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This study aims at highlighting the Omani-Indian economic relations during nineteenth and twentieth century, showing the depth of civilizational intercommunication between the two peoples. Omani communication with the Indian Sub-continent dates back to the times when Omanis started navigation activities which made them acquire high reputation in all Indian sea ports as well as the high seas of China and East Africa. The importance of this paper derives from its documentation and (of the) development of the Omani-Indian political and commercial relations since India represents an important commercial partner for Oman as well as a strategic dimension of the joint economic and investment interests of the two countries. Such close relations between the two countries were strengthened by the advent of Islam as Omanis contributed to the spread of Islam in India. Peace and security have always characterized the relations between the two countries. In recent history these relations have been solidified and strengthened as India and the Gulf countries fell under the European domination which made the two regions share a lot in common and face the same British policies which facilitated the Omani-Indian communication and the smooth flow of trade and human movement between the two countries. The paper comes in two themes: one deals with the political relations since the mid-18th century, when special commercial, military and political cooperation marked the relations between the princes of the western Indian coasts and Imam Ahmed Bin Said Al-Bu Saidi, the founder of Al-Bu Said state. The second theme focuses on the commercial and investment exchange between the two countries, showing the kinds of goods, commodities, and products exchanges as well as the nature of investment during the Omani Renaissance and the contribution of the Indian experience and expertise to the Omani development in the economic and construction sectors, detailing economic agreements between the two countries. The paper concludes with a ...

British colonial enterprise in Nigeria has often been discussed in the light of British commercial companies that began to operate along the coasts of West Africa from the 1840s. These commercial firms often obtained charters to administer different territories on behalf of the British government. These territories were further organized into Colonies and Protectorates and there was a resultant increase in British colonial interest in the regions. These Protectorates were eventually amalgamated in 1914 to form a single administrative unit and consequently, there was an effective establishment of British colonial rule in what later became modern Nigeria. However, much as this historical analysis might be empirical, there is an aspect of the history that appears not to have engaged enough scholarly attention in the recent past. The missionary strands in the British colonial enterprise in Nigeria are factors that seem to be neglected, yet without it; the history of British penetration into Nigeria in particular and effective colonial rule in general may not be complete. The British missionaries were in Nigeria for the spiritual and moral regeneration of the people, yet they cooperated with the British government in establishing British colonial administration in the area. Their invitation to the British colonial office for a military conquest of the "heathens" in the regions which they considered a basic prerequisite for effective establishment of Christianity, and their continued efforts to pacify the conquered people, predisposed them as the spiritual arm of British imperialism in Nigeria. Since the missionaries believed that European rule, rather than the existing African administration, facilitated their missionary enterprise, it was obvious that the establishment of British political authority would be looked upon as a welcome change. This is the missing link in the British colonial enterprise in Nigeria that the various sub-themes of this study have addressed. DOI:10.5901/ajis.2015.v4n3p249

This manuscript attempted to describe the wax and the eventual wane of the government's efforts to increase the level of public participation in the public administration and management structures, systems, processes and the procedures. The ultimate intent being to enhance and consolidate the role of active public participation in good governance and effective/efficient service delivery throughout the country. These and other similar, issues, problems, and challenges are ones that have inspired and motivated the author to undertake this research discourse. Subsequently, it has been the intention of this article to provide a qualitative synthesis and analysis of the nature of public administration and management in Mzansi (South Africa) since1994, and beyond. To achieve this, the study started by identifying five themes/principles of a duly functional public administration/management, namely :(1) considering the public as citizen;(2) treating public as customer; (3) looking at the public as partner;(4) noting the public as voter; and (5) accepting the public as tax payer, and used them as the basis for this analytic synthesis. From these guiding themes/principles, this paper adopted qualitative data collection methods such as (participant observation, in-depth interviewing, qualitative document study, and qualitative case study) and qualitative data analysis and interpretation techniques such as (content analysis and qualitative case study analysis) were used to collect the required pertinent data and to analyse and interpret it accordingly. Qualitative nonprobability judgmental sample technique was preferred and used to determine the sample of the study. Subsequent to the key research problem and its accompanied sub-problems underlying the study, along with the research questions and related research objectives identified, several findings were arrived at and recommendations were suggested on the basis of the findings thus far arrived at.

