Relationship between Social Capital and Livelihood Enhancing Capitals among Smallholder Farmers in Uganda

Social capital is an important characteristic of a community and is one of the components of the asset pentagon of the sustainable livelihood framework. The study aimed at assessing the levels and dimensions of social capital and how social capital influences other livelihood capitals. A Cross-sectional survey of a random sample of 208 households was conducted in Masindi and Hoima Districts in Uganda to assess the current livelihood conditions and strategies for improving rural livelihoods. An Index of social capital was generated using density of group membership and three levels of social capital where generated i.e. high, medium and low. Two dimensions of social capital (bonding and bridging) were considered. Results showed that households with high and medium social capital had enhanced skills to solve problems, do research and bargain with middle men. Social capital empowered more women to participate in decision making, fostered asset base creation and use of natural resource management technologies. There was a significant difference between level of social capital and participation in collective farming. Households with high social capital rated highly the community level of trust, reciprocity, and women’s confidence. However, there was no significant effect of social capital on household income. In conclusion, there was a positive relationship between level and dimension of social capital and access to livelihood assets implying that strengthening social capital is a powerful way to improve communities and requires consistent and effective approaches to build and reinforce the social and human capital.Relationship, Social Capital, Livelihood Capitals, Smallholder Farmers, Agricultural Finance, Consumer/Household Economics, Environmental Economics and Policy, Farm Management, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Health Economics and Policy, Labor and Human Capital, Marketing, Production Economics, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,

Can market-based approaches to technology development and dissemination benefit women smallholder farmers? A qualitative assessment of gender dynamics in the ownership, purchase, and use of irrigation pumps in Kenya and Tanzania

Rural household economies dependent on rainfed agriculture are increasingly turning to irrigation technology solutions to reduce the effects of weather variability and guard against inconsistent and low crop output. Organizations are increasingly using market-based approaches to disseminate technologies to smallholder farmers, and, although women are among their targeted group, little is known of the extent to which these approaches are reaching and benefiting women. There is also little evidence on the implications of women’s use and control of irrigation technologies for outcomes, including crop choice and income management. This paper reports findings from a qualitative study undertaken in Tanzania and Kenya to examine women’s access to and ownership of KickStart pumps and the implications for their ability to make major decisions on crop choices and use of income from irrigated crops. Results from sales-monitoring data show that women purchase less than 10 percent of the pumps and men continue to make most of the major decisions on crop choices and income use. These findings vary by type of crop, with men making major decisions on high- income crops such as tomatoes and women having relatively more autonomy on crops such as leafy vegetables. The study concludes that market-based approaches on their own cannot guarantee access to and ownership of technologies, and businesses need to take specific measures toward the goal of reaching and benefiting women

Gender, Assets, and Agricultural Development Programs: A Conceptual Framework

Being able to access, control, and own productive assets such as land, labor, finance, and social capital enables people to create stable and productive lives. Yet relatively little is known about how agricultural development programs can most effectively deliver these outcomes of well-being, empowerment, and higher income in a way that acknowledges differential access to and control over assets by men and women. After reviewing the literature on gender and assets, this paper offers a conceptual framework for understanding the gendered pathways through which asset accumulation occurs, including attention to not only men's and women's assets but also those they share in joint control and ownership. Unlike previous frameworks, this model depicts the gendered dimensions of each component of the pathway in recognition of the evidence that men and women not only control, own, or dispose of assets in different ways, but also access, control, and own different kinds of assets. The framework generates gender-specific hypotheses that can be tested empirically: i) Different types of assets enable different livelihoods, with a greater stock and diversity of assets being associated with more diverse livelihoods and better well-being outcomes; ii) Men and women use different types of assets to cope with different types of shocks; iii) Interventions that increase men's and women's stock of a particular asset improve the bargaining power of the individual(s) who control that asset; and iv) Interventions and policies that reduce the gender gap in assets are better able to achieve development outcomes related to food security, health, and nutrition and other aspects of well-being related to agency and empowerment. The implications of these gender differences for designing agricultural development interventions to increase asset growth and returns to assets as well as for value chain development are discussed. Based on this analysis, additional gaps in knowledge and possible investigations to address them are identified

A cross sectional comparison of postnatal care quality in facilities participating in a maternal health voucher program versus non-voucher facilities in Kenya

