Low Economic Development Research Articles

A Review of the Causes of Land Use Conflicts Between Farmers and Pastoralists in Tanzania and a Proposal for Resolutions

Land use conflicts are complex disputes that contribute at large in terms of negative social and economic impacts within the heterogeneous societies. The mechanisms of success for land use conflict resolution still need further research because of various mindsets of the people. In this paper, the issues of land conflicts between farmers and pastoralists in Tanzania mainland which could lead to low economic development are reviewed and the general causes and effects of land use conflicts are outlined. Poor land governance, inappropriate of land use plans, inadequate land policies, land tenure insecurity, corruption and population increases are cited as being among of the main offenders fuelling land use conflicts in Tanzania. As pastoralists move across the country with large herds of hungry livestock in search of pastures and water, the livestock are randomly led into farms where they forage on whatever crops that may be in sight. Angered farm owners (farmers) often take the law into their hands and fight the invaders. Armed fights erupt resulting to human and livestock deaths, destruction of crops and homesteads, fear and poverty.Since a National Land Policy (NLP) is a key instrument for, among other things, land management and administration, land use planning, conflict resolution, and a stable land tenure security, both the countrywide lack of land use plans in the rural areas, and the (now) outdated National Land Policy of 1995 are brought in focus in line with the recurring land conflicts between farmers and pastoralists.The paper provides the case of how Mediation-Arbitration (MED-ARB) approach can be used in solving land conflicts between farmers and pastoralists. Based on the various studies that have been undertaken and the recommendations made on this issue, the authors propose MED-ARB as the optimal way to put in place sustainable curative measures of land conflicts

The marginal and double threshold effects of regional innovation on energy consumption structure: Evidence from resource-based regions in China

Innovation-driven, energy consumption structure optimisation is crucial in developing countries. China, as a typical developing country, has been shifting its economic development model from a traditional approach to innovation-driven, high-quality development. We select nine resource-based regions in China as our research subject and employ a varying coefficient panel model and a Hansen panel threshold model to quantify the marginal and threshold effects of innovation capacity in optimising energy consumption structure. The results indicate that the overall energy consumption structure index for the analysed regions is 0.563, revealing that the structure is rather low and regional economic development relies mainly on low-ranked energy. Astonishingly, the marginal effect reflects obvious heterogeneity: a positive effect in Sichuan (−0.208), Yunnan (−0.207), and Xinjiang (−0.431); nearly no effect in Chongqing, Gansu, and Qinghai; and a negative effect in Guangxi (0.104), Shaanxi (0.244), and Ningxia (1.282). In previous studies, such negative effects have been totally ignored. Further, there are double thresholds and a unique driving mechanism, namely, ‘negative driving → strong positive driving → weak positive driving’. Interestingly, below the first threshold, improvement in innovation will lead to energy consumption structure degradation. Current policies, such as introducing extensive talent, are not feasible for all resource-based regions. The concerns of policy making for the three different threshold intervals should be: upgrading industrial structures, optimising the structure of human resources, and preventing ‘brain drain’, respectively.

LIFELONG LEARNING: THE NEW EDUCATIONAL PARADIGM FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

The paper examines life-long strategies in international and national scope and opportunities to adopt their priorities in regional strategies for improving level and access to lifelong learning in the Republic of Bulgaria. The issues are discussed from the point of view of lifelong learning’s advantages that could be used for providing training in less favored regions considering capacity building for achievement of sustainable development. The study provides evidence that lifelong learning development would have a specific contribution to the strategic goals of increase in educational level and employment rates, promotion of research and development, reducing poverty and uneven development of urban and rural areas through a self-directed learning process providing solutions of the most topical problems concerning low economic development, lack of managerial and marketing skills, and thus contributing to more general points of improvement of living conditions, food and social security, etc .

