More funding for education alone will not solve unemployment #AfricaAtWork

Maudo Jallow calls for an overhaul in education, creating instead a new model that is socially inclusive and more likely to improve the life of the masses

Dak'Art Biennale : Analysis of the critiques 1993–2016

Pro gradu -tutkielmassani analysoin Dak’Art Biennaalista kirjoitettuja arvosteluja ja kritiikkejä. Dak’Art Biennale on Senegalissa, Dakarissa järjestettävä suuri ja kansainvälinen afrikkalaisen nykytaiteen näyttely. Biennaali on vuodesta 1966 esittänyt erilaista afrikkalaista taidetta aina kirjallisuudesta visuaaliseen taiteeseen. Vuodesta 1996 Dak’Art Biennaali on keskittynyt afrikkalaisen nykytaiteen esittämiseen. 2000-luvun puolella Biennaali saavutti kansainvälisen lehdistön huomion ja on sitä myötä herättänyt paljon keskustelua taidemaailmassa. Biennaali julistaa pan-afrikkalaista ideologiaa ja pyrkii luomaan yhteisöllisyyttä ja yhteisöä kaikkein afrikkalaisten välillä asuinpaikasta riippumatta. Biennaalin tärkeä tehtävä on myös herättää keskustelua afrikkalaisuudesta, kolonialismin historian vaikutuksista, ideologioista ja nykyisen Afrikan mahdollisuuksista. Tutkimukseni keskittyy siihen, millaista keskustelua Dak’Art Biennaalista käydään taidemaailmassa ja akatemiassa. Tutkimusaineistoni koostuu vuosina 1993–2016 julkaistuista akateemisista artikkeleista, taidelehtien kritiikeistä ja muutamasta kulttuurisivuston julkaisemasta arvostelusta. Biennaaleja on tutkittu paljon taiteentutkimuksen piirissä. Olen tutkielmassani kiinnostunut erityisesti siitä, mitä kritiikit ja arvostelut kertovat itse Biennaalista ja millaisen kuvan ne muodostavat siitä sekä, miten ne osaltaan vaikuttavat Biennaalin representaatioon. Tutkielmassani olen kiinnostunut Biennaalista erityisesti postkolonialistisena tuotteena ja siitä, miten tämän ymmärtäminen näkyy kritiikeissä. Dak’Art Biennaali kantaa erityistä historiaa ja merkityksiä, jonka vuoksi postkolonialistinen ote on tärkeää tutkielmani kannalta. Lisäksi hyödynnän tutkielmassani Guy Debord’n teoriaa: Spektaakkelin yhteiskunta. Debord’n teoria on kritiikki nyky kapitalismille ja esittää, miten yhteiskunnasta on tullut osa representaatiota. Toisin sanoen, miten kaikki, minkä elämme ja koemme, on tullut representaatioksi. Kyseistä teoriaa on sovellettu Biennaali keskusteluissa siinä, miten Biennaalit edustavat spektaakkelia. Tutkielmassani pyrin soveltamaan teoriaa siinä, miten kritiikit käyttävät erilaisia strategioita, jotka osoittavat niiden edustavan Debord’n spektaakkelia. Tutkielmassani osoitan, miten kritiikit tuottavat spektaakkelin eri keinoin. Näitä keinoja tarkastelen kriittisen diskurssianalyysin avulla. Ensimmäiseksi pohdin kuinka kritiikit tuottavat spektaakkelia yleisesti ja edustavat eletyn representaatiota. Tämän jälkeen esitän, miten kritiikeistä näkyy markkinakapitalismin logiikka, ja, miten se liittyy Debord’n spektaakkeliin. Lisäksi analysoin, miten pan-afrikanistinen ja postkolonialistinen lähestymistapa näkyy kritiikeissä dominoivana ja ainoana lähestymisenä. Lopuksi tarkastelen, miten sosiopoliittiset valtasuhteet näkyvät kritiikeissä ja, miten spektaakkelin teoria voi auttaa ymmärtämään myös niiden ilmentymistä kritiikeissä. Debord’n Spektaakkelin yhteiskunta auttaa ymmärtämään Dak’Art kritiikkejä syvällisemmin ja laajemmassa kontekstissa. Tutkielmassani keskityn siis strategioihin, joita kriitikot käyttävät luodakseen Biennaalista tietynlaisen kuvan

Essays on immigrant integration, remittances, and agricultural policies in developing countries

