98 research outputs found
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Report on the situation of human rights in Rwanda submitted by Mr. René Degni-Ségui, special rapporteur of the commission on human rights, under paragraph 20 of resolution S-3/1 of 25 May 1994
Document collected by the University of Texas Libraries from the web-site of the Reseau Documentaire International Sur La Region Des Grands Lacs Africains (International Documentation Network on the Great African Lakes Region). The Reseau distributes "gray literature", non-published or limited distribution government or NGO documents regarding the Great Lakes area of central Africa including Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.UT Librarie
Tackling Women's Vulnerabilities through Integrating a Gender Perspective into Disaster Risk Reduction in the Built Environment
The majority of human and direct economic losses from natural hazards occur as a result of
damage to the built environment due to the vital role that the built environment performs in serving human endeavours. One of the key reasons for people in developing countries to be more
vulnerable to natural disasters than their wealthier counterparts is the limited capacities in their construction industries. Among the people in developing countries, women are evidently even more vulnerable to natural disasters. Due to higher disaster vulnerability of women, recognising the different roles, capacities, vulnerabilities and needs of women, and considering them in disaster risk reduction in the built environment is significant to reduce women’s disaster vulnerabilities. Gender mainstreaming as a way of bringing a gender perspective into disaster risk reduction can be applied
to recognise the varying needs and capacities of women, and integrate them into disaster risk
reduction in the built environment. The paper in this context aims to demonstrate how gender
mainstreaming helps to bring a women’s perspective into disaster risk reduction in the built
environment. It identifies two main steps which involve in the process, identification of women’s
DRR knowledge and needs, and integration of the identified DRR knowledge and needs into DRR
in the built environment. The paper provides an account of the process that the study established to incorporate a gender perspective into disaster risk reduction in the built environment based on a
case study conducted in Sri Lanka. It further discusses how the social, economic, political and
environmental context influences the process of gender mainstreaming in disaster risk reduction in
the built environmen
Global public policy: Does the new venue for transnational tobacco control challenge the old way of doing things?
The World Health Organization has fostered a new global public policy-the Framework Convention for Tobacco Control (FCTC). Until the 1980s, tobacco control was the sole preserve of states. Now, most countries accept the transnational nature of policy. We explain this shift by identifying mutually reinforcing changes in key policy process elements: transnational actors became a source of policy learning; an international venue ‘institutionalized' new policies; networks began to include tobacco control groups and exclude tobacco companies; socioeconomic shifts undermined public support, and the economic case, for tobacco; and the dissemination of scientific evidence helped actors reframe the image of tobacco, from an economic good to a health crisis. These elements combined to produce an environment conducive to ‘comprehensive' tobacco control. Yet the implementation of the FCTC has been slow and uneven, reflecting the continued importance of domestic policy environments, most of which are not conducive to major policy change
Motivation and incentives of rural maternal and neonatal health care providers: a comparison of qualitative findings from Burkina Faso, Ghana and Tanzania.
In Burkina Faso, Ghana and Tanzania strong efforts are being made to improve the quality of maternal and neonatal health (MNH) care. However, progress is impeded by challenges, especially in the area of human resources. All three countries are striving not only to scale up the number of available health staff, but also to improve performance by raising skill levels and enhancing provider motivation. In-depth interviews were used to explore MNH provider views about motivation and incentives at primary care level in rural Burkina Faso, Ghana and Tanzania. Interviews were held with 25 MNH providers, 8 facility and district managers, and 2 policy-makers in each country. Across the three countries some differences were found in the reasons why people became health workers. Commitment to remaining a health worker was generally high. The readiness to remain at a rural facility was far less, although in all settings there were some providers that were willing to stay. In Burkina Faso it appeared to be particularly difficult to recruit female MNH providers to rural areas. There were indications that MNH providers in all the settings sometimes failed to treat their patients well. This was shown to be interlinked with differences in how the term 'motivation' was understood, and in the views held about remuneration and the status of rural health work. Job satisfaction was shown to be quite high, and was particularly linked to community appreciation. With some important exceptions, there was a strong level of agreement regarding the financial and non-financial incentives that were suggested by these providers, but there were clear country preferences as to whether incentives should be for individuals or teams. Understandings of the terms and concepts pertaining to motivation differed between the three countries. The findings from Burkina Faso underline the importance of gender-sensitive health workforce planning. The training that all levels of MNH providers receive in professional ethics, and the way this is reinforced in practice require closer attention. The differences in the findings across the three settings underscore the importance of in-depth country-level research to tailor the development of incentives schemes
Grassroots Agency: Participation and Conflict in Buenos Aires Shantytowns seen through the Pilot Plan for Villa 7 (1971–1975)
open access articleIn 1971, after more than a decade of national and municipal policies aimed at the top-down removal of shantytowns, the Buenos Aires City Council approved the Plan Piloto para la Relocalización de Villa 7 (Pilot Plan for the Relocation of Shantytown 7; 1971–1975, referred to as the Pilot Plan hereinafter). This particular plan, which resulted in the construction of the housing complex, Barrio Justo Suárez, endures in the collective memory of Argentines as a landmark project regarding grassroots participation in state housing initiatives addressed at shantytowns. Emerging from a context of a housing shortage for the growing urban poor and intense popular mobilizations during the transition to democracy, the authors of the Pilot Plan sought to empower shantytown residents in novel ways by: 1) maintaining the shantytown’s location as opposed to eradication schemes that relocated the residents elsewhere, 2) formally employing some of the residents for the stage of construction, as opposed to “self-help” housing projects in which the residents contributed with unpaid labor, and 3) including them in the urban and architectural design of the of the new housing.
This paper will examine the context in which the Pilot Plan was conceived of as a way of re-assessing the roles of the state, the user, and housing-related professionals, often seen as antagonistic. The paper argues that residents’ fair participation and state intervention in housing schemes are not necessarily incompatible, and can function in specific social and political contexts through multiactor proposals backed by a political will that prioritizes grassroots agency
Water quality and its interlinkages with the Sustainable Development Goals
Interlinkages among the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) lead to important trade-offs and synergies among the goals and their underlying targets. The aim of this paper is to review the role of water quality as an agent of interlinkages among the SDGs. It was found that there are a small number of explicit interconnections, but many more inferred interlinkages between water quality and various targets. A review of case studies showed that interlinkages operate from the municipal to near global scales, that their importance is likely to increase in developing countries, and that new SDG indicators are needed to monitor them. The analysis identifies many different SDG target areas where a combined effort between the water quality community and other sectors would bring mutual benefits in achieving the water quality and other targets
Indigenous Peoples’ food systems, nutrition and gender:Conceptual and methodological considerations
Limiting global warming to 2 °C: What do the latest mitigation studies tell us about costs, technologies and other impacts?
Monitoring socio-environmental change for sustainable development: Developing a Multidimensional Livelihoods Index (MLI)
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