INFLUENCE OF INTELLECTUAL MIGRATION ON THE ECONOMY OF LATVIA

The importance of human capital for innovation and economic growth is widely recognized. Innovative enterprises are one of the main factors of economic growth. Consequently, venture capital firms are key players in ensuring economic growth and innovation. In this study, the authors paid attention to factors that contribute to the success of activities using venture capital and investments. One of the main factors was human capital. Nevertheless, there are not enough specialists in countries with low economic development, while in developed countries there may be an overabundance of specialists of certain specialties. For this reason, specialists, who did not find a place in the labor market according to the obtained specialty, are forced to look for another job, often low-skilled one. Experts are willing to accept cooperation offers from venture capital funds, as they, in turn, offer not only earnings, but a flexible schedule, which is not tied to the location. For example, often IT professionals can work anytime during the day and from any part of the world. Nevertheless, even if the specialist has to come to a certain country to implement the project, then, in any case, this is only a temporary phenomenon. Due to this fact, they avoid spending time and money on relocation, paperwork and search for accommodation. The work examines the modern processes of international intellectual migration and their features. Special attention is paid to the consideration of the place of Latvia in the international intellectual labor market, problems of adaptation to the rules of its functioning in the context of globalization. The following question was studied: what is the main reason for intellectual migration and the increasing tendency of conflict of interests of employers' claims and professional competence in the labor market? To check whether the problem of migration of qualified personnel abroad is relevant for Latvia, a survey was conducted, during which the main reasons for the migration of specialists were identified. The article ends with conclusion that the development of venture investment could have a positive effect on the economy of Latvia.

Greenhouse gasses emission and economic growth nexus of sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract Notwithstanding the lesser contribution to global warming, sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) remained one of the most vulnerable to climate change due to low economic development, high dependence on natural resources for agricultural production and low technological advancement. There is also limited information on the nexus between economic growth and greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) in the region. Therefore, this study applied the Environmental Kuznets hypothesis to test the relationship between economic growth and GHG emissions in SSA and also test the effect of global GHG emission on economic growth of SSA. Using an aggregated panel data for the period of 1970 to 2012, a Vector Autoregressive and an Ordinary Least Square regression were estimated. From the result, although the relationship between economic growth and environmental quality was established in the short run, there are no clear turning points for the greenhouse gasses. Generally, there is a monotonic decreasing relationship between economic growth and environmental quality in the long-run. Interestingly, this study showed that global GHG emission levels have a long-run effect on the economic growth of SSA. We concluded that to ensure that economic growth leads to an improvement in environmental quality, there must be a global effort to introduce innovations and technologies that can lead to increase production with little GHG emissions. The study recommended that, SSA should consider carbon tax policies other than stringent GHG emission reduction initiatives or climate stabilization policies that would negatively affect production in the region.

Managing the refugee crises in South Asia: The role of SAARC

South Asia is home to roughly three million refugees and their long-term presence brings enormous challenges. South Asia’s history of colonialism, low economic development, and intra- and inter-state conflicts have contributed to the large-scale refugee movement and the lack of capacity to address the problem. This article examines the history, current activity and potential for regional cooperation in South Asia to address the issue. The article focuses particularly on the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, the structure and culture of the organization and the likelihood of it addressing the politically complex issue of forced migration.

Nationalism, Egalitarianism and Global Justice

Global distributive justice requires that universal standards and values be recognized and respected to avoid moral relativism. Egalitarianism in domestic context demands equal treatment of all persons, whereas in global context, egalitarianism means equal treatment of all nations or peoples. Nationalist appeal quite often neglects universal values and standards in dealing with global justice. Although Rawls rejected global egalitarianism in his late works, the main idea developed by his A Theory of Justice is still important for global justice. The reason why just arrangements should benefit the least advantaged domestically is parallel to that why they should benefit the poorest nations in global justice. Equality of opportunities in global context means that equal respect and treatment of all people, and nationality and religious beliefs should not obstruct anyone from getting a job or position. One of the moral arguments for benefiting the least advantaged is luck egalitarianism, and the luck/choice distinction is used for explaining personal responsibility in social and economic differences. It is bad when one person is worse off than another through no fault or choice of her own. But it is unjust when someone does better than others only because of her social class or family background. And social institutions that discriminate against persons based on arbitrary traits like nationality, gender, origin of country or region, religious beliefs, etc., are a bad example of unjust distribution. Rawls’ difference principle does not make a distinction between two reasons that cause disadvantage. Therefore, the requirement to benefit the least advantaged should embody the luck/choice distinction; people should be responsible for the cost of their choice and not for their natural assets. This principle may be extended to global justice. For those who live in poverty because of their lack of natural resources and gifts, compensation should be made to let them lead a decent life, and to those who voluntarily choose their lifestyle that causes their disadvantage, the efforts to benefit them should be to their minimal satisfaction, as a humanitarian appeal. And some nations voluntarily choose their institutions, ways of life, including working style, ways of doing business, educational efforts and political corruption, which cause lower economic development and efficiency. Social and economic equality in such circumstances is not unconditional, and international assistance should consider the choice factor.

