Agriculture and Social Protection in Ethiopia

Agriculture and social protection in Ethiopia are inextricably interconnected. Smallholder farming is the dominant livelihood activity for the majority of Ethiopians, but it is also the major source of vulnerability to poverty, food insecurity and their often fatal consequences– chronic malnutrition, premature mortality, recurrent famines. Ethiopian farmers have been the recipients of enormous volumes of food aid and other humanitarian assistance over recent decades, to such an extent that emergency relief has become institutionalised within government structures and donor agency country programmes.DfI

Building synergies between social protection and smallholder agricultural policies

The paper explores how social protection and agricultural policies interact, creating either synergies or conflicts between them. To the extent that social protection measures help poor rural people expand their assets, use them more efficiently and adopt higher return activities, there should be strong synergies with agricultural development. Reverse synergies can also arise, if agricultural policies help farmers improve their livelihoods and reduce their vulnerability. But conflicts can occur if policy objectives are inconsistent with each other, and these are also examined in this paper. We draw on numerous examples from the across the globe, but with specific emphasis from the African continent to highlight issues including, liquidity constraints, scale and threshold effects, timing, seasonality and policy complementarities. In conclusion we consider lessons for how the agricultural policies and social protection instruments can be designed and implemented to exploit welfare and growth synergies.DfI

Agriculture and Social Protection in Malawi

This paper reviews social protection and agriculture policies in Malawi in order to explore the links, synergies and conflicts that lie between them. It begins with brief background information about Malawi, in terms of its economic and welfare indicators. Particular emphasis is placed on understanding agricultural and social protection policies within thecontext of: (a) Political issues and (b) Market and livelihood development This is followed with a review of agricultural and social protection policies, their interactions and their impacts on livelihoods and welfare. Specific attention is given to evolving input subsidy policies which are of particular relevance to this review. We conclude with a discussion of lessons that can be learned from the Malawian experience with agriculture and social protection.DfI

Workshop on Strategies for Calibration and Validation of Global Change Measurements

The Committee on Environment and Natural Resources (CENR) Task Force on Observations and Data Management hosted a Global Change Calibration/Validation Workshop on May 10-12, 1995, in Arlington, Virginia. This Workshop was convened by Robert Schiffer of NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C., for the CENR Secretariat with a view toward assessing and documenting lessons learned in the calibration and validation of large-scale, long-term data sets in land, ocean, and atmospheric research programs. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)/Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) hosted the meeting on behalf of the Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS)/Working Group on Calibration/walidation, the Global Change Observing System (GCOS), and the U. S. CENR. A meeting of experts from the international scientific community was brought together to develop recommendations for calibration and validation of global change data sets taken from instrument series and across generations of instruments and technologies. Forty-nine scientists from nine countries participated. The U. S., Canada, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Japan, Switzerland, Russia, and Kenya were represented

Slithering Down the Plank of Intellectualism? The Canadian Conference of Christian Educators and the Impulse towards Accreditation among Canadian Bible Schools during the 1960s

The scholarly analysis of accreditation among Bible schools and colleges remains a significant historiographical lacuna. This article examines the emerging impulse towards accreditation within the Bible school movement in western Canada during the turbulent 1960s, a critical decade in the development of evangelical theological education in Canada. The central focus is the origin, activities, and influence of a conference known as the Canadian Conference of Christian Educators (CCCE), an annual gathering of evangelical educators that began meeting in 1960. The prominent presence of personnel from the newly formed Accrediting Association of Bible Colleges (AABC), who were keenly interested in extending their organization into a region with the largest concentration of Bible schools in the world, raised expectations among Canadian evangelical educators about the possibility of a new level of respectability and recognition for their schools among public universities in Canada. Bible college educators in Canada soon discovered that AABC accreditation did not mean the same thing within the post-secondary educational landscape of Canada as it did in the United States. This resulted in an ambivalent relationship between AABC and the emerging Bible colleges in Canada, and prompted some Canadian leaders to investigate other avenues towards academic recognition. Illustrating the polarized response towards accreditation within the Bible school/college movement are two brief institutional studies of Mennonite Brethren Bible College in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and Prairie Bible Institute in Three Hills, Alberta. The differences reflect the variegated character of an evolving evangelicalism in western Canada. By the end of the 1960s, the significant American influence within the CCCE had been displaced by Canadian initiative and leadership, thus signalling the beginning of a new chapter in evangelical higher education in Canada.L'analyse académique de l'accréditation parmi les écoles et collèges bibliques demeure une lacune historiographique significative. Cet article examine la poussée émergeante vers l'accréditation au sein du mouvement des écoles bibliques dans l'ouest du Canada durant les turbulentes années '60, une décennie critique dans le développement de l'éducation évangélique au Canada. Le principal point d'analyse est l'origine, les activités et l'influence d'un groupement connu sous le nom de « Canadian Conference of Christian Educators » (CCCE), une association d=éducateurs évangéliques qui ont débuté leur rencontres annuelles en 1960. La présence proéminente de personnel provenant de l' « Accrediting Association of Bible Colleges » (AABC) une association toute nouvellement formée et vivement intéressée à étendre leur organisation dans une région où se retrouvait la plus grande concentration d'écoles bibliques dans le monde, a fait naître des attentes parmi les éducateurs évangéliques canadiens au sujet de la possibilité d'un nouveau niveau de respectabilité et de reconnaissance pour leurs écoles parmi les universités du Canada. Les éducateurs des collèges bibliques du Canada ont rapidement découvert que l'accréditation de l'AABC pour le territoire canadien de l'éducationnel post-secondaire ne représentait pas la même chose au Canada que ce qui était fait aux Etats-Unis. Ceci a produit une relation ambivalente entre l'AABC et les collèges bibliques qui émergeaient au Canada, et a poussé quelques leaders canadiens à investiguer d'autres avenues pour l'accréditation académique. Une brève étude de deux institutions, le « Mennonite Brethren Bible College » au Manitoba, et le « Prairie Bible Institute » à Three Hills en Alberta, illustre la réponse polarisée à l'accréditation parmi le mouvement des écoles/collèges bibliques. Les différences reflètent le caractère varié d'un mouvement évangélique en évolution dans l'ouest du Canada. A la fin des années '60, l'influence américaine significative au sein du CCCE a été supplantée par l'initiative et le leadership canadiens, signalant ainsi le début d'un nouveau chapitre dans l'éducation évangélique au Canada

