Etude Sur la Stratégie et le Programme D'appui à la Société Civile Burundaise

The author study's strategies and programs to build civil society in Burundi

Analysis of the Characteristics of Social Enterprises: The Case of Microfinance Institutions and Non-Profit Organizations Benefiting from Microcredit in Burundi

The crisis that Burundi has experienced since October 1993 has led to the emergence of new associative mechanisms at the initiative of Burundian citizens around the same adventure: that of microcredit. Far from being a fad, microcredit has been the single source of financing for poor citizens by enabling them to engage in income-generating activities. For this, beneficiaries who are for the most part without material guarantee must not only group themselves in associations, but also align themselves with the constraints of the lessor. According to the theory of contingency, any organization can increase its performance to the extent that its strategy is in harmony with its environment. Our analysis considers the issue of strategic alignment from a new angle. We conclude that the adjustment of the NPOs members to the modalities of granting loans enables them to benefit from Microfinance Institutions which help to reach their main objectives and to promote a real organizational efficiency

Computational studies of bond-site percolation.

Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2007.Percolation theory enters in various areas of research including critical phenomena and phase transitions. Bond-site percolation is a generalization of pure percolation motivated by the fact that bond-site is close to many physical realities. This work relies on a numerical study of percolation in lattices. A lattice is a regular pattern of sites also known as nodes or vertices connected by bonds also known as links or edges. Sites may be occupied or unoccupied, where the concentration ps is the fraction of occupied sites. The quantity pb is the fraction of open bonds. A cluster is a set of occupied sites connected by opened bonds. The bond-site percolation problem is formulated as follows: we consider an infinite lattice whose sites and bonds are at random or correlated and either allowed or forbidden with probabilities ps and pb that any site and any bond are occupied and open respectively. If those probabilities are small, there appears a sprinkling of isolated clusters each consisting of occupied sites connected by open bonds surrounded by numerous unoccupied sites. As the probabilities increase, reaching critical values above which there is an infinitely large cluster, then percolation is taking place. This means that one can cross the entire lattice by going successively from one occupied site connected by a opened bond to a neighbouring occupied site. The sudden onset of a spanning cluster happens at particular values of ps and pb, called the critical concentrations. Quantities related to cluster configuration (mean cluster and correlation length) and individual cluster structure (size and gyration radius of clusters ) are determined and compared for different models. In our studies, the Monte Carlo approach is applied while some authors used series expansion and renormalization group methods. The contribution of this work is the application of models in which the probability of opening a bond depends on the occupancy of sites. Compared with models in which probabilities of opening bonds are uncorrelated with the occupancy of sites, in the suppressed bond-site percolation, the higher site occupancy is needed to reach percolation. The approach of suppressed bond-site percolation is extended by considering direction of percolation along bonds (directed suppressed bond-site percolation). Fundamental results for models of suppressed bond-site percolation and directed suppressed bond-site percolation are the numerical determination of phase boundary between the percolating and non-percolating regions. Also, it appears that the spanning cluster around critical concentration is independent on models. This is an intrinsic property of a system

Study of the organizational effectiveness’s determinants of non-profit associations beneficiaries of microcredits in Burundi: a strategic alignment approach

Even if the Henderson and Venkatraman (1993) works on the strategic alignment have paved the way for several research to determine the impact of strategic alignment on companies’ organizational performance, there is absence of consensus in the literature regarding how companies can align. In addition, while the question of the effectiveness of non-profit organizations remains an important topic for researchers, empirical studies of their organizational effectiveness remain rare. We address this issue by taking on account a specific attribute of a difficult economic environment: the threat of survival of Burundian's Non-Profit Associations (ASBL) beneficiaries of microcredits. Thus, our study shows that the strategic alignment of these ASBL is realize through on their adjustment (taken in the sense of finality or condition that is different from the process) to the constraints of their donors. This approach articulate on three registers: in positioning us in the field of research of company strategies, we base on strategic alignment in the context of survival, and then we address survival issues. We demonstrate that the strategic adjustment is the basis of the survival strategies of these microstructures in a Burundian context dominated by insecurity and extreme poverty. The primary needs of these entities are indeed at the root of the adjustment response to key resources provided by microfinance institutions. Thus, the objective of our study is to explain how the strategic alignment of these ASBL to the constraints of the donors can have a decisive influence on their organizational effectiveness (a facet of performance). To this end, we build a model and we test it empirically with 150 ASBL beneficiaries of microcredits created from 1992 to 2011. We prove that their internal organization is an important determinant of their organizational effectiveness and is the basis of their efficiency. This organizational asset has certain particular features and is the result of strategic alignment