Transforming institutional quality in resource curse contexts: The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative in Myanmar

Many resource-rich countries face the paradoxical situation that their wealth in natural resources coincides with low economic and human development rates. To address this so-called resource curse, academics and practitioners turn their hopes to institutional quality. Yet whether, how and with what consequences institutional quality is transformed in resource curse contexts remains poorly understood, especially so at subnational levels. The most widely implemented initiative that seeks to address the resource curse through enhanced institutional quality is the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI). This article analyses to what extent and how the EITI transforms institutional quality at national and subnational levels in Myanmar, focusing on transparency, civil society participation and accountability. We show that many transformations go beyond the official EITI process and report. While the EITI report itself is not heavily used by civil society organisations (CSOs), the EITI process motivated CSOs to gather data and organise themselves both around and beyond EITI-related issues at subnational levels. Such participatory processes of constituting transparency improved relations between the (regional) government, CSOs and private companies, but also created new forms of in- and exclusion among civil society. While avenues opened up for CSOs to demand accountability regarding the impacts of resource extraction, the extent to which they are able to trigger action of extractive industry actors in their region remains limited. In conclusion, we argue that transformations in institutional quality are not characterised by a linear trajectory from transparency in the form of the EITI report to accountability, facilitated by civil society participation in EITI multi-stakeholder groups, as the EITI standard posits. Rather, transformations in institutional quality are characterised by spin-offs, dynamic interlinkages, trade-offs, limitations and a reinforcing cycle between participation and transparency within and beyond the EITI.

The Innovative Approach to Increasing Cybersecurity of Transactions Through Counteraction to Money Laundering

A current task is to provide the economic security of any country in the context of creating effective and reliable measures of the banking cybersecurity system against money laundering. First of all, it relates to the fact that the money laundering processes and financing of terrorism negatively influence the economy of any country and reduce the economic security level. Secondly, the high level of money laundering in the country promotes the emergence of such negative processes as corruption, extortion, drug production, people smuggling, gangsterism, terrorism, which leads to an increase of the crime situation in the country and endangers the lives of the population. Thirdly, the existing cybersecurity measures of banks do not affect the security of transactions in a timely manner to identify funds obtained illegally. Therefore, exactly this aspect is required changes and modernization in order to accomplish the task. The aim of the article is to develop the innovative scientific and methodic approach to the country’s attractiveness modelling for proceeds laundering by other countries. This technique is one of the tools of the bank’s cybersecurity system for making further decisions regarding the risk of legalization. In order to solve this problem authors suggest the approach, which is based on gravity modelling. Eight factors: Gross Domestic Product per capita, Claims on the central government, Internally displaced persons, associated with conflict and violence; Automatic Exchange of Information; Corruption Perceptions Index; Global Terrorism Index; Legatum Prosperity Index; Happy Planet Index are proposed to be evaluated using the expert approach to implement the above approach. Then the integral indicator is calculated using the Minkowski metric and taking into account the factors normalization. Using the gravity model, the country’s attractiveness degree considering is defined for proceeds laundering on the part of another country. Data for 105 countries are used for calculation and results for Ukraine, Poland and Germany are represented. As a result, we can see that developed countries with high welfare level are attractive for developing countries for money laundering, countries with low welfare level, low economic development and unstable political situation are attractive for the developed countries. The proposed methodology is recommended to be introduced in the activity of banks' cybersecurity systems. It will allow identifying transactions of those countries for which the risk of legalization is high and introduce additional monitoring to regard the legitimacy of their financial sources. In addition, it is expedient to use the model in the activities of the country’s regulatory authorities, which will promote the introduction of cybersecurity standards and increase the ethics of financial relations between countries. Keywords: cybersecurity, money laundering, gravity modelling, country attractiveness, risk, expert approach, normalization, Minkowski metric.

Соціально-економічний розвиток країн арабської регіональної системи та «арабська весна» як каталізатор еволюції ісламізму на великому Близькому Сході.

