Nations Millennium Development Goals Research Articles

MOROCCAN WOMENS EMPOWERMENT THROUGH THE USE OFAN MHEALTH SOLUTION FOR FERTILITY MANAGEMENT AND CONTRACEPTION:

In developing countries, limited access to family planning services, results in high rates of unintendedpregnancies and unsafe abortions leading to many avoidable maternal deaths.Unmet need for family planning «UMN»is one of the United NationsMillennium Development Goals Indicators? it evaluates women who are fecund and sexually active but are not using any methods of contraception, while reporting not desiring any more children or wanting to delay the next child. According to the Moroccan national survey for family planning published in 2018,the unmet need for family planningwas 29.2% which is high.The advent of new technological solutions created for family planning has the potential to address unmet needs in low- and middle-income countries.In Morocco, research studies are scarce in the field of Family planning and sexual health.To improve the access to family planning methods and to lower the perceived barriers to contraception use in Morocco, our team in Maternity les Orangers collaborated with the software research team of the national school for computer science ENSIAS in a research project to create a new mHealth solution tailored to Moroccan women, to help empower them to achieve their reproductive goals and contraceptive needs.

The UN MDGs in Indonesia: Analyzing Its Failure in Eradicating Poverty in Indonesia

The United Nations (UN) Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), an international development movement oriented towards human welfare and global poverty eradication with measurable goals and targets, had hit the deadline by 2015. Its implementation reaped various contestations and claims regarding its success and failures in eradicating poverty in Indonesia. The Indonesian government claimed to have succeeded (on the track) in meeting the MDGs targets in eradicating poverty by reducing half of the number of Indonesians who earn one dollar per day (purchasing power parity/PPP) for the period 1990-2015. Meanwhile, the reality on the ground showed the contrast. Many Indonesian people lived in poverty and had minimal access to public health and education facilities. UNESCAP reported that Indonesia was one of the countries in the Asia Pacific region, which was alarming to achieve the MDGs. Based on such contradictions regarding the MDGs' poverty eradication mission in Indonesia, this article aims to examine why the MDGs program had not been able to overcome the problem of poverty in Indonesia? This article employs norm life cycle (dynamics) theory to investigate the problem behind UN MDGs' inability to overcome poverty in Indonesia. UN MDGs were considered a global norm in this article, substantiating the poverty eradication mission. Using the norm life cycle theory theorizing the three stages of norm development, starting from norm emergence, cascade, and internalization, this article reviews and investigates how Indonesia had dealt and performed in each of those norm life cycle stages within the framework of global poverty eradication norm. Based on the theoretical approach used, this article argues that the inability of UN MDGs to resolve poverty in Indonesia was due to the excessive use of statistical and quantitative basis of poverty eradication efforts rather than a more qualitative and welfare building approaches. Moreover, a systemic problem existed upon MDGs' coordination and implementation on the Indonesian government and donor countries/institutions. It included the lack of commitment to official development aid (ODA) realization, renegotiation and elimination of Indonesia's foreign debt, and rampant corruption in the national development and poverty eradication funds.

The effect of young children's faeces disposal practices on child growth: evidence from 34 countries.

To characterize the relationship between child faeces disposal and child growth in low- and middle-income countries. We analysed caregiver responses and anthropometric data from Demographic and Health Surveys (2005-2014) for 202614 children under five and 82949 children under two to examine the association between child faeces disposal and child growth. Child faeces disposal in an improved toilet was associated with reduced stunting for children under five [adjusted prevalence ratio (aPR)=0.90, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.89-0.92] and a 0.12 increase in height-for-age z-score (HAZ; 95% CI: 0.10-0.15) among all households. Among households with improved sanitation access, practicing improved child faeces disposal was still associated with a decrease in stunting (aPR=0.94, 95% CI: 0.91-0.96) and a 0.09 increase in HAZ (95% CI: 0.06-0.13). Improved child faeces disposal was also associated with reductions in underweight and wasting, and an increase in weight-for-age z-score (WAZ), but not an increase in weight-for-height z-score (WHZ). Community coverage level of improved child faeces disposal was also associated with stunting, with 75-100% coverage associated with the greatest reduction in stunting. Child faeces disposal in an unimproved toilet was associated with reductions in underweight and wasting, but not stunting. Improved child faeces disposal practices could achieve greater reductions in child undernutrition than improving toilet access alone. Additionally, the common classification of child faeces disposal as 'safe' regardless of the type of toilet used for disposal may underestimate the benefits of disposal in an improved toilet and overestimate the benefits of disposal in an unimproved toilet.

