The local governance of social security in rural Surkhondarya, Uzbekistan: Post-Soviet community, state and social order

Post-Soviet restructurings in the agricultural and social sectors exerted pressure on the livelihood situation of the Uzbek rural population. The sovkhoz/ kolkhoz had been an overarching organisation which locally organised not only agrarian production. It also served as a local administration, regulated the distribution of centrally provided social goods and services and thus guaranteed basic social security to its members. Its disintegration must have introduced dynamics of community change which go beyond the mere organisational aspects of production and social security. Together with political and economic frameworks the whole ensemble of local communities' imminent social structures is subject to change. But in this regard, village communities in the rural areas of Surkhondarya feature very distinct developments. They strongly differ in present local governance patterns and the role of the state as an actor holding a stake in these: In the cotton area where the state has strong interest in the maintenance of proven production patterns and thus an adherence to Soviet structural and institutional frameworks, the population in terms of social security still benefits from a collective-like and locally embedded agricultural production system. This bolstered the stability of social order shaped by a worldview based on a 'collective identity'. The mahalla as a newly introduced (self-)administration in the local arena could establish as a mediator between the state, the local farmers and the population and is of strong relevance in the governance of local affairs. Together with the new private agricultural producers it inherited the organisational and social functions of the kolkhoz. In contrast, the mountainous area - due to the absence of a highly state-regulated production system a politically and economically peripheral region - exhibits the emergence of a relatively liberal economic system under an environment of political self-regulation. A collective kolkhoz-identity has vanished. The mahalla plays only a marginal role in the local setting and did not find its standing in an adapting social order

Comparing unilateral and bilateral upper limb training: The ULTRA-stroke program design

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>About 80% of all stroke survivors have an upper limb paresis immediately after stroke, only about a third of whom (30 to 40%) regain some dexterity within six months following conventional treatment programs. Of late, however, two recently developed interventions - constraint-induced movement therapy (CIMT) and bilateral arm training with rhythmic auditory cueing (BATRAC) - have shown promising results in the treatment of upper limb paresis in chronic stroke patients. The ULTRA-stroke (acronym for Upper Limb TRaining After stroke) program was conceived to assess the effectiveness of these interventions in subacute stroke patients and to examine how the observed changes in sensori-motor functioning relate to changes in stroke recovery mechanisms associated with peripheral stiffness, interlimb interactions, and cortical inter- and intrahemispheric networks. The present paper describes the design of this single-blinded randomized clinical trial (RCT), which has recently started and will take several years to complete.</p> <p>Methods/Design</p> <p>Sixty patients with a first ever stroke will be recruited. Patients will be stratified in terms of their remaining motor ability at the distal part of the arm (i.e., wrist and finger movements) and randomized over three intervention groups receiving modified CIMT, modified BATRAC, or an equally intensive (i.e., dose-matched) conventional treatment program for 6 weeks. Primary outcome variable is the score on the Action Research Arm test (ARAT), which will be assessed before, directly after, and 6 weeks after the intervention. During those test sessions all patients will also undergo measurements aimed at investigating the associated recovery mechanisms using haptic robots and magneto-encephalography (MEG).</p> <p>Discussion</p> <p>ULTRA-stroke is a 3-year translational research program which aims (1) to assess the relative effectiveness of the three interventions, on a group level but also as a function of patient characteristics, and (2) to delineate the functional and neurophysiological changes that are induced by those interventions.</p> <p>The outcome on the ARAT together with information about changes in the associated mechanisms will provide a better understanding of how specific therapies influence neurobiological changes, and which post-stroke conditions lend themselves to specific treatments.</p> <p>Trial Registration</p> <p>The ULTRA-stroke program is registered at the Netherlands Trial Register (NTR, <url>http://www.trialregister.nl</url>, number NTR1665).</p

Between Hope and Hype: Traditional Knowledge(s) Held by Marginal Communities

Traditional Knowledge (TK) systems have always been integral to the survival and adaptation of human societies. Yet, they enjoy a fairly recent recognition and popularization by scientists, the media, politicians, corporates and the wider public. In this paper we present a typology of key driving forces behind the popularization of TK held by marginal communities: an equality preference motive, a value motive, a compliance motive, a scarcity motive and a strategic motive. Secondly, through the use of a simple model, we discuss the hype's impact on marginal communities. Moreover, we critically assess the outcome of a number of policy instruments that intend, in part, to protect traditional knowledge bases of such communities. Our analysis primarily draws upon secondary literature; policy documents and case studies within economics, the social sciences, conservation biology and legal studies. We argue that whilst the public and institutional hype around TK may have resulted in its prioritization within international conventions and frameworks, its institutionalization may have adversely impacted marginalized communities, and in particular contexts, unintentionally led to the creation of 'new' marginals. We purport that the traditional innovation incentive motive does not hold for protecting TK within a private property regime. Instead we identify a conservation incentive motive and a distribution motive that justify deriving policy instruments that focus on TK to protect marginal communities

Food and Nutrition Security Indicators: A Review

In this paper, we review existing food and nutrition security indicators, discuss some of their advantages and disadvantages, and finally classify them and describe their relationships and overlaps. In order to achieve this, the paper makes reference to the existing definitions of food and nutrition security (FNS), in particular as they have been agreed upon and implemented in the FoodSecure project (www.foodsecure.eu). The main existing conceptual frameworks of FNS predating the present paper are also used as guidelines and briefly discussed. Finally, we make recommendations in terms of the most appropriate FNS indicators to quantify the impacts of various shocks and interventions on food and nutrition security outcomes

The Economics of Land Degradation

Healthy soils are essential for sustaining economies and human livelihoods. In spite of this, the key ecosystem services provided by soils have usually been taken for granted and their true value - beyond market value - is being underrated. This pattern of undervaluation of soils is about to change in view of rapidly raising land prices, which is the result of increased shortage of land and raising output prices that drive implicit prices of land (with access to water) upward. Moreover, the value of soil related ecosystems services is being better understood and increasingly valued. It is estimated that about a quarter of global land area is degraded, affecting about 1.5 billion people in all agro-ecologies around the world. Land degradation has its highest toll on the livelihoods and well-being of the poorest households in the rural areas of developing countries. Vicious circles of poverty and land degradation, as well as transmission effects from rural poverty and food insecurity to national economies, critically hamper their development process. Despite the need for preventing and reversing land degradation, the problem has yet to be appropriately addressed. Policy action for sustainable land use is lacking, and a policy framework for action is missing. Key objectives of this Issue Paper and of a proposed related global assessment of the Economics of Land Degradation (ELD) are: first, to raise awareness about the need for and role of an assessment of the economic, social and environmental costs of land degradation; and second, to propose and illustrate a scientific framework to conduct such an assessment, based on the costs of action versus inaction against land degradation. Preliminary findings suggest that the costs of inaction are much higher than the costs of action