The landscape of international higher education has been changing since the turn of the 21st century. The globalisation of our societies and economies implies a changing role of the higher education institutions. Accompanying the challenges associated with development, especially in developing countries, are initiatives championing regionalisation as a locus of development. This article positions the debate on the relationships among globalisation, regionalisation, and internationalisation in the context of Africa and its sub-continent, showing that, although these concepts have emerged at different times and contexts, they are still related. Using case studies of two regional political and economic organisations and their higher education counterparts, this article shows that regionalisation is not a new phenomenon but has been part of and has been used in the post-colonial era to serve new social, economic, political, and development purposes in the current period. Le monde de l'enseignement supérieur n'a cessé de changer depuis le début du XXIème siècle. La mondialisation de nos sociétés et de nos économies a pour conséquence une modification du rôle joué par les établissements d'enseignement supérieur. Les défis posés par cette évolution sont, en particulier dans les pays en voie de développement, associés à des initiatives soutenant la régionalisation comme locus de développement. Cet article centre le débat sur la relation entre la mondialisation, la régionalisation et l'internationalisation dans le contexte de l'Afrique et de son sous-continent, et démontre que, bien que ces concepts soient apparus à différentes époques et dans des contextes variés, ils sont encore liés. Cet article s'appuie sur une étude de cas de deux organisations régionales politiques et économiques et de leurs équivalents dans le domaine de l'enseignement supérieur pour montrer que le concept de régionalisation n'est pas un phénomène nouveau, mais qu'il a fait partie de et a été utilisé pendant l'époque postcoloniale pour satisfaire ...

BACKGROUND: Throughout Africa, many people seek care for malaria in private-sector drug shops where diagnostic testing is often unavailable. Recently, subsidized artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs), a first-line medication for uncomplicated malaria, were made available in these drug shops in Tanzania. This study assessed the prevalence of malaria among and purchase of ACTs by drug shop clients in the setting of a national ACT subsidy program and sub-national drug shop accreditation program. METHOD AND FINDINGS: A cross-sectional survey of drug shop clients was performed in two regions in Tanzania, one with a government drug shop accreditation program and one without, from March-May, 2012. Drug shops were randomly sampled from non-urban districts. Shop attendants were interviewed about their education, training, and accreditation status. Clients were interviewed about their symptoms and medication purchases, then underwent a limited physical examination and laboratory testing for malaria. Malaria prevalence and predictors of ACT purchase were assessed using univariate analysis and multiple logistic regression. Amongst 777 clients from 73 drug shops, the prevalence of laboratory-confirmed malaria was 12% (95% CI: 6-18%). Less than a third of clients with malaria had purchased ACTs, and less than a quarter of clients who purchased ACTs tested positive for malaria. Clients were more likely to have purchased ACTs if the participant was 5 years, experience (aOR: 2.8; 95% CI: 1.2-6.3). Having malaria was only a predictor of ACT purchase in the region with a drug shop accreditation program (aOR: 3.4; 95% CI: 1.5-7.4). CONCLUSION: Malaria is common amongst persons presenting to drug shops with a complaint of fever. The low proportion of persons with malaria purchasing ACTs, and the high proportion of ACTs going to persons without malaria demonstrates a need to better target who receives ACTs in these drug shops.

The paper investigated the funding pattern of healthcare in Nigeria based on the National Health Accounts framework. Two rounds of National Health Accounts estimation covering the eight-year period, 1998-2005 were analyzed in this paper. The first round covering 1998-2002 was funded by donors and characterized by limited access to data, which accounted for its seeming underestimation. The second round funded by Federal Ministry of Health enjoyed access to wider data set, and allowed for state level sub- National Health Accounts estimates covering 17 out of 36 states of the federation. The estimates generally revealed that the households constitute the main source of financing healthcare in the Nigeria, accounting for over 66% of Total Health Expenditure, while government contributes average of 29%. Though resource pooling through health insurance appreciably grew over the years, it is still at its infancy, contributing minimally to Total Health Expenditure. While the private facilities dominates in the provision of healthcare service in the first round, the second round estimates shows that more than half of health care services were provided in the public facilities. Despite preventive care through Primary Health Care being the pillar of the National Health Policy strategy, curative care continued to dominate Total Health Expenditure in the country. The process of second round estimation accorded the issue of institutionalization a priority place, which resulted in the identification and training of state focal persons for possible integration of regular National Health Accounts data collection into public service practices. The absence of continuity in funding by government is threatening the ownership of the process. While the Nigeria Total Health Expenditure is highest in Africa, her per capita Total Health Expenditure and as percentage of GDP is well below figure for some African countries.Â