Neonatal mortality in East Africa and West Africa: a geographic analysis of district-level demographic and health survey data.

Under-five child mortality declined 47% since 2000 following the implementation of the United Nation's (UN) Millennium Development Goals. To further reduce under-five child mortality, the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) will focus on interventions to address neonatal mortality, a major contributor of under-five mortality. The African region has the highest neonatal mortality rate (28.0 per 1000 live births), followed by that of the Eastern Mediterranean (26.6) and South-East Asia (24.3). This study used the Demographic and Health Survey Birth Recode data (http://dhsprogram.com/data/File-Types-and-Names.cfm) to identify high-risk districts and countries for neonatal mortality in two sub-regions of Africa - East Africa and West Africa. Geographically weighted Poisson regression models were estimated to capture the spatially varying relationships between neonatal mortality and dimensions of potential need i) care around the time of delivery, ii) maternal education, and iii) women's empowerment. In East Africa, neonatal mortality was significantly associated with home births, mothers without an education and mothers whose husbands decided on contraceptive practices, controlling for rural residency. In West Africa, neonatal mortality was also significantly associated with home births, mothers with a primary education and mothers who did not want or plan their last child. Importantly, neonatal mortality associated with home deliveries were explained by maternal exposure to unprotected water sources in East Africa and older maternal age and female sex of infants in West Africa. Future SDG-interventions may target these dimensions of need in priority high-risk districts and countries, to further reduce the burden of neonatal mortality in Africa.

An empirical assessment of the relationship between Official Development Aid and child mortality, 2000–2015

To analyze the effect of Official Development Aid (ODA) dollars on child mortality over the course of the United Nation's Millennium Development Goals initiative. The relationship between child mortality and Official Development Aid over the duration of the Millennium Development Goals (2000-2015) is examined here using a longitudinal panel of country-level data from the World Bank and the United Nations. An Ordinary Least Squares regression approach was used with country-level fixed effects. Models were estimated for the full sample and by Human Development Index development strata (high, medium, and low developed countries) with clustered standard errors. ODA appears to be most strongly associated with decreases in child mortality in Medium Developed Countries. Every one dollar per capita increase in ODA is associated with a 0.035 decrease in child deaths per 1000 births. Significant gains were made in decreasing child mortality over the last 15years. The need for more progress remains. Allocation of ODA to developing countries can be an effective policy tool in achieving public health goals.

Steve Biko and a critique of global governance as white liberalism

This article asks what it might mean to use African anticolonial theory – and Steve Biko's critique of white liberalism in particular – to speak directly to contemporary debates about global governance. Biko argues that white South Africans who opposed apartheid yet still benefited from racial privilege could not be the engines of meaningful political change. The difficult task of creating a more just and equitable form of governance, instead, depended upon the political activities of those most marginalized under apartheid rule, namely, the majority black population. I apply this argument to the claim that global governance institutions and ‘global’ civil society are best positioned to address the many problems facing Africa. Looking specifically at Invisible Children's KONY 2012 campaign and the United Nation's Millennium Development Goals, I argue that liberals who today advance global governance not only often ignore their own complicity within the existing ‘global’ order, but also are actually not well positioned to offer meaningful solutions to the problems of violence, poverty, and weak states.

