Nursing Experts, Hygienic Modernity, and Nation Building: The Case of Nursing in Ethiopia in the Post-Colonial Era.

This is a tale in three parts. It begins with an exploration of the story of Princess Tsahai, daughter of Haile Selassie, and the highly successful British campaign led by suffragette E. Sylvia Pankhurst to bring British-style nursing and medicine to Ethiopia in the 1940s and 1950s. Second, it examines the role of foreign women, most notably Swedish missionary nurses, in building health services and nursing capacity in the country. Finally, it examines the way in which nursing brought together gendered notions of expertise and geopolitical pressures to redefine expectations for Ethiopian women as citizens of the new nation-state.

Demanding a bigger role: Palestinian women in politics and decision making.

The political participation1 of Palestinian women in its many forms has been significantly influenced by Palestinian history. The male-dominated society and political system have hindered women's prominence in society and in politics. Although slowly on the rise, lack of women's representation and their voices is reflected in the low number of women in higher political echelons and in policy and decision making in general. After the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993 and 19952 in 1993, women were integrated in state building processes, yet formal female participation was weak and marginalized and their representation, despite women's political activism, remained low and not to the extent hoped for. This paper sheds light on the Palestinian women's involvement in politics and decision making firstly in the pre-Oslo era under non-indigenous Palestinian government and then in the post-Oslo era after the establishment of the Palestinian National Authority, with focus on involvement in negotiations with Israel and internal Palestinian reconciliation efforts. It also focuses on UNSCR 1325, the degree of influence it has had on women's engagement and the mechanisms established to enhance a bigger role for women in politics and decision making, leading towards a larger role in nation-state building and reconciliation and peace negotiations. Recommendations are offered for measures to increase future participation.

Temporal Dynamics of the Driving Factors of Urban Landscape Change of Addis Ababa During the Past Three Decades.

Mapping and quantifying urban landscape dynamics and the underlying driving factors are crucial for devising appropriate policies, especially in cities of developing countries where the change is rapid. This study analyzed three decades (1984-2014) of land use land cover change of Addis Ababa using Landsat imagery and examined the underlying factors and their temporal dynamics through expert interview using Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). Classification results revealed that urban area increased by 50%, while agricultural land and forest decreased by 34 and 16%, respectively. The driving factors operated differently during the pre and post-1991 period. The year 1991 was chosen because it marked government change in the country resulting in policy change. Policy had the highest influence during the pre-1991 period. Land use change in this period was associated with the housing sector as policies and institutional setups were permissive to this sector. Population growth and in-migration were also important factors. Economic factors played significant role in the post-1991 period. The fact that urban land has a market value, the growth of private investment, and the speculated property market were among the economic factors. Policy reforms since 2003 were also influential to the change. Others such as accessibility, demography, and neighborhood factors were a response to economic factors. All the above-mentioned factors had vital role in shaping the urban pattern of the city. These findings can help planners and policymakers to better understand the dynamic relationship of urban land use and the driving factors to better manage the city.

At the Roots of The World Health Organization's Challenges: Politics and Regionalization.

The World Health Organization's (WHO's) leadership challenges can be traced to its first decades of existence. Central to its governance and practice is regionalization: the division of its member countries into regions, each representing 1 geographical or cultural area. The particular composition of each region has varied over time-reflecting political divisions and especially decolonization. Currently, the 194 member countries belong to 6 regions: the Americas (35 countries), Europe (53 countries), the Eastern Mediterranean (21 countries), South-East Asia (11 countries), the Western Pacific (27 countries), and Africa (47 countries). The regions have considerable autonomy with their own leadership, budget, and priorities. This regional organization has been controversial since its beginnings in the first days of WHO, when representatives of the European countries believed that each country should have a direct relationship with the headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, whereas others (especially the United States) argued in favor of the regionalization plan. Over time, regional directors have inevitably challenged the WHO directors-general over their degree of autonomy, responsibilities and duties, budgets, and national composition; similar tensions have occurred within regions. This article traces the historical roots of these challenges.

Punitive limb amputation.

BACKGROUND: Limb amputation has been carried out through the ages as a punitive method in various parts of the world. This article highlights the historical and societal background associated with the use of punitive limb amputation. METHODS: We performed an extensive electronic search of the pertinent literature augmented with a hand-search of additional sources. RESULTS: Evidence for punitive amputation is available as early as the court of the Babylonian Code of King Hammurabi (circa 1750 Before the Common Era [BCE]), which imposed punitive limb amputations on slaves who used force against free citizens. Other reports provided evidence that punitive amputation was used as early as the 4th century BCE in ancient Peru. Limb amputation restored law and order during the Roman and Byzantine periods. Amputation as a punitive instrument prevailed in Europe throughout the 17th century. During the Enlightenment, the intellectual movement in Europe approached criminal law from a humanistic perspective, incorporated it into societal practice, and promoted its preventive dimensions. Punitive limb amputation still exists in several Arab and African countries. CONCLUSION: Amputation as a punitive or correctional method has its roots in old civilizations. It has been used through the ages in various parts of the world. While it has been abandoned in modern western societies, punitive amputation is still used in several third-world countries.

