Examining Poverty from Ethnicity, Local Governance and Socio-Cultural Value System Perspective: Issues of Entitlement, Endowment, Vulnerability, and Empowerment

The high level of poverty, as a development challenge, in emerging countries has attracted global attention. The situation led to formulation of the Millennium Development Goals (2000-2015) as well as Sustainable Development Goals (2015-2030), by United Nations, for addressing the challenge. However, the slow progress made in achieving the global millennium development goals, in developing countries has become a source of concern and thereby raising several questions that call for critical reexamination of poverty and the common strategies that have been designed to address it in developing countries.It is an undeniable fact that much resources have been spent on implementation of the global policies for addressing poverty. Again, several researches have been conducted on the subject have come out with some results which have informed policy design in addressing the challenge. However, it has been realized that many researches have concentrated on economic or monetary parameters in analysing poverty to the neglect of socio cultural parameters which are equally relevant in this context. This has led to imbalance in development paradigms for addressing poverty.Since poverty is usually measured mainly with reference to economic indicators such as income, production, total output and unemployment levels just to mention a few, positive changes in those variables are considered as a success story in addressing poverty. However,sustainability of those achievements has become a mirage in the attempt to address poverty in many developing countries.This research was undertaken as an exploratory one with the view to examining some non- economic factors that influence poverty in emerging countries but are usually played down or overlooked in examining the challenge. Among the basic research questions are: Could ethnicity and traditional governance influence negatively the welfare of some citizenry? How do cultural norms contribute to impoverishment in communities? To what extent do national policies for poverty reduction, in recent years capture noneconomic parameters which influence poverty in society? In terms of objectives, the study was designed, to assess influence oflocal governance system on poverty in communities; to review influence of traditional norms on promoting poverty and to examine the effectiveness of some national policies and strategies for poverty reduction.The outcome from the research has brought to the fore the need to address some negative institutional, cultural and attitudinal issues, in policies and strategies designed for poverty reduction in emerging countries. The point is that some of the traditional norms that influence poverty such as endowment, access to means of production, including land, widowhood rites, inheritance system, and early marriages just to mention a few, call for review or abolition to remove their negative impact on society and thereby assist to reduce poverty in some communities within some ethnic groups in Ghana. This throws a challenge to policy formulators and law makers involved in modern and traditional governance, in exercising their functions effectively as administrators and development managers. Keywords: Poverty, Ethnicity, Governance, Entitlement, Vulnerability, Empowerment DOI: 10.7176/DCS/9-3-08 Publication date:March 31st 201

Urbanization and Intensive use of Space in Central Business District in a Developing City, Ghana: Decongestion Programme as City Service Response; an Appraisal.

The urban space in developing cities is overutilized; especially within the Central Business Districts (CBDs). That has led to congestion of the CBDs which poses major challenges in management of developing cities. Many city managers have been searching for appropriate strategies to address that menace. One popular approach for addressing the challenge is the formulation and the implementation of decongesting policies. This study attempted to assess the success level of decongesting a developing city. The study revealed that many people affected by various decongesting exercises returned to the same space they occupied before the exercise. Some reasons behind the trend were investigated as the operators being informal sector entrepreneurs who do not have adequate capital to rent stores for commercial activities elsewhere in the city. These actors also prefer operating at areas where business is brisk for that matter they converge at the city centre where business is brisk. Another factor is the non involvement of the stakeholders in formulation and implementation of decongesting policies thereby creating room for resistance from the encroachers. Again, the managers have failed to consider decongestion as a process not an event. That has led to the formulation of short term policies and plans for addressing the challenge. Having examined the major factors affecting decongestion, it has been concluded that, for that exercise to be successful, it would be appropriate for city managers to involve stakeholders in formulating and implementing holistic long term plan for addressing the challenge. Key words: Decongestion, Encroacher, Urban Space, Pedestrian, Stakeholde

Small Scale Gold Mining and Environmental Degradation, in Ghana: Issues of Mining Policy Implementation and Challenges

