Work plan for analytical support of an integrated ecosystem assessment of the California Current Large Marine Ecosystem, FY11 ‐ FY13

NOAA/NCCOS is conducting the following work for the NOAA California Current Integrated Ecosystem Assessment, in support of the NOAA/NMFS Northwest Fisheries Science Center

Survey protocol for invasive species

This protocol was developed by the Biogeography Branch of NOAA’s Center for Coastal Monitoring and Assessment to support invasive species research by the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument. The protocol’s objective is to detect Carijoa riisei and Hypnea musciformis in deepwater habitats using visual surveys by technical divers. Note: This protocol is designed to detect the presence or absence of invasive species. A distinct protocol is required to collect information on abundance and impact, or monitor changes over time

Urban Economic Inequality and Its Determinants in the Southern Ethiopia: An Empirical Analysis

Income distribution among the economy participants in the urban settings has becoming the top agenda of research and development concerns in a contemporary world. The present study attempts to examine the status of urban economic inequality and its determinants in the Southern Ethiopia. A pre-tested structured questionnaire was used to collect the primary data from 508 households selected following multistage random sampling techniques. To analyze the status of urban economic inequality proxied by the share of annual consumption expenditure and total assets value, the study used Lorenz curve and Gini coefficients while econometric models approach was employed to explore its determinants. The study results revealed highly skewed distribution of economic wellbeing among the sampled households as evidenced by high Gini coefficients in its dimensions. Precisely, relative to other urbans, the wealth inequality was the highest in Wolaita Sodo town with Gini index of 0.4974 followed by Hawassa, while the highest consumption inequality (0.5082) measured by the same index was recorded in Hawassa city administration. The results of GLM and quantile regressions show that age of the household head, employment in casual works and town-dummy have statistically significant negative effect on per adult annual consumption expenditure, whereas the education level of household head, self-employment, asset ownership, income diversification, access to credit, private and saving habit are important variables that positively and significantly influence the household consumption expenditure; hence, make differences in the living standards among households. Furthermore, the positive and significant effect of gender of the household head, employment public sector and NGO, and cooperative membership was noticed in the 90th quantile regression result. Therefore, considering these significant variables during policy interventions is worthwhile. Above all, the use of appropriate redistributive policies can play a pivotal role in mitigating the unequal distribution of economic welfare among participants so as to augment the poverty reduction efforts. Keywords: Urban Economic Inequality, Lorenz curve, Gini-coefficients, Quantile regression Southern Ethiopi

Empirical Analysis of Factors Affecting Loan Diversion of Microfinance Group Borrowers: The Case of Omo Microfinance Kucha Sub-branch, Southern Ethiopia

Microfinance institutions play a pivotal role in poverty reduction by providing various financial services (micro-credit, saving and other services) for the rural small-scale farmers who cannot afford to adopt new technologies and to startup new business activities from their own source; hence, sometimes called ‘Rural Banks’. The major objective of the present study is to identify factors affecting loan diversion of microfinance’s small-scale group borrowers in the Kucha woreda. A pre-tested structured questionnaire was used to gather information from 131 smallholder farmers from six kebeles (villages), using the multistage sampling technique. Descriptive statistics and multinomial logit model were used to analyze the data collected. Eleven independent and one dependent, variables were selected for analytical purpose. The study revealed that of the total sample households 67 (51.1 %) were not diverted the loan (used for intended purposes), while the remaining 64 (48.9%) were diverted their loan to some other unintended goal. Among these, 46 (35.1%) were diverted to non-productive investments while 18(13.7 %) were diverted the loan to more productive schemes. A multinomial logit regression model was employed to identify factors that influence the loan diversion. The results indicate that purpose of the loan, dependency ratio, supervision and perception of borrower towards repayment have statistically significant explaining power to impact the probability of loan diversion to other more productive investments relative to not diverting the loan, assuming ceterius paribus. In the same talk, the probability of diverting the loan to non-productive investments in reference to base category is significantly affected by sex of the borrower, group size, number of females within the group and perception toward repayment. Based on the findings, it could be recommended that giving due attention for these significant variables is a paramount important for wise utilization of limited resources and to devise an appropriate policies that can actually improve the livelihood of the mass small-scale farmers. Keywords: Microfinance, Rural bank, Development finance, Group borrowers, Loan Diversion Multinomial Logi

Access and utilization of development communication by rural women: the case of Arsi Zone, Robe District, Ethiopia

