Poverty In Africa Research Articles

Recent Advances in the Use of Tithonia diversifolia Green Manure for Soil Fertility Management in Africa: A Review

Tithonia biomass transfer was presented as a technology that would replenish infertile soils, enhance food security and eradicate poverty in Africa in the 1990s. Since then, a huge volume of research has been conducted and the agronomic effectiveness of tithonia unequivocally demonstrated. Its reported effects on soil properties have however been inconsistent. This has made it difficult to develop a predictive understanding of the effects of tithonia on soil properties. Socio-economically, tithonia failed to live up to the hype on its ability to increase the farmers’ incomes. Adoption rates have been dismal mainly because of high labor costs associated with its use. Two decades later, poverty and food insecurity are still widespread in Africa despite the enormous research and extension efforts that were devoted to popularizing the technology.

Conflict–Poverty Relationship in Africa: A Disaggregated Approach

This article investigates the conflict–poverty relationship in Africa between 1980 and 2015. Conducting a panel regression, we test the effect of disaggregated conflict on the poverty index (POV) and indicators in Africa. Conflict causes poverty in Africa, and not the other way round as many studies have suggested. We also found that internal conflict causes poverty in Africa; it increases the poverty rate and worsens the standard of living. However, interstate conflicts have little effects on poverty indicators, it reduces the life expectancy of people in Africa. This article concludes that poverty is not the prime cause of conflict in Africa; there are other causes (i.e., political, structural, and sociological), poverty only stimulates conflict. This article suggests that peacemaking and peacebuilding mechanisms should be strengthened in Africa. Also, emphasis should be laid on other causes of conflict, such as political, structural and sociological, as it has been established that poverty is not the cause of conflict in Africa.

Microbial diversity and pasting properties of finger millet (Eleusine coracana), pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum) and sorghum (Sorghum bicolor) sourdoughs

Indigenous grains for food production have the potential to combat food insecurity and poverty in Africa. The aim of the study was to determine the effect of sourdough fermentation on the acidity, microbiological quality, microbial diversity and rheological properties of three underutilized African cereals. The sourdoughs had pH ranging from 3.9 to 4.1. Finger millet and pearl millet sourdoughs had LAB counts >7 log cfu g−1 indicating they are suitable for use as starter culture(s). Microbial diversity was determined using culture dependent techniques and the identity of isolates was established using 16S rRNA gene sequencing. This showed the presence of Bacillus, Brevibacillus, Acinetobacter and Pediococcus species in the sourdoughs. An occurrence of Candida glabrata was observed in finger millet sourdough. Sourdough fermentation resulted in significant increases (p < 0.05) in the peak, trough and final viscosity of pearl millet and sorghum. A lower setback in the three samples indicated improved shelf-life. Starter culture(s) were identified that might be used in the production of gluten-free baked foods as a result of sourdough fermentation.

Towards Curbing Energy Poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa through The Use of Solar Bike: A Case of Koupela, Burkina-Faso

Abstract The rate of energy poverty in Africa particularly in Sub-Sahara region is quite alarming and appealing. This anomaly has greatly affected industrialization processes in this region. Not only has electricity access remain an acute issue in Burkina Faso almost two centuries, but in addition, the accelerated consumption of fossil fuels is leading to drastic consequences manifested in the form (s) of impaired development for humans and nature. To encourage greater access to renewable energy, the Government of Burkina Faso has been subsidizing energy programmes in the country (exemptions from customs duties and VAT on solar equipment) for a couple of years now. Nevertheless, a lot of work remains to be done as energy access in the rural areas remain insignificant, hence, not meeting up with the population growth. The aim of this paper, therefore, is to implement a bicycle-mounted hybrid solar- and human-powered devices available to the residents of five (5) in the municipality of the idea leverages the fact that bicycles are widely used by indigenes of Koupela as part of their daily life. This device will have dual functionality: powering the bicycle light and generating energy for domestic use (lighting of houses, children's study, etc.) via a storage system battery system. This paper, therefore, is strongly committed towards environmental protection and the Sustainable Development Goals SDGs especially the goals 7 and 13. It will support the five (5) selected localities in becoming green villages while also addressing the issue of energy poverty. Keywords: Bicycle, Burkina Faso, Clean Energy, Rural Areas; Solar panels. Cite this Article Sidnoma Nita Belemsobgo, Aristide Belemsobgo, Abel Ehimen Airoboman. Towards Curbing Energy Poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa through The Use of Solar Bike: A Case of Koupela, Burkina-Faso. Journal of Thermal Engineering and Applications . 2020; 7(1): 9–14p.