Water transfers to growing cities in sub-Sahara Africa, as elsewhere, seem inevitable. But absolute water entitlements in basins with variable supply may seriously affect many water users in times of water scarcity. This paper is based on research conducted in the Pangani river basin, Tanzania. Using a framework drawing from a theory of water right administration and transfer, the paper describes and analyses the appropriation of water from smallholder irrigators by cities. Here, farmers have over time created flexible allocation rules that are negotiated on a seasonal basis. More recently the basin water authority has been issuing formal water use rights that are based on average water availability. But actual flows are more often than not less than average. The issuing of state-based water use rights has been motivated on grounds of achieving economic efficiency and social equity. The emerging water conflicts between farmers and cities described in this paper have been driven by the fact that domestic use by city residents has, by law, priority over other types of use. The two cities described in this paper take the lion's share of the available water during the low-flow season, and at times over and above the permitted amounts, creating extreme water stress among the farmers. Rural communities try to defend their prior use claims through involving local leaders, prominent politicians and district and regional commissioners. Power inequality between the different actors (city authorities, basin water office, and smallholder farmers) played a critical role in the reallocation and hence the dynamics of water conflict. The paper proposes proportional allocation, whereby permitted abstractions are reduced in proportion to the expected shortfall in river flow, as an alternative by which limited water resources can be fairly allocated. The exact amounts (quantity or duration of use) by which individual user allocations are reduced would be negotiated by the users at the river level.

This thesis is based on field research in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, Burundi and South Sudan and looks at the dynamics of security provisioning in post-settlement contexts. A particular focus is on international security interventions, which are constituted by Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (DDR) programmes, Security Sector Reform (SSR) and Armed Violence Reduction (AVR), including Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALW) control. The thesis is guided by the question how international efforts to build or contribute to security in the hybrid political context of post-settlement countries in sub-Sahara Africa relate to national and local perceptions and practices of security. The first part presents the theoretical background and framework. It finds that underlying assumptions of international actors implementing security interventions are: the state is the best way to organise violence and enable stability and peace; the ideal state has a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence; and the primary task of the state is the provision of security. Then the most prominent critiques on this dominant intervention model are discussed, which are categorized into the 'context critique' and the 'intervention critique'. Among other things, they argue that there is an incomplete understanding of how violence is organised, of how and by whom what security is provided, and of how the state functions in a hybrid political context. Critiques also find that states do not necessarily develop towards an ideal model and that the implementation involves a multiplicity of actors with diverging agendas, which often results in unplanned outcomes. Based on the theories discussed throughout the first part an analytical model is developed that looks at multiple realities of security interventions. It focuses on three different arenas of interaction and looks at how international, national and local perceptions and practices of security relate to one another. The second part of the thesis presents the empirical ...

Water transfers to growing cities in sub-Sahara Africa, as elsewhere, seem inevitable. But absolute water entitlements in basins with variable supply may seriously affect many water users in times of water scarcity. This paper is based on research conducted in the Pangani river basin, Tanzania. Using a framework drawing from a theory of water right administration and transfer, the paper describes and analyses the appropriation of water from smallholder irrigators by cities. Here, farmers have over time created flexible allocation rules that are negotiated on a seasonal basis. More recently the basin water authority has been issuing formal water use rights that are based on average water availability. But actual flows are more often than not less than average. The issuing of state-based water use rights has been motivated on grounds of achieving economic efficiency and social equity. The emerging water conflicts between farmers and cities described in this paper have been driven by the fact that domestic use by city residents has, by law, priority over other types of use. The two cities described in this paper take the lion's share of the available water during the low-flow season, and at times over and above the permitted amounts, creating extreme water stress among the farmers. Rural communities try to defend their prior use claims through involving local leaders, prominent politicians and district and regional commissioners. Power inequality between the different actors (city authorities, basin water office, and smallholder farmers) played a critical role in the reallocation and hence the dynamics of water conflict. The paper proposes proportional allocation, whereby permitted abstractions are reduced in proportion to the expected shortfall in river flow, as an alternative by which limited water resources can be fairly allocated. The exact amounts (quantity or duration of use) by which individual user allocations are reduced would be negotiated by the users at the river level. ; Water Management ; Civil Engineering and Geosciences

