Informal Savings and Credit Institutions in the Urban Areas: The Case of Cooperative Credit Unions

Less developed countries are usually characterized by a dualistic financial system: the formal and informal credit system. One form of the latter is the Cooperative Credit Union (CCU), which at present finds shelter in the private and government offices as well as in public markets. Analysis presented in this paper points to the fact that the ten sample CCUs have performed well without government subsidies. Without regulation, they are more likely to introduce more innovations. However, to successfully develop a cooperative, a concerted effort should be developed among leaders.informal financial sectors, credit unions, credit program, credit market, savings

Mobilizing Science for Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security: Engaging the Southeast Asian Media

In the context of agriculture and food security, science innovations on mitigating and adapting to climate change are available, but these are not well shared with next users and end users (especially farmers) and the public due to inadequate coverage by the mainstream media, a powerful partner in communication and engagement. The urgent need for media practitioners to have an accurate, science-based understanding of climate change and enhance their skills on environmental reporting gave CCAFS-SEA the impetus to conduct a series of inter-Center media seminar-workshops for key Southeast Asian media practitioners in collaboration with NARS and national media partners. Overall, the media seminar-workshop series was participated in by 149 media professionals and 39 government information officers in SEA. The journalists came from print, broadcast (radio-TV) and web-based media outlets. This initiative was a critical first step in implementing CCAFS-SEA’s regional engagement and communication plan, pursued as a CGIAR inter-Center activity in collaboration with NARS and national media partners. The content of the two-day seminar-workshops focused on two major areas: science innovations in climate change, agriculture and food security and communicating climate change. Complementing the plenary sessions was a story ideas marketplace which primarily served as a venue for dialogue among participants and resource persons on possible stories to be developed and released in their respective media outlets. A half-day field tour exposed participants to climate change and agriculture R4D either by a CGIAR Center or a NARS partner and/or climate smart agriculture practices of a farming community. One of the outcomes of the SEA media workshop series in the Philippines is the forging of partnership with a private company, Metro-Pacific Investments Corporation (MPIC), which provided volunteer funding a proposal of the Philippine Agriculture Journalists, Inc. and the Department of Agriculture (DA) to replicate the initiative in strategic regions in the Philippines. This is an unprecedented public-private-civil society partnership in communicating climate change, agriculture and food security in the Philippines. With six media seminar-workshops completed in Cambodia, Lao PDR, Vietnam and the Philippines, the next step for CCAFS-SEA would be to move the engagement process further with partners in the region

An inconvenient truth about the banana industry in Asia

The deadly Fusarium wilt (Panama wilt) Tropical Race 4 (TR4) disease has long emerged in China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Taiwan, and the Philippines. But of late, aggressive spread has been reported specifically in the Philippines and China, two major Cavendish producers in the world.This was an alarming revelation during the consultation-workshop on the ”Socio-economic Impacts of Fusarium Wilt Disease of Cavendish Banana in the Asia-Pacific Region” that was organized by the Food and Fertilizer Technology Center (FFTC), Philippine Council for Agriculture, Aquatic and Natural Resources Research and Development (PCAARRD), and the Banana Asia Pacific Network (BAPNET)-Bioversity International

Electrophilicity of neutral square-planar organosilver(III) compounds

Neutral Ag(III) complexes stabilised with just monodentate ligands are here unambiguously established. In a series of square-planar (CF3)3Ag(L) compounds with hard and soft Group 15 donor ligands, L, the metal center has been found to exhibit substantial acidity favouring apical coordination of an additional ligand under no coordination constraints

Climate Smart Villages: Key Concepts

Understanding the impacts of climate change on agriculture, associated landscapes and natural resources in general is crucial if local development efforts are to be tailored towards addressing the impacts of climate change. Simplification of scientific concepts can help local planners at different level to introduce and then mainstream strategies that have factored in the impacts from climate chang

Cross-sectional study of prevalence and determinants of uncontrolled hypertension among South African adult residents of Mkhondo municipality

