Suchergebnisse

This chapter draws attention to the link between VCD and smallholder livelihood strategies that comprise a complex mix of subsistence and market-oriented activities and that are diversified to meet multiple livelihood goals and mitigate risks; and the authors address the related implications for the design and assessment of value-chain interventions. They question some of the underlying assumptions of NGOs, government agencies, and private-sector agents seeking to link smallholders to higher-value markets. ; Peer Review

Over the past decade, the value chain development approach has increasingly been adopted by governments, donors, and NGOs to reduce rural poverty. The design of related interventions often assumes that poor households: 1) have sufficient resources to effectively participate in value chain development; 2) do not face substantial tradeoffs when using these resources; and 3) are able to assume higher risks when reinvesting capital and labour. However, insights from our own experiences and the literature show that these assumptions often do not reflect the realities and the needs of the poor. We argue that value chain development with poor and vulnerable populations, particularly in rural areas, requires additional conceptual frameworks, analysis, and interventions. In particular, we encourage donor agencies and development practitioners to adopt an asset-based approach to the design, implementation, and assessment of target value chains and to identify the non-market interventions needed for enabling particularly disenfranchised groups to meet the minimum asset thresholds for their successful participation in value chain initiatives. ; Peer Review

In earlier work, human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) sequences were analysed to estimate the timing of the ancestral sequence of the main group of HIV-1, the virus that is responsible for the acquired immune deficiency syndrome pandemic, yielding a best estimate of 1931 (95% confidence interval of 1915-1941). That work will be briefly reviewed, outlining how phylogenetic tools were extended to incorporate improved evolutionary models, how the molecular clock model was adapted to incorporate variable periods of latency, and how the approach was validated by correctly estimating the timing of two historically documented dates. The advantages, limitations, and assumptions of the approach will be summarized, with particular consideration of the implications of branch length uncertainty and recombination. We have recently undertaken new phylogenetic analysis of an extremely diverse set of human immunodeficiency virus envelope sequences from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (the DRC, formerly Zaire). This analysis both corroborates and extends the conclusions of our original study. Coalescent methods were used to infer the demographic history of the HIV-1 epidemic in the DRC, and the results suggest an increase in the exponential growth rate of the infected population through time.