Childhood cause-specific mortality in rural Western Kenya: application of the InterVA-4 model

Background Assessing the progress in achieving the United Nation's Millennium Development Goals in terms of population health requires consistent and reliable information on cause-specific mortality, which is often rare in resource-constrained countries. Health and demographic surveillance systems (HDSS) have largely used medical personnel to review and assign likely causes of death based on the information gathered from standardized verbal autopsy (VA) forms. However, this approach is expensive and time consuming, and it may lead to biased results based on the knowledge and experience of individual clinicians. We assessed the cause-specific mortality for children under 5 years old (under-5 deaths) in Siaya County, obtained from a computer-based probabilistic model (InterVA-4). Design Successfully completed VA interviews for under-5 deaths conducted between January 2003 and December 2010 in the Kenya Medical Research Institute/US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention HDSS were extracted from the VA database and processed using the InterVA-4 (version 4.02) model for interpretation. Cause-specific mortality fractions were then generated from the causes of death produced by the model. Results A total of 84.33% (6,621) childhood deaths had completed VA data during the study period. Children aged 1–4 years constituted 48.53% of all cases, and 42.50% were from infants. A single cause of death was assigned to 89.18% (5,940) of cases, 8.35% (556) of cases were assigned two causes, and 2.10% (140) were assigned ‘indeterminate’ as cause of death by the InterVA-4 model. Overall, malaria (28.20%) was the leading cause of death, followed by acute respiratory infection including pneumonia (25.10%), in under-5 children over the study period. But in the first 5 years of the study period, acute respiratory infection including pneumonia was the main cause of death, followed by malaria. Similar trends were also reported in infants (29 days–11 months) and children aged 1–4 years. Conclusions Under-5 cause-specific mortality obtained using the InterVA-4 model is consistent with existing knowledge on the burden of childhood diseases in rural western Kenya.

Materials science, technology and innovation in sub-Saharan Africa

In Ethiopia, the first Materials Engineering Department was inaugurated at Adama Science and Technology University in 2013. The department, pursuing world-class excellence both in teaching and research, will strongly contribute to Materials Science, Technology and Innovation (STI)-led industrialisation in Ethiopia. To this end, Korea's Pohang University of Science and Technology, and Techno Peace Corps have served as our global partners through Official Development Assistance (ODA) supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea, an approach which is in line with the United Nation's Millennium Development Goals. Overall, the STI-ODA is considered to be an effective strategy for sustainable development in sub-Saharan Africa.

A Human Rights-based Approach to Development in Africa: Opportunities and Challenges

There is an undisputed and critical link between human rights and development, which is recognised by various international human rights instruments. After defining the concepts 'human rights' and 'development' - based on the views of a variety of bodies, institutions and human rights instruments - and discussing their interplay and relationship, this paper explores and acknowledges the level and extent of current pra ctices of integrating human rights and development in Africa. It pays specific attention to the roles and dimensions of civil and political rights on the one hand, and socio-economic rights on the other, and how they impact on development in different, but important ways. Opportunities and prospects for promoting a human rights-based approach to development are discussed, with some mention of the role of the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights, the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights, and the African Court of Justice and Human Rights. However, pa rticular and most attention is pa id to the variou s stra tegies of the Unite Nations Millen nium Development Goals (MDGs). Challenges such as poverty, poor governance, lack of democracy, conflict, health, and unpalatable cultural practices prevailing in Africa, are discussed. This considered, and given the backdrop of Africa's varied and substantial political and socio-economic challenges, it is argued that adopting a human rights- based approach to development in Africa is imperative and critical.

Assistive/rehabilitation technology, disability, and service delivery models

The United Nation's Millennium Development Goals do not explicitly articulate a focus on disability; similar failures in the past resulted in research, policy, and practice that are not generalizable and did not meet the needs of persons with disabilities since they were developed for an "average" population. Academics and professionals in health and other disciplines should have a knowledge base in evidence-based practices that improve well-being and participation of people with disabilities through effective service delivery of assistive technology. Grounded by a theoretical framework that incorporates a multivariate perspective of disability that is acknowledged in the convention on the rights of persons with disabilities and the World Health Organization's International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health, we present a review of models of assistive technology service delivery and call for future syntheses of the fragmented evidence base that would permit a comparative effectiveness approach to evaluation.