“There Are No Banks Here” Financial & Insurance Exclusion in Winnipeg’s North End

Financial exclusion is a matter of growing concern in Canada considering the decline in the number of mainstream bank branches in some inner-cities and the concurrent rise in the number of fringe banks. This study reports on results from a survey of residents from Winnipeg’s North End, a low-income area of the city. The study seeks to understand resident’s experiences with financial and insurance services: which ones they use, which ones are important to them and how accessible the services are. As a follow-up to research completed in 2002-2003 in the North End this survey asked questions about a greater number of services (banks, fringe banks, informal financial services and insurance services and financial support services) in a semi-random fashion to a broader range of respondents (low- and middle-income)

SeaWiFS calibration and validation plan, volume 3

The Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor (SeaWiFS) will be the first ocean-color satellite since the Nimbus-7 Coastal Zone Color Scanner (CZCS), which ceased operation in 1986. Unlike the CZCS, which was designed as a proof-of-concept experiment, SeaWiFS will provide routine global coverage every 2 days and is designed to provide estimates of photosynthetic concentrations of sufficient accuracy for use in quantitative studies of the ocean's primary productivity and biogeochemistry. A review of the CZCS mission is included that describes that data set's limitations and provides justification for a comprehensive SeaWiFS calibration and validation program. To accomplish the SeaWiFS scientific objectives, the sensor's calibration must be constantly monitored, and robust atmospheric corrections and bio-optical algorithms must be developed. The plan incorporates a multi-faceted approach to sensor calibration using a combination of vicarious (based on in situ observations) and onboard calibration techniques. Because of budget constraints and the limited availability of ship resources, the development of the operational algorithms (atmospheric and bio-optical) will rely heavily on collaborations with the Earth Observing System (EOS), the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MODIS) oceans team, and projects sponsored by other agencies, e.g., the U.S. Navy and the National Science Foundation (NSF). Other elements of the plan include the routine quality control of input ancillary data (e.g., surface wind, surface pressure, ozone concentration, etc.) used in the processing and verification of the level-0 (raw) data to level-1 (calibrated radiances), level-2 (derived products), and level-3 (gridded and averaged derived data) products

MODIS Radiometric Calibration Program, Methods and Results

As a key instrument for NASA s Earth Observing System (EOS), the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) has made significant contributions to the remote sensing community with its unprecedented amount of data products continuously generated from its observations and freely distributed to users worldwide. MODIS observations, covering spectral regions from visible (VIS) to long-wave infrared (LWIR), have enabled a broad range of research activities and applications for studies of the earth s interactive system of land, oceans, and atmosphere. In addition to extensive pre-launch measurements, developed to characterize sensor performance, MODIS carries a set of on-board calibrators (OBC) that can be used to track on-orbit changes of various sensor characteristics. Most importantly, dedicated and continuous calibration efforts have been made to maintain sensor data quality. This paper provides an overview of the MODIS calibration program, on-orbit calibration activities, methods, and performance. Key calibration results and lessons learned from the MODIS calibration effort are also presented in this paper

Multiyear On-orbit Calibration and Performance of Terra MODIS Thermal Emissive Bands

Since launch in December 1999, Terra MODIS has been making continuous Earth observations for more than seven years. It has produced a broad range of land, ocean, and atmospheric science data products for improvements in studies of global climate and environmental change. Among its 36 spectral bands, there are 20 reflective solar bands (RSB) and 16 thermal emissive bands (TEB). MODIS thermal emissive bands cover the mid-wave infrared (MWIR) and long-wave infrared (LWIR) spectral regions with wavelengths from 3.7 to 14.4pm. They are calibrated on-orbit using an on-board blackbody (BB) with its temperature measured by a set of thermistors on a scan-by-scan basis. This paper will provide a brief overview of MODIS TEB calibration and characterization methodologies and illustrate on-board BB functions and TEB performance over more than seven years of on-orbit operation and calibration. Discussions will be focused on TEB detector short-term stability and noise characterization, and changes in long-term response (or system gain). Results show that Terra MODIS BB operation has been extremely stable since launch. When operated at its nominal controlled temperature of 290K, the BB temperature variation is typically less than +0.30mK on a scan-by-scan basis and there has been no time-dependent temperature drift. In addition to excellent short-term stability, most TEB detectors continue to meet or exceed their specified noise characterization requirements, thus enabling calibration accuracy and science data product quality to be maintained. Excluding the noisy detectors identified pre-launch and those that occurred post-launch, the changes in TEB responses have been less than 0.7% on an annual basis. The optical leak corrections applied to bands 32-36 have been effective and stable over the entire missio