Access to and utilization of information on improved ways of living is a prerequisite for modernization process of any human being, as ‘information is power’. It facilitates the individual to be more rational, increases the decision-making abilities and improve the standards of life. It is a process of self-empowerment. Denial of access to information curtails the chance of utilization of information and in turn the self-empowerment. The purposes of the study were to assess rural women’s access to and utilization of development communication, to identify major constraints in access and utilization of available development communication and to identify the personal, socio-psychological and situational factors of rural women influencing access and utilization of development communication. A two stage random sampling procedure was used to constitute the sample. The necessary data was obtained by personal face-to-face interview using a structured interview and focus group discussions. For the data analysis simple descriptive statistics, ranking of obtained score values and Pearson’s product moment correlation were used. The results of the study revealed that access to different types of information for rural women was generally minimal. The survey results indicated that, the most accessible information related to reproductive roles, though scarce, were, avoiding unexpected pregnancy (75.6%), vaccine for new born baby (67.5%), care and hygiene of children (62.5%). But for other types of reproductive roles majority of the respondents were not having access to development information. Access to development information on crop production, as well as livestock management was very minimal for rural women as perceived by the respondents. More than half of the respondents were not getting information about their rights and obligations in participating in community issues. The important constraints that inhibit rural women from access to development communication were lack of awareness, work load, low educational level, non availability of nearby institutions, remoteness of the area and cultural influence respectively in that order. Among the different personal, socio-psychological, situational and institutional factors, educational level, social participation, innovation proneness, information-seeking behavior, extension contact, and sharing of information tend to be important factors that contribute to access and utilization of development information

Financial Liberalization Policy at Micro Perspective, The Case of Banking Sector in Ethiopia: Literature Review

International institutions like World Bank (WB) and international monetary fund (IMF) are preached countries to adopt structural adjustment program around 1990.  Financial liberalization is one of among the key pillars of structural adjustment program with its own principles. Even though liberalization is with some costs due to IMF and WB followed conditionality approach for every nations especially for developing countries, all nations are adopting it. The basic themes behind the liberalization program are openness, privatization of government owned enterprises / properties, deregulation, reducing or eliminating tariffs and tax for international trade within and outside the domestic country, increasing interest rate, reducing government expenditure and eliminating government intervention in the economy (free market there by the two market forces efficiently manage marketing system), among others. The financial sector is the one that needs the adoption of liberalization strategy. This review gives more emphasis for the liberalization of the banking sector due to banks play the key role in the development arena of a given country. With the aim of facilitating economic growth the government of Ethiopia currently made different reforms to enhance and improve the capacity as well as efficiency of the banking sector. The government of Ethiopia had implemented major reform tools in the banking sector like optimizing interest rate, providing license for domestic private investors, increasing the number of government owned banks and private banks, addressing the wide-spread problem of nonperforming loans experienced by state owned banks, reconstituting both the Development Bank of Ethiopia and the Construction and Business Bank as commercial banks. The major outcomes of these measures were increasing access by customers, enhancing competition, increasing efficiency and increasing the reserve ratio and smoothing loan- credit base, among others. After implementing the above-mentioned reform measures in the banking sector (since 1990) the banking sector has been grown, yet still the banking sector is monopolized by government, inefficient in stabilizing the financial sector, and inefficient in accommodating the private sector saving as compared to other nations of the world. Hence the contribution of the banking sector for economic growth of the country remains insignificant. This review presents rough sketch of historical perspective of the banking sector in Ethiopia, current status of the banking sector in Ethiopia, financial sector reforms, summary and policy recommendations in their respective sequence

Determinants of Internal Audit Effectiveness (IAE) in the Ethiopian Public Enterprise, Case of Southern Region

Due to political, technological and economic changes in the last decades resulted in the rise of business risks, the economic instability and the important increase of financial fraud scandals have necessitated the use of internal audit for companies (Bekiaris et al., 2013; Vinary and Skaerbaek; 2014; Tsipouridou and Spathis, 2014; Gbadago, 2015). Therefore, it is of great importance to identify the factors affecting internal audit in order to be effective. Previous studies have used different approaches to investigate internal audit effectiveness, as effective internal audit is influenced by series of factors. Moreover, factors and measurement of internal audit effectiveness have been used differently by the researchers (Arena and Azzone, 2009) and until now, there is no consensus regarding the most appropriate framework for internal audit effectiveness (Endaya and Hanefah, 2013). Thus, effectiveness of internal audit is a dynamic process and a matter of considerable debate.Public sector offices are part of the public body which is partly or wholly financed by government budget and concerned with providing basic government services to the whole society (Ministry of Finance and Economic Development (MoFED, 2004). The compositions of the public sectors are varied by their function and purposes, but in most cases, they are designed in order to enable the public sectors to achieve their goals. The public sector provides services such as banking service, financing, education, communication service, healthcare, police, transportation, electric services, security and so on, which benefit all of the society and encourage equal opportunity to benefit from those services provided (Mihret and Yismaw, 2007). This research was focused on the determinants of Internal Audit Effectiveness in SNNPR Public sector office found in Hawasa mainly regional government offices. Mostly, the efficiency and effectiveness of the management operations in public sector are ensured by the effectiveness of its employees. Internal audit which are the focus of this study and also the key employee of public offices, are expected to work independently and objectively to enhance high quality of public services, achieve good internal control system, avoid corruption, ensure good corporate governance system, promote accountability and greater transparency (Coram et al, 2008; Van Peursem 2005; Belay, 2007). DOI: 10.7176/JRDM/52-02

Essays in health and population economics

[EN]This doctoral thesis consists of four research papers on Health and Population Economics. Three of them focuses on the dynamics of fertility in Uruguay—two of which carry out impact evaluations of relevant policy interventions—and the fourth looks at differences in health care use between natives and immigrants in Spain, exploring how the patterns of utilisation among foreign-born population evolve with age and the time spent in the host country