The Mountain Pima of the Sierra Madre Occidental of Chihuahua, Mexico, utilize a variety of domesticated and nondomesticated resources. Part of their agricultural system consists of shifting, or swidden, cultivation on steep hillsides. Wild edible plants contribute significant amounts of vitamins and minerals to the diet on a seasonal basis. The drought of 1988 caused a decrease in the availability of many resources, but an increase in availability of roots of saraviqui (Prionosciadium townsendii). A dynamic, nonlinear optimization study of Mountain Pima diet included requirements for adequate amounts of energy, protein, calcium, and vitamins A and C. Oxalate content of several plant foods and seasonal variation in resource availability were incorporated into the study. Two methods were compared: time minimization and a nutrient indexing method minimizing the product of the absolute value of the natural logarithm of the ratio of recommended intake to actual intake rates. This method allowed simultaneous optimization of several different parameters. The nutrient indexing model matched the actual diet of the Mountain Pima somewhat better than the traditional energy minimization model. It predicted higher use of noncultivated plant species and of animal resources than the time minimization model. Analyses were conducted for years of adequate rainfall and for the drought year. A list of 612 plant species collected in the community of Nabogame is also included.

The thesis examines the political influences that have shaped what is ostensibly a functional programme for the international development of the Senegal River by the three participating states of Mali, Mauritania, and Senegal. Construction of the two major first phase projects began in late 1981 - a $186 million salt barrier dam in the delta and a $680 million hydro-electric storage d^m upstream in Mali. The thesis finds that the functional rationale for making use of the valuable international resource is undermined by the political concessions, compromises, and accommodations the basin states and the donors who finance the projects need to make to sustain international cooperation.

Call number: LD2668 .T4 1949 A2 / Master of Science

Call number: LD2668 .T4 1978 K45 / Master of Arts

This dissertation is an empirical work dealing with child health issues in developing . countries and specifically in Pakistan where the emphasis is put on the analysis of the relationship between socioeconomic determinants and health impacts. The first chapter includes a general discussion of child health and its importance for economic development in Pakistan and other developing countries. Undoubtedly, the health of children and young people are among the most important health issues. In this regard, the under-five mortality rate is widely used as credible measure of child health in this study. Children tend to be most vulnerable in their first year of life when their health is influenced not only by their own physical condition but also by the social and environmental conditions of the household (Elder & Shanahan, 2006; Lerner et al., 2011). This strong relationship between child mortality and socioeconomic conditions has ensured its continued and widespread use in monitoring social inequalities in health. This is combined· with the fact that preventing early deaths is an effective approach to increasing life expectancy and the monitoring of child mortality rates remains a key component of effective public health action. This dissertation has three objectives. The first objective is to examine the socioeconomic determinants of child health as well as the environmental degradation and child malnutrition variables on child health across the panel countries. The second objective is to develop regression based decomposition analysis to measure the child health inequalities among different socioeconomic groups in Pakistan. The third objective of the study is to investigate the impact of women empowerment and relative bargaining power on child health in Pakistan. In order to reach the first objective, this study used panel data methods to estimate the determinants of child mortality employing World Bank data for 96 low and middle income countries. This study empirically examined the socioeconomic and environmental determinants of child mortality outcomes by applying various panel data estimation methods i.e, Pooled, Fixed Effect, R~dom Effect, 2SLS, 2SLS FE and system GMM. Moreover, the analysis also examined if fertility is causal to child mortality and the effect of fertility on child mortality using 2SLS. The analysis revealed that the System GMM estimate is the best model which suggests a positive and significant coefficient of lagged child mortality, implying that child mortality is persistent over time. The results provide strong evidence that women's education, women's labour participation, immunization coverage and real GDP per capita are important detelminants of child mortality for developing countries. Other important findings are that immunization coverage and environmental degradation have significant effects on child mor,tality. Overall the results suggest that more attention should be given to the economic costs of poor health associated with environmental damage such as air pollution. Immunization coverage and improved sanitation seyms to be much more effective in reducing child mortality in developing countries. Therefore, it is argued that investments in these specific activities will yield significant social benefits within the sample of countries examined. . The second objective is achieved through the application of a decomposition approach to explain socioeconomic inequalities in child health in Pakistan. Inequalities in child health are measured using the concentration index, which is then decomposed into its contributions to socioeconomic inequality in the observed determinants of child health. Data for the analysis came from the 1998/99, 2001102, 2005/06 and 2007/08 Pakistan Social and Living Standard Measurement Survey (PSLM). The analysis reveals that child under five mOliality inequalities are concentrated among socio-economic groups that are poor in Pakistan in all four years of the survey. Furthermore, the results from decomposition analysis shows that household income, urban residency, mother's education, no breastfeeding and having no sanitation facility each made a sizeable contribution to child health inequality. This study recommends that scaling up social and economic policies that are in alignment with child health policies could bridge the current avoidable and unjust gap between the child health of advantaged and disadvantaged groups in Pakistan. .'~ The third objective of this study is to evaluate the hypothesis that women empowerment and relative bargaining power is related to lower child mortality. This hypothesis is again tested using PSLM data from Pakistan. The study attempts to focus light on the status of women and the effect on early childhood mortality controlling for the effect of other associated determinants. To allow for unobservable heterogeneity across birth cohorts and geographical districts, this study constructs a pseudo panel for a sample of children under the age of five from three repeated cross sections observed in 2001/02, 2005/06, and 2007/08. It is evident by the results that women empowerment and women bargaining power seemed to have the strongest effect on child m011ality in Pakistan. This study concludes that empowerment of women bestows further benefit to society indicating that there is the need for increasing the incentives for good care of children. The health status of children clearly increases with lower mortality, and this probability is higher when women are more empowered to make decisions within the household, suggesting the need for interventions that increase women's financial and physical autonomy.

