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Credit Constraint and Its Implication on Small Holder Farmers Technology Adoption in South Ethiopia: In Case of Gedeo Zone

The study is conducted using a primary data which is collected from 252 randomly selected households found in two woredas of gedeo zone with the objective of analyzing determinants of small holder farmers’ demand for and access to credit and its implication on agricultural technology adoption and intensity of adoption.  Probit and double hurdle models are employed to analyze the data. Being young, number of oxen and distance to credit market found to reduce the probability of being credit constrained. Age, number of oxen, family size and technology adoption found to increase credit demand while land size, tropical livestock unit and distance to credit market found with negative (unexpected) signs. In the double Hurdle model estimation while credit market participation, being literate, being young and livestock holdings found to determine the probability of technology adoption positively having oxen, being credit constrained and far from input market affected probability of technology adoption negatively. In the last estimation education, land size, and livestock holdings turned to affect intensity of adoption positively while number of oxen and distance to input market found to reduce expenditure farm technology. Keywords: credit, technology adoption, intensity of adoption, probit and double hurdle model, gedeo zone, Ethiopia

INDOOR ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY (IEQ) AND BUILDING ENERGY OPTIMIZATION THROUGH MODEL PREDICTIVE CONTROL (MPC)

This dissertation aims at developing a novel and systematic approach to apply Model Predictive Control (MPC) to improve energy efficiency and indoor environmental quality in office buildings. Model predictive control is one of the advanced optimal control approaches that use models to predict the behavior of the process beyond the current time to optimize the system operation at the present time. In building system, MPC helps to exploit buildings’ thermal storage capacity and to use the information on future disturbances like weather and internal heat gains to estimate optimal control inputs ahead of time. In this research the major challenges of applying MPC to building systems are addressed. A systematic framework has been developed for ease of implementation. New methods are proposed to develop simple and yet reasonably accurate models that can minimize the MPC development effort as well as computational time. The developed MPC is used to control a detailed building model represented by whole building performance simulation tool, EnergyPlus. A co-simulation strategy is used to communicate the MPC control developed in Matlab platform with the case building model in EnergyPlus. The co-simulation tool used (MLE+) also has the ability to talk to actual building management systems that support the BACnet communication protocol which makes it easy to implement the developed MPC control in actual buildings. A building that features an integrated lighting and window control and HVAC system with a dedicated outdoor air system and ceiling radiant panels was used as a case building. Though this study is specifically focused on the case building, the framework developed can be applied to any building type. The performance of the developed MPC was compared against a baseline control strategy using Proportional Integral and Derivative (PID) control. Various conventional and advanced thermal comfort as well as ventilation strategies were considered for the comparison. These include thermal comfort control based on ASHRAE comfort zone (based on temperature and relative humidity) and Predicted Mean Vote (PMV) and ventilation control based on ASHRAE 62.1 and Demand Control Ventilation (DCV). The building energy consumption was also evaluated with and without integrated lighting and window blind control. The simulation results revealed better performance of MPC both in terms of energy savings as well as maintaining acceptable indoor environmental quality. Energy saving as high as 48% was possible using MPC with integrated lighting and window blind control. A new critical contaminant - based demand control ventilation strategy was also developed to ensure acceptable or higher indoor air quality. Common indoor and outdoor contaminants were considered in the study and the method resulted in superior performance especially for buildings with strong indoor or outdoor contaminant sources compared to conventional CO2 - based demand control ventilation which only monitors CO2 to vary the minimum outdoor air ventilation rate

Regulation of Ordinary Partnership under Ethiopian Law: A Comparative Analysis of Selected Legal Issues with the French Civil Partnership and the Thai Ordinary Partnership Regimes

Civil/ordinary partnerships as non-commercial entities play a vital role as an alternative form of doing business in various jurisdictions. Though the issue of where they should be regulated is becoming nonsensical in recent times, it is wise to have a well-structured legal framework which regulates these entities. This article aims to conduct a comparative analysis of the regulation of Ethiopia’s ordinary partnership with the French civil code partnership and the Thai ordinary partnership only on issues of formation, transfer of share, management, liability of partners, dissolution of partnership, distribution of profit and loss, and expulsion of a  partner. The comparative analysis shows that in many areas of regulation, the Ethiopian law has more commonalities with that of Thai ordinary partnership and French civil code partnership legal regimes. This article also finds that the Ethiopian law of ordinary partnership ought to be improved as regards the issues of the transfer of shares related to ascendants and descendants, on the distribution of profits and losses, on the role of partners in a dissolution of the partnership, and on the expulsion of a partner