Background: Achieving the blood pressure treatment target in individuals with hypertension is a serious global health challenge. Furthermore, the actual burden of uncontrolled hypertension is poorly understood, especially in the developing countries. Therefore, this study comprehensively examined the prevalence and factors associated with uncontrolled hypertension in individuals receiving care at the primary healthcare facilities in the rural areas of Mkhondo Municipality in the Mpumalanga Province, South Africa. Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 329 individuals attending care for hypertension were recruited from January 2019 to June 2019 at three primary healthcare centres, namely, Piet Retief hospital, Mkhondo town clinic and Thandukukhanya community health centre. Uncontrolled hypertension was defined as systolic blood pressure ≥ 140 mmHg and/or diastolic blood pressure ≥ 90 mmHg in accordance with the South African Hypertension Society guideline (2014). Multiple logistic regression (Forward LR method) analysis was used to identify the significant determinants of uncontrolled hypertension. Results: The majority of the participants were 55 years old and above (69.0%), Zulus (81.2%), non-smokers (84.19%) and had been diagnosed with hypertension for more than a year prior to the study (72.64%). The overall prevalence of uncontrolled hypertension was 56.83% (n = 187) with no significant difference between sexes, 57.38% male versus 56.88% female, respectively. In the multiple logistic regression model analysis after adjusting for confounding variables, obesity (AOR = 2.90; 95% CI 1.66–5.05), physical activity (AOR = 4.79; 95% CI 2.15–10.65) and HDL-C (AOR = 5.66; 95% CI 3.33–9.60) were the significant and independent determinants of uncontrolled hypertension in the cohort. Conclusion: The high prevalence of uncontrolled hypertension in the study setting can be largely attributed to obesity, physical activity and dyslipidaemia. Treatment will require the collaborative efforts of individuals, clinicians and health authorities. All these determinants should be addressed decisively so as to achieve the treatment blood pressure targets in the study population

Cross-sectional study of prevalence and determinants of uncontrolled hypertension among South African adult residents of Mkhondo municipality

Background: Achieving the blood pressure treatment target in individuals with hypertension is a serious global health challenge. Furthermore, the actual burden of uncontrolled hypertension is poorly understood, especially in the developing countries. Therefore, this study comprehensively examined the prevalence and factors associated with uncontrolled hypertension in individuals receiving care at the primary healthcare facilities in the rural areas of Mkhondo Municipality in the Mpumalanga Province, South Africa. Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 329 individuals attending care for hypertension were recruited from January 2019 to June 2019 at three primary healthcare centres, namely, Piet Retief hospital, Mkhondo town clinic and Thandukukhanya community health centre. Uncontrolled hypertension was defined as systolic blood pressure ≥ 140 mmHg and/or diastolic blood pressure ≥ 90 mmHg in accordance with the South African Hypertension Society guideline (2014). Multiple logistic regression (Forward LR method) analysis was used to identify the significant determinants of uncontrolled hypertension. Results: The majority of the participants were 55 years old and above (69.0%), Zulus (81.2%), non-smokers (84.19%) and had been diagnosed with hypertension for more than a year prior to the study (72.64%). The overall prevalence of uncontrolled hypertension was 56.83% (n = 187) with no significant difference between sexes, 57.38% male versus 56.88% female, respectively. In the multiple logistic regression model analysis after adjusting for confounding variables, obesity (AOR = 2.90; 95% CI 1.66–5.05), physical activity (AOR = 4.79; 95% CI 2.15–10.65) and HDL-C (AOR = 5.66; 95% CI 3.33–9.60) were the significant and independent determinants of uncontrolled hypertension in the cohort. Conclusion: The high prevalence of uncontrolled hypertension in the study setting can be largely attributed to obesity, physical activity and dyslipidaemia. Treatment will require the collaborative efforts of individuals, clinicians and health authorities. All these determinants should be addressed decisively so as to achieve the treatment blood pressure targets in the study population

FCGR polymorphisms in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis with Fc-containing TNF inhibitors

[EN] Objectives: Reproducible association of a functional polymorphism in FCGR2A with response to a TNF inhibitor (TNFi) in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) led us to explore other Fc?R functional polymorphisms. Methods: Functional polymorphisms FCGR3A F158V, FCGR2B I223T and promoter VNTR in FCGRT were analyzed in up to 429 patients with RA. Response to TNFi was recorded during standard care at 3, 6 and 12 months of follow-up. Fixed effects meta-analysis of studies addressing FCGR3A F158V polymorphism, which is the most studied of these polymorphisms, was conducted with inverse variance weighting. Results: None of the functional polymorphisms were associated with change in DAS28. Meta-analysis of the seven studies (899 patients) with available data addressing association of FCGR3A F158V with response to TNFi in RA showed no association (OR: 1.11, 95% CI: 0.8-1.5; p = 0.5). Conclusion: None of the three functional polymorphisms in Fc?R genes showed association with response to TNFi in patients with RA. These negative results were obtained in spite of the larger size of this study relative to previous studies addressing the same polymorphisms. In addition, meta-analysis of FCGR3A F158V was also negative against the results provided by previous studies