Using luminosity data as a proxy for economic statistics.

A pervasive issue in social and environmental research has been how to improve the quality of socioeconomic data in developing countries. Given the shortcomings of standard sources, the present study examines luminosity (measures of nighttime lights visible from space) as a proxy for standard measures of output (gross domestic product). We compare output and luminosity at the country level and at the 1° latitude × 1° longitude grid-cell level for the period 1992-2008. We find that luminosity has informational value for countries with low-quality statistical systems, particularly for those countries with no recent population or economic censuses.

The Brazilian health system: history, advances, and challenges.

Brazil is a country of continental dimensions with widespread regional and social inequalities. In this report, we examine the historical development and components of the Brazilian health system, focusing on the reform process during the past 40 years, including the creation of the Unified Health System. A defining characteristic of the contemporary health sector reform in Brazil is that it was driven by civil society rather than by governments, political parties, or international organisations. The advent of the Unified Health System increased access to health care for a substantial proportion of the Brazilian population, at a time when the system was becoming increasingly privatised. Much is still to be done if universal health care is to be achieved. Over the past 20 years, there have been other advances, including investments in human resources, science and technology, and primary care, and a substantial decentralisation process, widespread social participation, and growing public awareness of a right to health care. If the Brazilian health system is to overcome the challenges with which it is presently faced, strengthened political support is needed so that financing can be restructured and the roles of both the public and private sector can be redefined.

The rights and wrongs of intentional exposure research: contextualising the Guatemala STD inoculation study.

In its recent review of the US Public Health Service Sexually Transmitted Disease Inoculation Study, conducted in Guatemala from 1946 to 1948, the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues identified a number of egregious ethical violations, but failed to adequately address issues associated with the intentional exposure research design in particular. As a result, a common public misconception that the study was wrong because researchers purposefully infected their subjects has been left standing. In fact, human subjects have been exposed to disease pathogens for experimental purposes for centuries, and this study design remains an important scientific tool today. It shares key features with other types of widely accepted research on human subjects and can be conducted ethically, provided certain safeguards are implemented. That these safeguards were not implemented in Guatemala is what made that study wrong, rather than the fact of intentional exposure itself. To preserve public trust in the clinical research enterprise, this conclusion ought to be stated explicitly and emphasised.

An overview of South African psychology.

This overview of psychology in South Africa presents a concise and historical account of its science and practice, from its early origins in the late nineteenth century to the present, and traces seminal influences on the discipline. It is a review of how psychology in South Africa developed over more than a century to become one of the most popular subjects in universities and an established and recognized profession, whose members play a variety of roles in the South African polity and larger society. The impact that apartheid racism had on key aspects of psychology's development is traversed, and the influences that previous ruling party politics had on professional psychological organizations are delineated. The unification of psychology under the Psychological Society of South Africa, a few months before the advent of democracy in South Africa, is explicated. The protection of the title of psychologist in law and certain other changes in the legislative environment, enabling a greater role for psychologists, are reported. The primary research sites for psychology and its funding and the main university psychology programs are described, as are the requirements for registration and licensure. The genesis and the importance of the work of internationally acclaimed South African psychologists, such as J. Wolpe and A. A. Lazarus, are contextualized. With the increased participation of progressive black psychologists in leadership and research in the past two decades, a transformed psychology has the potential to play a significant role in addressing human issues confronting South Africa.

Assuming too much? Participatory water resource governance in South Africa.

This paper argues that participation in natural resource management, which is often coupled with moves for more local ownership of decision making, is based on three sets of assumptions: about the role of the state, the universality of application of such approaches and the transformatory potential of institutional reform. The validity of these assumptions requires investigation in view of the rapid institutionalisation and scaling-up of participatory approaches, particularly in developing country contexts. Post-apartheid South Africa is widely recognised as a pioneer of participatory and devolutionary approaches, particularly in the field of water resources. It is 12 years since the promulgation of the forward-thinking 1998 National Water Act, and thus an opportune moment to reflect on South Africa's experiences of participatory governance. Drawing on empirical research covering the establishment of the first Catchment Management Agency, and the transformation of existing Irrigation Boards into more inclusive Water User Associations in the Inkomati Water Management Area, it emerges that there may be fundamental weaknesses in the participatory model and underlying assumptions, and indeed such approaches may actually reinforce inequitable outcomes: the legacy of long-established institutional frameworks and powerful actors therein continues to exert influence in post-apartheid South Africa, and has the potential to subvert the democratic and redistributive potential of the water reforms. It is argued that a reassessment of the role of the state is necessary: where there is extreme heterogeneity in challenging catchments more, rather than less, state intervention may be required to uphold the interests of marginalised groups and effect redistribution.

An obsolete dichotomy? Rethinking the rural­urban interface in terms of food security and production in the global south.

