Suchergebnisse

Providing safe drinking water and basic sanitation to citizens is one of the major challenges facing the African Governments. The issues of access to safe drinking water and improved sanitation is well articulated and prioritized in the various national, continental, and international policy documents, strategy papers, declarations, and conventions. And yet it is not clear if the provision of sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation has been given the requisite financial and other support by the SSA policy makers and donors. The principal objective of this paper is to compare countries' performance in the water and sanitation sector and analyze how effectively they used the development aid received for the Water and Sanitation sector (WSS). Much has been written on Development Aid Effectiveness, but the focus of attention has often been on how the donors operate, and how the recipients use the money. In this context, the paper utilised an innovative standardized measurement framework known as-the Watsan Index of Development Effectiveness (WIDE) - which compares drivers of progress with results achieved, and ranks African countries by the level of outcome obtained per unit of available input. In particular, how effectively they used the development aid received for the water and sanitation sector. The WIDE is made up of two composite information layers, the Resources (input drivers such as aid received, GDP, water resources, and governance level), and the Progress Outcomes (access to water, access to sanitation, and progress in the two). We also performed econometric analyses to explore the linkages between interventions designed to promote development, and the outcomes from that development process, in the water and sanitation sector. These analyses were further validated by presentation of the WSS sector situation of four case study countries namely, Kenya, Madagascar, Burkina Faso and Uganda.

Employability initiatives are becoming increasingly popular in government discourse as a means of tackling worklessness. Here we discuss the findings of a small-scale, qualitative study which mapped the impacts of a multi-intervention programme on participants' health, wellbeing and employability. Each of the 13 interventions was independently appraised through focus groups or semi-structured interviews. Thematic analyses revealed that participants from all interventions reported increased self-confidence, with several individuals suggesting that project involvement had facilitated their movement into the labour market. While the findings illustrate some positive outcomes, we argue that government policy needs to consider more carefully strategies that also address the demand side of the labour market.

Employability initiatives are becoming increasingly popular in government discourse as a means of tackling worklessness. Here we discuss the findings of a small-scale, qualitative study which mapped the impacts of a multi-intervention programme on participants' health, wellbeing and employability. Each of the 13 interventions was independently appraised through focus groups or semi-structured interviews. Thematic analyses revealed that participants from all interventions reported increased self-confidence, with several individuals suggesting that project involvement had facilitated their movement into the labour market. While the findings illustrate some positive outcomes, we argue that government policy needs to consider more carefully strategies that also address the demand side of the labour market.

Research on the spatial patterns of human-wildlife conflict is fundamental to understanding the mechanisms underlying it and to identifying opportunities for mitigation. In the state of Xishuangbanna, containing China's largest tropical forest, an imbalance between nature conservation and economic development has led to increasing conflicts between humans and Asian elephants (Elephas maximus), as both elephant numbers and conversion of habitable land to rubber plantations have increased over the last several decades. We analyzed government data on the compensation costs of elephant-caused damage in Xishuangbanna between 2008 and 2012 to understand the spatial and temporal patterns of conflict, in terms of their occurrence, frequency and distribution. More than 18,261 incidents were reported, including episodes involving damage to rubber trees (n = 10,999), damage to crops such as paddy, upland rice, corn, bananas and sugarcane (n = 11,020), property loss (n = 689) and attacks on humans (n = 19). The conflict data reconfirmed the presence of elephants in areas which have lacked records since the late 1990s. Zero Altered Negative Binomial models revealed that the risk of damage to crops and plantations increased with proximity to protected areas, increasing distance from roads, and lower settlement density. The patterns were constant across seasons and types of crop damaged. Damage to rubber trees was essentially incidental as elephants searched for crops to eat. A predictive map of risks revealed hotspots of conflict within and around protected areas, the last refuges for elephants in the region, and along habitat corridors connecting them. Additionally, we analyzed how mitigation efforts can best diminish the risk of conflict while minimizing financial costs and adverse biological impacts. Our analytical approach can be adopted, adjusted and expanded to other areas with historical records of human-wildlife conflict.