Father Verspieren and Mali Aqua Viva: Lessons Learned from Fighting Drought and Poverty with Photovoltaic Solar Energy in Africa

Almost fifty years after the first installations, I identify the main lessons learned from fighting drought and poverty in Africa with direct solar-powered pumps, thanks to Father Bernard Verspieren and Mali Aqua Viva. Six main findings and three main recommendations emerge from the present analysis. They are of direct relevance to all the countries in Africa whose population has gone from 438 million in 1977 to 1308 million in 2019, with about 600 million still having no access to electricity. In place of “awareness campaigns” and extraordinary courses held by international organizations, I recommend the establishment of national solar energy institutes whose task will include the education of solar energy professionals and giving practice-oriented workshops on solar-powered drip irrigation and rainwater harvesting throughout each of Africa’s countries. This education will critically include the economic and social aspects of distributed “generation” of energy and water from sunlight and rainfall.

Measuring poverty with noisy and corrected estimates of annual consumption: Evidence from Nigeria

AbstractAn opportunity to improve measurement and modelling of poverty in Africa arises from recent intra‐year panel surveys that observe household consumption in post‐planting and post‐harvest periods. Observing the same household twice lets an intra‐year correlation be estimated, which can be used to form a corrected estimate of annual consumption. The usual approach surveys consumption for just one short period, like a week or month, and extrapolates to an annual total. This may adequately estimate mean annual consumption for samples spread over a year but overstates dispersion. The resulting noise in consumption estimates inflates measures of poverty and inequality and creates misclassification errors that bias logit and probit models of poverty determinants. This study uses data from the 2012/2013 Nigeria General Household Survey panel to show effects on poverty measures of using annual estimates extrapolated from short‐period surveys. With the corrected extrapolation method that uses intra‐year correlations to adjust for inflated variances, Nigeria's poverty headcount rate falls by one half. Hence, much of the poverty measured in cross‐sectional surveys is transient poverty, for which different policy interventions are needed than for alleviating chronic poverty.

What Does Recent Survey Data Say About the Effect of Corruption on Poverty in Africa?

Poverty is perpetuated by increased levels of corruption. It diverts resources, which denies the poor masses their right to enjoy necessities to improve their living standards. To estimate the impact of corruption on poverty, the study relied on the random effect, fixed effects and the instrumental variable regression techniques. The estimates from the instrumental variable regression show that OLS underestimates the effect of corruption on poverty levels in Africa. That's, it shows that the OLS estimates are biased downwards due to inconsistencies as a result of the endogeneity of the levels of corruption. While the instrumental variable technique produces an estimated effect ranging from .805-1.073 increased levels of corruption on lived poverty index, the OLS estimates an impact within a range of approximately .058-.168. This paper confirms the governance model of the effect of corruption on poverty through its effects on reducing the credibility of public institutions. The study thus recommends that public institutions must be strengthened, financed and be equipped to be able to apply the rule of law, thereby helping reduce corruption.

Wsparcie społeczne dziecka w sytuacji ubóstwa – przykład rwandyjski

The phenomenon of poverty occupies an important place in the discourse on the problem of exclusion and social marginalisation. The problem of children in a poverty situation is most often analysed through the prism of family poverty. Meanwhile, it is worth noting that poverty in childhood has a different dimension than in adulthood, because it disturbs the proper development of the child. Children’s experience of poverty affects their further life, often with irreversible consequences. Numerous institutions and individuals offer their help and support to improve the lives of children in Africa. This activity takes the form of either immediate or long-term help. One of those institutions that actively participate in solving the problem of poverty in Africa is the Catholic Church. Its involvement in helping children in a poverty situation is an important dimension of social support.

