Research student panels (97A, 97B, 98, 99A, 99B) have been organised for Aegis and non-Aegis post-graduate students through the Interlink Programme coordinated by Prof. Alessandro Triulzi (Università L’Orientale, Naples) . The students involved are undertaking archival or field research, or are in the process of writing up dissertations, or have just completed their dissertations. Aegis is encouraging student exchanges through European Union mobility programmes (such as Erasmus/Socrates), joint training in Summer Schools where research students discuss their work with senior researchers (the last one was held in Cortona, Italy, in September 2004), and student-geared seminars and conferences. Papers have been grouped under broad themes and discussion will be chaired by research students themselves in the hope of encouraging broad student participation in the European Conference of African Studies.
This is one the student panels (see also 97A, 97B, 98, 99B) organised for post-graduate students through the Interlink Programme supported by Aegis African Studies Centres. Panel 99A explores current issues in developent and aid policies, from relief in complex emergencies following violent conflict, to local perceptions of malaria in Côte d’Ivoire, from health care challenge in independent Eritrea, to regional approaches to the Aids threat in South Africa.
The proposed paper is situated within the debate over the role of exogenous humanitarian aid operations in countries facing protracted conflict. Complex emergencies, characterized by humanitarian needs generated by violent conflict, as well as natural disasters, often lead to the slow deterioration of socio-political institutions, resulting in a state’s loss of legitimacy and/or the capacity to coordinate social welfare programs for its citizens. One consequence of the state’s limited capacity and/or contested structures is that aid agencies work with an array of international and local-level actors to deliver assistance. In the past, humanitarian aid has tried to avoid the issue of contested state sovereignty through project-based, rather than policy-based programming, which is what Joanna Macrae considers the key distinction between relief and development. Pressure has grown in recent years, however, for exogenous aid actors to adopt more ‘developmental’ approaches in the midst of ongoing conflict. This paper questions how international aid agencies determine the legitimacy of local implementing partners. What degree of consensus exists among the diverse actors providing relief, including NGOs and (I)GOs, regarding legitimate authorities? Developmental relief can be viewed against the backdrop of the international community’s interest in global governance, with increasing emphasis on human security rather than unconditional state sovereignty. Yet if humanitarian aid is to explicitly serve development objectives, which rules and norms are to guide these actions?
This study examines the lived experience of palu (for French paludisme, i.e. malaria), its meanings and related practices among adults in the rapidly growing dynamic city of Abidjan (Côte d’Ivoire, West Africa). As social science studies have shown elsewhere, local people develop their own views of and responses to febrile illnesses; these views partly correspond to biomedical definitions of, and treatment for, mild or severe forms of malaria. In this study, members of the local population appropriated the term palu, which is a well-known short form of the French paludisme that is also used by health professionals. Although palu was incorporated into the local disease system and health-related practices, its notion was transformed into something distinct from the biomedically defined malaria. This creative reinterpretation and remodeling gives palu a new meaning. In this urban context palu becomes a metaphor for vulnerability. It is used to express the daily risks of urban life for which they have little means to cope. Palu as structurally embedded vulnerability is an embodied experience. By applying the label palu and thus referring to a physical illness, this experience of vulnerability is turned into something that can be treated by plenty of remedies. As a result, commoditization of pharmaceuticals is taking place. Possible public health consequences of this commoditization include over-use or mistreatment of drugs. These abuses can only be tackled through increasing access to high quality treatment in combination with a better regulation and control of the flow of pharmaceuticals.
A cross-sectional study was conducted in three zones and five sub-zones of Eritrea. Questionnaire was administered in 3 urban and 7 villages of Eritrea. A total of 5000 people were included in the study. The data was collected in a six-month period from July to December 2003. Binary and multinomial regression models were used in the analysis. In this study we address two questions: (a) what socio-economic and facility characteristics differentiate individuals who select treatment option on government, mission, or private health care providers versus those in the reference group who chose traditional medical practitioners including self-treatment option? And (b) what socio-economic characteristics differentiate individuals who select traditional medication over modern treatment option?
The purpose of the study was to assess the factors that affect patients’ choice of health care service providers and to analyse the effect of each factor, and to examine the policy implications for future health care provision in Eritrea.
Our findings reveals that education, perceived quality, distance, user fees, severity of illness, socio-economic status and place of residence are statistically significant in the choice of health service providers and have also an effect on the decision to seek modern health services. Our findings further shows that illness recognition is much lower for poor and less educated individuals. When an illness is recognized by the individual or household, a typical observation is that health care is less likely to be sought when the individual or household is poor and lives far from the facilities, and then only in case of a serious illness.
SADC states currently account for only 3 percent of the world's population, yet the region accounts for more than 38 percent of HIV infections worldwide. With more than 3000 people a day dying from complications associated with the epidemic and that number expected to increase over the coming years, all levels of society – household, community, state and regional – are feeling the impact of these deaths. Occurring against a backdrop of renewed calls for pan-Africanism, increasingly porous borders and the massive restructuring of Southern Africa’s primary regional organisation, SADC, there can be no doubt that the epidemic poses a serious threat to the region’s future development. This paper examines SADC’s role in combating the epidemic – its actions to date, successes/failures, the impact of restructuring on these activities, and future options.