Treatment seeking behaviour among poor urban women in Kampala Uganda

This thesis examines women's treatment seeking behaviour for their own illnesses and that of children underfive in Kamwokya . The focus is on the extent to which women's access to money and time use patterns affect treatment seeking. It has been argued that women's treatment seeking behaviour is influenced more by their time use than their access to and availability of money.The findings obtained through the use of case histories and in-depth interviews indicate that though women in Kamwokya have access to their own money, mainly through participation in income generating activities (business), illness management for children under-five and even more for the women themselves, remains problematic. Women are overworked and manage fragile businesses that require their personal attention and presence. Hence, treatment seeking is done in a manner that will ensure minimal disruption of businesses. Consequently children's health, and even more so, that of women , is compromised for the sake of other family needs.This thesis demonstrates that illness management is not context free, and that no one factor can explain the whole process ; it both affects and is affected by other things happening in the family. Due to the multiple roles women have to fulfil, "time use "is found to be the organising and central factor in illness management for both women and children in Kamwokya, whether from rich or poor households.The thesis concludes by suggesting that policy makers, health care providers and professionals ought to take into account the daily routines of family life in their plans and programmes. Strengthening of private sector health providers, health education programmes and increased awareness raising of male responsibilities towards their families are recommended as a way of improving the health of women and children in Uganda

Gender focused methods of research

Meeting: Climate Change and Adaptation Workshop, 25-30 January, 2010, Naivasha, KEResearch methodology should include a range of data collection methods to address the gender dimensions of vulnerability. Gender focused research reduces biases such as: treating sex/gender like any other variable and failing to put it into context; assumptions about gender neutrality and the consequent failure to provide gender sensitive research; failing to disaggregate data based on sex; failing to analyze sex-disaggregated data; failing to report the results of disparities. No single method can cover all of the issues hence it is important to combine quantitative and qualitative methods

Identifying the most deprived in rural Ethiopia and Uganda: A simple measure of socio-economic deprivation

The Extreme Deprivation Index uses easily verifiable answers to ten questions about the ownership of the most basic non-food wage goods - things that poor people in a variety of rural contexts want to have because they make a real difference to the quality of their lives. Using this Index, we define rural Ethiopians and Ugandans who lack access to a few basic consumer goods as 'most deprived': they are at risk of failing to achieve adequate education and nutrition; becoming pregnant as a teenager; remaining dependent on manual agricultural wage labour and failing to find to a decent job. As in other African countries, they have derived relatively little benefit from donor and government policies claiming to reduce poverty. They may continue to be ignored if the impact of policy on the bottom 10 per cent can be obscured by fashionably complex indices of poverty. We emphasize the practical and political relevance of the simple un-weighted Deprivation Index: if interventions currently promoted by political leaders and aid officials can easily be shown to offer few or no benefits to the poorest rural people, then pressures to introduce new policies may intensify, or at least become less easy to ignore

Logics of Affordability and Worth: Gendered Consumption in Rural Uganda

This article explores logics of affordability and worth within rural Ugandan households. Through an analysis of how worth is ascribed to certain goods, from the morally ambiguous personal consumption of alcohol and beauty products to the “responsible” category of educational spending and sanitary pads, the article demonstrates how gender norms and anxieties are marked and sustained in the consumption practices of the household, constituting what is deemed necessary, affordable, and responsible. Moral obligation is differentially distributed between genders: women are deemed responsible for household expenditure, their personal consumption preferences constrained, whereas men are able to delimit a sphere of personal consumption separate from the household, with limited accountability to its moral requirements. The gendered nature of power relations is thus revealed both in the apportioning of moral duty and in the construction of affordability through which consumption is enabled

Putting Children First: New Frontiers in the Fight Against Child Poverty in Africa