Gabor Capsule Network for Plant Disease Detection

Crop diseases contribute significantly to food insecurity, malnutrition, and poverty in Africa where the majority of the population is into Agriculture. Manual plant disease recognition methods are widespread but limited, ineffective, costly, and time-consuming making the need to search for automatic and efficient methods of recognition more crucial. Machine learning and Convolutional Neural Networks have been applied in other jurisdictions in an attempt to solve these problems. They have achieved impressive results in this domain but tend to be ‘data-hungry‘, invariant, and vulnerable to attacks that can easily lead to misclassifications. Capsule Networks, on the other hand, avoids the weaknesses of CNNs and has not been widely used in this area. This article, therefore, proposes the use of Gabor and Capsule network to recognize blurred, deformed, and unseen tomato and citrus disease images. Experimental results show that the proposed model can achieve a 98.13% test accuracy which is comparable to the performance of state-of-the-art CNN models in the literature. Also, the proposed model outperformed two state-of-the-art deep learning models (which were implemented as baseline models) in terms of robustness, flexibility, fast converges, and having fewer parameters. This work can be extended to other crops and may well serve as a useful tool for the recognition of unseen plant diseases under bad weather and bad illumination conditions.

Innovative agricultural extension value chain-based models for smallholder African farmers

The value chain extension strategy of Sasakawa Africa Association focuses on improving the capacity of national agricultural extension systems and follows various thematic areas along the value chain to address key challenges accountable for low income households and poverty in Africa. Farmer learning platform is a model designed to increase crop productivity and encompasses demonstration plots where technological packages demonstrated significantly outperformed other technology plots in crop productivity and average profit margins. Enterprise-oriented production, postharvest and trading centers are value adding models designed to improve the effectiveness of extension and adoption of postharvest and agricultural processing technologies by producers. The use of the above along with necessary capacity building has facilitated the development of profitable business linkages of smallholder farmers with financial institutions and reliable market opportunities. The community association trader-trainer model is a market-oriented business approach applied in combination with other extension models. In 2018, 297 community-based commodity association trader-trainers were mobilized and capacitated to improve farmer group dynamics and developed collective input and output access and cluster aggregation centers at community level where various agricultural produces were mobilized and collectively aggregated, and valued at about 3.9 million USD. The supervised enterprise project model is an innovative agricultural extension model developed along with above models for capacity development of extension agents and transfer of technologies to smallholder farmers. Over 6000 supervised enterprise projects have been introduced into 27 universities in 12 African countries for training front-line extension officers and extension delivery to farming communities.

Seroprevalence and associated risk factors of Toxoplasma gondii infection in domestic animals in southeastern South Africa

Toxoplasma gondii is a major neglected parasitic infection occurring in settings of extreme poverty in Africa. Apart from causing reproductive failure in animals it is also a significant zoonotic concern. The objective of this study was to determine the seroprevalence and associated risk factors of T. gondii infection in cats, chickens, goats, sheep and pigs in the southeast of South Africa, of which little is known. Sera was obtained from 601 domestic animals including 109 cats, 137 chickens, 128 goats, 121 sheep and 106 pigs managed under different production systems in different agro-ecological regions and evaluated by the Toxoreagent, a latex agglutination test for T. gondii antibody detection. Household-level and animal-level data were collected by interviewing animal owners and/or herders using a closed-ended questionnaire. The study revealed an overall farm seroprevalence of 83.33% (125/150 farms) with the highest rate of infection for the parasite found in sheep with 64.46% (78/121), followed by goats with 53.91% (69/128), pigs with 33.96% (36/106), cats with 32.11% (35/109 cats) and chickens with 33.58% (46/137). The risk factors that were found to be statistically significant (p < 0.05) to different species of seropositivites were age, location, climate, animal production system, rodent control, seropositive cat, cat-feed access and cat faecal disposal. The relatively high seroprevalence of T. gondii detected in this region suggests that domestic animals may pose a substantial public health risk through the consumption of T. gondii-infected raw meat as well as via contact with cat faeces.

The Current State of Pediatric Health Care: Changes and Challenges.

