Publications

Policy makers and scholars often assume gender to be irrelevant in energy politics. However, an increasing body of scholarship and development policies has focused on how gender discrimination has negative effects on women’s access to energy resources and equal contributions to decision-making processes that influence energy issues. This article evaluates four overarching and salient policy and research discourses that frame women’s and men’s positions in benefiting from and participating in decision-making about energy

In many respects, agriculture as a sector is ground zero for gender in development theory and practice: agriculture and rural development were Boserup’s empirical base for her 1977 landmark book Women’s Role in Economic Development. Her finding of the inconspicuous absence of the role of women in rural development policy and practice inspired an era of initiatives to integrate women in development. Subsequent critiques of these efforts swerved as an impetus to situate women’s social positionings relative to that of men’s within the wider contexts of development itself.

This paper presents an overview of main findings of perspectives and lessons on integrating efficiently and effectively gender in research and development programs. These have been gleaned from the gender synthesis of the Canadian International Food Security Research Fund (CIFSRF) undertaken by KIT Royal Tropical Institute

Child marriage, teenage pregnancy and female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) are manifestations of deeply rooted gender inequality and social norms, poverty and limited economic perspectives. The factors that hold both FGM/C and child marriage in place are the consolidation of family interests of maintaining honour, enhancing fidelity within marriage and preserving virginity before marriage, the social integration of the girl and family, and financial security in situations of poverty (Boyden et al 2012). Child marriage, teenage pregnancy and FGM/C are interrelated issues that involve high health risks and human rights violations of adolescent girls, and impede socio-economic development in a great number of low- and middle-income countries.

Food systems have usually been conceptualized as a set of activities ranging from production through to consumption, often represented as a value chain. However, the increasing attention to food security has also expanded the understanding of food systems.

System archetypes represent generic behavioural patterns – or system dynamics – in any system. The concept of archetypes is mostly applied in the context of business management and organizational life. But similar archetypes of system behaviour can be found in food systems.

The study was commissioned to the KIT Royal Tropical Institute in July 2017 by the Land Dialogue, with financial support from the Dutch Government. The objective is to provide insight and guidance into the relevance of land governance as a possible priority theme to be considered in the process of the International Responsible Business Conduct (IRBC) Agreements. The study was conducted in the period between July and November 2017 and included desk research, workshops and interviews with a diverse set of stakeholders in the IRBC process. The opinions expressed in the study are those of KIT and do not represent the views of the interviewees.

Background: Cambodia has one of the highest tuberculosis (TB) prevalence rates in the world. People aged 55 years and over account for an estimated 50% of the country’s TB burden, yet this group has a low notification rate owing to specific barriers in accessing health services. One-off active case finding (ACF) days with mobile GeneXpert and X-ray systems were organized at 75 government health facilities in four operational districts. Symptomatic community members with an abnormal chest X-ray were tested using the Xpert MTB/RIF assay. People with TB were then treated at health facilities after screening services moved onto the next site.

The United Nations International Children’s Fund State of Palestine (UNICEF SoP) has contracted the KIT-Juzoor consortium to conduct an external evaluation of the Post Natal Home Visiting (PNHV) programme for postnatal mothers, neonates and their families implemented in Gaza in a humanitarian context. This final report describes the purpose of the evaluation, the methodology used, its limitations and key evaluation finding and pointers towards recommendations in relation to the PNHV programme in Gaza. The evaluation covers the period 2011 until the end of 2016. This evaluation was rated as highly satisfactory and as one of the best evaluations of 2018 by UNICEF global.

Research on Small Producer Organization (SPO) development, strengthening and resilience was commissioned by Fairtrade International to the Royal Tropical Institute (KIT) in the Netherlands. The study is a qualitative-led mixed-method six country study (Côte d’Ivoire, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Mexico and Peru).

