatal care services among pastoralist communities. The findings throw doubt on the feasibility of antenatal care guidelines that recommend eight contacts during pregnancy. There is a need to work collaboratively with communities to develop context-specific models of care