5 research outputs found
Behind the scenes: International NGOsâ influence on reproductive health policy in Malawi and South Sudan
© 2018 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group Global health donors increasingly embrace international non-governmental organisations (INGOs) as partners, often relying on them to conduct political advocacy in recipient countries, especially in controversial policy domains like reproductive health. Although INGOs are the primary recipients of donor funding, they are expected to work through national affiliates or counterparts to enable âlocally-ledâ change. Using prospective policy analysis and ethnographic evidence, this paper examines how donor-funded INGOs have influenced the restrictive policy environments for safe abortion and family planning in South Sudan and Malawi. While external actors themselves emphasise the technical nature of their involvement, the paper analyses them as instrumental political actors who strategically broker alliances and resources to shape policy, often working âbehind the scenesâ to manage the challenging circumstances they operate under. Consequently, their agency and power are hidden through various practices of effacement or concealment. These practices may be necessary to rationalise the tensions inherent in delivering a global programme with the goal of inducing locally-led change in a highly controversial policy domain, but they also risk inciting suspicion and foreign-national tensions
InAs-Al Hybrid Devices Passing the Topological Gap Protocol
We present measurements and simulations of semiconductor-superconductor
heterostructure devices that are consistent with the observation of topological
superconductivity and Majorana zero modes. The devices are fabricated from
high-mobility two-dimensional electron gases in which quasi-one-dimensional
wires are defined by electrostatic gates. These devices enable measurements of
local and non-local transport properties and have been optimized via extensive
simulations for robustness against non-uniformity and disorder. Our main result
is that several devices, fabricated according to the design's engineering
specifications, have passed the topological gap protocol defined in Pikulin
{\it et al.}\ [arXiv:2103.12217]. This protocol is a stringent test composed of
a sequence of three-terminal local and non-local transport measurements
performed while varying the magnetic field, semiconductor electron density, and
junction transparencies. Passing the protocol indicates a high probability of
detection of a topological phase hosting Majorana zero modes. Our experimental
results are consistent with a quantum phase transition into a topological
superconducting phase that extends over several hundred millitesla in magnetic
field and several millivolts in gate voltage, corresponding to approximately
one hundred micro-electron-volts in Zeeman energy and chemical potential in the
semiconducting wire. These regions feature a closing and re-opening of the bulk
gap, with simultaneous zero-bias conductance peaks at {\it both} ends of the
devices that withstand changes in the junction transparencies. The measured
maximum topological gaps in our devices are 20-eV. This demonstration
is a prerequisite for experiments involving fusion and braiding of Majorana
zero modes.Comment: Fixed typos. Fig. 3 is now readable by Adobe Reade