Policies to roll-back the state and privatize? Poverty reduction strategy papers investigated

This paper investigates poverty reduction strategy papers (PRSPs), launched by the International Monetary Fund/World Bank in 1999 as conditions for debt relief and loans. It queries whether PRSPs really represent a shift away from the controversial structural adjustment programmes (SAPs) of the past. Ostensibly PRSPs have a greater focus on poverty reduction, yet this investigation finds little has changed. Existing PRSPs lack essential components such as land reform and gender awareness, while changes with questionable impacts on poverty, such as liberalization and privatization, are promoted as beneficial. The ‘participation’ of civil society groups in drawing up PRSPs is found to be unsatisfactory, as is ‘ownership’ of PRSPs by governments. This paper stands as a critique of PRSPs and their assumed improvement on SAPs

The quality of life and social needs of international medical graduates : emerging themes in research

A literature review was conducted to identify the experiences, challenges and acculturation of International Medical Graduates (IMGs) living and working throughout rural and remote Australia. As such recently published literature highlighted key factors impacting IMGs living and working in rural and remote areas which informed the acculturation process in western society. IMGs acculturation throughout Australian rural settings occurs rapidly among these higher educated migrants. Those IMGs with Australian spouses or who have practiced in rural settings prior to migration also experience a new phase of acculturation. However, maintaining cultural and religious connectivity continues to be challenging in these settings. Community awareness and an ability to embrace IMGs and cultural differences remain crucial for identity and cultural retention. Nevertheless, few studies recognised quality of life and social needs of IMGs and their family’s impact on the rural acculturation and settlement success. Previous research has focused primarily on employment integration, satisfaction and practice support. The identified literature is in no way extensive as it focuses on IMGs in the Australian context, which may impact on transferability. A gap exists where quality of life and social needs of IMGs and their families have been overlooked. These are crucial factors impacting rural acculturation, retention and IMGs health and wellbeing. The literature highlights insights into IMGs acculturation as they migrate and reside in Tasmania, a less culturally diverse population, remains absent with very little comparable research conducted

The RIPPER Experience: A 3 Year Evaluation of an Australian Interprofessional Rural Health Education Pilot

AbstractBackground: The Rural Interprofessional Program Educational Retreat (RIPPER) uses interprofessional learning and educational strategies to prepare final year Tasmanian nursing, medical, and pharmacy students for effective healthcare delivery. RIPPER provided students (n = 90) with the opportunity to learn about working in an interdisciplinary team using authentic and relevant situational learning. RIPPER allowed students to work and learn interprofessionally in small teams and to apply their different professional skills and knowledge to a variety of rural healthcare situations.Methods and Findings: This article reports on three years of results from the program’s evaluation which used a pre-post test mixed method design. The findings show a significant and positive shift in students’ attitudes and understanding of interprofessional learning and practice following their participation in RIPPER. The evaluation findings suggest the need for sustainable interprofessional rural health education that is embedded in undergraduate curricula.Conclusion: The evaluation of RIPPER suggests that exposure of healthcare students to interprofessional education can positively affect their perceptions of collaboration, patient care, and teamwork. The evaluation also points to the rural context as an ideal place to showcase elements of effective interprofessional practice

Twenty Years after Beijing: Can Promises be Turned into Progress?

Twenty years since the landmark women's conference at Beijing, and as the post?2015 agenda is concluded, it is clear that there has been a significant increase in rhetoric from governments and even some notable achievements in the field of women's equality and rights. But a failure to tackle underlying causes – particularly the persistent unequal power relations between women and men – has thwarted real, sustainable progress. A report by the Gender and Development Network has identified four areas in need of far greater political focus and resources: working with marginalised women to build their own agency; supporting women's collective action; promoting positive social norms; and reassessing macroeconomic policies and the role of the care economy

Gendered Risk Perceptions Associated with Human-Wildlife Conflict: Implications for Participatory Conservation