The phenomenon of the Islamic extremism rise is directly related to the very political situation that has developed in a number of regions that are marked by heightened conflict index. The emergence of Islamic extremism was promoted by the internal factors of Muslim countries development, where unemployment, the standard of living of the population overwhelming majority, the difficult demographic situation, rather low economic development rates, the low level of authoritative political regimes and their repressive opposition policy, the crisis of national ideology that created a massive social base for the Islamist opposition to secular political regimes. A special role was played by changes in the geopolitical situation in the world as a whole especially this became relevant after the collapse of the USSR and the world socialist system. The position of the USA as the only world hegemonic state strengthened, which became a catalyst for the departure from European samples, as well as the search for ways of original development. The conflict of different types of civilizations – European and Muslim, manifested in almost all spheres of Muslim society, showed the impossibility of blindly copying Western society on Islamic soil. The intensification of the search for new solutions and changes in the priorities in the economic development of Arab countries became a natural phenomenon during the crisis shocks around the world. The basic ideological principles and provisions of any doctrine can, with their radicalization and bringing to the edge, form both extremely positive and negative attitudes towards the place of man in the world and the environment. The ideological component of Islamic radicalism is radical Islam, which consists of fundamentalism, traditionalism and modernism, each of which is a reaction to events in society. Islamic fundamentalism and traditionalism are a defensive reaction to the deviation from the traditions and established norms of culture and society.

Corporate Governance in Manufacturing and Management with Analysis of Governance Failures at Enron and Volkswagen Corporations

Good corporate governance is important in management of all organizations. It gives direction to an organization in matters of accountability, integrity and quality of product and service offerings in the wake of stiff competition and conflicting stakeholder interests. Business challenges and realities create conditions that favor governance failure through unethical conduct hence the need for regulations in addition to self-governance. Business ethics in business and manufacturing helps organizations in making ethically critical decisions. Corruption is a significant indicator of governance failure and involves illegal activities, criminal activities that are both financial and non-financial abuses and benefits. Corporate governance should provide a framework upon which organizations are hence creates order and harmony between various stakeholders. Good corporate governance improves organization’s image as a self-policing institution that is responsible and honest. Whereas self-regulations looks more attractive for free market economies, legislation and control is necessary since not all managers believe and act within good corporate governance. The board of directors should set the strategic objectives and provide leadership for realization and supervise the management and report to shareholders on their leadership. The Enron Corporation and Volkswagen scandals demonstrated that severe consequences result from failed corporate governance in form monetary and non-monetary that affect both perpetrators and the innocent. Where corporate governance fails, major indicators include, manipulation of financial records, corruption, poor quality products and exaggerated quality specifications in manufacturing and engineering, high staff turnover, lack of transparency and accountability, poor stakeholder relationship, poor performance and low economic development leading widespread poverty and social disorder. External enforcement should be considerate to genuine stakeholder interests to avoid legislation that will encourage cheating for survival. Perpetrators of governance failure, should be punished both as individually and as organizations to set an example to others in the form of penalties that are reasonably high to discourage noncompliance.

Neurolues: the clinical case

Neurosyphilis - chronic, progressive infection of the central nervous system of humans. The development of the pathology caused by penetration of the body causative agent of syphilis - Treponema pale. Syphilis affects all parts of the central and peripheral nervous system, and the clinical picture of the disease is manifested by a number of neurological symptoms. Today syphilis treated well, but if we are dealing with advanced forms and the possible consequences. Particularly relevant for neurosyphilis high mortality. The problem of syphilis has not lost its relevance now. This is facilitated by low social and economic development, military events. Besides increasing the number of cases with atypical course. The article described the case of clinical practice - diagnosis and treatment tactics of patients diagnosed with neurosyphilis.

Training library staff in the Republic of Cameroon

Negative trends in the system of library education in the Republic of Cameroon and their the exterior and intrinsic factors are examined. Among the exterior factors are: the low economic development of the country and the labor market; lack of efficient standards and laws and state regulation of education, culture and library activities; low literacy and education level; undeveloped information culture; severe natural and climatic conditions. Insufficient standard, regulation, methodological, staff and logistical support of library education, insufficient application of modern pedagogical and information and communication technologies of education make the intrinsic factors. The author also emphasizes that the exterior and intrinsic factors are interrelated and interdependent: developed information and communication technologies, finances and logistics of library professional education always depend on the country’s economic development, and library education legislation depends on the national policy for libraries and education, and this is true for the Republic of Cameroon. Until the negative factors are eliminated, the level of professional training of librarians and their professional motivation will remain low.

Assessment and analysis of regional economic collaborative development within an urban agglomeration: Yangtze River Delta as a case study

Regional collaborative development mainly emphasizes the relationship and degree of connection between cities. Linkages among cities are more complex and diversified in the age of globalization, so that regional economic collaborative development has become even more important than ever. Domestic and foreign competition must be dealt with to enhance the comprehensive strengths of urban agglomeration. This study takes the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) as a representative case to analyze and evaluate the economic synergistic development capacities of the Yangtze River Delta Urban Agglomeration (YRDUA). Location quotients and industrial structure similarity coefficients show that cities with high levels of economic development provide advantages for secondary and tertiary industries, while cities with relatively low economic development levels provide clearer advantages for primary industries. Regarding the movement of the economic barycenter from 2001 to 2016, the overall directional trend was towards the northwest cities. The strength of economic linkages between cities is closely related to distance, population, and levels of economic development. The degree of economic development directly affects the capacity of collaborative development among cities, which then influences the extent of regional collaborative development.

