Inequitable Distribution Of Resources Research Articles

A critical analysis of the relationship between southern non-government organizations and northern non-government organizations in Bolivia

This article examines the relationship between southern non-government organizations (SNGOs) and northern non-government organizations (NNGOs) in Bolivia. The term ‘partnership’ for many years now has been a buzzword within the development debate, particularly in reference to the relationship between SNGOs and NNGOs. The term is ubiquitous in development literature in the North but is invariably absent from similar literature in the South. According to Fowler (1992. Building partnerships between northern and southern development NGOs: Issues for the nineties. Development Journal of the Society for International Development 1: 16–23), ‘the distinctive feature of a partnership is that it involves sharing, with a sense of mutuality and equality of the parties involved’. This suggests that a partnership involves associates on an equal footing, within a horizontal structure of mutual respect, where resources are distributed equitably and decisions made jointly. It is also well known that one of the underlying problems of development which emerges not only in the literature but in practice is the unequal relationship between the south and north. I will argue that the relationship between SNGOs and NNGOs continues to be entrenched within a power structure based on western hegemony and a form of neo-colonialism. I will support my argument by highlighting data collected during a research study which was carried out in Bolivia.1 The main findings included that in spite of all the rhetoric which surrounds the topic, the situation has changed very little. SNGOs work by strategic plans but often have to resort to other sectors and activities to take advantage of possible funding opportunities. In relation to accountability, SNGOs are fully aware who they need to be accountable to but tend to prioritize accountability to donors; NNGOs were found to be weak in being accountable to their partners and client groups. There needs to be some clarity of the roles of the NGOs, especially NNGOs, and an analysis of their changing role. Shared values are insufficient on their own to build effective partnerships; obstacles such as the inequitable distribution of resources and unequal power relations hinder effective partnerships. Finally, in reality, partnerships between SNGOs and NNGOs rarely exist in the true sense of the word. This unequal relationship between SNGOs and NNGOs translates into an underlying problem of development; how the dichotomy of the south and north can be destructive and counterproductive to effective development.

Nurses' Experience of the Early Identification of Depression in the Primary Care Setting of South Africa

The objective of this study was to explore and describe nurses' experience of the early identification of depression in the primary care setting of South Africa. A total of 55 female nurses participated in the study (50=black; 5=white). Data were collected through in-depth interviews and naïve sketches. Data were analysed using a descriptive method of open coding. Nurses' experiences were paradoxical in that they perceived both a disrupted and a positive interactional flow between the national health care, community, family and client. Their experiences were also influenced by context of practice—especially the inequitable distribution of resources. Lack of awareness about depression, community and family involvement, and nurses' personal awkwardness towards mental health issues remains a challenge.

The unsustainable US health care system: a blueprint for change.

As a family physician, I have become increasingly uncomfortable being associated with the US health care system. While shiny, new buildings go up each day, there is still little movement toward a model that will shore up the crumbling foundation. The current delivery system and financing structures are unsustainable. Inequitable distribution of resources continues, and an increasing number of American families do not have access to adequate care. In this essay, patient stories are woven into a narrative that highlights the magnitude of the problem at multiple levels of the system. My intent is not to compare stories, because we all have patients, friends, and family members who have been affected. The purpose of this essay is to encourage each reader to reflect on his or her own experiences and to present an imperative to lead change.

Implementation of Cost Sharing in the Ethiopian Higher Education Landscape: Critical Assessment and the Way Forward

AbstractHigher education participation in Ethiopia is very low (about 1.5 per cent) and is the major source of the critical shortage of educated and skilled human resource. The higher education system in Ethiopia is moving away from exclusive and dismally low enrolments towards increasing participation. To expand access, to redress inequitable subsidies by taxpayers to a small proportion of the age cohort and to diversify revenue the introduction of cost sharing is necessitated to supplement public finance. Cost sharing serves as an alternative non‐governmental source supplementing revenue opening more opportunities and making students responsible citizens and customers. It also has a profound effect on improving the management and academic efficiency of the higher education institutions. In the expanding system, covering the full tuition and food and room cost for a small proportion of the age cohort from the taxpayers’ money is inappropriate and inequitable distribution of resources. A significant number of students are enrolled in fee‐paying programs in public and private institutions.A modified model of the Australian type Graduate Tax, as a more attractive, simple and manageable scheme is adopted in the Ethiopian higher education landscape. The scheme is expected to ensure equitable access to students of any background, as there is no need to stipulate income of parents to arrive at the repayment amounts. Immediate removal of all subsidies to food and room, calculating appropriate tuition fees and costs, provision of every citizen a tax identification number (TIN) and decentralization and strengthening the tax collection and information system are essential for successful implementation of cost sharing in Ethiopia. These improvements enhance the confidence of both public and university community and improves cost recovery.