1. Shabana Yusuf, MD* 2. Lynn Garfunkel, MD* 3. Catherine Forster, MD† 4. Janet R. Serwint, MD‡ 1. *Editorial Board Member, 2. †Editorial Fellow, and 3. ‡Associate Editor, In Brief, Pediatrics in Review > Over the years, women have prominently advanced pediatrics. Very few women were members of the original editorial board of Pediatrics in Review . That has since changed. Four prominent women on our current editorial board offer their thoughts on the current state and possible future of pediatrics. > > —JZ, HDA Although the global mortality rate of children has dropped dramatically (from 36% in 1900 to 12% in 1979 to <4% in 2017), with most children today living into adulthood, there remain significant racial, ethnic, and geographic differences. Diseases have evolved and provider perspectives have changed. Medical advances in 3 areas of pediatric care—prevention, diagnosis, and treatment—have led to substantial changes in child health. Vaccine-preventable diseases have declined remarkably. In 1977, a nationwide immunization program was established to increase vaccination rates to 90%. With development of the Haemophilus influenzae and pneumococcal vaccines, bacterial meningitis and its complications are rare, although bacterial pneumonia and otitis media still occur. More recently, vaccine refusal has increased the rates of unvaccinated children (from 0.3% in 2001 to 1.3% in 2017), causing unnecessary local epidemics and increased physician time for counseling parents. Human immunodeficiency virus infection rapidly increased in the 1980s, and peaked at epidemic proportions in …

English

Participatory structures of poverty in Africa are founded in ideology, foreign aid, guilt from colonialism, paternalism, democracy, and capitalism. The latter two are becoming more well known to the general public, forcing the subject matter to be acknowledged in diplomacy circles. Actively participating in a structure that maintains poverty, works against humanity. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (1963) is quoted &ldquo;No one is free until we are all free,&rdquo; suggesting that until we offer authentic economic freedom to the poor, we cannot reach our own peak of economic freedom. Other academic and experts have differing views of what poverty is and what structures maintain it. William Easterly&rsquo;s, &quot;White Man&#39;s Burden 2006&rdquo; directs the blame for poverty onto Europe and the West. Robert Bates points to heads of state in Africa as maintaining structures of poverty post-colonialism. Walter Rodney identifies the colonialists as fundamental to the &quot;underdevelopment&quot; of Africa. Irene Gendzier chastises the US government for pushing democracy onto third world countries cloaked as charitable support. And Thomas Carothers provides an in-depth analysis of democracy promotion at its worst. The nature and uses of political theory are wrought within this discussion, though the question at the forefront remains, &lsquo;What are the underlying causes of participatory structures of poverty?&rsquo;&nbsp; &nbsp; Key words: Development, poverty, Africa, NGO, structures, democracy.

Poverty in Africa

Poverty in Africa

China’s role in mitigating poverty and inequality in Africa: an empirical query

Using data from 1995 to 2017, this article shows that China plays a positive role in mitigating poverty and inequality in Africa. Namely, imports from China, especially imports of machinery and equipment but not manufactured goods, alleviate substantially poverty in the region. In addition, China’s foreign direct investment (FDI) and China’s engagement in infrastructure projects in the continent help not only eradicate poverty, but also narrow income inequality. However, total exports or exports of raw materials and fuels to China are irrelevant to income distribution. We also compare these impacts with the impacts of economic links with the United States (US) and find insignificant effects of the US’s imports and FDI on income distribution but some positive effects of exports to the US on poverty in Africa. Our findings are robust when both the fractional nature of poverty and inequality indices and their correlation are taken into account.

Mobile phones, gender, and female empowerment in sub-Saharan Africa: studies with African youth

ABSTRACTData from qualitative and survey research with young people in 24 locations (urban and rural) across Ghana, Malawi, and South Africa expose the complex interplay between phone ownership and usage, female empowerment, and chronic poverty in Africa. We consider gendered patterns of phone ownership and use before examining practices of use in educational settings, in business and in romantic and sexual relationships. While some reshaping of everyday routines is evident, in the specific context of female empowerment we find little support within our sites for the concept of the mobile phone as an instrument of positive transformative change. The phone's application in romantic and sexual relationships demonstrates particularly strongly the way phones are complicit in constraining women's empowerment and points to potential wider repercussions, including for educational and entrepreneurship trajectories. Women's agency is still mired within wider structures of patriarchy and chronic poverty: existing inequalities are being re-inscribed and reinforced.

