The purpose of this thesis is to analyse in depth the EU position in the international effort to increase the Official Development Assistance with respect to the situation of poverty in developing world and current initiatives on searching for potential solutions of this crucial issue. In connection with poverty traps in developing countries the EU came up with many important initiatives in the field of international development policy, which indicates a strong commitment of Member states towards the poverty eradication. Based on predictions analysed in the 3rd Chapter of this thesis, it is possible to deduce that the EU as a whole will be able to reach its targets in the area of ODA increases. However, there will be a different situation in case of individual Member states - not all of them report about appropriate ODA increases needed for reaching the individual declared targets. There are many more or less suitable solutions: new allocations of additional financial resources from donors` public budgets to the ODA purposes, debt relief, innovative financial resources or methodological changes in the ODA statistical reporting. In any case, it is always needed to pay attention to the principles of effectiveness and raising the ODA quality and impact. The potential for reaching the official targets was, is and will be affected by plenty of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats on the side of the EU, developing countries and the whole international community.

Family in business and innovation are considered vital for firm performance and economic growth. Scholars claim that studying this relationship is important, as there are ‘strong theoretical reasons’ to believe that a firm’s innovation, hence firm performance, is positively and/or negatively influenced by the family. Research on the interception of the two fields is growing in developed countries, but is still nascent in developing country contexts. Hence, this study seeks to explore and further existing knowledge on this relationship in such a context. This investigation’ explores how family influences the firm’s innovation activities. It explores particularly the concept of ‘familiness’, which depicts those resources unique to a firm due to the involvement of the family members. Two approaches to ‘familiness’ are adopted, dimensions and resources. Concerning dimensions, three characteristics: components of involvement, essence and organisational identity were explored. The resources approach in this study includes four elements: financial, physical, human and social. In addition to this, the positive or negative nature of the family influence on each resource is considered. These two approaches of ‘familiness’ serves as the theoretical lens for understanding innovation comprehensively by taking into account the types, magnitudes, strategies and sources. This study adopted a qualitative approach to explore this phenomenon. Data were collected from six Colombian family firms through a self-administered questionnaire, followed by in-depth semi-structured interviews with family and nonfamily members in the form of a multi-case study design within purposefully selected firms. Triangulation was achieved by using different sources of information, such as documents, catalogues, newspapers, websites, and academic case studies. Due to the deductive and inductive nature of this study, data were explored and thematically analysed by coding into pre-existing categories suggested by the initial conceptual framework, while new themes emerged from the data. Results showed that when all three ‘familiness’ dimensions are present, there is an impact on the innovation activities within family firms. With respect to resources, the study highlighted the importance of the family influence on the firm’s human resource, and its impact on organisational innovation. This is particular the case when non-family members are more involved in top management teams. An intriguing finding is the relationship between the family’s foreign background and its influence of the firm’s overall innovation activities. In addition to this, by viewing the findings in this study as a whole, it is demonstrated that family firms in developing countries are innovative, which is contrary to existing studies on this subject area. Furthermore, it is advocated that this phenomenon would be better understood and further captured through the entrepreneurship lens. Hence, this is in line with recent views calling for a closer interception of family business and entrepreneurship. This study addresses these issues by weaving in Schumpeter’s ‘creative destruction’ and Kirzner’s ‘entrepreneurial discovery’ approaches to innovation to reconciliate inconsistent findings in the field of ‘innovation and family firms’. This is due to all firm’s engaging in innovative activities in an incremental (Kirznerian) nature, as opposed to a ‘radical’ (Schumpeterian) one, whereby the latter has been the main focus of previous studies. This thesis advocates the need for public and private institutions to implement family business and innovation courses at various levels throughout the country, in order to enable young generations to be expose to the challenges and opportunities that globalisation brings to developing economies. The study highlights the importance of exploring this phenomenon using the family itself as the unit of analysis, as opposed to the firm, in order to move the field forwards. Future research should test the conceptual framework that emerged from this study, both qualitatively and quantitatively, in family firms from other industries, and context within Latin America or beyond.

