Assuring food and nutrition security in the time of AIDs

"The interactions between HIV/AIDS and food and nutrition insecurity are becoming clearer as research fills knowledge gaps. To address these gaps, different actors (from individual household members to national policymakers) need tools and processes to turn growing knowledge into appropriate action. One such tool is the HIV/AIDS lens. Through such mainstreaming of HIV/AIDS into food- and nutrition-relevant policy, evidence of what works is progressively built up, learning is enhanced, and people are ultimately better equipped to address the multiple threats of the pandemic." from TextAIDS (Disease) ,HIV/AIDS Africa ,

Poverty and poverty alleviation programmes: the experience of Uganda

The paper addresses itself on the experience in Uganda regarding poverty and poverty alleviation programs. Uganda's geographical setting is characterised by being a landlocked country astride the equator and bounded by Sudan in the North, Kenya in the East, Tanzania and Rwanda in the South and Zaire in the West. It is composed of a central raised undulating plateau which moderates its temperatures. Over 70 per cent of Uganda's arable land (142,00 sq km) is of sufficient fertility for agricultural production . Its population has risen steadily from hardly 2.5 million in 1911 to over 16.6 M in 1991 at an average growth rate of about 2.5 per cent though between 1959 and 1989 the rate rose to 3.8 per cent. The majority of the people live in rural areas. The urban population forms II per cent and live in the city, the main towns and trading centres of more than 2,000 people

Mobile phone technology as an aid to contemporary transport questions in walkability, in the context of developing countries

The emerging global middle class, which is expected to double by 2050 desires more walkable, liveable neighbourhoods, and as distances between work and other amenities increases, cities are becoming less monocentric and becoming more polycentric. African cities could be described as walking cities, based on the number of people that walk to their destinations as opposed to other means of mobility but are often not walkable. Walking is by far the most popular form of transportation in Africa’s rapidly urbanising cities, although it is not often by choice rather a necessity. Facilitating this primary mode, while curbing the growth of less sustainable mobility uses requires special attention for the safety and convenience of walking in view of a Global South context. In this regard, to further promote walking as a sustainable mobility option, there is a need to assess the current state of its supporting infrastructure and begin giving it higher priority, focus and emphasis. Mobile phones have emerged as a useful alternative tool to collect this data and audit the state of walkability in cities. They eliminate the inaccuracies and inefficiencies of human memories because smartphone sensors such as GPS provides information with accuracies within 5m, providing superior accuracy and precision compared to other traditional methods. The data is also spatial in nature, allowing for a range of possible applications and use cases. Traditional inventory approaches in walkability often only revealed the perceived walkability and accessibility for only a subset of journeys. Crowdsourcing the perceived walkability and accessibility of points of interest in African cities could address this, albeit aspects such as ease-of-use and road safety should also be considered. A tool that crowdsources individual pedestrian experiences; availability and state of pedestrian infrastructure and amenities, using state-of-the-art smartphone technology, would over time also result in complete surveys of the walking environment provided such a tool is popular and safe. This research will illustrate how mobile phone applications currently in the market can be improved to offer more functionality that factors in multiple sensory modalities for enhanced visual appeal, ease of use, and aesthetics. The overarching aim of this research is, therefore, to develop the framework for and test a pilot-version mobile phone-based data collection tool that incorporates emerging technologies in collecting data on walkability. This research project will assess the effectiveness of the mobile application and test the technical capabilities of the system to experience how it operates within an existing infrastructure. It will continue to investigate the use of mobile phone technology in the collection of user perceptions of walkability, and the limitations of current transportation-based mobile applications, with the aim of developing an application that is an improvement to current offerings in the market. The prototype application will be tested and later piloted in different locations around the globe. Past studies are primarily focused on the development of transport-based mobile phone applications with basic features and limited functionality. Although limited progress has been made in integrating emerging advanced technologies such as Augmented Reality (AR), Machine Learning (ML), Big Data analytics, amongst others into mobile phone applications; what is missing from these past examples is a comprehensive and structured application in the transportation sphere. In turn, the full research will offer a broader understanding of the iii information gathered from these smart devices, and how that large volume of varied data can be better and more quickly interpreted to discover trends, patterns, and aid in decision making and planning. This research project attempts to fill this gap and also bring new insights, thus promote the research field of transportation data collection audits, with particular emphasis on walkability audits. In this regard, this research seeks to provide insights into how such a tool could be applied in assessing and promoting walkability as a sustainable and equitable mobility option. In order to get policy-makers, analysts, and practitioners in urban transport planning and provision in cities to pay closer attention to making better, more walkable places, appealing to them from an efficiency and business perspective is vital. This crowdsourced data is of great interest to industry practitioners, local governments and research communities as Big Data, and to urban communities and civil society as an input in their advocacy activities. The general findings from the results of this research show clear evidence that transport-based mobile phone applications currently available in the market are increasingly getting outdated and are not keeping up with new and emerging technologies and innovations. It is also evident from the results that mobile smartphones have revolutionised the collection of transport-related information hence the need for new initiatives to help take advantage of this emerging opportunity. The implications of these findings are that more attention needs to be paid to this niche going forward. This research project recommends that more studies, particularly on what technologies and functionalities can realistically be incorporated into mobile phone applications in the near future be done as well as on improving the hardware specifications of mobile phone devices to facilitate and support these emerging technologies whilst keeping the cost of mobile devices as low as possible