The global food system is coming under increasing strain in the face of urban population growth. The recent spike in global food prices (2007­08) provoked consumer protests, and raised questions about food sovereignty and how and where food will be produced. Concurrently, for the first time in history the majority of the global population is urban, with the bulk of urban growth occurring in smaller-tiered cities and urban peripheries, or 'peri-urban' areas of the developing world. This paper discusses the new emerging spaces that incorporate a mosaic of urban and rural worlds, and reviews the implications of these spaces for livelihoods and food security. We propose a modified livelihoods framework to evaluate the contexts in which food production persists within broader processes of landscape and livelihood transformation in peri-urban locations. Where and how food production persists are central questions for the future of food security in an urbanising world. Our proposed framework provides directions for future research and highlights the role of policy and planning in reconciling food production with urban growth.

Differentiated childhoods: impacts of rural labor migration on left-behind children in China.

This article draws on data from research that includes 400 children who lived separately from their migrant parents in 10 rural communities in China, to explore the deep impacts of rural parents' migration on the care-giving and nurturing of children left behind. It shows that parent migration has brought about multiple impacts, mostly negative, on the lives of children, such as increased workloads, little study tutoring and supervision, and above all the unmet needs of parental affection. Children's basic daily care and personal safety could become problematic since surrogate caregivers, mostly elderly, are usually exhausted with livelihood maintenance. With illumination on the family dysfunction in children's development due to migration-induced family separation, this article highlights the social cost to rural families of parental migration. Urbanization in developing countries is obtained at the expense of rural migrants and their families, especially children left behind. Further attention is required to improve left-behind children's well being within split family structures and interregional migration.

Rights to food with a human face in the global south.

This article seeks to dispel the popular myth surrounding the food crises which precipitated food riots in the global South in 2008. Arguing from a structural and historical perspective, the article suggests that global hunger is a deep-rooted crisis that is embedded in the social and structural variables associated within the nation-state that places a restraint on the self-regulating capacity of nation-states in the South. Internationalizing the food crisis, however, will do more harm to the south's agricultural transformation and rural development. The article argues for integrated rural development that will increase output growth through an institutional, technological, and marketing strategy.

Testing the Fetal Origins Hypothesis in a developing country: evidence from the 1918 Influenza Pandemic.

The 1918 Influenza Pandemic is used as a natural experiment to test the Fetal Origins Hypothesis. This hypothesis states that individual health as well as socioeconomic outcomes, such as educational attainment, employment status, and wages, are affected by the health of that individual while in utero. Repeated cross sections from the Pesquisa Mensal de Emprego (PME), a labor market survey from Brazil, are used to test this hypothesis. I find evidence to support the Fetal Origins Hypothesis. In particular, compared to individuals born in the few years surrounding the Influenza Pandemic, those who were in utero during the pandemic are less likely to be college educated, be employed, have formal employment, or know how to read and have fewer years of schooling and a lower hourly wage. These results underscore the importance of fetal health especially in developing countries.

Between stigmatisation and regulation: prostitution in colonial Northern Vietnam.

Colonisation was a masculine adventure which took place in a distorted world full of 'welcoming' native women. The colonial encounter therefore was both racial and gendered: boundaries between European men and Vietnamese women were obvious. On the other hand the intimacy that resulted from this encounter blurred the racial boundaries that were the foundation of the colonial order. These boundaries had to be redrawn or sharpened. Focusing on French colonial northern Vietnam (Tonkin) this paper examines how the whole colonial encounter was embodied in the sexual encounter between European men and native women and how prostitution was an integral part of the colonial order. This analysis of the regulation of prostitution and its ambivalence reveals that the definition of prostitution and its treatment by the French colonial authorities was political, racial and therefore connected to a specific period. The political definition of prostitution in today's Vietnam is different from the colonial one. This shift reveals that prostitution is a pertinent vantage point from which one can study how a society apprehends itself and its own future.

Cross-country disparity in agricultural productivity: quantifying the role of modern seed adoption.

Inequality of agricultural labour productivity across the developing world has increased substantially over the past 40 years. This article asks: to what extent did the diffusion of Green Revolution seed varieties contribute to increasing agricultural labour productivity disparity across the developing countries? We find that 22 per cent of cross-country variation in agricultural labour productivity can be attributed to the diffusion of high-yielding seed varieties across countries, and that the impact of such diffusion differed significantly across regions. We discuss the implications of these findings for policy directed at increasing agricultural labour productivity in the developing world.

Understanding the complexities of private standards in global agri-food chains as they impact developing countries.

The increasing prevalence of private standards governing food safety, food quality and environmental and social impacts of agri-food systems has raised concerns about the effects on developing countries, as well as the governance of agri-food value chains more broadly. It is argued that current debates have been 'clouded' by a failure to recognise the diversity of private standards in terms of their institutional form, who develops and adopts these standards and why. In particular, there is a need to appreciate the close inter-relationships between public regulations and private standards and the continuing ways in which private standards evolve.