Effectiveness of Health Education in Community-based Malaria Prevention and Control Interventions in sub-Saharan Africa: A Systematic Review

Objective: This review assessed the effectiveness of health education in community-based malaria prevention and control interventions in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Methods: We systematically reviewed published and unpublished literature, searching 7 databases and 3 websites namely Malaria Journal, World Health Organization and Centre for Disease Control and Prevention to find relevant studies. Study designs included were randomized controlled trials, non-randomized trials, quasi experiments, before and after studies, and surveys. A narrative synthesis was performed on the extracted data. Results: Seventeen studies were included in the review. Nine studies covered health education interventions on Insecticide Treated bet Nets (ITNs), three utilised health education to promote Intermittent Presumptive Treatment in pregnancy (IPTp), four reported on the effect of health education in home-based management of malaria whilst one study focused on environmental management in malaria control. Factors found to affect health education in malaria control and prevention interventions included educational level of participants, the nature of health messages and the level of community involvement. Conclusion: The results of the review suggest that health education interventions are effective and remain a valuable tool in community-based malaria prevention and control interventions in SSA. This review found moderate evidence that health education interventions influence the uptake of community-based malaria prevention and control interventions, enhance knowledge about malaria and generally improve malaria prevalence and mortality in children under five and pregnant women.   Key words Malaria, systematic review, health education, sub-Saharan Africa

Challenges of Privatizing Waste Management in the in Wa Municipality Of Ghana: A Case of Zoomlion Ghana Limited

In the past, management of waste in the Wa municipality in particular and Ghana in general was the soleresponsibility of District, Municipal and Metropolitan Assemblies. As a result of inefficiency in management ofwaste by District, Municipal, and Metropolitan Assemblies, a private company known as zoomlion GhanaLimited was contracted to shoulder waste management in the entire country. This paper sought to examinechallenges in privatizing waste management in the Wa municipality of Ghana. Documented evidence reveals thatthe Integrated Solid Waste Management model has become the most preferred model for managing solid wastein urban centers of developing countries, it has not been adopted in the management of waste in the Wamunicipality by Zoomlion Ghana Limited due to financial and logistical constraints. Also Zoomlion GhanaLimited lacks the technical know how to effectively manage the waste generated. It is recommended that there isthe need for an introduction of incentive schemes such as subsidies, concessional loans and tax incentives toencourage investment in acquisition of equipment, research, training and project demonstration by the privatesector.Keywords: Challenges, Privatizing, Waste, Managemen

Climate variability and sustainable food production: Insights from north-eastern Ghana

The past two decades have seen invigorated debates on the causal link between climate variability and food crop production. This study[1] extends the debate further by investigating how climate variability has affected the production of four specific food crops: maize, millet, rice, and groundnuts in north-eastern Ghana. The results are based on temperature and rainfall data obtained from the Ghana Meteorological Agency and the Ministry of Food and Agriculture and are supported with in-depth interviews with selected staff from other allied institutions. While an inverse relationship between climate variability and food crop production was established, the effects were not homogenous, as climate variables (rainfall and temperature) did not all exert the same effect across all crops. This suggests that the generalized interpretation of the relationship between climate variability and food crop production should be undertaken with caution and that each variable must be examined on its own merit. We argue that the negative relationship between climate variability and food crop production has the potential to erode the gains made by the state-sponsored development authority SADA in their poverty reduction drive in north-eastern Ghana.[1] *This article was curled from a PhD thesis of the corresponding author which is entitled “Climate variability: Implications for Water Resource and Food Security in the Upper East Region of Ghana. The thesis was successfully submitted at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Ghana in 2017.

Austerity in Civil Procedure

The demand for and availability of civil justice procedures for small claims can neither be disentangled nor extricated from the health of the economic climate of the relevant country concerned. In this article, it is argued that despite not being a developed country, Ghana was not completely insulated from the hardships or implementation of austerity measures that were triggered by the global economic meltdown. The inevitability of behavioural changes on the part of the Government of Ghana as lawmaker and provider of the machinery for civil justice on the one hand and small claims litigants as users of the civil procedure on the other hand are also explored in the article. After properly situating the exploration in the relevant economic context, the article makes recommendations regarding how to minimise the impact of the austerity measures on small claims litigants

Impact of malaria related messages on insecticide-treated net (ITN) use for malaria prevention in Ghana

