Gender, Land and Water in the Poverty Reduction Strategy and Country Assistance Strategy for Sri Lanka\ud

Ten years after the adoption of the Beijing Declaration, gender mainstreaming is still high on the donor agenda. Nonetheless, a number of evaluation reports clearly indicate that operationalisation of gender mainstreaming strategies remains a challenging task. The integration of gender concerns at the country level requires adequate financial and human resources, and strong institutions, which have been lacking in the recent past. Has the World Bank, as one of the largest financial institutions, learned from previous critique? This paper looks at Sri Lanka's poverty reduction strategy and the World Bank's country assistance strategy for Sri Lanka, with a focus on the agricultural sector.\ud \ud Dix ans après l'adoption de la déclaration de Beijing, l'approche genre est toujours une priorité sur l'agenda des donateurs. Néanmoins, de nombreuses évaluations indiquent clairement que la mise en oeuvre de stratégies incorporant l'approche genre reste difficile. L'intégration des questions de genre au niveau national nécessite des ressources humaines et financières adéquates et des institutions fortes, facteurs qui ont fait défaut ces dernières années. Etant l'une des principales institutions financières, la Banque mondiale a t-elle appris des critiques qui lui ont été faites ? Cet article s'intéresse à la stratégie de réduction de la pauvreté au Sri Lanka et à la politique d'aide de la Banque mondiale à ce pays, l'accent étant mis sur le secteur agricole.\u

Mainstreaming gender in the EU-accession process: the case of the Baltic Republics

Since the early 1990s, the Baltic states have gone through processes of economic transition and liberalization. Although various reports give an overview of gendered impacts of these economic reforms, they fail to elaborate on the more complex relations between gender, citizenship, and social exclusion. This article explores these relations in more detail. The first decade of reforms in the Baltic states resulted in a lack of economic prospects, in particular for women from minority groups and women working in low-pay sectors. This made them increasingly vulnerable to trafficking for sexual purposes: migration to Western Europe was an attractive alternative for those without work, whether through legal or illegal migration channels. The failure to address this issue and other issues effectively cannot be attributed to the European level only. This argues that effective mainstreaming is also hampered by rapid changes in national governments, by political ideologies regarding the role of women, and by a lack of information and expertise within newly established gender-equality units

Teaching science and technology at primary school level: theoretical and practical considerations for primary school teachers' professional training.

This paper focuses on the importance of starting science and technology education at a young age and at the consequential importance of providing primary school teachers with enough professional background to be able to effectively incorporate science and technology into their teaching. We will discuss a large-scale program in The Netherlands that is aimed at the professionalization of elementary school teachers in the field of science and technology. Theoretical and practical considerations will be provided for the three pillars that ideally should be included in teacher training programs in this domain: (1) Primary school teachers’ knowledge of and competency in scientific concepts and scientific reasoning; (2) Primary school teachers’ attitude towards science (in terms of cognitive, affective, and behavioural dimensions of attitude); and (3) Primary school teachers’ pedagogical competency to enhance inquiry-based learning

Armed conflict and human behavior: a case study of the environmental management process in North Lebanon

This paper examines the variation in the effects of individuals’ vulnerability and trust on human behavior within five geographical areas (Akkar, Menieh, Tripoli, Koura, Batroun) along the northern coastline of Lebanon in the context of recurring armed conflict. Lebanon has been subject to regular episodes of armed conflict since 1975, with severe impacts on the social, economic, and political levels as well as on the environment. We argue that the episodes of armed conflict have increased individuals’ vulnerability and negatively affected citizens’ trust among themselves and between them and the stakeholders in the public sector at the national level involved in the environmental management process. The findings are based on 499 questionnaire surveys among citizens in the study area, 24 structured interviews with heads or representatives of heads of the villages and cities in the study area, and secondary literature including previous studies and official documents. The findings show spatial variation of citizens’ vulnerability to environmental damage caused by armed conflict. Citizens of Akkar, Menieh, and Tripoli show higher levels of vulnerability compared with citizens of Batroun and Koura. In addition, distrust between citizens themselves and between them and public sector stakeholders was one of the results of recurring armed conflict. Lack of trust between citizens and stakeholders of public sector is particularly relevant in environmental management in Lebanon

Inferring Rn-222 soil fluxes from ambient Rn-222 activity and eddy covariance measurements of CO2

We present a new methodology, which we call Single Pair of Observations Technique with Eddy Covariance (SPOT-EC), to estimate regional-scale surface fluxes of 222Rn from tower-based observations of 222Rn activity concentration, CO2 mole fractions and direct CO2 flux measurements from eddy covariance. For specific events, the regional (222Rn) surface flux is calculated from short-term changes in ambient (222Rn) activity concentration scaled by the ratio of the mean CO2 surface flux for the specific event to the change in its observed mole fraction. The resulting 222Rn surface emissions are integrated in time (between the moment of observation and the last prior background levels) and space (i.e. over the footprint of the observations). The measurement uncertainty obtained is about ±15 % for diurnal events and about ±10 % for longer-term (e.g. seasonal or annual) means. The method does not provide continuous observations, but reliable daily averages can be obtained. We applied our method to in situ observations from two sites in the Netherlands: Cabauw station (CBW) and Lutjewad station (LUT). For LUT, which is an intensive agricultural site, we estimated a mean 222Rn surface flux of (0.29 ± 0.02) atoms cm−2 s−1 with values  > 0.5 atoms cm−2 s−1 to the south and south-east. For CBW we estimated a mean 222Rn surface flux of (0.63 ± 0.04) atoms cm−2 s−1. The highest values were observed to the south-west, where the soil type is mainly river clay. For both stations good agreement was found between our results and those from measurements with soil chambers and two recently published 222Rn soil flux maps for Europe. At both sites, large spatial and temporal variability of 222Rn surface fluxes were observed which would be impractical to measure with a soil chamber. SPOT-EC, therefore, offers an important new tool for estimating regional-scale 222Rn surface fluxes. Practical applications furthermore include calibration of process-based 222Rn soil flux models, validation of atmospheric transport models and performing regional-scale inversions, e.g. of greenhouse gases via the SPOT 222Rn-tracer method