Water transfers to growing cities in sub-Sahara Africa, as elsewhere, seem inevitable. But absolute water entitlements in basins with variable supply may seriously affect many water users in times of water scarcity. This paper is based on research conducted in the Pangani river basin, Tanzania. Using a framework drawing from a theory of water right administration and transfer, the paper describes and analyses the appropriation of water from smallholder irrigators by cities. Here, farmers have over time created flexible allocation rules that are negotiated on a seasonal basis. More recently the basin water authority has been issuing formal water use rights that are based on average water availability. But actual flows are more often than not less than average. The issuing of state-based water use rights has been motivated on grounds of achieving economic efficiency and social equity. The emerging water conflicts between farmers and cities described in this paper have been driven by the fact that domestic use by city residents has, by law, priority over other types of use. The two cities described in this paper take the lion's share of the available water during the low-flow season, and at times over and above the permitted amounts, creating extreme water stress among the farmers. Rural communities try to defend their prior use claims through involving local leaders, prominent politicians and district and regional commissioners. Power inequality between the different actors (city authorities, basin water office, and smallholder farmers) played a critical role in the reallocation and hence the dynamics of water conflict. The paper proposes proportional allocation, whereby permitted abstractions are reduced in proportion to the expected shortfall in river flow, as an alternative by which limited water resources can be fairly allocated. The exact amounts (quantity or duration of use) by which individual user allocations are reduced would be negotiated by the users at the river level.

Heather Wurtz is a native of Topeka, Kansas. She is the recipient of the Level II Clinical Excellence Award from the KU School of Nursing for her clinical excellence in the pediatrics setting. She is an honors graduate from the School of Nursing. She is the recipient of the Helen Crilly, James D. Robinson, George and Margaret Varnes, and Marguerite Coffman Nursing Scholarships. She was also awarded a Shawnee County Medical Society Alliance Scholarship and received a Delta Chapter-Sigma Theta Tau travel award to present her honors research. ; Throughout the world, gender inequality—pervasive and deeply embedded in societal structures and ideologies—continues to inhibit human potential and retard the social and economic development of individuals, families, and entire populations. Viewed by many as an abuse of basic human rights, gender inequality perpetuates negative outcomes of health and well-being, and propagates undemocratic, unjust, and unproductive social patterns and political processes. India, a country vastly plagued by the ill effects of gender inequality, accounts for nearly 1/5 of total maternal deaths globally and only trails behind Sub-Sahara Africa for total losses due to reproductive health disparities (UNDP, 2010). The purpose of this article is to briefly describe the effects of SHG—within an Indian context—on the overall health of women, in order to grasp an understanding of this debated public health paradigm and to consider its applicability to a diversity of settings. SHG"s has become a major strategy in India for combating gender inequality through a holistic approach to health and well-being. Gender inequality, within India and on a global scale, has become a pressing issue that requires aggressive and definitive action. Nurses are on the forefront of social and community change action; nurse"s all-encompassing approach to health and ability to engage women in the community, allow them to facilitate health improvement as a development tool. The many "faces of gender inequality" (Sen, 2004) ...

In 2003, the World Bank the Agriculture and Rural Development (ARD) department of the Sustainable Development Network (SDN) of the Africa Region commissioned a Ghana Horticultural Sector Development Study. Later that year, the Horticulture Export and Investment Initiative (HEII) were created as the result of restructuring of the agribusiness support component of the Agriculture Services Sub-sector Investment Programme (AgSSIP). HEII played an important role in reshaping the Ghana horticulture cluster through a series of crucial technical support initiatives and building of a key logistics infrastructure at the Tema seaport. HEII also helped to raise the visibility of the horticulture cluster, which resulted in a renewed interest in the sector both from private investors and donor partners. Five years after the original study, the horticulture cluster in Ghana had moved ahead. Developments in the institutional environment had combined with an evolution both of the businesses and of the product portfolio; international trade had expanded and an increasing population participated in export horticulture supported by infrastructural enhancements. At the same time, the external operating environment had changed: not only are markets dynamic, but there were also new influences from policy and trade agreements. The initial scoping review was carried out in early 2008. The scoping study revealed a picture of mixed health, of some successes but not without difficulties; and it confirmed the need for a plan to take the industry forward. The process of validating the review emphasized the necessity for a wide-ranging review of many different factors in order to build a solid business case for a strategy. The present report is the outcome of this two step process. It is laid out in three parts. Part one report on the initial scoping study. Part two defines the vision and the strategy that was formulated in 2010. Part three is a collection of a number of background papers that were researched and written to provide a foundation for the strategy.