Small scale gold mining in Ghana has a long history. It has existed as far back as the eighth century as a household economic activity. It was legalised recently when the Small Scale Mining Law (PNDCL 218) 1989 was passed and public policies were formulated to support the implementation of the law. From then, the industry has become a major contributor to total quantity of gold produced in Ghana. The industry is a major employer of rural labour force. Despite these contributions, the industry has several negative effects on environment. This study was conducted in the Denkyira area which is located in the northern part of the Central region of Ghana, where there is heavy presence of small scale miners. The Offin river, the main source of water for household chores and other activities, which flows through the area is heavily polluted through the activities of small scale gold miners. Some mining sites have also turned into "˜deserts' as the vegetation cover in those areas has been removed. Since small scale gold miners do not have resources to properly manage the environment they have ignored that activity. On the other hand, public environmental regulatory bodies have also failed to carry out their statutory functions due to inadequate resources and poor institutional collaboration, among them. The implication of the action of the small scale gold miners' with respect to poor management of the environment, calls for education for the miners to build collective resource capacity for environmental management. Although, Ghana has several environmental protection laws and policies their implementation, has not been able to address the environmental challenges. Therefore the institution of appropriate strategies to control activities of the miners, especially the illegal small scale gold miners (Galamsay) who are the worst offenders, cannot be overemphasized. Since the Public agencies charged with the responsibility of regulating small scale gold mining are ineffective, the need to search for alternative approaches is crucial. For example, sites where a licensed small scale miner has operated in the past, could be inspected officially, for purposes of environmental management accreditation, before his/her application for renewal of license is considered, that is, if the inspection report is positive, otherwise the application must be put on hold or rejected

Adenosine A2A receptor modulation of hippocampal CA3-CA1 synapse plasticity during associative learning in behaving mice

© 2009 Nature Publishing Group All rights reservedPrevious in vitro studies have characterized the electrophysiological and molecular signaling pathways of adenosine tonic modulation on long-lasting synaptic plasticity events, particularly for hippocampal long-term potentiation(LTP). However, it remains to be elucidated whether the long-term changes produced by endogenous adenosine in the efficiency of synapses are related to those required for learning and memory formation. Our goal was to understand how endogenous activation of adenosine excitatory A2A receptors modulates the associative learning evolution in conscious behaving mice. We have studied here the effects of the application of a highly selective A2A receptor antagonist, SCH58261, upon a well-known associative learning paradigm - classical eyeblink conditioning. We used a trace paradigm, with a tone as the conditioned stimulus (CS) and an electric shock presented to the supraorbital nerve as the unconditioned stimulus(US). A single electrical pulse was presented to the Schaffer collateral–commissural pathway to evoke field EPSPs (fEPSPs) in the pyramidal CA1 area during the CS–US interval. In vehicle-injected animals, there was a progressive increase in the percentage of conditioning responses (CRs) and in the slope of fEPSPs through conditioning sessions, an effect that was completely prevented (and lost) in SCH58261 (0.5 mg/kg, i.p.)-injected animals. Moreover, experimentally evoked LTP was impaired in SCH58261- injected mice. In conclusion, the endogenous activation of adenosine A2A receptors plays a pivotal effect on the associative learning process and its relevant hippocampal circuits, including activity-dependent changes at the CA3-CA1 synapse.This study was supported by grants from the Spanish Ministry of Education and Research (BFU2005-01024 and BFU2005-02512), Spanish Junta de Andalucía (BIO-122 and CVI-02487), and the Fundación Conocimiento y Cultura of the Pablo de Olavide University (Seville, Spain).B. Fontinha was in receipt of a studentship from a project grant (POCI/SAU-NEU/56332/2004) supported by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT, Portugal), and of an STSM from Cost B30 concerted action of the EU

Traditional leadership factor in modern local government system in Ghana: policy Implementation, role conflict and marginalization

The search for appropriate institutional framework for local governance and development has been a difficult task in Africa. Although Traditional Authorities are authentic and time-tested institutions of governance, their role has been politically, administratively, and financially marginalized since the introduction of modern local government system. The focus of this paper is the discussion on the various local government structures, policies and their marginalization strategies. The discussions include indirect rule, establishment of town councils, introduction of public treasuries, the first and second republican local government models and the decentralized system of government with creation of District Assemblies. Some of the strengths and weaknesses of the systems were discussed. The issue of local taxation and the bias of the revenue distribution formula against Traditional Councils are also discussed. The Stool Land Revenue (SLR) shared among Traditional Authorities (TAs) is only 7 per cent of the District Assemblies Common Fund (Grants). The District Assemblies receive 55 per cent of the SLR plus DACF. The political structures, taxation authority, distribution of SLR, and Grants are used as tools to marginalize the traditional authorities. While the performance of some modern local government institutions, as agents of local development, is poor the development efforts of some Traditional Authorities at promoting education, health and environmental management, are highly commendable in Ghana. This indicates that Traditional Councils have potentials that are not fully harnessed due to marginalization. Modern local government stands to gain if Traditional Authorities become active partners and their potentials harnessed for development. Keywords: traditional leadership, agglomeration, devolution, marginalization Journal of Science and Technology Vol. 26(1) 2006: 76-8