Government Relief for Development or Government Development for Relief? Critical Lessons From the Famine Relief Programme (FRP) as an Input-Subsidy Policy in Lesotho, 2002-2003

This study, within the context of funding disaster recovery, purports to examine some socio-economic impacts of Famine Relief Programme (FRP) as a country-wide input policy of the agricultural year, 2002/2003, by the Lesotho Government (LG). Obtainable critical lessons in the implementation of this programme range from issues of management, efficiency, effectiveness and equity. A representative area of Roma valley has been used as the main primary information provider through observation and formal interviews for 'generalization' and conclusive evidence to country entirety. The assessment includes whether food security or yield increment was attained through FRP as an input-subsidy policy. FRP has been a food security strategy implemented in vain without considering some lessons of success from other former food security strategies like 'The Mantsa-Tlala (famine-eradicating) Scheme as other small-scale farmers put it. They deem failure to copy such lessons of success to emanate from political antipathy of just not preferring to follow one's preceding political rival's line of success. Food security as thus stands out to be an issue of 'political will' not applied rather than stifling lending conditionalities of IMF and World Bank, as well, fostering 'liberalization' on agricultural sector, even where the private sector is not fully developed and the government being the only one with enough capital to sharecrop with the faminestricken asset-poor or has adequate potential to create/strengthen one if not attract foreign one. Only that there is almost no developed food self-sufficient country in the world, always providing food aid, that does not practise input subsidy to any degree if not throughout all cropping and marketing levels. Progressive taxes and other redistributive welfare measures are adopted by developed food self-sufficient countries to tackle among others subsidy cost-recoupment in agriculture, including practising unfair terms of global agricultural trade

A Phase 2b Study to Evaluate the Safety and Efficacy of VRC01 Broadly Neutralizing Monoclonal Antibody in Reducing Acquisition of HIV-1 Infection in Women in Sub-Saharan Africa: Baseline Findings

Background: HIV Vaccine Trials Network 703/HIV Prevention Trials Network 081 is a phase 2b randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial to assess the safety and efficacy of passively infused monoclonal antibody VRC01 in preventing HIV acquisition in heterosexual women between the ages of 18 and 50 years at risk of HIV. Participants were enrolled at 20 sites in Botswana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe. It is one of the 2 Antibody Mediated Prevention efficacy trials, with HIV Vaccine Trials Network 704/HIV Prevention Trials Network 085, evaluating VRC01 for HIV prevention. Methods: Intense community engagement was used to optimize participant recruitment and retention. Participants were randomly assigned to receive intravenous VRC01 10 mg/kg, VRC01 30 mg/kg, or placebo in a 1:1:1 ratio. Infusions were given every 8 weeks with a total of 10 infusions and 104 weeks of follow-up after the first infusion. Results: Between May 2016 and September 2018, 1924 women from sub-Saharan Africa were enrolled. The median age was 26 years (interquartile range: 22-30), and 98.9% were Black. Sexually transmitted infection prevalence at enrollment included chlamydia (16.9%), trichomonas (7.2%), gonorrhea (5.7%), and syphilis (2.2%). External condoms (83.2%) and injectable contraceptives (61.1%) were the methods of contraception most frequently used by participants. In total, through April 3, 2020, 38,490 clinic visits were completed with a retention rate of 96% and 16,807 infusions administered with an adherence rate of 98%. Conclusions: This proof-of-concept, large-scale monoclonal antibody study demonstrates the feasibility of conducting complex trials involving intravenous infusions in high incidence populations in sub-Saharan Africa

How the Mountain Kingdom speaks: forging a national literary tradition in Lesotho

The paper explores the origins and development of Lesotho literature in English. Informed byT.S. Eliot's New Criticism of the dialectic between tradition and the individual talent, the paper places the literature into a national, religions, historical, cultural, political, mythological, geographical, and trans-national context. The article contends that although early writers, such as Thomas Mofolo. Mopeli-Putdus and others pioneered the inception of the literature, there is a tenuous tradition between the writings of the pillars of Lesotho literature in English and those of succeeding literary generations. The paper also argues that, although the literature found its initial expression in the form of the novel, the novel itself, as an art form in Lesotho, has gradually dwindled, giving way to shorter genres such as drama, poetry and the short-story. Periodising the imaginative output from the lime of its nascency to dale, the paper discusses its quantity, quality and future possibilities, thereby foregrounding its social history. identity, autonomy and distinctiveness

Sector-Wide Approaches to Educational Development in Lesotho: A Radical Technocratic Recommendatory View in the Education Sector Development Policy (ESDP)

This paper is an aid policy appraisal in the educational development system of Lesotho as a developing country, among other characteristics a usual development aid recipient. Foreign aid in development process is also one phenomenon with inherent limitations requiring integrated solutions in advance. The inbuilt precincts emanate from adopted development paradigms and/or set conditionalities or attached strings by the foreign donors or lending Bretton Woods’s institutions. Such development approaches' confines in particular 'sector-wide' approaches over traditional development project approach including Lesotho educational system situation, are in an assessment manner through an analytic framework elaborated upon in this paper. Drastic measures as incorporable remedies for effective sector-wide approaches as a way out are suggested to Lesotho education policy formulators not excluding others in the developing world, the donors and development practitioners. The whole effort here by the government of Lesotho (GOL) through ESDP was to sustain economy by local labour market supply and skilled population able to lead decent lives

Medicinal utilization of exotic plants by Bapedi traditional healers to treat human ailments in Limpopo province, South Africa

Ethnopharmacological relevance: Most exotic plants are usually labelled as alien invasives and targeted for eradication. However, some of these exotic plants play an important role in the traditional primary healthcare sector of the Bapedi culture in the Limpopo Province of South Africa. The medicinal uses of most of these species have neither been documented nor their biological activity evaluated. Aim of the study: To make an inventory of exotic species employed by Bapedi traditional healers to treat different human ailments in the Limpopo Province, South Africa. Materials and methods: Semi-structured interviews, observation and guided field walks with 52 traditional healers were employed to obtain ethnobotanical data during first half of 2011 on the use of exotic plant species by Bapedi healers to treat human ailments. Based on ethnobotanical information provided by these healers, specimens were collected, numbered, pressed, and dried for identification. Results: A total of 35 exotics species belonging to 21 families and 34 genera, mostly from the Fabaceae and Solanaceae (11.4% for each), Apocynaceae and Asteraceae (8.5% for each) were used by Bapedi healers to treat 20 human ailments. Trees (45.7%) and herbs (37.1%) are the primary source of medicinal plants. Species most frequently reported were used for the treatment of hypertension (35%), diabetes mellitus, erectile dysfunction and gonorrhoea (25% for each). The highest consensus from individual accounts of the traditional healers on the use of exotic plant remedies in this study was noted for the three ailments. These were for Catharanthus roseus (gonorrhoea, 60%), Punica granatum (diarrhoea, 38.4%) and Ricinus communis (sores, 21.5%). Of the 35 exotic plant species recorded, 34.2% are regulated by the Conservation of Agricultural Resources Act (1983) (CARA) No. 43 of 1983 either as worst weeds or invaders. Conclusion: The present study demonstrated that exotic plant species play an important part as medicinal remedies employed by Bapedi healers to treat different human diseases in the Limpopo Province. The use of these species as alternative sources of medicinal remedies could alleviate harvesting pressure of wild indigenous plants, thereby enhance biodiversity’s region. However, there is a need to formulate an appropriate policy to retain some of the useful medicinal exotics (listed under CARA No. 43 of 1983) within the environment before their medicinal value vanishes as they are eradicated through management strategies adopted by the South African government