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Large-scale corporate projects, particularly those in extractive industries or hydropower development, have a history from early in the twentieth century of creating negative environmental, social, and health impacts on communities proximal to their operations. In many instances, especially for hydropower projects, the forced resettlement of entire communities was a feature in which local cultures and core human rights were severely impacted. These projects triggered an activist opposition that progressively expanded and became influential at both the host community level and with multilateral financial institutions. In parallel to, and spurred by, this activism, a shift occurred in 1969 with the passage of the National Environmental Policy Act in the United States, which required Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for certain types of industrial and infrastructure projects. Over the last four decades, there has been a global movement to develop a formal legal/regulatory EIA process for large industrial and infrastructure projects. In addition, social, health, and human rights impact assessments, with associated mitigation plans, were sequentially initiated and have increasingly influenced project design and relations among companies, host governments, and locally impacted communities. Often, beneficial community-level social, economic, and health programs have voluntarily been put in place by companies. These flagship programs can serve as benchmarks for community–corporate–government partnerships in the future. Here, we present examples of such positive phenomena and also focus attention on a myriad of challenges that still lie ahead.

We critically approach the role which Martha Nussbaum assigns to the Socratic Method in founding her project for a liberal education. First, we describe the liberal educational program. Next, we analyze the definition and role of the Socratic method. Last, we analyze three arguments that sustain the project: the definition of irony, the doctrinal discontinuity of the dialogues, and the conception of Socrates as a supporter of democracy. ; Se aborda críticamente la función que Martha Nussbaum atribuye al método socrático en su proyecto de fundamentación de la educación liberal. Primero, se describe el programa educativo liberal. Luego, se analiza la definición y la función que cumple el método socrático. Finalmente, se analizan tres argumentos que sustentan el proyecto: la definición de la ironía socrática, la discontinuidad doctrinal de los diálogos, y la concepción de Sócrates como partidario de la democracia.

BACKGROUND: Outbreaks of vector-borne diseases (VBDs) impose a heavy burden on vulnerable populations. Despite recent progress in eradication and control, malaria remains the most prevalent VBD. Integrative approaches that take into account environmental, socioeconomic, demographic, biological, cultural, and political factors contributing to malaria risk and vulnerability are needed to effectively reduce malaria burden. Although the focus on malaria risk has increasingly gained ground, little emphasis has been given to develop quantitative methods for assessing malaria risk including malaria vulnerability in a spatial explicit manner. METHODS: Building on a conceptual risk and vulnerability framework, we propose a spatial explicit approach for modeling relative levels of malaria risk - as a function of hazard, exposure, and vulnerability - in the United Republic of Tanzania. A logistic regression model was employed to identify a final set of risk factors and their contribution to malaria endemicity based on multidisciplinary geospatial information. We utilized a Geographic Information System for the construction and visualization of a malaria vulnerability index and its integration into a spatially explicit malaria risk map. RESULTS: The spatial pattern of malaria risk was very heterogeneous across the country. Malaria risk was higher in Mainland areas than in Zanzibar, which is a result of differences in both malaria entomological inoculation rate and prevailing vulnerabilities. Areas of high malaria risk were identified in the southeastern part of the country, as well as in two distinct "hotspots" in the northwestern part of the country bordering Lake Victoria, while concentrations of high malaria vulnerability seem to occur in the northwestern, western, and southeastern parts of the mainland. Results were visualized using both 1010 km(2) grids and subnational administrative units. CONCLUSIONS: The presented approach makes an important contribution toward a decision support tool. By decomposing malaria risk into its components, the approach offers evidence on which factors could be targeted for reducing malaria risk and vulnerability to the disease. Ultimately, results offer relevant information for place-based intervention planning and more effective spatial allocation of resources. ; DK W 1237-N23 ; (VLID)2434615

Many countries employ strategies that rest on the use of an explicitly defined set of criteria to identify underserved communities. Yet, we know relatively little about the performance of community-level targeting in large-scale health programmes. To address this gap, we examine the performance of community targeting in the More Doctors Programme (MDP). Our analysis covers all 5570 municipalities in the period between 2013 and 2017 using publicly available data. We first calculate the rate at which vulnerable municipalities enrolled in the MDP. Next, we consider two types of mistargeting: (1) proportion of vulnerable municipalities that did not have any MDP physicians (i.e. under-coverage municipalities) and (2) proportion of MDP enrolees that did not fit the vulnerability criteria (i.e. non-target municipalities). We found that almost 70% of vulnerable municipalities received at least one MDP physician between 2013 and 2017; whereas non-target municipalities constituted 33% of beneficiaries. Targeting performance improved over time. Non-target municipalities had the highest levels of socioeconomic development and greater physician availability. The poverty rate among under-coverage municipalities was almost six times that in non-target municipalities. Under-coverage municipalities had the lowest primary care physician availability. They were also smaller and more sparsely populated. We also found small differences in the political party alignments of mayors and the President between under-coverage and non-target municipalities. Our results suggest that using community-level targeting approaches in large-scale health programmes is a complex process. Programmes using these approaches may face substantial challenges in beneficiary targeting. Our results highlight that policymakers who consider using these approaches should carefully study various municipal characteristics that may influence the implementation process, including the level of socioeconomic development, health supply factors, population ...