Publications

In 1994 ondertekende de Nederlandse regering bilaterale duurzame-ontwikkelingsverdragen (dovs) met de regeringen van Bhutan, Benin en Costa Rica. Doel was het opbouwen van een nieuw relatiepatroon tussen rijke en arme landen, met mondiale duurzame ontwikkeling als drijfveer. Deze nieuwe samenwerking zou wederkerig, gelijkwaardig en participatief zijn. De vier regeringen verdienen credits voor de moed om dit experiment in beleidsinnovatie te starten.

Disease- or health-determinant specific programmes are important components of any health agenda. Such programmes respond to specific health threats, whether perceived or real. They are set up because the control of these threats requires a focused approach and interventions. In Low-Income Countries (LICs), however, most of these programmes fall short of their ambition because, for full implementation, human resources for health (HRH) are not, or cannot, be made available (in quantity or in quality) where they are needed most.

Leprosy is known for the neuropathy it causes. Different methods have been used to detect leprosy-related nerve function impairment (NFI).More sophisticated methods for assessing nerve function such as vibrometry, laser Doppler flowmetry and thermal threshold testing have been shown to detect different modalities of leprous neuropathy. However, it is not known which of these testing methods would detect the neuropathy earliest. To determine this, the methods needed to be compared in a carefully planned prospective study.

Around the world new information and communication technologies (ICTs) have changed the lives of individuals, organizations and indeed, entire nations. No country and few communities are being left untouched by the ‘information society’ and, given the state of recent inter-governmental and multi-stakeholder policy debates, there is still a long way to go before civil rights are entrenched in this new society. This book is a collection of case studies about women and their communities in developing countries and how they have been influenced by ICTs. As this chapter and the following cases explain, ICTs and policies to encourage their development can have profound implications for women and men in terms of employment, education, health, environmental sustainability and community development. Policy is needed to ensure that investment in ICTs contributes to more equitable and sustainable development as these technologies are neither gender-neutral nor irrelevant to the lives of resourcepoor women.

It is generally accepted that genetic factors play a role in susceptibility to both leprosy per se and leprosy type, but only few studies have tempted to quantify this. Estimating the contribution of genetic factors to clustering of leprosy within families is difficult since these persons often share the same environment. The first aim of this study was to test which correlation structure (genetic, household or spatial) gives the best explanation for the distribution of leprosy patients and seropositive persons and second to quantify the role of genetic factors in the occurrence of leprosy and seropositivity.

The Sector Policy Review Tool offers a kit for involving important stakeholders more directly in reviewing health sector development, including specific programmes or areas within the health sector. It is made up of an introduction and several modules that guide different aspects of the review process. This booklet contains the introduction to how to use the SPR Tool using Module 1 as an example. It is available in English and French.

Leprosy is an infectious disease caused by Mycobacterium leprae. Multidrug treatment (MDT) was introduced by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 1982 and was seen as an instrument for the elimination of leprosy as a public health problem, defined as a national prevalence less than 1/10,000. However, even after 20 years of MDT, case detection rates (CDRs) are not decreasing, indicating that patients are probably not the only source of transmission; subclinically infected persons and contacts of patients have also been implicated.Therefore, it is necessary to examine interventions which include these groups of potentially infectious persons.

This research examines the current processes of land rights registration in Ethiopia, Ghana and Mozambique and assesses their outcomes for vulnerable groups. It shows that land registration is not inherently anti-poor. The distributional consequences of land registration depend on the design of the registration process and of the institutions responsible for its management. It is important to design land registration systems that secure the land rights of marginalised groups in specific geographic and historical contexts, rather than adopting blueprint solutions based on Western models.

Decentralisation, in its simplest definition, is a form of governance that transfers authority and responsibility from central to intermediate and local governments (ODI 2002). In much of the development literature decentralisation of government has been treated as a technical exercise involving administrative and institutional reform to improve performance and planning and to make allocative decisions efficient and transparent. The idea of decentralisation is linked to subsidiarity which means that what can be done efficiently and effectively at the lowest level of government should be done at that level and not at higher levels (Issac 2000). Economists justify decentralisation on the grounds of allocative efficiency, enhanced policy responsiveness and effectiveness especially of poverty reduction programmes. The assumption is that because decisions are being taken in a local constituency citizens will have more control over decisions taken and it will reflect their preferences.