Nutritional status assessment of school children in Mangalore city using the multicenter growth reference study WHO 2007 Z-scores

Context: One of the the United Nation's Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) is the reduction of maternal and child mortality. The 'green revolution' has increased food supply in Asia, and hunger and under nutrition have been decreasing since 1981. However, instead of having to deal with surplus food grain, South Asia and India are still facing high levels of hunger. Although some south Indian cities are witnessing a technology boom, one in every 11 children die within the first 5 years of their lives either due to malnutrition or due to non availability of even simple technology and health care. Aim: To assess the nutritional status of schoolchildrenin Mangalore city. Settings and Design: A cross-sectional study. Materials and Methods: A total 1630 students from 11 schools were enrolled for the study. The sample size was calculated assuming the prevalence of undernourished in Mangalore city as 20% and a relative precision of 10%. Statistical Analysis: The BMI (body mass index), Z-scores, and World Health Organization (WHO) Multicentric Growth Reference Study (MGRS) growth chart was used for analysis. Results: Our study population of 1630 students comprised 830 (50.9%) males and 800 (49.1%) females. On analysis, 82 children (5.03%) were found to be undernourished, 37 (2.3%) were overweight, and 16 (1%) were obese. Undernourishment was more prevalent in boys (6.87%) than in girls (3.12%).Obesity was marginally higher among males (1.2%) as compared to females (0.8%) (P=0.003). A total of 15 boys (1.8%) and 22 girls (2.8%) were found to be overweight. Conclusions: The nutritional status of the students in our study is better than has been found in other studies. However, there are cases of under nourishment that need attention. At the same time, there is a need to deal with obesity and overweight in schoolchildren in order to prevent the impending epidemic of noncommunicable disease.

Tuning in to secure food

When Winnie Asege's crop was hit by cassava brown streak disease a few years ago she was faced with two problems. She had very little to eat and nothing to sell says Emily Arayo, Uganda national coordinator of the African Radio Research Initiative, a project run by Canadian nongovernmental organization Farm Radio International. This is food security, or rather food insecurity, at its most basic: a woman standing in a field looking at rotten tubers and wondering how she and her children are going to survive. impact is global too. In recent years rising food prices have sparked civil unrest, fuelled inflation and led to economic measures by some countries. Global food prices hit new record highs in December 2010, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). While the reasons for volatile food prices are as diverse as climate change, commodity speculation, changing dietary habits, increased population and global trade issues, at bottom food security is simple: it means everyone gets to eat. This is the idea enshrined in the United Nations Millennium Development Goal 1, part of which seeks to cut by half the prevalence of underweight children aged less than five years and to halve the proportion of the global population struggling to survive below the minimum level of dietary energy consumption of about 1825 calories a day (FAO definition) between 1990 and 2015. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] So, with four years to go, how close are we to achieving this goal? According to the United Nation's Millennium Development Goals report, released in September 2010, not very: Overall progress in reducing the prevalence of hunger has not been sufficient to reduce the number of undernourished the report says. In other words there has been no change since the MDGs were announced in 2000. A similarly discouraging picture is painted by the FAO, which also released a report in September 2010 stating that, while the number of hungry people worldwide had decreased from more than one billion in 2009 to 925 million people in 2010, this small decline was largely attributable to resumed economic growth and a fall in food prices since 2008. preceding period saw a similar lack of progress. From 1990-2000, the proportion of undernourished people declined globally from 16% to 14%. The reality is that the proportion of hungry people in the world has only decreased by half a percent from 14% in 2000 to 13.5% today, says Oxfam's food and agriculture spokesperson Chris Leather, adding that any improvement that may have happened--and he has doubts about the numbers--has more to do with two years of good harvests rather than good policy. Some countries may be doing better in terms of food security compared to 10 years ago, Leather says, citing Brazil, Ghana, Malawi and Viet Nam as examples, but overall the picture remains fairly bleak. This is particularly true of the developing world, where, according to FAO economist David Dawe, 16% of the total population lives in hunger. Finding ways to enable those people to feed themselves is one of the biggest challenges we face Dawe says. This situation is unlikely to change unless international development partners and national governments live up to pledges made in the past few years, and notably in July 2009 in the Italian city of L'Aquila, where world leaders pledged USS 20 billion in aid over three years to a food security initiative. …

Vouchers for health: A demand side output-based aid approach to reproductive health services in Kenya