Despite important strides in the fight against poverty in the past two decades, child poverty remains widespread and persistent, particularly in Africa. Poverty in all its dimensions is detrimental for early childhood development and often results in unreversed damage to the lives of girls and boys, locking children and families into intergenerational poverty. This edited volume contributes to the policy initiatives aiming to reduce child poverty and academic understanding of child poverty and its solutions by bringing together applied research from across the continent. With the Sustainable Development Goals having opened up an important space for the fight against child poverty, not least by broadening its conceptualization to be multidimensional, this collection aims to push the frontiers by challenging existing narratives and exploring alternative understandings of the complexities and dynamics underpinning child poverty. Furthermore, it examines policy options that work to address this critical challenge.Comparative Research Programme on Poverty (CROP) at the University of Bergen.publishedVersio

Treatment seeking behaviour among poor urban women in Kampala Uganda

This thesis examines women's treatment seeking behaviour for their own illnesses and that of children underfive in Kamwokya . The focus is on the extent to which women's access to money and time use patterns affect treatment seeking. It has been argued that women's treatment seeking behaviour is influenced more by their time use than their access to and availability of money.The findings obtained through the use of case histories and in-depth interviews indicate that though women in Kamwokya have access to their own money, mainly through participation in income generating activities (business), illness management for children under-five and even more for the women themselves, remains problematic. Women are overworked and manage fragile businesses that require their personal attention and presence. Hence, treatment seeking is done in a manner that will ensure minimal disruption of businesses. Consequently children's health, and even more so, that of women , is compromised for the sake of other family needs.This thesis demonstrates that illness management is not context free, and that no one factor can explain the whole process ; it both affects and is affected by other things happening in the family. Due to the multiple roles women have to fulfil, "time use "is found to be the organising and central factor in illness management for both women and children in Kamwokya, whether from rich or poor households.The thesis concludes by suggesting that policy makers, health care providers and professionals ought to take into account the daily routines of family life in their plans and programmes. Strengthening of private sector health providers, health education programmes and increased awareness raising of male responsibilities towards their families are recommended as a way of improving the health of women and children in Uganda

Setting the scene : climate change and gender concepts

Meeting: Climate Change and Adaptation Workshop, 25-30 January, 2010, Naivasha, KEThe presentation reviews gender in terms of climate change adaptation. Gender inequality intersects with climate risks and vulnerabilities. Poor women’s limited access to resources, restricted rights, limited mobility and muted voice in shaping decisions make them highly vulnerable to climate change. Climate risks disrupt people’s lives by causing loss of income, resources and opportunities. A determinant of adaptative capacity is the extent to which climate change may damage a system. Vulnerability depends not only a system’s sensitivity (natural or social) but also on the ability to adapt and cope with new climatic conditions

Introduction to gender analysis tools in CCA

Meeting: Climate Change and Adaptation Workshop, 25-30 January, 2010, Naivasha, KEThe presentation provides a framework for gender analysis in a Climate Change Adaptation (CCA) context that includes data requirements and situation analyses in CCA conditions. It outlines various climate stressors and vulnerabilities in terms of gender roles and adaptive capacity along with potential impacts on livelihoods. Analysis encompasses understanding the division of labour, gendered activities, and access to and control of resources. Useful data sets include sex disaggregation, gender statistics and gender analytical information

Cultural and Resource Determinants of Severe Maternal Morbidity: Lessons from 'Near Miss' Experiences

No Abstract Available African Sociological Review 8, (1), 2004, pp. 67-8

Policy mapping: women's economic empowerment in Uganda

This is one of the five country-based scoping papers commissioned by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) to inform the foundations of the Growth and Economic Opportunities for Women (GrOW) East Africa InitiativeThis scoping paper highlights policies, plans, and initiatives related to women’s economic empowerment in Uganda. It identifies key stakeholders championing women’s economic empowerment—particularly in addressing unpaid care and women’s labour market participation—and opportunities for leveraging relevant policies and initiatives for greater impact. The paper highlights where research can help to advance women’s economic empowerment in Uganda. The authors conducted a rapid assessment of the policy and programming through an extensive desk review and qualitative and quantitative analysis of secondary sources.William and Flora Hewlett FoundationBill ＆ Melinda Gates Foundation