Energy bricolage in Northern Uganda: Rethinking energy geographies in Sub-Saharan Africa

In this paper, we propose the idea of ‘energy bricolage’ as a way of rethinking how people in Sub-Saharan Africa realise their energy needs on a daily basis. In doing so, we directly challenge dominant framings of energy poverty in Africa by the United Nations and other development agencies that have tended to present the issue as a question of access to the electricity grid; that energy poverty emerges from a lack of access to large-scale infrastructure. Drawing on research from Northern Uganda, we show how households and individuals in Africa can be understood as bricoleurs, making creative and resourceful use of whatever materials at are at hand to try and realise their energy needs and desires. That they engaged in complex geographies of energy: using batteries for torches, photovoltaic power for phone charging and stereos, firewood for cooking, charcoal for selling and petrol for transport. In this sense, beyond the modernist conceptions of energy development as grid electricity access, they are able to craft post-modern energy landscape, one that is neither ‘traditional’ nor ‘modern,’ rather the fragmented product of different social and economic processes. We argue that this conception of energy bricolage allows us to bring a more nuanced perspective for understanding the geographies of energy poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa and other parts of the developing world. We reframe the view of the energy poor as subsistence population eking out pre-modern lives, to one that has complex entanglements with different and changing energy technologies and institutional arrangements.

Production of methane from maize cob fed termites

Termites are detritivores, which means that by consuming decomposing organic matter they obtain nutrients. By feeding on cellulose matter, termites generate methane. Waste energy content offers good opportunities to generate low-cost and available energy. This can help increase energy access and reduce energy poverty in Africa. This work helps to determine the rate of gas production by termites when fed with maize cob. A simulated environment was created for Macrotermes Subhyhalinus Sp. of termites made with optically transparent polycarbonate material (plexiglas). Methane emission from termites’ simulated environment was monitored with the use of a gas flow meter. The termites’ production rate was highest at dry temperature 28.07 o C with RH of 88.30%, and 0.630μg/termite/day flow rate was recorded form their simulated laboratory environment. The cellulose in maize shaft/cob is in the native state and the chemical composition not inhibited by processing; this led to the relatively high consumption and overall production rate of termites when they fed on it because maize cob was easier to digest. Keywords: Detritivores, Macrotermes Subhyalinus sp. , simulated environment, Polycarbonate

STATE CAPACITY, AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTIVITY AND POVERTY REDUCTION IN AFRICAN COUNTRIES

We analyze the effect of state capacity on poverty in Africa. We consider two proxy variables for state capacity: the government effectiveness index, capturing administrative capacity, and the political stability index, a proxy for coercive capacity. Using the system-GMM technique with four-year average panel data from 53 African countries over the period 1995-2014, we find that each of the state capacity variable significantly reduces poverty rate. However, administrative capacity appears to be the most important aspect of state capacity for poverty reduction. The results also suggest that cereal yield, a proxy for agricultural productivity, would be a channel through which state capacity affects poverty in Africa.

Ethnographies of electricity scarcity: Mobile phone charging spaces and the recrafting of energy poverty in Africa

In this paper, we explore the practices and spaces of mobile phone charging in The Gambia and Sierra Leone through the lens of ‘electricity scarcity’ as a means to conceptualise electricity access in West Africa. The International Energy Agency (IEA) is seen as the leading authority on the state of global energy access, and is frequently cited by government and non-government bodies. We, however, suggest that the IEA's quantitative and binary framing of electricity access is analytically problematic for understanding energy poverty. Using ethnographic methods, including observation and semi-structured interviews, we provide insights into the changing socio-technological, socio-political and socio-economic dimensions of mobile phone charging including its relationship with the built environment. Comparing mobile phone charging in The Gambia and Sierra Leone, clearly shows that the notion of absolute electricity scarcity which is promulgated by IEA statistics only offers a limited picture of energy poverty, especially at the locale. Instead, drawing on political ecology scholarship, we propose a concept of political electricity scarcity as an approach enables a more human-centred and nuanced understanding of how energy poverty operates or is mitigated through community-based structures or at a household level. By reframing energy poverty issues through this lens, we are able to illustrate the role that political economy dynamics play in shaping the electricity flows in rural Sub-Saharan Africa and who ultimately gets what kind of electricity access.