Reaching the United Nation's Millennium Development Goals has been a focus for many countries and development partners. In Kenya, as in many other countries with low levels of development, access to and equity of basic quality health services is limited, especially for the very poor. Among poor populations, maternal mortality is high as access to medical care and financial means are lacking. In 2005, the Governments of Kenya and Germany in cooperation with KfW Banking Group made funds available for the Reproductive Health OBA Voucher Programme offering vouchers for Safe Motherhood, Family Planning and Gender Violence Recovery Services. This programme, herein referred to as Vouchers for Health, was launched in June of 2006 in five Kenyan districts with the aim of providing health services for safe deliveries, long-term family planning methods and victims of gender violence. The way that the programme is being implemented in Kenya demonstrates that the voucher-based approach comprises a variety of key structural elements of a national health insurance scheme: accreditation; quality assurance; reimbursement system; claims processing; integrating the private sector; client choice; provider competition; and access to and equity of services provided.

Maternal deaths drop by one-third from 1990 to 2008: a United Nations analysis

With only five years left until the 2015 deadline to achieve the United Nation's Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), slow progress in MDG 5 (Improve maternal health) has been of concern to the international community. The latest estimates issued by the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and The World Bank in September 2010 provide evidence of progress in all regions of the world, including in sub-Saharan Africa where data had previously shown limited change.1 According to estimates presented for 172 countries and territories in the interagency report, approximately 358 000 maternal deaths occurred worldwide in 2008. There was a steady decline in the maternal mortality ratio, which relates the number of maternal deaths to the number of live births. At the global level, the maternal mortality ratio fell by 34% from 1990 to 2008. The biggest declines in this ratio were seen in eastern Asia and northern Africa (63% and 59%, respectively). Although such progress is encouraging, it will be insufficient to meet the MDG target of reducing the maternal mortality ratio by three quarters between 1990 and 2015. This would require an average annual decline of 5.5%. Improvements documented in this study fell short of this goal for the world as a whole with an annual decline of 2.3%, and for sub-Saharan Africa, in particular, where the estimated rate of decline was only 1.7%. The effect of HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa is likely to have contributed to the slow pace of decline in maternal mortality. Overall, it was estimated that there were 42 000 deaths due to HIV/AIDS among pregnant women in 2008. About half of those were assumed to be maternal. The contribution of HIV/AIDS was highest in sub-Saharan Africa where 9% of all maternal deaths were estimated to be due to HIV/AIDS. There was much variability between countries in 2008, with a maternal mortality ratio of 290 deaths (per 100 000 live births) in developing regions as compared to 14 deaths (per 100 000 live births) in developed regions. Not surprisingly, 99% of maternal deaths in 2008 occurred in developing countries. Levels and trends of maternal mortality varied widely within regions as well. For example, in sub-Saharan Africa, where an overall reduction was noted for the first time, some countries (e.g. Benin, Cape Verde, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Mozambique and Rwanda) experienced declines in maternal death rates since 1990, whereas in other countries (e.g. Botswana, Kenya, Lesotho, South Africa, Swaziland and Zimbabwe) death rates increased. WHO, UNICEF, UNFPA and The World Bank have published periodic estimates of maternal mortality every five years since 1990.2,3 Earlier this year, a study by the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation reported a different set of estimates based on an alternative methodology, which showed a faster pace of progress than earlier estimates.4 This study estimated a total of 342 900 maternal deaths for 2008 and a rate of annual decline of 1.3% between 1990 and 2008. The estimates summarized here were derived using a larger data set and an improved method than that used for the previous rounds of interagency estimates. The estimation methods were reviewed by an external technical advisory group and will be published separately. We used all available national data on maternal mortality from the late 1980s to the present, analysed the variability of such data over time and space and included formal estimates of uncertainty. We adjusted the data, where appropriate, for the incomplete recording of maternal deaths and for over-counting in cases where a data source includes deaths that occur during pregnancy but are due to incidental or accidental causes. The country consultation that was done while developing these estimates has helped identify increased data collection efforts in recent years, including special systems to capture data on maternal deaths. However, the global database on which estimates are based remains weak: it is crucial to develop improved mechanisms for counting maternal deaths so that we may better understand the true magnitude of maternal mortality. These new estimates show a decline in maternal mortality greater than expected during 1990–2008. The study is the first to suggest that there has been a decline in sub-Saharan Africa. Several factors could account for this observation. Countries are increasingly adopting strategies and policies, such as free obstetric care or risk-pooling mechanisms, with the goal of increasing the coverage of effective health services. During the same period, the proportion of deliveries attended by skilled health personnel rose from 53% to 63% and the proportion of women who report using a method of contraception increased from 52% to 62% in developing countries.5 However, there is still much work to be done in improving health systems to prevent maternal deaths in developing countries.