Thesis (Ph.D. (Statistics)) -- University of Limpopo, 2017 / Refer to docutment

Although Third World states lack military and economic strength, they still are able to exert considerable influence on certain international issues. The proliferation of small states following World War II, coupled with the twentieth century acceptance of the norm of sovereign equality, has enabled the weak states of the international system to challenge the order established by the strong. While Third World nations are weak according to traditional measures of power, sovereign equality and bloc voting by the small states, have accorded a type of "conditional" power to the South. This conditional power is augmented by the advent of a new international issue, the environment. Because of their large populations and natural resource bases, developing countries significantly influence environmental problems and therefore have greater leverage in environmental negotiations. This thesis seeks to demonstrate that because of the military and economic weakness of the South, it has sought to develop alternative sources of international strength. These new sources take advantage of norms and issues particular to twentieth century world politics. While these other sources thus far lack the potency of military or economic power, they do provide the South with a limited, but nonetheless important amount of influence in international politics. This thesis analyzes the nature and scope of the South's power arising out of the acceptance of the norm of sovereign equality. The paper also studies a second source of strength for developing nations, negative power; this power is based on the South's ability to frustrate Northern efforts to deal with serious environmental problems. By examining two major international environmental conferences, the thesis demonstrates both the character and limitations of this negative power. The foregoing study concludes that the new power of the South, though still quite limited today, may be an indication of growing strength as global environmental problems become increasingly central to international relations.

This book was assembled using the latest information for compiling the nutrient requirements of sheep, goats, cattle and water buffalo. Because of the complexity of the interactions between an animal, its diet, its physiological state, and the environment; the values depicting the nutrient requirements are estimates and not absolutes. These values, however, are considered to be adequate to meet the minimum requirements of healthy animals maintained in a thermoneutral environment. The mean energy and protein values used in the nutrient tables were arrived at from combining values found in the literature and those provided in personal communication with animal nutritionists in many developing countries. In some cases, only two or three observations were found for estimating the values used. Future research in ruminant nutrition should be designed to provide information needed to confirm or modify the values presented here. Feed composition tables representing feeds commonly found in Latin America, Africa, Asia and the Middle East have been included for an easy reference when formulating diets. Units of expression of data in the tables of feed composition and animal nutrient requirements are presented using three systems: Metabolizable energy (ME), net energy (NE); total digestible nutrients (TDN) and Scandinavian feed units (FU). conversion factors from SE to ME, TDN, etc., are presented in Section 1 for those who need this information. Also a list of abbreviations used appear in Appendix 5. A brief discussion showing three methods of calculating rations by hand are presented. Each of these methods permits some consideration for calculating a "least-cost" ration. It is important, however, that the person formulating a diet has a knowledge of the animal's nutrient requirements, an understanding of the digestibility and utilization of feeds and the various combinations required to formulate a diet adequate to supply all the needs of animals. Examples of hand calculated rations appear in Appendix 3. Adulteration of feedstuffs is a common complaint from livestock producers in many developing countries. This problem has been encountered at various times throughout most regions of the world. In section 12, some suggestions are offered as a means to establish quality control regulations and to set standards for all manufactured feedstuffs offered for sale.

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Farmers in the developing world frequently find themselves in uncertain and risky environments: often having to make decisions based on very little information. Functional models are needed to support farmers tactical decisions. In order to develop an appropriate model, a comparison is carried out of potential modelling approaches to address the question of what to grow where. A probabilistic GlS model is identified in this research as a suitable model for this purpose. This model is implemented as the stand-alone Spatial Decision Support System (SDSS) CaNaSTA, based on trial data and expert knowledge available for Central America and forage crops. The processes and methods used address many of the problems encountered with other agricultural DSS and SDSS. CaNaSTA shows significant overlap with recommendations from other sources. In addition, CaNaSTA provides details on the likely adaptation distribution of each species at each location, as well as measures of sensitivity and certainty. The combination of data and expert knowledge in a spatial environment allows spatial and aspatial uncertainty to be explicitly modelled. This is an original approach to the problem of helping farmers decide what to plant where.

