Crowding-out or crowding-in? Effects of LEAP 1000 unconditional cash transfer program on household and community support among women in rural Ghana

Social protection programs are not introduced in a vacuum and it is important to understand what effects such programs have on existing informal support networks of family, friends and community members. A social cash transfer may reduce receipt of informal financial support, which can water down part of the program's impact. However, cash transfers can also reduce barriers to social participation and enable participants to engage in reciprocal support systems. We use data from the quasi-experimental mixed method impact evaluation of Ghana's Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) 1000 program, a social cash transfer program for pregnant women and mothers of children under one year living in poverty, to estimate program effects on social support and participation. Using a difference-in-differences approach we find that LEAP 1000 increases overall social support, as well as both emotional and instrumental support. In addition, program beneficiaries are more likely to participate in community groups. In in-depth interviews, participants confirmed increased support with descriptions of improved access to financial markets, such as borrowing money or contributing to local savings schemes, and strengthening of social participation in local groups and gatherings. Beneficiary women also highlighted reduced need for economic support and new opportunities to support others. By creating opportunities for additional social support within the household and community, LEAP 1000 crowded-in support, rather than reducing existing sources of support or crowding-out support

Accountability for the human right to health through treaty monitoring: Human rights treaty bodies and the influence of concluding observations

Employing novel coding methods to evaluate human rights monitoring, this article examines the influence of United Nations (UN) treaty bodies on national implementation of the human right to health. The advancement of the right to health in the UN human rights system has shifted over the past 20 years from the development of norms under international law to the implementation of those norms through national policy. Facilitating accountability for this rights-based policy implementation under the right to health, the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) monitors state implementation by reviewing periodic reports from state parties, engaging in formal sessions of ‘constructive dialogue’ with state representatives, and issuing concluding observations for state response. These concluding observations recognise the positive steps taken by states and highlight the principal areas of CESCR concern, providing recommendations for implementing human rights and detailing issues to be addressed in the next state report. Through analytic coding of the normative indicators of the right to health in both state reports and concluding observations, this article provides an empirical basis to understand the policy effects of the CESCR monitoring process on state implementation of the right to health

Susceptibility to ergot in Zimbabwe of sorghums tbat remained uninfected in their native climates in Ethiopia and Rwanda

Forty-four local Ethiopian and Rwandan sorghums (Sorghum bicolor) were observed to remain free of ergot, or had only low incidence, in their natural equatorial latitudes and were potentially of interest, in the design of male-sterile lines for F| hybrid breeding, if they possessed a physiologically based resistance mechanism. These sorghums were therefore also investigated under natural and artificial disease pressures in Zimbabwe where unadapted development and inappropriate long daylengtb prevented flowering in 18 accessions. Of the remaining 16 Ethiopian and 10 Rwandan accessions which flowered, only one from each country remained free of ergot. The susceptibility expressed was ascribed to observed asynchrony of stigma exsertion with anthesis. In the Rwandan accession that persistently remained free of ergot in Zimbabwe, histology of ovules showed pollination before floret gaping, so that a general principle of disease escape due to efficient pollination is proposed for the Ethiopian and Rwandan sorghums in their native climates. The findings emphasize that cleistogamy is a desirable character for avoiding ergot infection in self-fertile sorghums and suggest that the Ethiopian and Rwandan sorghutns may not generally be useful for breeding ergot-resistant male-sterile female lines. However, a few accessions deserve more detailed study as a potential genetic resource, before a firm conclusion that all apparent resistance is disease escape owing to efficient pollination

Diseases and parasitic weeds of sorghum in Tanzania: Occurrence and incidence, 1986-1990

Sorghum is an important subsistence crop in Tanzania. Surveys were carried out between the 1986 and 1990 crop seasons to determine the prevalence of diseases and parasitic weeds in the major sorghum-growing areas of Tanzania. Twenty diseases of sorghum and three parastic weeds were observed. Grain moulds (several fungi), grey leaf spot (Cercospora sorghi), anthracnose (Colletotrichum graminicola), rust (Puccinia purpurea), leaf blight (Exserohilum turcicum), ladder leaf spot (Cercospora fusimaculans), sooty stripe (Ramulispora sorghi) and zonate leaf spot (Gleocercospora sorghi), were economically important diseases. Striga asiatica was the most common parasitic weed in Tanzania. Ilonga in the low-altitude (⩽ 1000 m) zone and Hombolo in the mid-altitude (> 1000 m) zone were identified as locations with a high frequency of diseases and striga incidence. These locations were recommended for resistance screening against most of the leaf diseases, grain moulds and S. asiatica