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Drawing on an analysis of the implementation of Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP) in the Somali periphery, we consider how the programme is promoted as an ‘innovative’ social protection programme that links food security... more
Drawing on an analysis of the implementation of Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP) in the Somali periphery, we consider how the programme is promoted as an ‘innovative’ social protection programme that links food security with development projects. Underpinning its ‘innovative’ role is a community-based approach, focusing upon the institutions, values and capacities of a community. Taking the case of the nomadic pastoralists in Ethiopia’s Somali region, we consider the role of clans as the ‘dominant’ grassroot socio-political organizations. Our analysis, drawing on ethnographic fieldwork shows how in the implementation of PSNP the mobilization and (re)deployment of clanship values and rules create legible and governable Somali pastoral subjects. This is in line with the Ethiopian state’s conception of ‘improvement’ and ‘modern’ way of life based on sedentary-based development and governance. We illustrate how clan leaders unwittingly (re)organize their clan (leadershi...
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Immobility in the context of climate change and environmental risks is understudied, particularly its relation to gender. In this article, we further understanding of immobility to include the gendered influences on potential of people to... more
Immobility in the context of climate change and environmental risks is understudied, particularly its relation to gender. In this article, we further understanding of immobility to include the gendered influences on potential of people to decide non-movement, decipher meanings that are attached with it and explore how it relates to mobility. We analyse emotions of women and men with different mobility experiences, reflecting their ideas of home, risk perceptions and construction of identity that are informed by gender and central to understanding immobility. Through ethnographic data collected in Bangladesh, we look into details of gendered ways of experiencing immobility where male and female attitudes to staying are distinctly different, yet intersect in many ways. Our data reveal how social and cultural context (patriarchy, social norms, cultural values and shared beliefs) and personal emotions (feelings of belonging, attachment, loyalty, modesty) regulate people’s actions on imm...
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Redressing land dispossession in the aftermath of violent conflicts is daunting and complex. While land dispute resolution and restitution are expected to promote return migration, this outcome is contingent upon the changing social,... more
Redressing land dispossession in the aftermath of violent conflicts is daunting and complex. While land dispute resolution and restitution are expected to promote return migration, this outcome is contingent upon the changing social, economic and political conditions under which return takes place. Drawing on qualitative data from Makamba Province in southern Burundi, this case study highlights the politically and historically shaped challenges underlying the resolution of competing and overlapping claims on land following protracted displacement. These include the undocumented and fluid nature of customary land rights, institutional and legal pluralism and shifting land governance relations. This paper emphasises the centrality of the state in regulating returnees’ land dispute resolution and restitution processes. Violent conflicts and forced migration have enabled the state to expand its control over customary land tenure. The gradual exclusion or replacement of local authorities...
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Background and Objectives This paper analyses why and how conflicts occur and their influence on doctors and nurse-anaesthetists ' motivation in the provision of maternal and neonatal health care in a special-ist hospital.... more
Background and Objectives This paper analyses why and how conflicts occur and their influence on doctors and nurse-anaesthetists ' motivation in the provision of maternal and neonatal health care in a special-ist hospital. Methodology The study used ethnographic methods including participant observation, conversation and in-depth interviews over eleven months in a specialist referral hospital in Ghana. Qualitative analysis software Nvivo 8 was used for coding and analysis of data. Main themes identified in the analysis form the basis for interpreting and reporting study findings. Ethics Statement Ethical clearance was obtained from the Ghana Health Service Ethics Review board (approval number GHS-ERC:06/01/12) and from the University of Wageningen. Written consent was obtained from interview participants, while verbal consent was obtained for conversations. To protect the identity of the hospital and research participants pseudonyms
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Providers' adherence to case management protocols can affect quality of care. However, how and why protocols are adhered to by frontline health workers in low- and middle-income countries is not always clear. This study explored... more
Providers' adherence to case management protocols can affect quality of care. However, how and why protocols are adhered to by frontline health workers in low- and middle-income countries is not always clear. This study explored midwives' adherence to national postnatal care protocols in two public hospitals in Southern Ghana using an ethnographic study design. Ninety participant observations and 88 conversations were conducted over a 20-months period, and two group interviews held with the midwives in the two hospitals. Data was analysed using a grounded theory approach. Findings: Midwives collectively decided when to adhere, modify or totally ignore postnatal care protocols. Adherence often occurred if required resources (equipment, tools, supplies) were available. Modification occurred when midwives felt that strict adherence could have negative implications for patients and they could be seen as acting 'unprofessionally'. Ignoring or modifying protocols also occurred when midwives were uncertain of the patient's health condition; basic supplies, logistics and infrastructure needed for adherence were unavailable or inappropriate; or midwives felt they might expose themselves or their clients to physical, psychological, emotional, financial or social harm. Regardless of the reasons that midwives felt justified to ignore or modify postnatal care protocols, it appeared in many instances to lead to the provision of care of suboptimal quality. Conclusion and recommendations: Providing clinical decision-making protocols is not enough to improve mother and new born care quality and outcomes. Faced with constraining conditions of work, providers are likely to modify guidelines as part of coping behaviour. Addressing constraining conditions of work must accompany guidelines. This includes adequate risks protection for health workers and clients; and resolution of deficits in essential equipment, infrastructure, supplies and staffing.