Soy enhances the protein quality of wheat bread because of its lysine content which is deficient in wheat. The aim of this work was to use high levels of soy flour in wheat bread in order to maximise the potential of soy flour protein in an attempt to address Protein Energy Malnutrition in developing counties. Raw soy flour (RSF) and physically modified soy flours (PMSF1 and PMSF2) were used for the preparation of the composite dough with wheat flour. The two physically modified soy flours were prepared by steam flushing (PMSF2) and water boiling (PMSF1) of raw soy beans before flour preparation. Physical modification of soy flour was chosen over chemical modification because of its practical significance in developing countries. The Farinograph and Extensograph were used to study the effect of Lascorbic acid and physical modification of soy flour on the rheological properties of soy-wheat composite doughs at various ratios up to 50% soy flour. Soy-wheat composite doughs made from physically modified soy flour (PMSF) exhibited higher resistance to extension (Rm), greater tolerance to mixing, better mixing stability, higher water uptake rate and water absorption than the soy-wheat composite doughs made from raw soy flour (RSF).The physical modification process provides a relatively simple method for improving the baking quality of soy flour, in combination with wheat flour, for use at the village level in regions where soy can be grown and where wheat grain is imported. Using physically modified soy flour (PMSF2) to prepare soy-wheat dough, a mathematical model was developed from estimated regression coefficients of L-ascorbic acid and water percentages (30% w/w soy flour) on soy-wheat dough DSC water evaporation enthalpies. The model was successfully used for the prediction of loaf volumes and for the formulation of soy-wheat breads. A daily serving of 100 to 200 grams of this bread was calculated to provide 60 -100% of the lysine and protein requirements (FAO/WHO) of children and adults. The resultant breads developed in this project thus offer an attractive and sustainable food that is nutritionally superior. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

University of Technology Sydney. Institute of Sustainable Futures. / Sanitation in rapidly growing cities of developing Asian countries is a complex problem that often appears intractable and unyielding to standard problem-solving approaches. In this thesis, I provide a conceptual foundation aligned with sustainability to provide fresh guidance towards resolving this problem. I frame urban sanitation in developing Asian countries as a ‘messy’ planning-related problem, characterised by associations with multiple perspectives, key uncertainties and conflicting interests. In recognition that ‘messy’ problems cannot be confined within traditional disciplinary boundaries, the research uses transdisciplinarity as a guiding principle and methodology. It explores how new processes and complex systems ideas relevant for ‘messy’ problems can be applied to resolving urban sanitation. To ground the work in a real context, much of this work is explicated with reference to Colombo, Sri Lanka. My research highlights the role of dominant perspectives and worldviews in the organisation of sanitation practice. A review of sanitation history exposes changing paradigms, and the potential for developing Asian countries to move to radically different practices aligned with sustainability. I demonstrate that conceptions of costs and cost recovery for sanitation depend on perspective, by comparing how neoclassical economics’, ecological economics’ and Buddhist economics’ perspectives indicate different approaches to these, with different alignments with sustainability. By arguing that these perspectives are complementary rather than mutually exclusive, I integrate them to propose necessary principles for sustainable sanitation, namely, that: arrangements for sanitation should emphasise cooperation between stakeholders; efficiency goals should include entropy considerations; society as a whole should live within its means; and ethics and ‘goodness’ should underpin decision processes and choices. The thesis proposes a framework for participation to support decision-makers in resolving problematic sanitation. This supports the principle of cooperation between stakeholders, and the sustainability discourse’s emphasis of democracy and participation in decisions that affect them. It is a learning process based on soft systems methodology, bringing participants with specialist knowledge, stakeholder interests and broader societal values into dialogue that is explicitly designed to be deliberative, that can lead to a path to resolving the problem. Finally, I explore how ethics and ‘goodness’ can be woven into the provision of sanitation services, particularly with private sector actors who can potentially play a key role. I propose that their representation as metaphorical persons within current legal structures be extended so their behaviour is guided by a moral framework like real people in society. I propose that Buddhist economics can provide such a framework, raising expectations of behaviour grounded in ethics and goodness.