Adapting integrated agriculture aquaculture for HIV and AIDS-affected households: the case of Malawi

The WorldFish Center in conjunction with World Vision Malawi carried out a project to improve income and nutrition status of households affected by HIV and AIDS with funding from the World Bank. The project was implemented in Southern Malawi particularly in the West of Zomba District from July 2005 to June 2006. Through participatory approaches, the project identified constraints that limit HIV and AIDS affected households’ realisation of the benefits from fish farming and adapted technologies and practices for the affected beneficiaries to boost fish production and utilization. Specifically, the project sought (1) to identify the constraints that limit HIV and AIDS affected households to realise the benefits from fish farming and based on the constraints, (2) to adapt technologies and practices for use by the affected beneficiaries to boost fish production and utilization. (PDF cotains 17 pages

Adapting integrated agriculture aquaculture for HIV and AIDS-affected households: the case of Malawi

The WorldFish Center in conjunction with World Vision Malawi carried out a project to improve income and nutrition status of households affected by HIV and AIDS with funding from the World Bank. The project was implemented in Southern Malawi particularly in the West of Zomba District from July 2005 to June 2006. Through participatory approaches, the project identified constraints that limit HIV and AIDS affected householdsÆ realisation of the benefits from fish farming and adapted technologies and practices for the affected beneficiaries to boost fish production and utilization. Specifically, the project sought (1) to identify the constraints that limit HIV and AIDS affected households to realise the benefits from fish farming and based on the constraints, (2) to adapt technologies and practices for use by the affected beneficiaries to boost fish production and utilization.Public health, Agropisciculture, Economic benefits, Malawi,

An alien intermediate snail host in Malawi - Orientogalba viridis (Quoy and Gaimard, 1832) - A new concern for schistosomiasis transmission in Africa?

The freshwater amphibious snail Orientogalba viridis commonly occurs in eastern Asia, on certain Pacific islands and more importantly has recently dispersed into Europe. Since this snail is now considered an invasive species, its distribution is of growing parasitological interest as an alien intermediate host for various trematodes, particularly liver flukes. As part of ongoing surveillance for snail-borne diseases in Malawi, a population of O. viridis was first observed in May 2023, alongside an alarming presence of a human schistosome cercaria. This snail population later underwent detailed morphological characterisation with both snail and parasite identities confirmed upon DNA barcoding. This seminal observation triggered more extensive local snail surveys, finding 3 further populations in separated rice paddies, with further field-caught snails (n = 465) screened for infection and a selection used for repeated experimental challenges with miracidia from Schistosoma haematobium and Schistosoma mattheei. Although no field-caught (and experimentally exposed) snail was seen to shed schistosome cercariae, molecular xenomonitoring for schistosomiasis provided tangible evidence of putative transmission potential. Our first report of O. viridis here in Malawi, and more broadly in Africa, flags a need for increased vigilance for this invasive species alongside local clarification(s) of its transmission potential for trematodiases of either medical and/or veterinary importance

A first report of Pseudosuccinea columella (Say, 1817), an alien intermediate host for liver fluke, in Malawi

Starting in October 2021, quarterly malacological surveys have been undertaken in Malawi, with the sampling of 12 specified freshwater habitats throughout a calendar year. Each survey monitors the presence of aquatic intermediate snail hosts of medical and veterinary importance. In March 2023, the alien lymnaeid species Pseudosuccinea columella was encountered for the first time in the surveys, in Nsanje District. This species identity was later confirmed upon DNA analysis of mitochondrial ribosomal 16S sequences. In July 2023, P. columella was also noted at single sites within Mangochi and Chikwawa Districts, and again in Nsanje District, with an additional location observed. Of particular importance, our sampled location in Mangochi District was directly connected to Lake Malawi, which expands the species list of invasive molluscs in this lake. While P. columella is a well-known intermediate snail host for human and animal fascioliasis, screening collected snails for trematode cercariae, alongside molecular xenomonitoring, did not yield equivocal evidence of active fluke infection. However, the newly recognized presence of this alien intermediate snail host within Lake Malawi, and along the Shire River Valley, flags a new concern in altered local transmission potential for human and animal fascioliasis

Synthesising Corporate Responsibility on Organisational and Societal Levels of Analysis: An Integrative Perspective

This article develops an integrative perspective on corporate responsibility by synthesising competing perspectives on the responsibility of the corporation at the organisational and societal levels of analysis. We review three major corporate responsibility perspectives, which we refer to as economic, critical, and politico-ethical. We analyse the major potential uses and pitfalls of the perspectives, and integrate the debate on these two levels. Our synthesis concludes that when a society has a robust division of moral labour in place, the responsibility of a corporation may be economic (as suggested under the economic perspective) without jeopardising democracy and sustainability (as reported under the critical perspective). Moreover, the economic role of corporations neither signifies the absence of deliberative democratic mechanisms nor business practices extending beyond compliance (as called for under the politico-ethical perspective). The study underscores the value of integrating different perspectives and multiple levels of analysis to present comprehensive descriptions and prescriptions of the responsibility phenomenon

Balancing the people, profit and planet dimensions in international marketing channels : a study on coordinating mechanisms in the Nile perch channel from Lake Victoria

Keywords: people, profit, planet, marketing channels, contracts, sustainability, quality,LakeVictoria, conjointanalysis.Sustainable development hinges on a combined focus of its impact on society (people), the environment (planet) and to its economic value (profit). Increasingly, it is being recognized that these people, profit and planet dimensions are interlinked and an important challenge for public and private policy is to take them jointly into account. This inter-linkage is particularly evident in international channels that build on scarce natural resources from developing countries, which is the focus of this thesis. Specifically, we focus on how international marketing channels can be organized in order to enhance the balance between the people, profit and planet dimensions of the sustainable development such that small-scale primary producers from developing economies are integrated into the international marketing channels in a way that adds to the profitability of the channel and the welfare of the local communities, without compromising the sustainability of natural resources. We focus on contracts as mechanism to stimulate welfare, sustainability and quality at primary stages of the channel. We apply a number of theoretical approaches namely transaction costs economics, social - and network theory, and property rights theory to develop and test arguments for contracts to stimulate sustainable and quality-enhancing practices. We undertook both case study and conjoint analysis to develop and test our arguments.A situational analysis of the context in which primary producers operate lead to a conclusion that primary producers (i.e., fishermen) fail to implement sustainable and quality-enhancing practices because of major bottlenecks that they face such as the degradation of natural resources (i.e., fisheries), limited access to production facilities, information asymmetries and ineffective enforcement. An empirical analysis at fishermen and middlemen levels shows that they are open to contracts as mechanisms to stimulate sustainable and quality-enhancing practices. This is true especially if such contracts provide production facilities, price information, bring fishermen closer to international channels and allow private policy enforcement of sustainable practices. However, both fishermen and middlemen have idiosyncratic preferences for the particular types of contracts. This implies that they should be offered a choice among different contracts. An analysis of channel members in the downstream part of the channel show that in order to create a situation in which fishermen and middlemen are engaged in sustainability and quality-enhancing contracts, downstream channel members and other stakeholders should be engaged in and/or support micro-projects that may enable fishermen to solve the market failures that they face. The channel members farther downstream however may need stakeholder pressure, e.g. from special interest groups to be involved in addressing the market failures in the upstream