This thesis is organised into two main parts; the first part relates to immigrants - their economic integration in the host country and their role in mitigating the effects of disasters in their home countries through remittances. The second part of this thesis is a policy evaluation of the effect of export bans on prices and food security. In the first chapter, I describe and investigate the role of informal institutions in the labour market integration of immigrants. I exploit a law in France, that was implemented in 1981 when the socialist government came to power, which allowed individuals including immigrants to organise themselves into groups or associations. North African immigrants mainly originating from Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria capitalised on this law to establish several community based organisations in various locations in France. A particular type that is of interest to this paper are those engaged in the economic integration of immigrants. These organisations mainly seek to assist immigrants in improving their labour market outcomes through the provision of language training classes, CV preparations, information about job opportunities and so on. I collect information on all such organisations registered in France between 1996 - the year in which the first organisation was recorded to 2012. I combine it with data from the French labour force survey between 1990 and 2012 to asses its effect on labour force participation, employment, and earnings of these immigrants using a difference-in-differences strategy combined with a Heckman selection model. I find that these organisations improve labour force participation rates and the probability of obtaining a job for Maghreb women without a corresponding reduction in earnings. %The impact of these organisations is driven by the larger impact on women, people who had stayed long in the destination country levels of education and immigrants arriving newly. In the second chapter, using monthly remittance flows from Italy to a number of developing countries, we investigate the impact of natural disasters on remittances with the aim of improving identification by adapting an event study design. This allows us to flexibly document the immediate response of remittances and to test if there exists any anticipatory or lag effect in the way in which remittances responds to natural disasters. The use of monthly data further allows us to clearly distinguish the response of remittances depending on the nature of the disaster. Our analyses uses various alternative specifications of the disaster measure and varying lengths of the response period. Our findings reveal that remittances increases significantly in the months following the occurrence of a disaster peaking at an average of 2.7 percent, four months following the disaster and averaging about 2 percent over the 12 months window. Controlling for disasters occurring outside our sample period to eliminate any remaining trend in remittance flows and capture any potential dynamics that might be attributed to disasters does not affect neither the magnitude or significance of our coefficients, rather it allows for a clear breakthrough in the dynamics of remittance flows around the time of the disaster. All our findings are robust to controlling for other shocks in the receiving country such as the trend and cyclical fluctuation in the monthly terms of trade, monthly rainfall and temperature as well as a proxy for the economic condition in the sending country and a host of country and time fixed effects. Further carrying out several heterogeneity analyses reveal that the response of remittances is higher for countries with a relatively larger stock of immigrants and that the observed effect is largely driven by the response to disasters occurring in upper middle-income developing countries. We also find a differential response in timing based on the nature of the disaster, slow or sudden. %, for instance, restricting our analyses to only countries with a relatively larger stock of immigrants, we find that the response of remittances is much higher for these countries. When we dis-aggregate in terms of countries level of development, we find that the observed effect is largely driven by the response to disasters occurring in upper middle-income developing countries. We also find a differential response in timing based on the nature of the disaster. Finally, in the third chapter I conduct a policy evaluation of the effect of an export ban on maize instituted by the Malawian government. Using monthly price and annual harvest data from the Malawian ministry of agriculture, I investigate the effect of the policy on maize prices and its volatility as well as on maize production. I extend this literature by further distinguishing the export bans based on whether they are internally induced - supply shock or externally induced demand shock. To account for the endogeneity of the ban, I Use monthly rainfall data and global maize prices as instruments for the ban. I find the export bans on aggregate to be unsuccessful in preventing a rise in maize prices, though to some extent it stabilises maize prices. Once we distinguish the ban based on factors inducing it, we find two opposing results. First, that export bans are ineffective against a demand induced export ban but very effective against a supply induced export ban. Based on anecdotal evidence, it seems that traders hoard these goods in anticipation of a lifting of the ban to get access to better prices for their products, hence the ineffectiveness f the ban in the midst of rising global prices. Furthermore, there is also evidence that despite the ban, positive quantities of maize continues to be exported illegally rendering the policies ineffective and thereby failing to mitigate the effect of the shock on prices. In terms of food security, we use the share of acreage dedicated to maize production as a proxy for food security. Here, I argue that the ad-hoc nature in which the policy is imposed and lifted creates a source of uncertainty in maize prices which may have consequent effect on farmers maize cultivation decisions, especially for large scale commercial farmers. Estimating a dynamic system GMM model, I find that the ban induces farmers to reduce the acreage share allocated to maize production. However, since we do not observe the variety of maize being cultivated or the inputs used in production, we cannot really conclude on whether there is a decline in maize production or a shift towards cultivating higher yielding maize varieties

INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT IN A DEPRESSED AREA: MALE-FEMALE DIFFERENCES IN ATTITUDES

Community/Rural/Urban Development,

Accelerating Economic Development and Improving the Current Account Balance: What Roles can Industrial Policy Play in The Gambia?