Background: Media messages have been used in Ghana to promote insecticide-treated net (ITN)/bed net usage in an effort to impact on malaria prevention. The aim of this study was to assess the effect of such malaria-related messages delivered through electronic/print media and by volunteers/health workers on the use of ITNs by children living in a household. Methods: Data was collected from September to November of 2008 using a structured, interviewer-administered questionnaire by the Ghana Statistical Service as part of a national demographic and health survey (DHS). Secondary data analysis was performed on the collected data using multivariate logistic regression for both individual messages and a composite (any of) message variable. Results: From the 11,788 households surveyed, 45% had at least one net. Households with male heads were more likely to have a child sleeping under a bed net the previous night (p = 0.0001). Individual Messages delivered by a health worker or a dedicated radio programme, had the highest effect for one or more children sleeping under a net the night before (OR adjusted = 1.65; 95% CI = 1.44 to 1.88 and OR adjusted = 1.26; 95% CI =1.12 to 1.42 respectively) while hearing any of the eight messages (composite score) resulted in the highest odds for one or more children (OR adjusted = 3.06; 95% CI = 2.27 to 4.12) sleeping under a bed net. Conclusion: Efforts to relate ITN messages to the public are very useful in increasing use of bed nets and having multiple ways of reaching the public increases their effect, with the biggest effect seen when health workers and volunteers were used to deliver malaria-related messages to the public

Natural Resources and the Economic Growth of West Africa Economies

In this study, we employed the pooled mean group (PMG) regression to examine the effect of natural resources economic rent (coal rent, gas rent, oil rent, forest rent, minerals rent) and foreign direct investment (FDI) on economic growth in West Africa for the period 1996 to 2017. We found strong evidence of a positive relationship between FDI, total natural resources (TNR), total natural gas (TNG), and economic growth in the long-run. However, the study recorded a negative relationship between mineral resources rent, oil rent and gas rent, and economic growth in the long run. The rent from coal also exhibited neutrality on economic growth. While all the short-run coefficients are not statistically significant, the error correction term (ECT) is significant and a negative value of -0.889, signifying cointegration at a 1% significance level. This also implies that the short-run estimates converge towards the long-run estimates to achieve equilibrium at the speed of 89% per annum. Our findings highlight the significance of FDI and total rent from natural resources in stimulating West African economies' growth in the industrialization drive and general welfare. In contrast, this study also highlights the need for policy direction to redesign and realign ownership in the oil and gas sector from multinational co-operations (MNCs) to the locals and the domestic economy to benefit directly from the prevailing environment

Exploring the Dynamics of E-waste Disposal Strategies in Tamale, Ghana

Globalised inter-connected world; changing patterns of world standards and norms; and the emergence of consumerism have all drastically shaped the generation and management of e-waste. Cities in developing countries are grappling with developing sustainable strategies to dealing with e-waste and therefore households are compelled to fashion their own disposal strategies. This article examined some of these disposal strategies and the factors that influenced their adoption in Tamale, a growing city in northern Ghana. Data for the study were collected using different techniques including questionnaire survey and key informant interviews. The predominant disposal strategies that emerged were selling e-waste as scrap; donating to other people as gifts; selling as second hand product; disposing with other domestic wastes or combination of any of the strategies. These informal management strategies were influenced by respondents’ age, education level and income. It is recommended that the observed disposal strategies can be articulated in Ghana’s search for definitive e-waste management policies that are environmentally friendly, socially acceptable and economically viable.Keyword: E-waste, Disposal strategy, Ghana, Recycling, Legislation

Urban floods and residential rental values nexus in Kumasi, Ghana

The supposition that the occurrence of flood event will have an inverse effect on rental values of residential housing properties is often accepted as a fact. However, the mechanism for this supposed impact has not been clearly articulated and the hypothesis is far from proven in Ghanaian housing rental market. This paper examined the impact of flood on residential rental values in Kumasi. The study adopted multiple research approaches in selecting zones with both flood and non-flood liable residential properties. The repeated sales model was then used to create local market indices to gauge flood impact on the rental values. The rental values of non-flooded residential properties were generally higher than their flooded counterparts by a margin of GHS 62.66 ±0.09 annually. While this supports existing postulations of a negative impact of flood on rental values, the results further showed that the extent of the impact varies across different residential property types. It is concluded that the wholesale assumption in literature that flood events diminish rental values should be interpreted with caution. The study recommends that the (dis)amenity effects of flood on rental values should therefore be assessed on case by case basis.Keywords: Floods, Ghana, Kumasi, Residential Rental Value, T-tes