Aquaculture development in Cambodia is recent compared to its neighbouring countries in South East Asia. Production has been growing in the last decade, whilst imports of farmed fish from Vietnam and Thailand remain high. Despite general availability of land and less polluted water in Cambodia, the value chain (VC) is suffering from low sanitary standards of inputs and products. Nevertheless, there is significant potential for growth and diversification of species and fish farming systems, in order to supply the domestic and regional markets more efficiently

Although Zambia is endowed with natural water resources that offer significant opportunities, about 50% of the estimated fish demand is unmet. Zambian capture fisheries are operating at a fully exploited or over-exploited level. Aquaculture production is beginning to respond to the ever-increasing demand for fish, along with imports that have increased markedly

Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest global burden of disease and the lowest number of health workers per population. In a resource-constrained environment like this, a focus on primary healthcare (PHC) is most likely to impact on the health of the population and to be cost-effective. Medical generalists have the competences needed in the multidisciplinary team to build a strong PHC system. However, in many African countries, PHC is the weakest part of the healthcare system, which often focuses on a limited number of priority conditions that are addressed through fragmented vertical programmes offered by health workers with limited training, skills and support.

In order to stimulate policymakers and practitioners to recognise farmer innovation in agricultural research and development (ARD), partners in the Prolinnova network have been developing and using various methods and tools for advocacy and lobbying. One of these is the Farmer Innovation Fair.

It has been projected that the population of young people in Nigeria will exceed 57 million by the year 2025, a large proportion of which are adolescents. Adolescents constitute an important proportion of the population of Nigeria, they have delicate stages that presents with challenges especially that of sexual and reproductive health due to the developmental changes. It is important that they experience safe and pleasurable sexual life, the absence of which may expose them to reproductive health challenges. Presently, about one quarter of Nigerian adolescents are sexually active with age of sexual debut ranging from 10 to 15 years.

This report aims to take stock of the Dutch Aid and Trade agenda, with a particular focus on the time period of 2013-2017,to bring together existing insights on what has worked, what hasn’t worked, and what needs more focus and attention.Based on a meta-analysis of policy documents and 16 recent external evaluations of Dutch Aid and Trade programmes,the report addresses the following questions:

Through the WHO European Region’s Health 2020 policy framework, countries agreed to work together on policy priorities for public health such as strengthening people-centred public health systems and public health capacity. Alongside the Health 2020 strategy, the seventh of the 10 essential public health operations devised by the WHO Regional Office for Europe focuses on assuring a sufficient and competent public health workforce.

Responsiveness is a key objective of national health systems. Responsive health systems anticipate and adapt to existing and future health needs, thus contributing to better health outcomes. Of all the health systems objectives, responsiveness is the least studied, which perhaps reflects lack of comprehensive frameworks that go beyond the normative characteristics of responsive services. This paper contributes to a growing, yet limited, knowledge on this topic. Herewith, we review the current frameworks for understanding health systems responsiveness and drawing on these, as well as key frameworks from the wider public services literature, propose a comprehensive conceptual framework for health systems responsiveness. This paper should be of interest to different stakeholders who are engaged in analysing and improving health systems responsiveness. Our review shows that existing knowledge on health systems responsiveness can be extended along the three areas. First, responsiveness entails an actual experience of people’s interaction with their health system, which
confirms or disconfirms their initial expectations of the system. Second, the experience of interaction is shaped by both the people and the health systems sides of this interaction. Third, different influences shape people’s
interaction with their health system, ultimately affecting their resultant experiences. Therefore, recognition of both people and health systems sides of interaction and their key determinants would enhance the conceptualisations of responsiveness. Our proposed framework builds on,
and advances, the core frameworks in the health systems literature. It positions the experience of interaction between people and health system as the centrepiece and recognises the determinants of responsiveness experience both from the health systems (eg, actors, processes) and
the people (eg, initial expectations) sides. While we hope to trigger further thinking on the conceptualisation of health system responsiveness, the proposed framework can guide assessments of, and interventions to strengthen, health systems responsiveness.

Tuberculosis (TB) is a leading cause of death among infectious diseases and is responsible for 1.8million deaths each year. Over 4 million incident cases of TB worldwide fail to be diagnosed or linked into TB services every year and people with undetected TB have a high mortality and perpetuate disease transmission. Identifying and treating these individuals is crucial.