No description available.

Thesis (M.Comm.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2009. / This dissertation examines the challenges of poverty alleviation in Malawi, with particular reference to the period 1995 to 2005. Malawi is a small landlocked country, considered to be one of the poorest countries in the world. Some of the major indicators of poverty in Malawi are inequality in income distribution, attainability of basic needs and low levels of development. The Integrated Household Survey (IHS) of 2004/5 revealed that 52.4 percent of the Malawian population was living below the poverty line in 2005 (National Statistics Office (NSO), 2005: 139). Poverty reduction strategies in Malawi have had a slight impact on reducing the level of poverty. Nevertheless, the government of Malawi remains committed to the implementation of redistributive measures and economic reforms in its quest for economic growth, poverty reduction and enhanced employment opportunities in the country (Malawi Government, 2006:1). This study uses an econometric analysis to examine the effects of government spending on socioeconomic services, foreign aid and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth on the levels of poverty in Malawi, using data for period 1995-2005. The regression results indicate that in GDP growth and government expenditure on socioeconomic services, particularly on education, have a significant impact on reducing poverty levels in Malawi. To address poverty, Malawi should thus pursue an economic growth enhancing strategy, with expansion of human capabilities that also facilitates fiscal redistribution. The regression results show that if GDP growth is increased by 1 percent on average, this would decrease the headcount poverty by 0.237 percent, ceteris paribus. The model also shows that, on average, a K1 million increase in government expenditure on education will decrease the headcount poverty by 0.1 percent, ceteris paribus. The regression results therefore indicate that GDP growth and government expenditure on education will have to increase in order for poverty levels in Malawi to decrease in the long run. The results of a similar comparative regression analysis for Botswana further confirm the consistency that education is a significant factor in reducing poverty.

This is a study of political change in a small Canadian province. At its centre is the tension between rational plans for economic development and political demands grounded in existing attitudes and interests. This must be resolved for plans to be realised in new behaviour, and some elites will extend participation in planning, (which stimulates, informs, and commits participants to implement them), while minimising its effective impact on plans. In 1940, New Brunswick was under-developed and typically peripheral, with regional political structures that coincided with economic clienteles based in primary production. Its political evolution is traced primarily through detailed studies of three exercises in development planning. These rely on newspapers, interviews, government documents both published and unpublished, and archival material. Public participation was first conjoined with planning for post-WWII reconstruction. State spending, however, continued to support established regional elites. In the 1950s, New Brunswick's Electric Power Commission planned infrastructure for foreign investors in heavy industry. This case illustrates expertise's growing influence, the importance of implicit organisational goals, and the accommodation of interests by active organisations: these were relevant to the state as a whole after power was centralised in the 1960s. Then, a comprehensive plan for one region was designed, but the extensive participatory structures implanted facilitated resistance to an imposed plan rather than its implementation. As development proceeds, ineffective participation in planning - involvement - becomes insufficient to generate consent. It is shown that individuals' political action is unlikely to be effective, so plans must be formulated, and consent secured, through interest-organisations. Provincial interest groups are explored, through their incorporation records and a sample survey. Their relations with the state (itself treated as a purposeful organisation) are analysed. It is found that the working classes, rural inhabitants, and francophones are organisationally under-represented and lack an effective part in planning. The implications of their disaffection are briefly discussed.

No description available.

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