Is more investment needed in Solar & Biogas Energy Sources in Rwanda?

The Rwanda Third National Communication Under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change mentions that Green House Gas (GHG) emissions per capita increased from 532.39kg (2006) to 676.23kg (2015) with an annual increase of 2.46%. As of 2015, the dominant emissions are from agriculture (70.4%) followed by energy (20.11%). Urea application in agriculture have increased from 1,246,400 to 2,559,000 tons of CO2 eq. Charcoal or wood being the primary source for cooking; emissions from domestic energy use has increased from 626,800 to 741,400 tons of CO2 eq. If such trends continue severe health issues, deforestation, soil erosion and droughts will be the heavy price Rwanda will have to pay. However, an investment in solar and biogas energy sources can be a solution in mitigating the afore-mentioned problems. In the developing world, Texas, USA is ranked by the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) as the seventh in USA for cumulative solar capacity as of 2017. SEIA reports that Texas has 532 solar companies including 100 manufacturers. Additionally, around 210,000 Texas homes use solar power due to improved business models, distribution channels, service provider networks and low costs. Moreover, customers of solar systems can claim a 30% tax credit due to a federal government investment tax. The cost of solar is estimated at an average of $0.12/Kwh or 110RWF/Kwh while costs range from 89 – 189 RWF/Kwh (for residential customers) and from 189 – 192 RWF/Kwh (for non-residential customers) in Rwanda. According to Clean Energy Wire, Germany has 8,900 biogas power stations and 183 biomethane plants as of 2015. The biomethane plants feed pure methane into natural gas network to be used as a cooking fuel. The biogas technology also provides a liquid fertilizer which can directly be applied to agricultural fields or home gardens. Biogas power stations and biomethane plants have helped Germany avoid 156.1 million tons of CO2 eq. in 2015. However, Germany deploys heavy investments (e.g.: 15 billion euros in 2015) in renewable energy systems including biogas power stations and biomethane plants. In Rwanda, the National Domestic Biogas Programme (NDBP) has made tremendous efforts in disseminating biogas plants to interested citizens since 2009. To this day, some biogas plants are still operational and others are not due to construction flaws, lack of feedstocks and skilled labor to operate the biogas plants. The failure of some biogas systems doesn’t imply that the biogas technology is not feasible in Rwanda but better policies and better technologies are needed to improve this sector. According to Amy Yee, New York Times Journalist, the cost of biogas plants ($450 to $900) are significantly high for poor families in Rwanda with an average income of$70/month. However, the government of Rwanda is providing great incentives for all parties investing in renewable energies. As of 2019, the government has exempted import taxes of 23% and 18% value added tax paid by customers for all renewable energies. Therefore, it is safe to say that investments in renewable energies such as biogas and solar is worth it. Solar and biogas energy resources have the potential of creating jobs and providing a means of fighting deforestation, soil erosion, droughts and severe health issues. As Rwanda strives to be one of the most pristine places in the worldwide, an investment in solar and biogas is worthwhile

“E-Commerce Institutionalization is not for us”: SMEs perception of E-Commerce in Tanzania

E-Commerce in least developing countries (LDCs) is believed to be non-existent because few businesses, especially Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) who are usually the vanguard of the LDCs economy, have adopted E-Commerce and even those that have, none have institutionalized the technology. Using structuration theory as a lens, this study attempts to provide an explanation as to what E-Commerce means to SMEs with the purpose of unraveling the underlying cause for the lack of E-Commerce institutionalization in LDC - Tanzania. Results indicate that SMEs use their social context to create symbolic interpretive schemes that facilitate their shared understanding of E-Commerce. This understanding was significantly influenced by social structures and resulted into new practices of doing business. They view E-Commerce as merely having a static web presence and the significant use of the mobile device. That is, E-Commerce did not necessary translate to the buying and selling of products online using their website. Websites were purely used for information purposes. They were unimpressed by the perceived benefits of institutionalizing E-Commerce because in their view, their new practices of using mobile communication and mobile payment systems mitigated against the need for institutionalization. This hybrid view of e-commerce being a mix of static website and mobile payment transactional capability is a unique perspective, which arises out of the LDC context

The Impact of ICTs Diffusion on MDGs and Baroclinic Digital Learning Environments in East and Southern Africa

