African Environmental Information Network: Improving Enforcement and Compliance Within Africa

AEIN is a multi-stake holder capacity building network dedicated to supporting sustainable development planning in Africa. AEIN is spearheaded by the United Nations Environment Program (“UNEP”) Regional Office for Africa and UNEP Division of Early Warning and Assessment (“UNEP-DEWA”), located in Nairobi, Kenya. UNEP-DEWA focuses on building capacity for early warning and environmental assessment, thereby ensuring that proper mechanisms are in place for sustainable development. The AEIN is intended to bolster Africa’s inadequate institutional capacity by addressing the following problems: the lack of harmonized efforts for environmental assessment and reporting; poor compliance and enforcement; and the lack of integrated environmental information into decision making and sustainable development processes

Tracing development frameworks down the aid chain : CARE USA's household livelihoods strategy from NGO headquarters to its use in South Africa, Lesotho, and partner organizations.

Thesis (M.Dev.Studies)-University of Natal, Durban, 2002.This article analyses the aid chain and north-south power relations with regard to INGO programming strategies. CARE USA's Household and Livelihood Security (HLS) programming framework is examined, as case study, from the headquarter level to country offices in South Africa and Lesotho as well as partner organizations. HLS is discussed in relation to participatory methodology, management tools, the project cycle, donors and direct versus partner implementation. The paper argues that using HLS to combine people centred development ideas with northern-based management techniques has led to inadequate success in the field. Furthermore, the unequal power relations between the north and the south ultimately sabotage development success. HLS is a promising programming framework for development pratictioners. However, many of the past programming failures continue to impede HLS. Additionally, new programming failures are being created through the dissemination and implementation of HLS programming as it currently exists

An Indirect Cue of Predation Risk Counteracts Female Preference for Conspecifics in a Naturally Hybridizing Fish Xiphophorus birchmanni

Mate choice is context dependent, but the importance of current context to interspecific mating and hybridization is largely unexplored. An important influence on mate choice is predation risk. We investigated how variation in an indirect cue of predation risk, distance to shelter, influences mate choice in the swordtail Xiphophorus birchmanni, a species which sometimes hybridizes with X. malinche in the wild. We conducted mate choice experiments to determine whether females attend to the distance to shelter and whether this cue of predation risk can counteract female preference for conspecifics. Females were sensitive to shelter distance independent of male presence. When conspecific and heterospecific X. malinche males were in equally risky habitats (i.e., equally distant from shelter), females associated primarily with conspecifics, suggesting an innate preference for conspecifics. However, when heterospecific males were in less risky habitat (i.e., closer to shelter) than conspecific males, females no longer exhibited a preference, suggesting that females calibrate their mate choices in response to predation risk. Our findings illustrate the potential for hybridization to arise, not necessarily through reproductive “mistakes”, but as one of many potential outcomes of a context-dependent mate choice strategy

African Environmental Information Network: Improving Enforcement and Compliance Within Africa

AEIN is a multi-stake holder capacity building network dedicated to supporting sustainable development planning in Africa. AEIN is spearheaded by the United Nations Environment Program (“UNEP”) Regional Office for Africa and UNEP Division of Early Warning and Assessment (“UNEP-DEWA”), located in Nairobi, Kenya. UNEP-DEWA focuses on building capacity for early warning and environmental assessment, thereby ensuring that proper mechanisms are in place for sustainable development. The AEIN is intended to bolster Africa’s inadequate institutional capacity by addressing the following problems: the lack of harmonized efforts for environmental assessment and reporting; poor compliance and enforcement; and the lack of integrated environmental information into decision making and sustainable development processes

Investigation of the intensity and pattern of plasma movement in an inert gas discharge tube

In a multiple plasma beam system such as a plasma ball, random motions were observed. The mechanism behind the motion was of principle interest to our study. We hypothesized that convection was the predominant factor in the observed movement. Since convection is dependent on gravitational forces, we proposed that the role of convection in the movement of the plasma beams could be determined by careful observation in a reduced gravity environment such as that provided by the KC-135. The results from two flights aboard the NASA KC-135 suggest that buoyancy-driven convection plays an important role in the movement of plasma streamers in an inert gas discharge tube but it is not the sole cause of movement. The complex mechanism by which the plasma streamers move is due in part to electrostatic forces existing between individual streamers, which cause repulsion or attraction that could not be followed in this study. © 2003 by John A. Pojman. Published by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc., with permission