ICT4D and the Siyakhula Living Lab: an anthropological contribution to digital development

Anthropologists are increasingly interested in the reception and adaptation of Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) at the local level, especially when these are intended or adapted for social change in the kinds of societies and communities anthropologists study. The process has been increasingly driven by the spread of landline telephones, radio, television, personal computers, the Internet (1.0 and now 2.0), basic cell phones and now internet-enabled or ‘3G’ cell phones. These successive technological innovations, now collectively grouped as ICTs, have had the effect of shrinking distance by increasing the reach of both those who control these technologies and those who can access them. With radio and TV, and even the Internet until recently, communication tended to be one-way: from the centre to the periphery both between and within countries. This was never the case with landline telephones, which offered two-way communication from the outset; but landlines rarely extended into the rural areas of developing countries, and even where there was access, the poor generally could not afford domestic installation. Cellular phones, though even more expensive in terms of call charges, operate beyond the reach of landlines, are portable and no longer as dependent on frequent charging from mains electricity as before. The wireless networks that run them now offer access to the Internet almost everywhere—for those who have 3G handsets and/or wireless-connected computers—and include such useful adaptations to Third World conditions such as ‘pay as you go’ and ‘please call me.’ Moreover, the Internet itself has become more interactive with its 2.0 technologies. If ‘development’ (as opposed to modernisation) is about agency and empowerment for those who currently lack it, then there is development potential in the newest ICTs despite their control by major multinational corporations. Informatics professionals and elements of the ‘development community’ reaching as high as the World Bank and the United Nations (Millennium Development Goals) regard ICT4D (ICTs for development) as a potential redeemer of half a century of mostly failed interventions on behalf of the world's poor. But how feasible is ICT4D? How is it being received and what are its direct and indirect impacts? This paper is the outcome of four years of engagement with an ICT4D research project founded in Dwesa-Cwebe on the Wild Coast of the Eastern Cape in South Africa. It assesses not only the potential and snags of ICT as a development tool, but also, via a baseline research project completed in 2008, provides a sense of the setting, the needs of the community and the potential of the ‘Living Lab’ approach to ICT4D.

Vaccine Use Gaining as 2015 Deadline for Health Goals Nears

One major component of the ambitious United Nations (UN) Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), set a decade ago, is to expand global vaccine use while reducing health and financial burdens from vaccine-preventable diseases. With five years left to meet the 2015 deadline, health ministers, donors, and UN agency chiefs met in New York City last September to review progress. In developing countries such as Kenya, Nicaragua, and Afghanistan efforts to reach those goals are already paying off.

Impact of Corporate Governance on Foreign Direct Investment in Nigeria

The United Nation's Millennium Development Goals for Africa suggest the need for these economies to attract substantial amount of foreign direct investments (FDI) to stimulate growth by investing in essential development infrastructures. However, investors are skeptical of opaque corporate governance structures both at firm and macro levels because of the attendant risk to their investments in an environment of weak legal system and poor human right records. Recent events indicate that a number of these economies have realised the importance of good governance systems and the need to signal transparency and accountability both at firm and country levels and have embarked on significant corporate governance reforms. In this paper we did a trajectory of corporate governance reforms in Nigeria and using time series data spanning over a decade we empirically investigated the determinants of foreign capital inflow arguing that in addition to the factors identified in the literature, FDI is positively related to improvement in corporate governance (CG). The paper further argued that although corporate governance prescriptions should be contextualised within the distinctive nature of the developing economies, this should not be stressed too strongly in order not to discourage potential foreign investors. The paper also attempted to identify future directions of the relationship between CG initiatives and FDI in Nigeria.

