Type of Disability, Gender, and Age Affect School Satisfaction:Findings from the UK Millennium Cohort Study

Background Self‐reported school satisfaction is an important indicator of child and adolescent well‐being. Few studies have examined how disability, gender, and age affect school satisfaction. Aim We sought to determine whether the interaction between disability and gender with regard to self‐reported school satisfaction might be specific to particular types of disability and particular ages. Methods We undertook secondary analysis of Waves 5 and 6 of the UK’s Millennium Cohort Study (MCS), a nationally representative sample of children born 2000–2002. MCS is the fourth in the series of British birth cohort studies. Result At 11 years of age (n = 12,207), school satisfaction was significantly higher for girls and those without disabilities. By contrast, at 14 (n = 10,933), school satisfaction was significantly higher for boys and those without disabilities. Subsequent analyses of gender moderation of the association between disability and school satisfaction revealed a significant interaction between gender and disabilities associated with mental health and with dexterity, respectively, at 14 years but not at age 11. Conclusion These findings will inform future research endeavours, policy, and practice in psychology, education, and other areas associated with child development and disability

The analytical framework of water and armed conflict: a focus on the 2006 Summer War between Israel and Lebanon

This paper develops an analytical framework to investigate the relationship between water and armed conflict, and applies it to the ‘Summer War’ of 2006 between Israel and Lebanon (Hezbollah). The framework broadens and deepens existing classifications by assessing the impact of acts of war as indiscriminate or targeted, and evaluating them in terms of international norms and law, in particular International Humanitarian Law (IHL). In the case at hand, the relationship is characterised by extensive damage in Lebanon to drinking water infrastructure and resources. This is seen as a clear violation of the letter and the spirit of IHL, while the partial destruction of more than 50 public water towers compromises water rights and national development goals. The absence of pre-war environmental baselines makes it difficult to gauge the impact on water resources, suggesting a role for those with first-hand knowledge of the hostilities to develop a more effective response before, during, and after armed conflict

Chapter 12 Groundwater scarcity in the Middle East

The lack of natural water supplies in the Middle East and North Africa region is fundamentally a crucial constraint on socioeconomic growth, development, and stability. This is the most water-scarce region in the world. The present chapter provides insights into the problem and evaluates the drivers of this challenge and the multi impacts on the regional water scarcity. It also discusses the current use and future trends in water resources, including water-quality issues. It explores selected mitigation measures with potentially high applicability in the region. These measures include a range of sustainable water productions such as desalination, treated wastewater reuse, rainwater harvesting, and artificial aquifer recharge. Case studies of shared river basins, groundwater from the region, and its associated challenges and opportunities were also presented

Livelihoods, conflict and aid programming: Is the evidence base good enough?

In conflict-affected situations, aid-funded livelihood interventions are often tasked with a dual imperative: to generate material welfare benefits and to contribute to peacebuilding outcomes. There may be some logic to such a transformative agenda, but does the reality square with the rhetoric? Through a review of the effectiveness of a range of livelihood promotion interventions—from job creation to microfinance—this paper finds that high quality empirical evidence is hard to come by in conflict-affected situations. Many evaluations appear to conflate outputs with impacts and numerous studies fail to include adequate information on their methodologies and datasets, making it difficult to appraise the reliability of their conclusions. Given the primary purpose of this literature—to provide policy guidance on effective ways to promote livelihoods— this silence is particularly concerning. As such, there is a strong case to be made for a restrained and nuanced handling of such interventions in conflict-affected settings.Department for International Development - PO511