Vietnam’s Trade Liberalisation: Potential Impacts on Child Well-being

Following extensive economic and market reforms and more than a decade of negotiations, Vietnam became the latest country to accede to the World Trade Organization in November 2006. While it is expected that greater integration into the world economy will boost Vietnam’s economic growth and contribute to the country’s ongoing transition towards a market economy, there are concerns about potentially negative impacts on vulnerable sectors of the population, including remote rural populations, women and children. This paper examines the possible impacts of Vietnam’s trade liberalisation on children in poor communities. It focuses on three key aspects of child well-being – child work (domestic and extra-household), educational attainment and health status – drawing on data from the first wave of the Young Lives Vietnam longitudinal survey on childhood poverty. Our main findings point to significant differences based on ethnicity, household poverty status and vulnerability to declining living standards, parental (especially maternal) education levels, children’s involvement in work activities, and access to public services

What makes a successful spoken request? Using corpus tools to analyse learner language in a UK EAP context

This study analyses the language of successful spoken requests used by Chinese intermediate level English for Academic Purposes (EAP) students in Discourse Completion Tasks (DCTs) at a UK higher education institution. Using corpus tools, the authors examined the frequent words, chunks and moves in request data and compared this to general reference corpora. Findings suggest that successful spoken requests often made use of high frequency modals and chunks. The data also demonstrated that the use of appropriate request moves were often associated with success, even if the language used contained linguistic errors. The findings have important implications for how spoken requests are taught in an academic context. The study also shows how learner data can be analysed with open-access corpus analysis tools used to provide a model of successful learner language; something which may be a more achievable model to aspire to than native speaker language

Vietnam’s Trade Liberalisation: Potential Impacts on Child Well-being

Following extensive economic and market reforms and more than a decade of negotiations, Vietnam became the latest country to accede to the World Trade Organization in November 2006. While it is expected that greater integration into the world economy will boost Vietnam’s economic growth and contribute to the country’s ongoing transition towards a market economy, there are concerns about potentially negative impacts on vulnerable sectors of the population, including remote rural populations, women and children. This paper examines the possible impacts of Vietnam’s trade liberalisation on children in poor communities. It focuses on three key aspects of child well-being – child work (domestic and extra-household), educational attainment and health status – drawing on data from the first wave of the Young Lives Vietnam longitudinal survey on childhood poverty. Our main findings point to significant differences based on ethnicity, household poverty status and vulnerability to declining living standards, parental (especially maternal) education levels, children’s involvement in work activities, and access to public services.Childwelfare; Vietnam; WTO; Education; Child Labour; Young Lives

Children's Educational Completion Rates and Dropouts in the Context of Ethiopia's National Poverty Reduction Strategy

A combination of quantitative and qualitative method was used to analyse the determinants of school completion/dropout of children from primary education. A Cox box proportional hazard model was used analyse the survival of children in primary education. The findings have important implications for the formulation and revising Ethiopian Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper. While the policy focus of the 1996-initiated ESDP and the SDPRP (2002-5) on increasing educational access for all has been broadly successful, children from poor and/or highly indebted families still face significant constraints because they have to contribute to household survival through paid and unpaid work. It is therefore imperative to increase efforts to improve the livelihood options of the poor, including greater income generation opportunities, particularly in rural areas and for women. However, such strategies need to be child sensitive. For instance, income generating opportunities for women should simultaneously be accompanied by community childcare systems in order to prevent older children from shouldering their mother's childcare burden.education, children, Ethiopia, PRSP, poverty, survival analysis, Labor and Human Capital, A2, D1, J2,

Trade liberalisation and intra-household poverty in Vietnam: a q2 social impact analysis

Following extensive economic and market reforms and more than a decade of negotiations, Vietnam became the latest country to accede to the World Trade Organization in November 2006. While it is expected that greater liberalisation will boost Vietnam’s economic growth and contribute to the country’s ongoing transition towards a market economy, there are concerns about potentially negative impacts on vulnerable sectors of the population, including remote rural populations, women and children. In order to explore the possible impacts of Vietnam’s trade liberalisation on children in poor communities, this paper examines key mediating factors that impact child welfare and the ways that trade liberalisation could affect these variables. It focuses on three key aspects of child well-being – child work (domestic and extra-household), educational attainment and health status. It applies a mixed methods approach: econometrics analysis using data from the first wave of the Young Lives Vietnam longitudinal survey on childhood poverty combined within in-depth qualitative analysis of two key agricultural commodity sectors, aquaculture and sugarcane, that are expected to be significantly impacted by Vietnam’s integration into the world economy. Our main quantitative findings point to significant differences in child well-being outcomes based on ethnicity, household poverty status and vulnerability to declining living standards, parental (especially maternal) education levels, children’s involvement in work activities, and access to public services. Our qualitative findings highlight the implications of caregivers’ shifting time inputs to productive and care economy work on child well-being, familial coping strategies in the context of economic shocks, the importance of social capital in mediating economic opportunities as well as differences in livelihood patterns among majority and minority ethnic groups. The paper concludes by discussing why mixed methods research can play an important role in focusing greater policy attention on the linkages between economic globalisation and children’s experiences of poverty.Vietnam; Intrahousehold dynamics; Trade liberalisation; q2 analysis; Young lives;