Background: Health service fees constitute substantial barriers for women seeking childbirth and postnatal care. In an effort to reduce health inequities, the government of Kenya in 2006 introduced the output-based approach (OBA), or voucher programme, to increase poor women’s access to quality Safe Motherhood services including postnatal care. To help improve service quality, OBA programmes purchase services on behalf of the poor and marginalised, with provider reimbursements for verified services. Kenya’s programme accredited health facilities in three districts as well as in two informal Nairobi settlements. Methods: Postnatal care quality in voucher health facilities (n = 21) accredited in 2006 and in similar non-voucher health facilities (n = 20) are compared with cross sectional data collected in 2010. Summary scores for quality were calculated as additive sums of specific aspects of each attribute (structure, process, outcome). Measures of effect were assessed in a linear regression model accounting for clustering at facility level. Data were analysed using Stata 11.0. Results: The overall quality of postnatal care is poor in voucher and non-voucher facilities, but many facilities demonstrated ‘readiness’ for postnatal care (structural attributes: infrastructure, equipment, supplies, staffing, training) indicated by high scores (83/111), with public voucher facilities scoring higher than public non-voucher facilities. The two groups of facilities evinced no significant differences in postnatal care mean process scores: 14.2/ 55 in voucher facilities versus 16.4/55 in non-voucher facilities; coefficient: -1.70 (-4.9, 1.5), p = 0.294. Significantly more newborns were seen within 48 hours (83.5 % versus 72.1 %: p = 0.001) and received Bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG) (82.5 % versus 76.5 %: p \u3c 0.001) at voucher facilities than at non-voucher facilities. Conclusions: Four years after facility accreditation in Kenya, scores for postnatal care quality are low in all facilities, even those with Safe Motherhood vouchers. We recommend the Kenya OBA programme review its Safe Motherhood reimbursement package and draw lessons from supply side results-based financing initiatives, to improve postnatal care quality

Advancing a holistic systems approach for sustainable cattle development programmes in South Africa: insights from sustainability assessments

Efforts to exploit the central roles of cattle to drive agriculture and rural development in low-income countries recorded limited success owing to their narrow focus on modernizing and commercializing low-input cattle farming. Most programs failed to take cognizance of the heterogeneous range of complex relationships between the environmental, economic, social and institutional challenges that limit low-input cattle farming. The current qualitative literature review evaluates the environmental, economic and social sustainability delivery impacts of the leading cattle development programs in the low-input farming sector in South Africa using a holistic systems approach. A mixed method procedure involving stratified sampling was used to allocate local and international-based programs while, purposive sampling was used to select programs with a wider scale of operation. The review then draws on the crosscutting key constraints emerging from the case studies to provide a better grounding for subsequent sustainability sensitive recommendations. Local-based cattle development programs advanced more market-led interventions while, their international-based counterparts had more interventions including, soil and rangeland improvement. The narrow focus by both local and international developmental programs is inadequate to address a wide array of environmental, economic, social, technical and institutional challenges faced by low-input cattle producers in South Africa.The Department of Science and Technology-National Research Foundation (DST-NRF) Centre of Excellence (CoE) in Food Security [140102].https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/wjsa212021-01-23hj2020Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS

The chicken or the egg? Exploring bi-directional associations between Newcastle disease vaccination and village chicken flock size in rural Tanzania