This research reports the outcome of investigation into the current sustained democratic dispensation in Ghana and the role the media have played in that regard. Ghana has a checked political history of a mixture of coup d'états and some practice of democracy. The country has had about six coups intermixed with some form of democracy since independence in 1957. All that has changed in recent years and currently Ghana as a state is practicing constitutional democracy which has been named the fourth republic, basically because it is the fourth attempt by the country to go democratic. For the first time in Ghana, this form of democracy has been sustained for the last 17 years. It is believed that some institutions have been well placed to ensure the sustenance of this democratic dispensation in Ghana. However, the transition to democracy in Ghana also paved way for the media to flourish into vibrancy, hence numerous news media (both print and electronic) have sprang up in Ghana and have found their position as the fourth estate after the executive, legislature and the judiciary. The significance of this study is embedded in the fact that Ghana's democracy has made way for freedom, peace and development for her people which can serve as an example for the West African sub-region and even Africa which have been in the news for civil wars. Using interview and focus group discussion, factors that fed into media contribution to democratic sustenance in Ghana were explored. Data gathered and analyzed revealed the media have been able to play their democratic role by giving the people information to help them understand unfolding political issues as well as helping them become active participants in the political and democratic forward movement in Ghana. The sample size was 50.

The distribution of contaminated planting material (suckers) remains a major cause of spread of pests and diseases in banana. A traditional subsistence staple in East Africa, banana is becoming increasingly a commercialized commodity in the region. Essential for effective commercialization of this crop, however, is the supply and use of uniform and healthy planting material. Tissue culture (TC) technology can help provide this. However, TC plantlets are delicate and require substantially greater care and handling than conventional sucker planting material. To distribute TC seedlings to farmers and improve their robustness for successful use on farms, numerous hardening nurseries have been established by TC producers in Kenya, Uganda and Burundi. These nurseries are pivotal in the dissemination of plantlets. In 2008, financing, handling, hardening and marketing of TC-derived planting material through nurseries was assessed using semi-quantitative interviews of nursery operators. The nurseries in Kenya and Uganda are mostly farmer-led and obtain their material from the producer. In Burundi, the nurseries are owned and centrally managed by the producer, while daily activities are handled by technicians. In each country, water supply was identified as a key limiting factor, as the young plantlets desiccate easily. In farmer-led nurseries, plantlet transport and phytosanitary measures, such as soil sterilization and plant protection, are often limited, which can lead to significant plant losses. Governmental and non-governmental institutions purchase large fractions of the TC planting material. Public extension services for TC nurseries were evaluated as poor, leaving the TC producers as the single source of information for nursery operators. Additionally, plantlets tend to be viewed as relatively expensive, while supply is currently sub-optimal, compared to traditional planting material, resulting in a relatively limited and exclusive market. TC planting material in the region is therefore yet to be become sufficiently available for most banana farmers. ; Peer Review

One of the central goals that EU member states and Mediterranean partner governments expressed in launching the Barcelona Process in 1995 was to work cooperatively and multilaterally towards a formal, comprehensive regional security agreement based on the Euro-Mediterranean Charter for Peace and Stability. This goal was re-iterated in the July 2008 Joint Declaration of the Paris Summit for the Mediterranean. Its non-fulfilment after 13 years has been the cause of much disappointment and criticism among analysts working on EU foreign policy, Euro-Mediterranean relations and security politics in the Middle East and North Africa. Why has this objective not been fulfilled? The position taken in this thesis is that a more complete explanation of the state of security cooperation between the EU, its members and Mediterranean partner governments can be developed by viewing this institutional outcome through the lens of an actor-oriented analytical framework focussing on preferences, restrictions and bargaining. The aim is to present an analytic narrative combining tools borrowed from political economy with a descriptive, anecdotal narrative that provides context to questions about Euro-Mediterranean security cooperation. The outcome is a reasonably stable regional security equilibrium which, while sub-optimal in terms of comprehensive security, serves the interests of its member governments given the preferences of other actors and the restrictions that they face. Although most analysts and many policymakers would like to see more progress towards a Mediterranean security agreement modelled on the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the current arrangements under the EMP's first basket are acceptable to European and south Mediterranean governments. Maintaining cooperative dialogue and exchange while cooperating bilaterally on specific common interest issues maintains a reasonable level of stability at a cost acceptable to governments on both sides. Given the enthusiasm with which Euro-Mediterranean ...