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The dry-salted trade of Nile perch or kayabo is important for many along the shores of Lake Victoria. The kayabo trade started in the 1990s and has been increasingly restructured due to changing regional and global trade relationships.... more
The dry-salted trade of Nile perch or kayabo is important for many along the shores of Lake Victoria. The kayabo trade started in the 1990s and has been increasingly restructured due to changing regional and global trade relationships. This shift has led to the emergence of hierarchical trading relations, which create an exploitative network in which powerful middlemen control the access of trade for women from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and marginalizes the Tanzanian women, changing the organization from a poly-centric to a more centralized trade organization in the hands of a small group of powerful business men. We show in this paper that whereas the women traders from the DRC manoeuvred themselves in positions from which they could manipulate the network through bribery and conniving to derive substantial capital gains from the kayabo trade, their Tanzanian counterparts however are excluded from the decision-making processes, access to fish resources, financial capit...
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Why issues get on the policy agenda, move into policy formulation and implementation while others drop off in the process is an important field of enquiry to inform public social policy development and implementation. This paper seeks to... more
Why issues get on the policy agenda, move into policy formulation and implementation while others drop off in the process is an important field of enquiry to inform public social policy development and implementation. This paper seeks to advance our understanding of health policy agenda setting, formulation and implementation processes in Ghana, a lower middle income country by exploring how and why less than three months into the implementation of a pilot prior to national scale up; primary care maternal services that were part of the basket of services in a primary care per capita national health insurance scheme provider payment system dropped off the agenda. We used a case study design to systematically reconstruct the decisions and actions surrounding the rise and fall of primary care maternal health services from the capitation policy. Data was collected from July 2012 and August 2014 through in-depth interviews, observations and document review. The data was analysed drawing ...
Research Interests: Primary Health Care, Politics, Ghana, Health Policy, Health Administration, and 11 moreMedicine, Library and Information Studies, Pregnancy, Humans, Female, Health Expenditures, Public health systems and services research, Cost Savings, Public Policy, Case Control Studies, and Administrative Personnel
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Following South Sudanese independence in 2011, land reform became a major aspect of state building, partly to address historical injustices and partly to avoid future conflicts around land. In the process, land became a trigger for... more
Following South Sudanese independence in 2011, land reform became a major aspect of state building, partly to address historical injustices and partly to avoid future conflicts around land. In the process, land became a trigger for conflicts, sometimes between communities with no histories of “ethnic conflict.” Drawing on cases in two rural areas in Yei River County in South Sudan, this paper shows that contradictions in the existing legal frameworks on land are mainly to blame for those conflicts. These contradictions are influenced, in turn, by the largely top-down approach to state building, which has tended to neglect changes in society and regarding land resulting from colonialism and civil wars.
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This paper argues that violent conflict prominently impacts on land governance and so contributes to land conflicts in post-conflict settings. In the natural resources literature, the relationship between land and conflict is often... more
This paper argues that violent conflict prominently impacts on land governance and so contributes to land conflicts in post-conflict settings. In the natural resources literature, the relationship between land and conflict is often explained in terms of environmental security or political ecology, and many have pointed out that the way land is governed in itself may be a source of conflict. However, less attention has been given to the effects of violent conflict on land and its governance in post-conflict situations. This paper argues that violent conflict affects land governance in many ways and that this in turn might contribute to further violent conflict. The argument builds around an extended case study of the Apaa evictions in Amuru District in Northern Uganda. The case illustrates how conflict around land is not just the result of resource scarcity and competition, but is the outcome of a combination of political, historical and social dynamics. Past policies on land and pra...
