The relationship of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) to sexual-risk behavior among refugee women in Botswana: The mediating role of depression

THE RELATIONSHIP OF SEXUAL AND GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE (SGBV) TO SEXUAL RISK BEHAVIORS AMONG REFUGEE WOMEN IN BOTSWANA: THE MEDIATING ROLE OF DEPRESSIONJohannes John-Langba, Ph.D., M.P.H.University of Pittsburgh, 2004This study investigated the relationships of SGBV, learned helplessness, depression, and sexual-risk behaviors among refugee women in Botswana. It was guided by the reformulated theory of learned helplessness. A cross-sectional research design that was primarily quantitative was utilized to examine the relationship between SGBV and sexual-risk behavior in refugee situations and how depression and learned helplessness affect this relationship. A total of 402 female refugees who were at least 21 years old residing at the Dukwi refugee camp participated in this investigation.This study found that about 75% of participants had experienced some form of SGBV either in their home country, during flight/transit, or in the host country. More than half (56.4%) had experienced SGBV in their home countries, 39.3% reported experiencing SGBV during flight/transit, and about 37% of the participants reported having experienced SGBV while in Botswana.Simultaneous multiple regression analysis showed that overall past SGBV predicts current sexual-risk behavior among refugee women (F = 2.018; p < .011). However, when the standardized regression coefficients of the individual independent variables were examined, only past sexual violence was found to contribute significantly to the prediction of sexual-risk behavior (Beta = .461; p< .024).accounting for 15% of the variance with sexual-risk behavior. Although, the hypothesized mediating roles of learned helplessness and depression on the relationship between past SGBV and current sexual-risk behavior were not supported in this study, more than half of the participants (55%) experienced learned helplessness and about 90% were depressed. The findings of this study provide social work and public health practitioners who are faced with the multi-faceted task of program design and implementation in refugee situations with some vital indicators of the psycho-social and reproductive health needs of refugee women in a camp setting. It also underscores the need to adapt prevention and response measures to suit the different circumstances of the various phases of forced migration

ESS versus NVZ – The Cost-Effectiveness of Command-and-Control versus Agreement Based Policy Instruments

This study empirically investigates the cost-effectiveness of different agri-environmental policy instruments. We compare the Environment Stewardship Scheme (ESS) as an example for a management agreement type instrument, to the Nitrate Vulnerable Zones (NVZ) as an example for a command-and-control type instrument. Both instruments are currently applied in the UK. Based on a simple cost model considering also relevant transaction costs and risk we use different regression and resampling techniques to estimate the marginal effects of different factors with respect to the instruments‟ relative cost-effectiveness and to identify factors for cost variation over space and time. We control for the actual level of compliance by using compliance weighted average scheme cost ratios. The findings suggest that the ESS instrument has a higher cost-effectiveness whereas the NVZ instrument is more expensive on a general level. However, if the focus is on compliance weighted cost ratios, the picture changes somewhat. Further, we find a significant regional variation in the cost-effectiveness for both instruments as well as a significant variation over time.Agri-Environmental Instruments, Costs, Risk, Risk and Uncertainty,

Fractionalization and Lon-Run Economic Growth: Webs and Direction of Association between the Economic and the Social - South Africa as a Time Series Case Study

Recent cross sectional growth studies have found that ethnolinguistic fractionalization is an important explanatory variable of long-run growth performance. In the present paper we follow the call of earlier studies to conduct a more detailed clinical analysis of the growth experience of a specific country. South Africa constitutes an interesting case in which to explore these questions. The results of this study provide important nuance to the existing body of evidence. We find that fractionalization is subject to strong change over time. In addition, we find strong evidence of webs of association between the various social, political and institutional dimensions. Thus various forms of social cleavage tend to go hand in hand which presents the danger of spurious inference of association. Further, the direction of association in the preponderance of cases runs from economic to social, political and institutional variables, rather than the other way around. However, there remain significant impacts from some, but only some fractionalization indexes on economic growth. Which social cleavage, when, how and for what period of time will depend on the historical path of specific societies.

Does Human Generate Social and Institutional Capital? Exploring Evidence from Time Series Data in a Middle Income Country

This paper presents an analysis of the interaction of human capital investment and the development of social and political institutions. We find that human capital matters - for growth through its quality dimension; for distributional conflict by raising political aspirations. But human capital does not stand alone either. The level of economic development (output) matters, distributional (instability) conflict as well as the rights dispensation can come to influence human capital investment decisions in their own right. Social, human capital, political as well as economic dimensions are densely interwoven in webs of association.Human capital investment, fractionalization, social and political dimensions of economic growth, South Africa

The Political Economy of Institutions, Stability and Investment: a simultaneous equation approach in an emerging economy – the case of South Africa

The modern theory of investment identities the importance of uncertainty to investment. A number of empirical studies have tested the theory on South African time series, employing political instability measures as proxies for uncertainty. This paper verifies that political instability measures are required in the formulation of the investment function for South Africa. It also establishes that there are distinct institutional factors that influence the uncertainty variable such as property rights and crime levels. We find that rising income and property rights lower political instability, and that rising crime levels are positively related to political instability. The inference is that political instability in South Africa may not represent uncertainty directly, since it is systematically related to a set of determinants. Instead, uncertainty would have to be understood as being related to a broader institutional nexus that in concert may generate uncertainty for investors.

Three-dimensional Self-similar Fractal Light in Canonical Resonators

Unstable canonical resonators can possess eigenmodes with a fractal intensity structure [Karman et al., Nature 402, 138(1999)]. In one particular transverse plane, the intensity is not merely statistically fractal, but self-similar [Courtial and Padgett, PRL 85, 5320 (2000)]. This can be explained using a combination of diffraction and imaging with magnification greater than one. Here we show that the same mechanism also shapes the intensity cross-section in the longitudinal direction into a self-similar fractal, but with a different magnification. This results in three-dimensional, self-similar, fractal intensity structure in the eigenmodes