The Gambia has been running continuous current account deficits since the 1970s owing to large merchandise importation. The GMD (Gambian money dalasi) is on a continuous gradual nose-dive. By employing a vector autoregressive model (VAR) for export determination, and a general to specific linear regression for import determination, for the period 1980-2017 and 1966-2017 respectively, this paper investigates whether the currency depreciation is causing imports (merchandise) to decline and/or causing exports to increase. Furthermore, this article addresses the need and roles industrial policy and industrialization can play in accelerating economic development in The Gambia. The empirical evidence found dictates that a depreciation of the GMDis neither causing a decline in imports nor an increase in exports. Underpinned by the research outcome, we suggest that policymakers implement EOI (export-oriented industrialization) and ISI (imports substitution industrialization) industrialization strategy mix to expedite economic development, correct the long-standing current account deficits and curb the currency depreciation. Given the global economic environment, and the smallness of the Gambia's economy relative to its trading partners, we put forward that the implementation of these strategies is in a framework of engaging the public, private and foreign sectors

The Role of Islamic Boarding School Education in Character Formation (Perspective of Islamic Psychology)

Islamic boarding school is a traditional school that focuses on Islamic education and is usually founded by a kyai or cleric. At the Islamic boarding school, students study Islam, Arabic, interpretation of the Qur'an, hadith, jurisprudence, morals, and various other sciences. In this study, researchers used literature research methods. A literature research method is an approach used to collect and analyze information from published related sources, such as journals, books, reports, and other documents. The aim is to obtain an overview of the topic under study and obtain the required information. In this research, we will discuss further: Islamic values in character building, the role of Islamic boarding school education in character building, and the role of Islamic boarding school education in character building (Islamic psychology perspective

Intergenerational Peacebuilding Among Women (Case Study: Botswana)

This case study is part of the Intergenerational Peacebuilding Among Women: Leveraging the Power of Collaboration report created by the Women PeaceMakers program. In this case study, Woman PeaceMaker Fellow Ramatoulie Isatou Jallow explores the state of intergenerational peacebuilding and coalition-building for women-led civil society organizations in Botswana. This research demonstrates that there is a need for dialogues around positive peace in Botswana, as well as for more synergy and trust between different generations of women. Furthermore, with more extensive education on the concept of intergenerational coalition-building, women and women-led CSOs can form these coalitions across generations more deliberately.https://digital.sandiego.edu/ipj-research/1065/thumbnail.jp

A Comparative Study On Parent And Resistant MCF-7 Cells On Migration Characteristics With Regards To Bioactive Glass Treatment

Introduction: Breast cancer is one of the leading causes of mortality worldwide, particularly among women. It accounts for one third of mortality and is the second most common cancer in the world. The 45S5 bioactive glass (BG) is predominantly used in the orthopaedic and dentistry field for bone and tissue regeneration. Recently, it is being tested as a mode of drug delivery particularly in cancer therapy. Objective: To perform a comparative study on parent and resistant breast cancer cell lines (MCF-7) migration with 4555 bioactive glass. Methods: BG was synthesised using sol-gel method. Wound healing assay was done to determine closure of wound area at different time-points. Each cell line was grown in 24-well plates and treated with different concentration of BG and standard chemotherapy drug vinblastine. Wound area was analysed using Image J and repeated measures ANOVA used to analyse the obtained data. Results and Discussion: Findings suggest 2 mg/ml BG promoted migration and migration of parent and resistant MCF- 7 breast cancer cells. While at higher concentration with 4 mg/ml BG, 8 mg/ml BG and vinblastine caused inhibition of parent and resistant MCF-7. There was no significant difference of closure area between the controls and 2 mg/ml BG treated cells. Significant difference was detected between the controls of parent and resistant MCF-7 cells with 4 mg/ml BG, 8 mg/ml BG and vinblastine treated breast cancer cells. Furthermore, there was no significant difference between ≥ 4 mg/ml BG treated cells and vinblastine. Conclusion: Bioactive glass of ≥ 4 mg/ml can be useful as a prospective inhibitory agent in breast cancers or can be doped as an adjuvant to standard chemotherapy

Prosecuting International Crimes in Africa: Lessons from Rwanda and Reflections on the Future

In this article the former Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda reflects on his experiences to respond to the question: what options are available for Africa in dealing with mass atrocity crimes based on the ICTR experience? The article notes the pedigree of Africa in terms of international criminal justice and the contributions this allows it to bring to the broad questions of ensuring justice for mass atrocities and building peace and reconciliation after such incidences