Single Mothers Empowerment: A program for increasing income for single mothers in Rwanda

In Rwanda, 47% of pregnancies are unintended every year (Basinga et al., 2012). These pregnancies lead to problems such as children growing without fathers, single mothers, girls dropping out of school, stigmatisation in the community and consequently a cycle of poverty. My literature review revealed that single mothers become mothers in their teen years, while they are exercising experimental sex. In many cases, their partners are children themselves which might explain their lack of involvement in the child’s life. However, there are other cases where girls and women are raped or involved in transactional sex for survival. I conducted a literature review and talked to single mothers in Karongi district in the Western province of Rwanda, and after considering the findings of my research and my own observations and experience living in the community, I designed a project called: Single Mothers Empowerment Project (SMEP). SMEP will attempt to remove some challenges preventing women from being financially independent and contributing members of their community. Ideally, these women would be accepted and embraced in their own community, so that they didn’t have to carry such big responsibilities alone or be stripped of joys of becoming a mother. Unfortunately, change takes time, and that is the time these women or their babies do not have as while change is yet to happen, precious years of life are passing by. As a trained development practitioner, the next best thing is to equip them so that while the community is learning to accept and embrace them, and/or change some of their long held believes (like no sex talk with parents), single mothers can take proper care of themselves. This project’s goal is to equip single mothers with the necessary tools and support to care for themselves and their children. Through the provision of skills training, sex education, childcare, and advocacy within the community, the project will directly contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 1): ending poverty for all while indirectly affecting SDG 2,4 &8

A survey on probabilistic broadcast schemes for wireless ad hoc networks

Broadcast or flooding is a dissemination technique of paramount importance in wireless ad hoc networks. The broadcast scheme is widely used within routing protocols by a wide range of wireless ad hoc networks such as mobile ad hoc networks, vehicular ad hoc networks, and wireless sensor networks, and used to spread emergency messages in critical scenarios after a disaster scenario and/or an accidents. As the type broadcast scheme used plays an important role in the performance of the network, it has to be selected carefully. Though several types of broadcast schemes have been proposed, probabilistic broadcast schemes have been demonstrated to be suitable schemes for wireless ad hoc networks due to a range of benefits offered by them such as low overhead, balanced energy consumption, and robustness against failures and mobility of nodes. In the last decade, many probabilistic broadcast schemes have been proposed by researchers. In addition to reviewing the main features of the probabilistic schemes found in the literature, we also present a classification of the probabilistic schemes, an exhaustive review of the evaluation methodology including their performance metrics, types of network simulators, their comparisons, and present some examples of real implementations, in this paper

Reversible Pulmonary Hypertension and Isolated Right-sided Heart Failure Associated with Hyperthyroidism

Hyperthyroidism may present with signs and symptoms related to dysfunction of a variety of organs. Cardiovascular pathology in hyperthyroidism is common. A few case reports describe isolated right heart failure, tricuspid regurgitation, and pulmonary hypertension as the prominent cardiovascular manifestations of hyperthyroidism. Although most textbooks do not mention hyperthyroidism as a cause of pulmonary hypertension and isolated right heart failure, the literature suggests that some hyperthyroid patients may develop reversible pulmonary hypertension and isolated right heart failure. We report a case of hyperthyroidism presenting with signs and symptoms of isolated right heart failure, tricuspid regurgitation, and pulmonary hypertension, which resolved with treatment of hyperthyroidism