Poverty Reduction in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Call for Financial Inclusion

This dissertation proposes an Index of Financial Inclusion (IFI) for Sub-Saharan Africa and then uses the developed index to investigate the significance of the relationship between financial inclusion and economic development and growth. This is important because there is no consensus in the literature on how to measure financial inclusion or on the direction of the causal relationship between financial inclusion and economic development or growth. This dissertation aims to contribute to these two debates whilst focusing on Sub-Saharan Africa, where development (potentially encouraged by financial inclusion) is desperately needed. The IFI for Sub-Saharan Africa is arrived at by first determining those dimensions of financial inclusion that are important for the countries in the region. This was done through a text analysis of National Financial Inclusion Strategies (NFISs) of 13 Sub- Saharan African countries overlaid on a detailed literature review. Access, Usage and Quality are the key dimensions for measuring levels of financial inclusion in the region. Thereafter, appropriate variables for the measurement of those dimensions were identified and combined using different methodologies: the simple geometric mean method, the inverse Euclidean distance method and, lastly, the factor analysis method. The relationship between the developed index and economic development and growth is tested using correlations and regression analyses. It was demonstrated that the IFI fits the NFISs of Sub-Saharan African countries and is practically executable. This implies that the IFI is perhaps more appropriate to be used in the region than the global measures previously proposed. Weak correlations between the IFI and economic development or growth were found. These last tests were hampered by small sample sizes and thus the causation debate, mentioned in the motivation paragraph, could not be resolved. However, the proposed IFI for Sub- Saharan Africa shows potential

Potential of genetics for aquaculture development in Africa

Aquaculture in Africa is fairly insignificant by world standards and accounts for a mere 0.4 per cent of global aquaculture production. The application of genetics can play an important role in efforts to increase aquaculture production in Africa through methods such as selective breeding, hybridization, chromosome manipulation and use of YY “supermales”. Other issues that need to be addressed are limited genetic research facilities, funding, human capacity and suitable species for aquaculture

Factors Contributing to Poor Academic Performance in Community Secondary Schools in Nanyumbu District, Tanzania

This study investigated the factors contributing to poor academic performance in community secondary schools in Nanyumbu district, Tanzania. The objectives were: to examine if inadequate teachers, lack of infrastructures and poor parents involvement contributed to poor performance of students in Nanyumbu community secondary schools. The study employed mixed research approach and cross-section research design whereby questionnaires, interview and documentary guide were used as data collection instruments.The instruments were validated by pilot testing them before put into action. A sample of 116 participants engaged in the study out of which 6 were heads of schools, 52 teachers and 58 students. The data collected were collected and analyzed by SPSS and excel computer programs. The findings indicated that there were excess number of teachers in Nanyumbu district compared to students since the average teacher-students; the available ratio of is 1:9 which is very far below the normal ratio of 1:40. The study also revealed that, students perform poorly in academics due to shortage of infrastructures including teachers` houses and students’ hostels. 80% of the participants said that hostels were missing and 100% declared that there was a shortage of teachers` houses. Poor parent involvement was found to contribute to poor students academic performance as 64.3% of the respondents said that parents did not inspect their exercise books when they went back home from school. The study recommends that the community and the government should build more teachers houses and hostels for students. Also parents should participate in the construction of infrastructures as well as take trouble to inspect the child`s exercise books regularly so as to improve their performance

Genetic variation of Taeniolethrinops praeorbitalis (Chisawasawa) in the central and southern Lake Malawi

Lethrinops spp flock is one of the major commercially important fish species exploited in Lake Malawi. It contributes a large portion of inshore and deep-water catches yet little is known about its population genetics, which could provide information for making management decisions for sustainable exploitation and conservation. This study was carried out to determine the genetic diversity and population structure of Taeniolethrinops praeorbitalis populations in traditional fisheries of central and southern Lake Malawi. A total of 10 populations of 40 individuals each were analyzed at six microsatellite DNA loci. The populations were not in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium possibly due to inter-deme mixing leading to Wuhland effect. This is supported by inter-deme migration of more than seven individuals per generation as determined by Slatkin's private allele method. Mean FST value was 0.15. Allelic diversity as a measure of genetic variation was not significantly different between populations in Mangochi district and those in Nkhota-kota district (p> 0.05) despite high fishing pressure in the former. The genetic relationships among the populations appear to be less influenced by geographical distance, normalized Mantel's statistic Z = 0.06, implying that T. praeorbitalis does not occur in discrete populations in Lake Malawi. UNISWA Jnl of Agric Vol 10 2001: pp 30-3

Relationship between Local and Scientific Names of Fishes in Lake Malawi/Nyasa

An interview survey was carried out in 20 Malawian lakeside villages from 1999 to 2000 to clarify the relationship between local and scientific names of the fishes in Lake Malawi/Nyasa. Fishermen in various localities responded with 536 local fish names for photographs shown of 106 fish species and color morphs. Similarity analysis of local name usage produced three groups of localities corresponding with the Tonga, Tumbuka, and Nyanja/Yao languages. A single scientific fish species had 10.2 local fish names, while one local fish name covered 2.0 scientific fish species, and 64.3 % of local fish names were used only for one scientific species. A few local fish names were used widely irrespective of language, although 69.5 % of local fish names were collected only from one locality. These facts suggest that lakeside residents identify fish at the biological taxonomy level, although the naming was specific to a particular locality. Most fishes with a high variety of local names were shallow-water dwelling species with low local market values, whereas fishes with fewer local names were mainly offshore species of high commercial value