This research aims to foster discourse about the extent to which gender is important to consider within the context of participatory approaches for biological conservation. Our objectives are to: (1) gender-disaggregate data about stakeholders' risk perceptions associated with human-wildlife conflict (HWC) in a participatory conservation context, and (2) highlight insights from characterizing gendered similarities and differences in the way people think about HWC-related risks. Two communal conservancies in Caprivi, Namibia served as case study sites. We analyzed data from focus groups (n = 2) to create gendered concept maps about risks to wildlife and livelihoods and any associations of those risks with HWC, and semi-structured interviews (n = 76; men = 38, women = 38) to measure explicit risk attitudes associated with HWC. Concept maps indicated some divergent perceptions in how groups characterized risks to wildlife and livelihoods; however, not only were identified risks to wildlife (e.g., pollution, hunting) dissimilar in some instances, descriptions of risks varied as well. Study groups reported similar risk perceptions associated with HWC with the exception of worry associated with HWC effects on local livelihoods. Gendered differences in risk perceptions may signal different priorities or incentives to participate in efforts to resolve HWC-related risks. Thus, although shared goals and interests may seem to be an obvious reason for cooperative wildlife management, it is not always obvious that management goals are shared. Opportunity exists to move beyond thinking about gender as an explanatory variable for understanding how different groups think about participating in conservation activities

A Whole-of-Rural-Community Approach to Supporting Education and Career Pathway Choice

Rural communities and partnerships are critical in career education, promoting pathways into work and further education and training. Families, teachers, and employers all may influence young people and adults who are considering pathway choices. This research aimed to equip these \u27key influencers\u27 with the knowledge and confidence to have supportive pathway conversations with rural young people and adults. The focus was not on those needing help with education/career choices, but rather those who influence their decisions. We used a Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR) approach in three communities to address the question: How can a whole of community approach best equip key influencers to inform and support rural student post school pathways? Community working parties were established to work alongside researchers to select, trial and evaluate of whole community, place-based, coordinated career education interventions, which targeted communities\u27 individual geographic, demographic and employment context. Communities were resourced with a local pathway broker and small budget for interventions. Individual interventions and the overall project approach were evaluated. Findings suggest that rural community-researcher partnerships can be effective in equipping key influencers with confidence and knowledge to inform and support education/career pathway choices. Community partnerships can take account of community assets and allow for interventions that address community contexts. Partnerships should foster community ownership to deliver education/career pathway information interventions that are flexible, accessible, sustainable, place-based, and authentic. This paper sets out a model for partnerships that effectively equips key influencers in rural communities to support education/career pathway choices

Optimising the automated recognition of individual animals to support population monitoring

Reliable estimates of population size and demographic rates are central to assessing the status of threatened species. However, obtaining individual-based demographic rates requires long-term data, which is often costly and difficult to collect. Photographic data offer an inexpensive, non-invasive method for individual-based monitoring of species with unique markings, and could therefore increase available demographic data for many species. However, selecting suitable images and identifying individuals from photographic catalogues is prohibitively time-consuming. Automated identification software can significantly speed up this process. Nevertheless, automated methods for selecting suitable images are lacking, as are studies comparing the performance of the most prominent identification software packages. In this study, we develop a framework that automatically selects images suitable for individual identification, and compare the performance of three commonly used identification software packages; Hotspotter, I3S-Pattern, and WildID. As a case study, we consider the African wild dog Lycaon pictus, a species whose conservation is limited by a lack of cost-effective large-scale monitoring. To evaluate intra-specific variation in the performance of software packages, we compare identification accuracy between two populations (in Kenya and Zimbabwe) that have markedly different coat colouration patterns. The process of selecting suitable images was automated using Convolutional Neural Nets that crop individuals from images, filter out unsuitable images, separate left and right flanks, and remove image backgrounds. Hotspotter had the highest image-matching accuracy for both populations. However, the accuracy was significantly lower for the Kenyan population (62%), compared to the Zimbabwean population (88%). Our automated image pre-processing has immediate application for expanding monitoring based on image-matching. However, the difference in accuracy between populations highlights that population-specific detection rates are likely and may influence certainty in derived statistics. For species such as the African wild dog, where monitoring is both challenging and expensive, automated individual recognition could greatly expand and expedite conservation efforts