Small farmer credit and tenurial problems in Ethiopia

The purpose of this thesis is to examine how productive credit can be applied to the problems of Ethiopian small farming, both to raise the level of productivity and to improve the standard of living of the people. It is shown that for these purposes Ethiopia can be divided into two types of region - communal and individual tenure provinces. The communal tenure provinces have two key problems, tenurial and the pressures of population. The former has a deleterious effect upon individual investment incentives through the inalienability of land, and consequent proble~ of mortgage security and the insecurity of tenure. Population pressures affect the scope for producing saving and investment surpluses. Therefore for these communal tenure provinces certain policy recommendations emerge. These involve altering methods of obtaining loans together with an emphasis upon repayments being deducted from sale proceeds. Credit should first be confined to the provision of improvements of a land-saving nature and legislative intervention is also required to ensure the farmer use for this land for a minimum period after making these land-saving improvements. In the individual tenure provinces the key features revolve about problems of tenant's rentals. Population pressures are here lower, which allows the production of surpluses and also ensures that both and and labour-saving improvements increase the levels of production. For these provinces policy recommendations emphasise land reform. Or, if this is not practicable, they advocate tenure reform along the lines of fixed rents (at educed levels) instead of rents as a proportion of production: this latter with guarantees of tenure security. These reforms should ensure investment incentives as credit for labour-saving and land-saving devices will contribute immediate increases in productivity

Building capacity to develop an African teaching platform on health workforce development: a collaborative initiative of universities from four sub Saharan countries

INTRODUCTION: Health systems in many low-income countries remain fragile, and the record of human resource planning and management in Ministries of Health very uneven. Public health training institutions face the dual challenge of building human resources capacity in ministries and health services while alleviating and improving their own capacity constraints. This paper reports on an initiative aimed at addressing this dual challenge through the development and implementation of a joint Masters in Public Health (MPH) programme with a focus on health workforce development by four academic institutions from East and Southern Africa and the building of a joint teaching platform. METHODS: Data were obtained through interviews and group discussions with stakeholders, direct and participant observations, and reviews of publications and project documents. Data were analysed using thematic analysis. CASE DESCRIPTION: The institutions developed and collaboratively implemented a ‘Masters Degree programme with a focus on health workforce development’. It was geared towards strengthening the leadership capacity of Health ministries to develop expertise in health human resources (HRH) planning and management, and simultaneously build capacity of faculty in curriculum development and innovative educational practices to teach health workforce development. The initiative was configured to facilitate sharing of experience and resources. DISCUSSION: The implementation of this initiative has been complex, straddling multiple and changing contexts, actors and agendas. Some of these are common to postgraduate programmes with working learners, while others are unique to this particular partnership, such as weak institutional capacity to champion and embed new programmes and approaches to teaching. CONCLUSIONS: The partnership, despite significant inherent challenges, has potential for providing real opportunities for building the field and community of practice, and strengthening the staff and organizational capacity of participant institutions. Key learning points of the paper are: *the need for long-term strategies and engagement; *the need for more investment and attention to developing the capacity of academic institutions; *the need to invest specifically in educational/teaching expertise for innovative approaches to teaching and capacity development more broadly; and *the importance of increasing access and support for students who are working adults in public health institutions throughout Africa.Web of Scienc

Barriers to voluntary counseling and testing of individuals in selected areas of the gurage zone, Ethiopia

Magister Artium - MADespite wide acceptance of Voluntary Counselling and Testing (VCT) as a crucial entry point for the prevention, treatment, care and support of HIV-infected persons; the prevalence of testing in Ethiopia remains very low. A review of the literature identifies the set of factors that influence HIV testing of individuals to include socio-economic and demographic factors, knowledge of HIV/AIDS, risk perception, fear of stigma, social capital and the perceived benefit of VCT. By drawing assumptions based on the known literature, this mini-thesis explores the relationship between VCT usage and the above factors in order to explain the status of HIV testing in Moher and Aklil district, Gurage Zone, Ethiopia. The study hopes to address the dearth of material on VCT and contribute to it in a non-clinical and rural context

Determinants of effective organisational capacity training: Lessons from a training programme on health workforce development with participants from three African countries

Health systems in sub-Saharan Africa face multifaceted capacity challenges to fulfil their mandates of service provision and governance of their resources. Four academic institutions in Africa implemented a World Health Organisation-funded collaborative project encompassing training, curriculum development, and partnership to strengthen national leadership and training capacity for health workforce developmen