Confronting the Realities of Volunteering for a National Disaster

Responding to a national appeal for mental health volunteers to assist with disaster relief efforts is an altruistic act. However, the reality of the actual work of a mental health volunteer can be jarring. In the course of providing services to traumatized individuals, mental health providers are in a position to share the emotional burden of the trauma, become a witness to the damage, recognize the realities of dealing with federal and state agencies, and observe the inequitable distribution of resources. The following is my story of what it was like before, during, and after my experience as a mental health volunteer in the Gulfport/Biloxi, Mississippi area two months after the destruction of August 2005. I hope that sharing my story will encourage other mental health counselors to play a role in responding to the needs created by events like Hurricane Katrina.

Faculty and Staff Teams: A Tool for Unifying the Academic Health Center and Improving Mission Performance

The organizational structure of the academic health center (AHC) may present significant barriers to deep and lasting organizational change. The insular nature and structure often seen in academic departments and other units at AHCs result in competition for scarce resources, rather than in working together to add value to one another or to the organization as a whole. Successful unification around organizational performance goals is needed more than ever by AHCs as they struggle to meet their challenges. Over a five-year period (2000-2005) at the Penn State College of Medicine and Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, organizational inner cohesiveness was created through the use of teams that unified the clinical, academic, and research enterprises. Barriers that typically separate academic departments, such as a lack of understanding of the impact of organizational funds flow on each of the missions, were broken down. Traditional barriers between employees and management (e.g., poor communication, lack of clarity on organizational goals, and claims that neither side understood the other) were reduced. Problems that seemed to be intractable in the past such as an inequitable distribution of resources, responsibilities, and rewards, were solved through the implementation of a teams approach across departments and missions. The authors describe the creation and operation of these AHC-wide teams. The rationale for using teams is elucidated, the difference between teams and committees is defined, and data on five years of team performance are presented. The authors argue that the breadth of scope and comprehensiveness of the teams approach represents an effective model for implementing AHC-wide transformational change.

A multicultural feminist analysis of Walden Two.

Feminist and multicultural analyses are largely absent from behavior analysis. lack is especially problematic in the area of cultural design. The analysis of the social contingencies of reinforcement is incomplete without an examination of race, class, and gender. paper asks: Are behavioral societies good for women, along with the follow-up question, If so, for which women? A critique of Walden Two from a multicultural feminist perspective demonstrates the kind of inquiry that might lead to answers to these questions, and to greater efficacy in cultural design. Key words: behavior analysis, cultural practices, feminism, multicultural, Walden Two ********** Behavior analysts have a long tradition of working for social change. Findings from the laboratory have been applied to schools, clinics, prisons, businesses, and community programs. Moreover, following Skinner's lead with Walden Two (1947) and Science and Human Behavior (1953), there is a long history of interest in the design of cultures. However, with few exceptions, little attention has been paid to gender (Ruiz, 1995, 2003). Therefore, it might be time for behaviorists to ask a basic question: Are behavioral societies good for women? And since contemporary feminist research is multicultural, a follow-up question might be: If so, for which women? Ruiz (1995) and Landrine (1995) have expressed concern over the exclusion of both feminist and multicultural issues in psychology. They suggest that radical behaviorism is contextualistic, and as such is well suited for examining feminist concerns. Chiesa (1992) writes, Radical behaviorism's explanatory system focuses on relations between the behaving persons, the setting conditions of behavior, and its consequences--behavior in its (p.1298). Further, Ruiz (1995) explains, This view categorically rejects any attempt to understand human action outside the boundaries of personal life experience and current circumstance ... (and sees) the reciprocal interdependency between the individual and her context as the key to creating and changing cultural practices (pp. 169-170). The categories of gender, race, class, and sexuality as understood by feminists are socially constructed and critical to understanding context. Examining the role they play in the contingencies of reinforcement would increase our efficacy, and if we exclude these important controlling variables from our analysis, we make successful intervention less likely. Since we live in a gendered and racialized world, we ignore our privileges at our peril. Rothenberg (2002) writes, History tells us that, in the end, an unjust and inequitable distribution of resources and opportunities leads to terrible violence ... In this sense, all of us, both the victims and beneficiaries of racism (and other oppressions) pay a terrible price (p.4). We cannot solve our problems by ignoring important controlling variables. In a similar vein, Audre Lorde (1984) exhorts us to examine our differences for the sake of change: There are very real differences between us of race, age, and sex. But it is not those differences between us that are separating us. It is rather our refusal to recognize those differences, and to examine the distortion which result from our misnaming them and their effects upon human behavior and expectation. (Italics mine) (p.115) paper critiques Walden Two from a multicultural feminist perspective to demonstrate the kind of inquiry that might lead to more effective change. Although a visionary, Skinner was a product of his time and as such he reflects an androcentric, Euroamerican point of view. A similar inconsistency is described by hooks (1994) writing about Freire: There has never been a moment ... that I have not remained aware of not only the sexism of the language but the way he ... constructs aphallocentric paradigm of liberation--wherein freedom and the experience of patriarchal manhood are always linked as though they are one and the same. …