Iron deficiency anemia is not a rare problem among women of reproductive ages in Ethiopia: a community based cross sectional study.

BackgroundIn Ethiopia, the existence of iron deficiency anemia is controversial despite the fact that Ethiopia is one of the least developed in Africa with a high burden of nutrient deficiencies.MethodsThe first large nutrition study of a representative sample of women in Ethiopia was conducted from June to July 2005 and a systematically selected sub-sample of 970 of these subjects, 15 to 49 years old, were used in this analysis of nutritional anemia. Hemoglobin was measured from capillary blood using a portable HemoCue photometer. For serum ferritin, venous blood from antecubital veins was measured by an automated Elecsys 1020 using commercial kits. Diets were assessed via simplified food frequency questionnaire. The association of anemia to demographic and health variables was tested by chi-square and a stepwise backward logistic regression model was applied to test the significant associations observed in chi square tests.ResultsMean hemoglobin ± SD was 11.5 ± 2.1 g/dL with a 29.4% prevalence of anemia. Mean serum ferritin was 58 ± 41.1 ug/L with a 32.1% prevalence of iron deficiency. The overall prevalence rate of iron deficiency anemia was 18.0%. Prevalence of anemia, iron deficiency, and iron deficiency anemia was highest among those 31-49 years old (p < 0.05). Intake of vegetables less than once a day and meat less than once a week was common and was associated with increased anemia (p = 0.001). Although the prevalence of anemia was slightly higher among women with parasitic infestation the difference was not significant (p = 0.9). Nonetheless, anemia was significantly higher in women with history of illness and the association was retained even when the variable was adjusted for its confounding effect in the logistic regression models (AOR = 0.3; 95%CI = 0.17 to 0.5) signifying that the most probable causes of anemia is nutrition related and to some extent chronic illnesses.ConclusionModerate nutritional anemia in the form of iron deficiency anemia is a problem in Ethiopia and therefore, the need for improved supplementation to vulnerable groups is warranted to achieve the United Nation's Millennium Development Goals. Chronic illnesses are another important cause of anemia.

An Overview: Tourism Non-governmental Organizations and Poverty Reduction in Developing Countries

This article illustrates how select non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are using tourism as a development tool for poverty reduction. These tourism-oriented NGOs are becoming increasingly relevant as an alternative and legitimate source of development aid to many developing countries, since the turn of the 21st century. Many NGOs based in the developed world, in their quest to meet the United Nation's Millennium Development Goals, are partnering with developing world NGOs and communities to help create locally initiated solutions to poverty. These partnerships ensure community involvement and more direct benefits to communities, while creating sustainable solutions that preserve their culture and environment. Although there are several distinct types of tourism NGO providing both financial and non-financial benefits to poor and indigenous communities, this article focuses on three−educational and advocacy organizations, “voluntourism” organizations and tour company foundations−that have made substantial contributions to poverty reduction through sustainable tourism. Is this an effective means of providing communities with socially and environmentally responsible tourism in developing countries in Africa, Asia and Central and South America? This article suggests that it is; however, the lack of uniform standards for measuring the success of these organizations complicates efforts to ascertain the exact levels of poverty reduction.

Bottlenecks and Benevolence

This article looks at how Goal 6 of the United Nations (UN) Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) impacts on the well-being of the people affected by Human Immunodeficiency Virus/ Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (HIV/AIDS). The focus is on a specific aspect : how the aid emphasised by Goal 6 is channelled towards community groups responding to the HIV/AIDS crisis. It does so by exploring the institutional mechanisms used by one of the key international organisations involved in the realisation of the MDGs—the World Bank and its Multi-Country HIV/AIDS Programme (MAP) in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. The article explores the role of local government, rivalry between different forms of civil society organisations, the problems associated with effective delivery and community feedback, donor responses to these problems and how these factors impact upon the immediate and long-term realisation of Goal 6, and the position of communities within it. Key to which are themes of conditionality and divisions between implementation and decision-making. The article is based upon extensive qualitative research into MAP in East Africa.