O objectivo geral para as actividades do triplo A (AAA: Analytical and Advisory Activities) é de reforçar e consolidar a capacidade das equipas nacionais (do Banco Mundial) e dos parceiros clientes para integração estratégica e sistémica da abordagem de CDD nos estratégias programas nacionais para a redução da pobreza. AAA esta ligado a demanda especifica da Conferencia de CDD de Burkina Faso para apoio adicional do Banco para incorporar de CDD nos programas gerais. AAA também for desenhado para atingir directamente um dos ‘benchmarks’ chaves do Quadro Estratégico do Banco para África, que é que a CDD será integrada nas estratégias nacionais baseado no quadro melhorado de resultados e na integração de CDD e apoio macro na estratégia de anti-shock. O quadro de analises e planificação para atingir este ‘benchmark’ agora não existe, e o objectivo desta AAA é ortanto de desenvolver, avaliar e disseminar este quadro.

“The good Latin-American citizen, a friend of freedom,” enthused President George W. Bush on a state visit to Chile, November 21st, 2004 (El Mercurio, 22-11-2004). “Chile is an incredible country – the Chileans are a people of good heart that treasure freedom and democracy and understand the importance of economic freedom.” Bush’s message was remarkably similar to that of his father, George H.W. Bush, who fourteen years earlier, also on visit to Chile as President of the United States, had called Chile “an economic model for countries of the region and in the world” and “an example of how the transition to democracy ought to take place” (El Mercurio, 7-12-1990).

Where farm record-keeping exists to calculate farm-household income, it commonly considers only financial accounts. Awareness of resource degradation or improvement calls urgently for a better understanding of the interrelations between environmental and socio-economic aspects in decision-making. Integrating calculations on resources deterioration/restitution in the financial accounts will help to determine differentiated productivity and efficiency of farming activities according to the applied technologies. Extended production cost and benefit calculations permit the formulation of technical recommendations that integrate economic and environmental factors in a clear and simple way for use by decision-makers and agricultural producers. Such recommendations should provide insights to farmers on how to improve, or at least to maintain resource availability and capability, making their livelihoods sustainable.

Nigeria is in the grip of a growing HIV/AIDS epidemic with Benue State recording one of the highest State level infection rates: 13.5% in 2001, which will have a devastating impact on individual lives and livelihoods.

HIV/AIDS is not the only crisis that rural people have to deal with. The downturn in the Nigerian economy is also hitting Benue State. Public investment in infrastructure, water, health, and education facilities is limited, resulting in poor basic service delivery. The economy in Benue mostly depends on agriculture, spin-off activities such as processing, trading and casual labour, and migration. Farming is under stress due to worsening terms of trade, and input markets that are not functioning well. Over the past decade, farming has actually become more labour-intensive per unit of harvest, a development that increases the vulnerability to shocks

Over the past years, poverty reduction has been explicitly driving the development agenda. In 1999, World Bank and the IMF agreed that nationally owned participatory poverty reduction strategies should provide the basis for all concessional lending and for debt relief under the enhanced Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative. The Poverty Reducation Strategy Papers (PRSPs) put this approach into effect and describe a country’s macroeconomic, structural, and social policies and programs to promote economic growth and poverty

Abstract: Sexual torture constitutes any act of sexual violence which qualifies as torture. Public awareness of the widespread use of sexual torture as a weapon of war greatly increased after the war in the former Yugoslavia in the early 1990s. Sexual torture has serious mental, physical and sexual health consequences. Attention to date has focused more on the sexual torture of women than of men, partly due to gender stereotypes. This paper describes the circumstances in which sexual torture occurs, its causes and consequences, and the development of international law addressing it. It presents data from a study in 2000 in Croatia, where the number of men who were sexually tortured appears to have been substantial. Based on in-depth interviews with 16 health professionals and data from the medical records of three centres providing care to refugees and victims of torture, the study found evidence of rape and other forced sexual acts, full or partial
castration, genital beatings and electroshock. Few men admit being sexually tortured or seek help, and professionals may fail to recognise cases. Few perpetrators have been prosecuted, mainly due to lack of political will. The silence that envelopes sexual torture of men in the aftermath of the war in Croatia stands in strange contrast to the public nature of the crimes themselves