Gender and HIV/AIDS impact mitigation in sub-Saharan Africa — recognising the constraints

In discussions of gender and HIV/AIDS, attention has focused on prevention. This is a vital area. However, we argue that there is also a need to focus more attention on the resulting impact of the epidemic, because inequalities that promote the spread of infection are also hampering containment and impact mitigation. We propose a framework highlighting the gendered constraints exacerbated by the epidemic. These constraints are reviewed under the following headings: Gender-specific constraints: stemming from the specific nature of gender relations themselves, such as the availability of labour in agriculture, business and for household tasks, as well as access to services and markets, and the incidence of gendered violence. Gender-intensified disadvantages: stemming from the uneven and often inequitable distribution of resources between men and women, including cultural/religious conventions, and the social rules and norms that regulate property rights, inheritance practices and resource endowments. Gender-imposed constraints: resulting from biases and partialities of those individuals who have the authority and power to allocate resources. These include provision of credit, information, agricultural extension and health care. The differential involvement of men and women in development programmes affects access to resources, as does political participation, including involvement in the formulation of policies aimed at poverty reduction.These constraints take us beyond gender relations and sexual behaviour. But women's lives will not change in the short term. The challenges they face in mitigating the impact of HIV/AIDS will not be addressed by focusing only on their specific vulnerability to HIV/AIDS infection. Unequal gender relations and the nature of ‘development’ need to be changed too.

Africa: the traumatised continent, a continent with hope

Many African countries gained political independence in the 1960s and 1970s and went through difficult times in economic, political and security terms in the 1980s and early 1990s. Mental health services and research were not spared and stagnated or deteriorated during this period. The effects of poor governance, inequitable distribution of resources and environmental degradation conspired with natural and man-made disasters (wars in particular) to drive Africa into an abyss of despair.

Environment and Civil Strife

Environment and Civil Strife

The policy of the Save the Children Fund UK

The choices available to people deciding on family size are determined by cultural, economic and social considerations. Before any realistic and acceptable action can be advised, which might influence family size and population growth, it is necessary to understand the balance between resource availability and consumption, access to contraceptive technology, and the social and cultural influences under which people live. Any intervention should seek to increase the range of choices available to people and to create the conditions which enable them to afford those choices. It is in the poorer parts of the world that population growth is greatest and choices are most limited. Inequitable resource distribution globally is at the root of high population growth rates in poorer areas. Excessive consumption patterns in the industrialized countries pose as great a threat to the development of a sustainable global environment as do the high growth rates in the developing countries. There is no technological short cut to limiting population growth. For any service, including family spacing, to have a significant impact over a long period of time, it must be delivered through a secure, reliable and effective system to families who fully understand the benefits and the implications, and whose choice is informed and made freely.

Regulatory Rationing: A Solution to Health Care Resource Allocation

Despite all the recent controversy, rationing has always been a part of medical decision making. Figure I presents a spectrum of ways in which health care can be rationed. Whether imposed by a market system in which price determines access, a triage system where care is distributed on the basis of need defined largely by the medical community, or a queue system in which time and the waiting process become the major rationing device, medical resources have always been distributed according to criteria that contain varying degrees of subjectivity. In almost all instances, rationing criteria are grounded in a particular value context that results in an inequitable distribution of resources based on social as well as strictly medical considerations. In addition to illustrating the range of rationing options for health care, Figure I introduces yet another complexion in defining the concept. Some forms of rationing infer or necessitate government involvement, either direct or indirect, while others fail to distinguish between private and public sector choices. This distinction is critical to a clarification of how current health care options differ from past ones. Less explicit forms of rationing toward the top of the figure are no longer sufficient to resolve health care dilemmas in this era. As a result, we are now witnessing a shift toward the bottom end of the spectrum, possibly culminating in a central role for the government in the rationing of increasingly scarce medical resources. Although explicit rationing under the authority of the government is but one form of rationing, there appear to be many forces that, concurrently, are moving American society in that direction. At the same time, however, explicit public rationing is feared by some observers, who suggest that rationing is unnecessary or an anathema to be avoided at all costs.1