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) impact all the MDGs, especially in eradicating extreme poverty and hunger. The correlation between ICTs and high economic growth and education has not been well researched in most African countries. A learner is often inundated with massive volumes and different kinds of knowledge to learn from, i.e. learning vortices that are chaotic. Chaos theory is the qualitative study of unstable, aperiodic behaviour in deterministic, non-linear, dynamical systems, and from which the behaviour of the system is understood by reconstructing its attractor and gaining qualitative insight. The Zimbabwe Open University (ZOU) online platform has digital learning objects that increase opportunities for teaching and learning, supports ubiquitous learning and provides intuitive ways for identifying learning collaborators, learning contents and learning services in the right place at the right time. The specific objectives of the research are:(a) To assess the impact of ICTs on MDGs(b) To ascertain the ICT impact on economic growth, innovations and education in East and Southern Africa(c) To explore the emerging trends in E-learning from ICTs for development(d) To apply Chaos Theory to design a digital learning environment with fully functional interactive e-learning facilities at Zimbabwe Open University.(e) To recommend a development model or a framework for economic growth for these African countries.The methodology used was largely qualitative on technology capacity needs assessment that covered 6 countries, and also quantitative on GDP and Infodensity covering 18 countries in East and Southern Africa.GDP and Infodensity data was collected for 18 African countries to ascertain the link between ICTs diffusion and GDP density per country. The case study for the establishment of the ZOU Online platform is presented and discussed to show the baroclinic and birfucation nature of the chaotic system, in order to design a completely functional digital learning environment. The mean for the 18 East and Southern African countries with respect to main telephone density is 3.8%, mobile subscribers is 27.87%, and internet use is at 4.87%. Capacity needs assessment included both the human capital development and social capital aspects in order to achieve sustainable information and communication technology capacity development. Human capital development is central to capacity needs. There is a strong correlation between ICT diffusion and high economic growth, evidenced by high mobile density. The mobile phone has become a good measure of wealth for an average African, and can be used in education. The solution to poverty and under-development in these African countries is, therefore, knowledge and economic empowerment. The recommended sustainable technology development with an African model is proposed. Chaos Theory offers tremendous opportunities for handling the complexity associated with the design of a fully interactive e-learning environment available online. The paper proved the correlation and potential application of Chaos Theory to the design model for digital learning environments. In the ZOU Online learning environment, it was established that learning objects can increase course interactivity, give students additional opportunities to interact with a variety of learning content, provide opportunitiesf or active learning, enrichment, and remediation, and offer practice with the content which students need to master

Introducing an agricultural land capability framework for land reform beneficiaries

This study incorporated remote sensing, geographic information system (GIS), and   geostatistics to assess land capability in two sites acquired through land reform   program. The relationships and interactions between components and parameters that are necessary for analysing the capability of agricultural land were investigated for an effective management system. The parameters taken into consideration were   biophysical environment (soil texture, organic matter content, soil depth etc.), socio-economic and policy. The primary data included climatic data and soil samples obtained at 1 m depth; the secondary data included satellite imagery, topographic map, and  agricultural statistics. The resulting land capability maps showed that the study areas have moderate to very high capability for summer crops. It is concluded that in order for land reform to contribute to sustainable livelihoods for land reform beneficiaries,   agricultural land capability study should be integrated in land reform policy before issuing land to land reform beneficiaries.Keywords: land reform, land capability, remote sensing, GI

Costs of hospitalisation for severe illness in HIV-1 exposed infants in Uganda: A prospective incidence-based cost of illness study

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Role Played by Imported Constitutions in Promoting Intra Conflicts in Africa

This paper provides an overview of role played by imported constitutions in promoting intra conflicts in Africa. The paper is grounded on the assumption that African people had their way of leadership where by most of the inhabitants of the land where royal too and would have been the keystone to democratic transition in case of it being evoked than implementation of the imported constitutions that spark off conflict to a great extent due to lack of ownership of these constitutions by the ruled. Paper will highlight the evolution of conflicts, its form and nature in Africa, and also illustrate the presumed causes to these conflicts in Africa by clearly showing a distinction between constitution and constitutionalism practices in the African context. Furthermore the paper will practically illustrate the case study of the Uganda’s constitution of 1995 that clearly demonstrate how incompatible the constitutions are vis-à-vis the expected cultural norm of the inhabitants in the area, then conclusive remark as the conclusion stating way forward as derived from the general discussion in the paper

On Cultivating African Architecture for the Africa We Need

 Africa’s age-old architectural knowledge is replete with diverse designtechniques that satisfy not only aesthetic but also functional purposes.Nevertheless, as is normally the case with many African creativeendeavors, this knowledge is not fully harvested. Yet from the COVID-19pandemic, which demands rethinking of how space is used, to climatechange, which questions how structures are designed and made, the needto consider how African architecture can shape the Africa we need, not tomention its contribution to global architecture, is pressing

Evaluating a South African mobile application for healthcare professionals to improve diagnosis and notification of pesticide poisonings

Acute pesticide poisoning (APP) is a major global public health problem, particularly in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) including South Africa. However, healthcare professionals (HCPs) worldwide have limited training in handling environmental health risks such as from pesticide exposures. Most HCPs lack basic training on APP and, this presents a challenge to HCPs when diagnosing and notifying pesticide-related poisonings. With a recent increase in mobile application technology, this gives a convenient platform to provide training support for HCPs in their clinical practice. An example is the integration of a South African pesticide notification guideline into an existing Emergency Medicine (EM) mobile application. This pesticide notification guideline (PNG) within the EM mobile application aims to provide an immediate point-of-care tool to help HCPs in diagnosis and notify pesticide poisoning cases. Despite this useful platform for training HCPs, there are limited studies that have evaluated mobile applications or technologies to promote HCPs training in LMICs. This study, therefore, aimed to evaluate the Centre for Environmental and Occupational Health Research (CEOHR)'s PGN adapted for the EM mobile application as a tool for improving HCP's ability to diagnose and report APPs. The protocol (Part A) provides information and a justification for the research study and, describes the methods used to gather and analyse the data. The extended literature review (Part B) provides an overview of studies assessing HCPs' knowledge of and training in pesticide poisonings and the role mobile health technologies play in improving HCPs' knowledge and training in clinical practice. Furthermore, the literature review illustrates the relevant theoretical frameworks and concepts that helps to understand HCPs' behaviour changes when using clinical guidelines or algorithms. The journal manuscript article (Part C) provides this study's research findings and how it could contribute to the body of knowledge. A total of 50 emergency medicine physicians and registrars participated in th