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Dryland areas occur in both the highlands and the lowlands of Ethiopia and cover over 60 % of the country’s land mass. They support pastoralist, agropastoralist and hunter-gatherer communities, and their long-standing institutions to... more
Dryland areas occur in both the highlands and the lowlands of Ethiopia and cover over 60 % of the country’s land mass. They support pastoralist, agropastoralist and hunter-gatherer communities, and their long-standing institutions to manage local resources on a fairly equitable basis. However, this autonomy has been signifi cantly eroded by successive governments’ policy of agricultural expansion and modernization, driven by the growing global demand for food and fuel. By reviewing historical trends and current statuses, this study attempts to identify the driving forces behind this fast-changing land use and its impacts on communities and resources. The review shows that government’s generous land leases to national and global investors, encroachment by smallholder farmers from the highlands, state-initiated settlements of poor households, and individualization of the commons by some community members themselves have further undermined the already weakening customary tenure arrangements (which were never as clearly defi ned in the lowlands as in the highlands). The problem, however, needs to be seen against the constitutional rights of all citizens who want to be farmers to get land anywhere in the country. Unless these issues are addressed, indigenous communities will continue to be exposed to expropriation and unable to assert their rights in the face of more powerful actors. The chapter concludes by stressing the need to formulate and enact policies and legal frameworks to ensure the livelihoods of dry lowland communities in light of the mounting interests of multiple actors and of other stakeholders’ rights and responsibilities as stipulated in the Ethiopian Constitution. M. Bekele Wondo Genet College of Forestry and Natural Resources , 128 , Wondo Genet , Ethiopia e-mail: bekelemelaku@yahoo.com H. Kassa (*) Centre for International Forestry Research, Forests and Livelihoods Research Portfolio, Ethiopia Offi ce , 5689 , Addis Ababa , Ethiopia e-mail: h.kassa@cgiar.org; habtekassa@yahoo.com C. Padoch Centre for International Forestry Research , 0113 BOCBD , Bogor 16000 , Indonesia
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Pregnant women can misinform or withhold their reproductive and medical information from providers when they interact with them during care decision-making interactions, although, the information clients reveal or withhold while seeking... more
Pregnant women can misinform or withhold their reproductive and medical information from providers when they interact with them during care decision-making interactions, although, the information clients reveal or withhold while seeking care plays a critical role in the quality of care provided. This study explored 'how' and 'why' pregnant women in Ghana control their past obstetric and reproductive information as they interact with providers at their first antenatal visit, and how this influences providers' decision-making at the time and in subsequent care encounters. This research was a case-study of two public hospitals in southern Ghana, using participant observation, conversations, interviews and focus group discussions with antenatal, delivery, and post-natal clients and providers over a 22-month period. The Ghana Health Service Ethical Review Committee gave ethical approval for the study (Ethical approval number: GHS-ERC: 03/01/12). Data analysis was cond...
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This paper seeks to advance our understanding of health policy agenda setting and formulation processes in a lower middle income country, Ghana, by exploring how and why maternal health policies and programmes appeared and evolved on the... more
This paper seeks to advance our understanding of health policy agenda setting and formulation processes in a lower middle income country, Ghana, by exploring how and why maternal health policies and programmes appeared and evolved on the health sector programme of work agenda between 2002 and 2012. We theorized that the appearance of a policy or programme on the agenda and its fate within the programme of work is predominately influenced by how national level decision makers use their sources of power to define maternal health problems and frame their policy narratives. National level decision makers used their power sources as negotiation tools to frame maternal health issues and design maternal health policies and programmes within the framework of the national health sector programme of work. The power sources identified included legal and structural authority; access to authority by way of political influence; control over and access to resources (mainly financial); access to ev...
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... University of Utrecht F. Zaal Amsterdam Research Institute for Global Issues and Development ... in dry climates, dry periods unfavourable for crop cultivation are of major concern (Parry, et ... Many'coping strategies'... more
... University of Utrecht F. Zaal Amsterdam Research Institute for Global Issues and Development ... in dry climates, dry periods unfavourable for crop cultivation are of major concern (Parry, et ... Many'coping strategies' during problematic times can also be based on investing in various ...