Rural women and irrigation: Patriarchy, class, and the modernizing state in South India

Abstract Irrigation is the major strategy used by ‘'modernizing'’ states in India and throughout the Third World to raise agricultural productivity and surpluses. This paper shows that irrigation is not gender‐neutral, focusing on how canal irrigation affects women's work and lives in Andhra Pradesh, India. First, it delineates the particular consequences for women of state‐sponsored irrigation. It then focuses on transformations in the sexual division of labor, workloads, and the labor process for women of different classes and castes and shows how the economic and physical burdens of agricultural intensification have fallen most heavily on women of agricultural labor and marginal cultivator households. It concludes by suggesting policy measures that can meet poor women's basic livelihood needs and points out that only working class women's organizations will be able to change the preoccupation of the state with modernization, the inequitable distribution of resources, and the stranglehold of patriarchy.

Ethnicity, Inequality, and Higher Education in Malaysia

Some sociologists contend that the disadvantaged, the poor, and minorities do poorly in education largely because of the inequitable distribution of resources for education. Therefore, a formal compensatory public education policy can better serve these underprivileged groups. This is because entry into the more desirable and prestigious occupations in all modernizing economies is increasingly becoming closed to those who do not have the appropriate educational credentials, as there is a tightening bond between years of education, jobs, and income.' Thus, success in education, particularly in academic and professional education, will lead to improvement in life chances. In the long run, equitable educational opportunities and achievements can work toward a more equitable distribution of income, wealth, and status in admittedly unequal societies. This macrolevel theoretical contention has had and continues to have

From Unjust Markets to Just Distribution

The tendency of the market to concentrate wealth on small groups of individuals and to over‐react to shocks to the economy requires the invigilation of the state to protect the disadvantaged. Saul Estrin, Lecturer in Economics at the London School of Economics, contends that socialist acceptance of market efficiency should not be extended to its inequitable distribution of resources and power.

An approach to the analysis of health care needs and resources.

A semi-quantitative method of analysing the relationship between health care resources and need is described. It utilises the Donabedian model which expresses needs and resources in equivalent units in order to estimate the ratio of resources to need. The optimum resource/need ratio is regarded as that pertaining to the reference population; deviation from this optimum ratio in the subunits of the reference population is interpreted as a manifestation of inequitable resource distribution. An example is presented of the application of the method to the Greater Glasgow Health Board and its five constituent districts for the years 1974-77. It is argued that this method might, without undermining the principle of geographical equity, meet some of the objections to the more rigid 'formula' approach in the report of the Resource Allocation Working Party (RAWP) and in the Scottish Health Authorities Revenue Equalisation (SHARE) report.

The Umoja Federation: Women's Cooptation into a Local Power Structure

Ir EJH ESE two statements reflect differing perceptions of a government| initiated mobilization of women and suggest organizational problems that emerged in Umoja,' a women's federation of the late colonial era in western Kenya. Organizations adapt to the surrounding environment, a process which has significant effects on organizational goal transformation, leadership strategies, and leader-member relations. The process by which subordinate groups are drawn into local power structures and the terms on which they are integrated are likely to vary according to the composition and size of the group. While studies of such processes abound with regard to racial, ethnic, or neighborhood communities, we have little information about their application to the category of women. Sexual subordination is a unique form of subordination one that involves half or more of a community and cuts across regional, class, and occupational boundaries. The universal subordination of women to men though varied across and within societies is the result of disparities in access to material resources, norms denigrating women, and the relegation of women to the private rather than the public sphere.2 Developing external support may be difficult for women advancing their interests as women,3 particularly if female gains are seen as male losses or as a threat to social institutions such as the family. Recorded history is predisposed toward documenting organizations that survive, perhaps accounting for the seeming absence of many organizations advancing women's interests. Women's organizations, particularly those achieving a certain degree of power, may foster reactions which make survival problematic or improbable. In the classic interest-group pattern, persons who share common interests become aware of and act on those interests, an idea based on the assumption that people are rational beings who act in self-interested ways.4 This classic perspective does not address the inequitable distribution of resources to act on common interests; subordinate groups have less access to education, contacts, money, and other resources which facilitate successful political action.5 It also neglects how subordinate groups internalize values

Concepts and Methods of Common Property Resource Management

DOI: 10.3126/dsaj.v1i0.274Dhaulagiri Vol.1 (2005) pp.33-41