Extreme temperature and mortality: evidence from China.

The frequency, intensity, and duration of extreme temperature events are expected to rise in the future and increase the related health risks of human beings. Using a novel, nationwide dataset that links extreme temperature and mortality, we estimated the short-term and long-term effects of extreme temperature on mortality in China during 2002-2013. Both extreme hot and extreme cold had immediate and long-term effects on all-cause mortality. Annual deaths per 100,000 people due to extreme hot and cold in the long term were considerably larger compared to the short term. The change in cold spell duration indicator exhibited the greatest effects on annual deaths per 100,000 people among a set of extreme weather indicators. Furthermore, cities with low economic development levels were more vulnerable to extreme temperature, compared to cities with high economic development levels. Our results offer important policy implications for developing a regional-specific extreme weather plan to handle extreme temperature events in China.

Standardization of the Evaluation Index System for Low-Carbon Cities in China: A Case Study of Xiamen

The construction of a reasonable evaluation index system for low-carbon cities is an important part of China’s green development strategy in urban areas. In this study, based on the theoretical framework for the concept of low-carbon cities, the perspectives from three index systems—that is, the Drivers, Pressures, State, Impact, Response model of intervention (DPSIR), a complex ecosystem, and a carbon source/sink process—were integrated to extract common indicators from existing evaluation index systems for low-carbon cities. Subsequently, a standardized evaluation index system for low-carbon cities that contained five indicators—carbon emission, low carbon production, low carbon consumption, low-carbon policy, and social economic development—was established. Thereafter, Xiamen was selected for an empirical analysis by determining the indicator weight with an entropy weight method and by carrying out a comprehensive evaluation using a linear summation model. The results showed that the weights of the five selected primary indicators for the evaluation of low-carbon cities were: low-carbon production > low-carbon consumption > social economic development > carbon emission > low-carbon policy. Among the secondary indicators, the average entropy weight of “pollution emission” was the highest at 0.1591, while the average entropy weight of “urbanization rate” was the lowest at 0.0360. Furthermore, the comprehensive index of low-carbon development in 2015 was higher than that in 2010, while the rate of economic growth was greater than the growth rate of carbon emission, which indicated that the relative decoupling of economic growth from carbon emission was basically achieved.

Epidemiology of Japanese Encephalitis in China (2004–2015)

We aimed to quantify the impact of each vaccine strategy (including the P3-inactivated vaccine strategy [1968–1987], the SA 14-14-2 live-attenuated vaccine strategy [1988–2007], and the Expanded Program on Immunization [EPI, 2008–2020]) on the incidence of Japanese encephalitis (JE) in regions with different economic development levels.The JE incidence in mainland China from 1961 to 2020 was summarized by year, then modeled and analyzed using an interrupted time series analysis.After the P3-inactivated vaccine was used, the JE incidence in Eastern China, Central China, Western China and Northeast China in 1968 decreased by 39.80 % (IRR = 0.602, P < 0.001), 7.80 % (IRR = 0.922, P < 0.001), 10.80 % (IRR = 0.892, P < 0.001) and 31.90 % (IRR = 0.681, P < 0.001); the slope/trend of the JE incidence from 1968 to 1987 decreased by 30.80 % (IRR = 0.692, P < 0.001), 29.30 % (IRR = 0.707, P < 0.001), 33.00 % (IRR = 0.670, P < 0.001) and 41.20 % (IRR = 0.588, P < 0.001). After the SA 14-14-2 live-attenuated vaccine was used, the JE incidence in Eastern China and Northeast China in 1988 decreased by 2.60 % (IRR = 0.974, P = 0.009) and 14.70 % (IRR = 0.853, P < 0.001); the slope/trend of the JE incidence in Eastern China and Central China from 1988 to 2007 decreased by 4.60 % (IRR = 0.954, P < 0.001) and 4.70 % (IRR = 0.953, P < 0.001). After the EPI was implemented, the JE incidence in Eastern China, Central China and Western China in 2008 decreased by 10.50 % (IRR = 0.895, P = 0.013), 18.00 % (IRR = 0.820, P < 0.001) and 24.20 % (IRR = 0.758, P < 0.001), the slope/trend of the JE incidence in Eastern China from 2008 to 2020 decreased by 17.80 % (IRR = 0.822, P < 0.001).Each vaccine strategy has different effects on the JE incidence in regions with different economic development. Additionally, some economically underdeveloped regions have gradually become the main areas of the JE outbreak. Therefore, mainland China should provide economic assistance to areas with low economic development and improve JE vaccination plans in the future to control the epidemic of JE.