A Molecular Epidemiological Investigation of Group B Streptococcus

A multilocus sequence typing (MLST) system for group B streptococcus (GBS) has been developed and validated on a global collection of human GBS strains isolated from carriage and invasive disease. A carriage study was performed, over a 3-year period, to establish the rate of carriage of GBS in pregnant women in Oxford, UK. Invasive isolates were collected, prospectively and retrospectively over a similar time period. Twenty-one percent of women studied were asymptomatic carriers of GBS. The incidence of invasive GBS was 0.9/1000 live births in neonates and 6.1/100,000 population >60 years. The population structure of GBS is best depicted. using MLST, as a network of related clusters indicating the presence of recombinational events occurring in the population that interfere with a tree like branching structure of the population. A single hypervirulent clone of GBS (ST-17 complex) is responsible for an excess of neonatal disease in Oxford (odds ratio 3.4). The possibility that a factor other than capsular type III may be responsible for virulence of this clonal complex in neonates is raised. Intriguingly this clonal complex was unique among human lineages in that it has emerged from bovine GBS. It was not however associated with increased invasiveness amongst adult (> 60 years). Further study of this hypervirulent clone of GBS is likely to contribute to the understanding of the pathogenesis of neonatal GBS disease

CLEF 2005: Ad Hoc track overview

We describe the objectives and organization of the CLEF 2005 ad hoc track and discuss the main characteristics of the tasks offered to test monolingual, bilingual and multilingual textual document retrieval. The performance achieved for each task is presented and a preliminary analysis of results is given. The paper focuses in particular on the multilingual tasks which reused the test collection created in CLEF 2003 in an attempt to see if an improvement in system performance over time could be measured, and also to examine the multilingual results merging problem

Protect My Future: The Links Between Child Protection and Employment and Growth in the Post-2015 Development Agenda

This report emphasises the value of integrating a life cycle approach into the conceptualisation of inclusive growth and employment whereby childhood is considered as a time for learning and development, laying the foundations for future social and economic well-being. Children need to be supported during these critical periods of learning and development and protected from labour pressures, violence, neglect, and exploitation, within the home and in all other areas of their lives

Emerging implications of online retailing for real estate:Twenty-first century clicks and bricks

Purpose – This paper aims to initially explore the effects of online retailing on corporate real estate strategies today, examining current trends and the approaches of leading edge retailers in this evolving marketplace. The UK has the greatest proportion of online sales worldwide. Design/methodology/approach – Context is provided through existing literature, and the methodology considers specific case studies. Information from financial reports, websites and evidence directly from retailers is derived to examine selected sectoral responses (food shopping, fashion retailing and department stores) to online shopping. The research considers the interface between the virtual and physical retail landscapes. Findings – The Internet is undeniably driving change, and large retailers have responded by embracing multi-channel sales strategies in which the adapted physical store remains a central element. Research limitations/implications – The case studies are arguably limited in their market assessment by examining only large retailers, but it is these retailers who occupy much of the real estate space in shopping centres. Data on Internet sales and retail space of individual retailers are not publicly available. This paper offers a qualitative introduction into ongoing research on the evolution of Internet retailing today. Practical implications – For large retailers, a multi-channel corporate sales strategy is enhanced by physical stores that can act as showrooms and collection points and enhance consumer service. Multiple retailers have a competitive advantage in the form of store networks and a recognisable brand that they can exploit to capture the sales opportunities the Internet offers. Originality/value – The paper is the first to collate and analyse corporate real estate strategic responses to online retailing. </jats:sec

Social Transfers: Strengthening Girls and Women's Potential as Protagonists in Development

This policy brief for UNDP considers whether cash transfer programmes can serve as vehicle to deliver, or connect with, other services that enhance girls and women's capabilities