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This article tries to identify the key variables that determine landuse patterns and the strategies of households towards tree growing in two upland regions in Central Java. A household's access to land and market opportunities... more
This article tries to identify the key variables that determine landuse patterns and the strategies of households towards tree growing in two upland regions in Central Java. A household's access to land and market opportunities appear to be such key variables. Households with little land use their land more intensively with respect to crop, livestock and tree production. So do households with access to market opportunities. Based on this type of diagnostic research more appropriate tree-based designs could be developed to contribute to the solution of landuse problems in the uplands of Java.
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Following the adoption of the Millennium Development Goal 4 (MDG 4) in Ghana to reduce under-five mortality by two-thirds between 1990 and 2015, efforts were made towards its attainment. However, impacts and challenges of implemented... more
Following the adoption of the Millennium Development Goal 4 (MDG 4) in Ghana to reduce under-five mortality by two-thirds between 1990 and 2015, efforts were made towards its attainment. However, impacts and challenges of implemented intervention programs have not been examined to inform implementation of Sustainable Development Goal 3.2 (SDG 3.2) that seeks to end preventable deaths of newborns and children aged under-five. Thus, this study aimed to compare trends in neonatal, infant, and under-five mortality over two decades and to highlight the impacts and challenges of health policies and intervention programs implemented. Ghana Demographic and Health Survey data (1988-2008) were analyzed using trend analysis. Poisson regression analysis was applied to quantify the incidence rate ratio of the trends. Implemented health policies and intervention programs to reduce childhood mortality in Ghana were reviewed to identify their impact and challenges. Since 1988, the annual average ra...
Development of health policy is a complex process that does not necessarily follow a particular format and a predictable trajectory. Therefore, agenda setting and selecting of alternatives are critical processes of policy development and... more
Development of health policy is a complex process that does not necessarily follow a particular format and a predictable trajectory. Therefore, agenda setting and selecting of alternatives are critical processes of policy development and can give insights into how and why policies are made. Understanding why some policy issues remain and are maintained whiles others drop off the agenda is an important enquiry. This paper aims to advance understanding of health policy agenda setting and formulation in Ghana, a lower middle-income country, by exploring how and why the maternal (antenatal, delivery and postnatal) fee exemption policy agenda in the health sector has been maintained over the four and half decades since a 'free antenatal care in government facilities' policy was first introduced in October 1963. A mix of historical and contemporary qualitative case studies of nine policy agenda setting and formulation processes was used. Data collection methods involved reviews of...
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Research Interests: History and Local History
East Africa's Lake Victoria provides resources and services to millions of people on the lake's shores and abroad. In particular, the lake's fisheries are an important source of protein, employment, and international economic connections... more
East Africa's Lake Victoria provides resources and services to millions of people on the lake's shores and abroad. In particular, the lake's fisheries are an important source of protein, employment, and international economic connections for the whole region. Nonetheless, stock dynamics are poorly understood and currently unpredictable. Furthermore, fishery dynamics are intricately connected to other supporting services of the lake as well as to lakeshore societies and economies. Much research has been carried out piecemeal on different aspects of Lake Victoria's system; e.g., societies, biodiversity, fisheries, and eutrophication. However, to disentangle drivers and dynamics of change in this complex system, we need to put these pieces together and analyze the system as a whole. We did so by first building a qualitative model of the lake's social-ecological system. We then investigated the model system through a qualitative loop analysis, and finally examined effects of changes on the system state and structure. The model and its contextual analysis allowed us to investigate system-wide chain reactions resulting from disturbances. Importantly, we built a tool that can be used to analyze the cascading effects of management options and establish the requirements for their success. We found that high connectedness of the system at the exploitation level, through fisheries having multiple target stocks, can increase the stocks' vulnerability to exploitation but reduce society's vulnerability to variability in individual stocks. We describe how there are multiple pathways to any change in the system, which makes it difficult to identify the root cause of changes but also broadens the management toolkit. Also, we illustrate how nutrient enrichment is not a self-regulating process, and that explicit management is necessary to halt or reverse eutrophication. This model is simple and usable to assess system-wide effects of management policies, and can serve as a paving stone for future quantitative analyses of system dynamics at local scales.
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ABSTRACT
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... are expected given the same agro-ecological and socio-economic conditions (de SteenhuijsenPiters 1995: ll). ... According to the Fulbe herds-men they again lost most of their cattle in the ... economy has suffered enormously from the... more
... are expected given the same agro-ecological and socio-economic conditions (de SteenhuijsenPiters 1995: ll). ... According to the Fulbe herds-men they again lost most of their cattle in the ... economy has suffered enormously from the fluctuations in cat-tle numbers (De Bruijn 1997 ...