Newcastle disease (ND) is a viral disease of poultry with global importance, responsible for the loss of a potential source of household nutrition and economic livelihood in many low-income food-deficit countries. Periodic outbreaks of this endemic disease result in high mortality amongst free-ranging chicken flocks and may serve as a disincentive for rural households to invest time or resources in poultry-keeping. Sustainable ND control can be achieved through vaccination using a thermotolerant vaccine administered via eyedrop by trained "community vaccinators". This article evaluates the uptake and outcomes of fee-for-service ND vaccination programs in eight rural villages in the semi-arid central zone of Tanzania. It represents part of an interdisciplinary program seeking to address chronic undernutrition in children through improvements to existing poultry and crop systems. Newcastle disease vaccination uptake was found to vary substantially across communities and seasons, with a significantly higher level of vaccination amongst households participating in a longitudinal study of children's growth compared with non-participating households (p = 0.009). Two multivariable model analyses were used to explore associations between vaccination and chicken numbers, allowing for clustered data and socioeconomic and cultural variation amongst the population. Results demonstrated that both (a) households that undertook ND vaccination had a significantly larger chicken flock size in the period between that vaccination campaign and the next compared with those that did not vaccinate (p = 0.018); and (b) households with larger chicken flocks at the time of vaccination were significantly more likely to participate in vaccination programs (p < 0.001). Additionally, households vaccinating in all three vaccination campaigns held over 12 months were identified to have significantly larger chicken flocks at the end of this period (p < 0.001). Opportunities to understand causality and complexity through quantitative analyses are limited, and there is a role for qualitative approaches to explore decisions made by poultry-keeping households and the motivations, challenges and priorities of community vaccinators. Evidence of a bi-directional relationship, however, whereby vaccination leads to greater chicken numbers, and larger flocks are more likely to be vaccinated, offers useful insights into the efficacy of fee-for-service animal health programs. This article concludes that attention should be focused on ways of supporting the participation of vulnerable households in ND vaccination campaigns, and encouraging regular vaccination throughout the year, as a pathway to strengthen food security, promote resilience and contribute to improved human nutrition

Principles, design and processes of integrated agricultural research for development: experiences and lessons from LKPLS under the SSACP

With increasing recognition holding the promise of overcoming the outstanding problems faced byAfrican agriculture, IAR4D faces the danger of being ‘blurred’ by past approaches and falling short of its potential to deliver the desired impacts in diverse multi-stakeholder, biophysical, socio- economic, cultural, technological and market contexts unless its actualisation and working is clearly understood. In this paper, we present the conceptualisation and principles of and knowledge-based experiences and lessons from the implementation of the sub-Saharan Africa Challenge Programme (SSACP) in the Lake Kivu Pilot Learning Site (LKPLS). The presentation covers the formation and facilitation of IPs for the actualisation of IAR4D to evolve mechanisms for the early recognition of interlinked issues in natural resource management, productivity and value addition technologies, markets, gender and policy arrangements. These have autonomously triggered flexible, locally directed interactions to innovate options from within or outside their environment for resolving the challenges, and have moved along a new institutional and technological change trajectory. Emerging lessons point to the endowment of IP members with selfhelp knowledge interactions, training in IAR4D, quality of facilitation and research to be key determinants of the power behind of self-regulating mechanisms

Demand-side financing for maternal and newborn health: what do we know about factors that affect implementation of cash transfers and voucher programmes?

BackgroundDemand-side financing (DSF) interventions, including cash transfers and vouchers, have been introduced to promote maternal and newborn health in a range of low- and middle-income countries. These interventions vary in design but have typically been used to increase health service utilisation by offsetting some financial costs for users, or increasing household income and incentivising 'healthy behaviours'. This article documents experiences and implementation factors associated with use of DSF in maternal and newborn health.MethodsA secondary analysis (using an adapted Supporting the Use of Research Evidence framework - SURE) was performed on studies that had previously been identified in a systematic review of evidence on DSF interventions in maternal and newborn health.ResultsThe article draws on findings from 49 quantitative and 49 qualitative studies. The studies give insights on difficulties with exclusion of migrants, young and multiparous women, with demands for informal fees at facilities, and with challenges maintaining quality of care under increasing demand. Schemes experienced difficulties if communities faced long distances to reach participating facilities and poor access to transport, and where there was inadequate health infrastructure and human resources, shortages of medicines and problems with corruption. Studies that documented improved care-seeking indicated the importance of adequate programme scope (in terms of programme eligibility, size and timing of payments and voucher entitlements) to address the issue of concern, concurrent investments in supply-side capacity to sustain and/or improve quality of care, and awareness generation using community-based workers, leaders and women's groups. ConclusionsEvaluations spanning more than 15 years of implementation of DSF programmes reveal a complex picture of experiences that reflect the importance of financial and other social, geographical and health systems factors as barriers to accessing care. Careful design of DSF programmes as part of broader maternal and newborn health initiatives would need to take into account these barriers, the behaviours of staff and the quality of care in health facilities. Research is still needed on the policy context for DSF schemes in order to understand how they become sustainable and where they fit, or do not fit, with plans to achieve equitable universal health coverage