SUBSTITUTABILITY OF AGENCY CONFLICTCON TROL MECHANISM: A SIMULTANEOUS EQUATION ANALYSIS OF INSIDER OWNERSHIP, DEBT, AND DIVIDEND POLICIES = Substitutabilitas Mekanisme Penxendalian Konflik Keagenan: Suatu P ersamaan

INTISARI Pemisahan kepemilikan dan pengendalian pada perusahaan moderen memunculkan dua pihak yaitu para manajer sebagai agen dan pemilik sebagai principal. Biasanya, agen tidak bertindak dalam cara yang sesuai dengan keinginan principal, dan hal ini menyebabkan munculnya konflik keagenan ekuitas. Menurut teori keagenan, ada beberapa cara untuk mengatasi masalah ini, antara lain: meningkatkan kepemilikan insider, kebijakan hutang, dan kebijakan dividen. Beberapa penelitian tentang tiga kebijakan tersebut mengungkapkanbahwa ada hubungan sating ketergantungan antara ketiga kebijakan tersebut. Penelitian ini dibangun berdasarkan hubungan tersebut untuk menguji apakah kebijakan finansial, yaitu kebijakan hutang dan kebijakan dividen dapat disubstitusikan dengan kebijakan non finansial yakni kepemilikan insider, dalam rangka mengatasi konflik keagenan. Dengan menggunakan analisis persamaan simultan terhadap data cross sectional, hasil penelitian ini menunjukkan bahwa terjadi substitusi antara kebijakan hutang dan kepemilikan insider. Tetapi, hubungan yang sama tidak terjadi antara kebijakan dividen dan kepemilikan insider. Hal ini didukung oleh adanya hubungan non-monotones antara dividen dan kepemilikan insider. Penelitian ini juga menunjukkan bahwa dalam mengatasi masalah konflik keagenan ekuitas, penggunaan hutang akan memicu konflik keagenan hutang. Kata kunci: persamaan simultan - konflik keagenan - kepemilikan insider kebijakan hutang kebijakan dividen

Kiri Booth'ile

Wilberforce, William, 1759-1833, inglise poliitikMääratlemata heategevusettevõtte organiseerimises

Relevance of Communication Strategies and Funding Orphanages in Ghana

This paper examined the relevance of communications strategies in improving domestic funding of orphanages in Ghana and in particular SOS Children Villages. With funding diculties being faced by both State and non-State actors such United Nations Children’s Fund, most of the orphanages are struggling to generate enough funds to take care of the social needs of the orphanages. The study used quantitative (constructivist) and qualitative (motivations, ideas and opinions) methods to address the key objectives of the paper – funding deciencies and the critical role of the media and communication strategies in solving the problem. It established the importance of communication strategies using media dependency and advocacy theories for social mobilization and behavioural change. The paper concludes that orphanages need a communication strategic plan for advocacy and resource mobilisation. A key recommendation is for a national policy framework to assist establish an endowment fund for orphanages. Such a national policy should make it mandatory for the Ghanaian media to oer their platforms for advocacy and fundraising activities by the orphanages.Keywords: Communication, Funding, Media, Orphanages, SOS CV Ghan

Organisational citizenship behaviour and service delivery in urban local governments in Uganda

The quality of service delivery in decentralised local governments (LGs) in Uganda remains largely unsatisfactory, despite central government’s efforts to improve resource allocation and develop supporting legal frameworks. This has been partly linked to the extent to which LG staff exhibit ‘organisational citizenship behaviour’ (OCB). Extant literature has not given adequate attention to OCB in the decentralisation discourse, especially in sub-national governments within developing countries such as Uganda. This paper tackles the issue of OCB among LG employees and its relationship to service delivery by addressing the following questions: (a) what is the level of OCB among LG employees and (b) to what extent do various dimensions of OCB relate to the quality of service delivery in the decentralised LG context? The study is a cross-sectional survey of 165 LG staff in central Uganda. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected. Using content analysis and correlational analysis, the study found that OCB among LG employees is too low, and that higher levels of OCB are associated with improved service delivery. The study recommends that LGs should prioritise effective leadership and supervision, a client-centred performance culture, and empowerment of staff in order to promote OCB among employees and thereby enhance service delivery to local communities

Battling Academic Corruption in Higher Education: Does External Quality Assurance (EQA) Offer a Ray of Hope?

The post-1980s changes in the global higher education landscape have triggered a burgeoning of incidents of academic corruption in higher education institutions. Since 2000, the discourse on how to combat academic corruption has gained traction in higher education and quality assurance is advanced as one of the strategies for fighting corruption in higher education. In 2016, UNESCO (and the Council for Higher Education Accreditation) issued a “wakeup call” to quality assurance systems to take up a leading role in the battle against academic corruption. However, a dearth of empirical and conceptual studies on how the quality assurance systems, in general, and external quality assurance systems, in particular, can take up a leading role in the crusade against academic corruption exists. This conceptual paper, using the crime-punishment model as an analytical lens, explores how the national quality assurance agencies (and systems) can exercise the leadership role in combating academic corruption. The paper advances the setting of academic integrity standards, institutional and programme accreditation, accreditation of academic journals, sharing information and promoting whistleblowing, monitoring of institutions, applying sanctions, and ranking of higher education institutions on the basis of integrity indicators as options that are available to quality assurance agencies in the exercise of their leadership role in combating academic corruption. These approaches are hypothesised to create both incentives and disincentives for the institutions and staff in connection with engaging in academic corruption. Nevertheless, the paper takes cognisance of the fact that external quality assurance is necessary but not sufficient in combating corruption at the level of the academy