The Correlation between Energy Cost Share, Human, and Economic Development: Using Time Series Data from Australasia, Europe, North America, and the BRICS Nations

This paper investigates how a change in a region’s energy cost share (ECS), a ratio of a region’s energy expenditure as a fraction of its gross domestic product (GDP), affects the region’s social and economic development. Nations from four regions of the world, namely Australasia, Europe, North America, and the BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) were chosen for this study. Using time series data from the period of 1978 to 2010, the annual ECS of each country was compared to the year-on-year GDP change, as well as the components of the human development index (HDI). High ECS values were seen to correlate with low economic development. The existence of an ECS threshold was found in 14 of the 15 countries, for all the regions, and for the worldwide analysis, with very strong correlation coefficients obtained for periods of high ECS. New to this field of research, this study also investigated the effects of ECS on gross national income (GNI) per capita change, as well as the effects of 0, 1, 2, and 3 year lags. This investigation found that ECS has a very strong correlation to GNI per capita change, which was much stronger than the correlation between ECS and GDP change. The effects of ECS on social and economic development occurred after varying time lags, and it is unique to each country and region. Regions with similar ECS dynamics were identified, with possible reasons for the similarities being provided.

The uncertain games of energy transition in the island of Sardinia (Italy)

Energy is a basic issue for cleaner production and more sustainable consumption. A transition to renewable sources and massive energy savings face several problems: technological lock-ins, energy companies' oligopoly, unsteadily governments' policies. These problems are especially severe in small island developing states or regions. For these territories, however, energy transition can be a chance to improve their situation, especially if they are rich of renewable sources and they can mobilise important cultural and organisational resources, such as claims for identity and autonomy. An exemplary case study is Sardinia, the second biggest island in the Mediterranean Sea. It has problems of energy supply, strained political relationships with the mainland, and low economic development. The framework for this case study is rooted in multilevel perspective and political economy, complemented by games playing metaphor. The research hypothesis is that sustainable energy practices emerge if a variety of ‘games’ are visible, if they stimulate lay people participation, and if they are consistent with key goals for islanders, including independence, development and identity. In Sardinia, three games are identified: fossil fuels vs. renewables, competition on smart grid and storage system technologies, energy sovereignty vs. energy interdependency. There is not a single result of these games. Variable situations emerge, which allow forecasting a very slow progress of the energy transition.

Prevalence of Entamoeba histolytica and other enteral parasitic diseases in the metropolitan region of Belo Horizonte, Brazil. A cross-sectional study.

Enteral parasitic diseases are a public health problem in nations with low economic development and in settings with poor sanitation. Amebiasis is the second most frequent form of parasitosis, with a high burden of disease. Knowledge of the prevalence of enteroparasitoses in a given region is useful for planning clinical decision-making. Thus, the aim of this study was to estimate the prevalence of enteral parasitic diseases, especially amebiasis, through analysis on stool samples from public and private laboratories in a metropolitan area in southeastern Brazil. Cross-sectional study conducted in the metropolitan region of Belo Horizonte, Brazil. We evaluated 6,289 fecal samples from one private and one public laboratory. The samples were concentrated by means of spontaneous sedimentation, and those that were positive for Entamoeba histolytica or Entamoeba dispar in optical microscopy analyses were processed to obtain deoxyribonucleic acid, with subsequent identification through the polymerase chain reaction. Among the stool samples, 942 (15.0%) had parasitic infections; 73 (1.2%) of these were helminthic infections and 847 (13.5%) were protozoan infections, caused mainly by Escherichia coli (6.0%), Endolimax nana (5.2%) and Giardia lamblia (1.2%). Infections due to Entamoeba histolytica or Entamoeba dispar occurred in 36 samples (0.6%) and the polymerase chain reaction revealed five (13.9%) as Entamoeba histolytica. The prevalence of enteral parasitic diseases is high in the metropolitan region of Belo Horizonte, although amebiasis may not be a problem.