INTRODUCTION: Improving maternal and child health care are two of the Millennium Development Goals of the World Health Organization. India is one of the countries worldwide most burdened by maternal and child deaths. The aim of the study was to describe how families participate in nurse-based antenatal and child health care, and the effect of this in relation to referrals to specialist care, institutional deliveries and mortality. METHODS: The intervention took place in a remote rural area in India and was influenced by Swedish nurse-based health care. A baseline survey was performed before the intervention commenced. The intervention included education program for staff members with a model called Training of Trainers and the establishment of clinics as both primary health centers and mobile clinics. Health records and manuals, and informational and educational materials were produced and the clinics were equipped with easily handled instruments. The study period was between 2006 and 2009. Data were collected from antenatal care and child healthcare records. The Chi-square test was used to analyze mortality differences between years. A focus group discussion and a content analysis were performed. RESULTS: Families' participation increased which led to more check-ups of pregnant women and small children. Antenatal visits before 16 weeks among pregnant women increased from 32 to 62% during the period. Women having at least three check-ups during pregnancy increased from 30 to 60%. Maternal mortality decreased from 478 to 121 per 100 000 live births. The total numbers of children examined in the project increased from approximately 6000 to 18 500 children. Infant mortality decreased from 80 to 43 per 1000 live births. Women and children referred to specialist care increased considerably and institutional deliveries increased from 47 to 74%. CONCLUSION: These results suggest that it is possible in a rural and remote area to influence peoples' awareness of the value of preventive health care. The results also indicate that this might decrease maternal and child mortality. The education led to a more patient-friendly encounter between health professionals and patients. / <p>Article No. 2140</p><p>Funding Agencies|Pravara Medical Trust, India||Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, Sweden||Linkoping University||County Council in Ostergotland, Sweden||</p>

L'ensemble des pays d'Afrique s'accorde sur le fait que le développement humain est une aspiration fondamentale des peuples de la région et des gouvernements qui les représentent. Ainsi ont-ils tous adopté la Déclaration du Millénaire. Cependant les avancées d'une manière générale ont été en deçà des attentes. Entre 1990 et 2000, les pays africains n'ont atteint en moyenne que 10% des objectifs du Millénaire, au lieu des 40% nécessaires pour être sur la bonne voie. L'analyse globale du suivi des OMD montre que 4 pays ont atteint un certain nombre de cibles spécifiques et que plus d'un tiers des pays de la sous-région pourrait atteindre les principaux objectifs notamment dans les domaines de scolarisation, de la nutrition, et de l'accès à l'eau potable. Les autres pays par contre pourraient connaître de réelles difficultés à relever les défis sans un soutien effectif et durable de la communauté internationale. Malgré le bilan mitigé des accords de partenariats, de nombreux spécialistes estiment que l'atteinte des OMD en Afrique ne peut s'envisager sans des partenariats internationaux. D'où la nécessité de conserver le sens du réalisme c'est-à-dire de solliciter le concours financier, technologique et intellectuel que peuvent apporter les pays industrialisés, en particulier ceux de l'Union Européenne et des États-Unis d'Amérique, et déplacer la charge de la mise en œuvre du développement durable des États vers les citoyens et ce au travers la consécration des partenariats «publics-privés» et « États/Sociétés civiles». / All African countries agree that human development is a fundamental aspiration of the peoples of the region and the governments that represent them. So they all adopted the Millennium Declaration. However, overall progress has been below expectations. Between 1990 and 2000, African countries averaged only 10 per cent of the Millennium Development Goals, instead of the 40 per cent required to be on the right track. The global analysis of MDG monitoring shows that 4 countries have reached a number of specific targets and that more than one third of the countries of the subregion could reach the main objectives, particularly in the areas of schooling, nutrition, and access to clean water. Other countries, on the other hand, could face real difficulties in meeting the challenges without effective and lasting support from the international community. Despite the mixed record of partnership agreements, many experts believe that achieving the MDGs in Africa cannot be achieved without international partnerships. Hence the need to maintain the sense of realism that is to ask for the financial, technological and intellectual assistance that can bring the industrialized countries, especially those of the European Union and the United States of America , and to shift the burden of implementing the sustainable development of states towards the citizens through the dedication of "public-private" partnerships and "states / civil societies".

The content of the thesis is concentrated on the confirmation, that the poverty is the basic problem when balancing the global discrepancies. First part of the thesis is dedicated to globalization, its social economic impacts in the context of least developed countries and world poverty. The next part describes the MDG's from the point of view of poverty.

Thèse numérisée par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

In dieser Doktorarbeit wurde eine analytische Methode zur Charakterisierung metallischer Nanopartikel (NPs) entwickelt und die Methode bei der Untersuchung natürlicher Proben angewendet. Mit einem analytisches System bestehend aus einem Mikrotropfengenerator (microdroplet generator, MDG) zusammen mit einem pneumatischen Zerstäuber und einem induktiv gekoppeltem Plasma-Massenspektrometer (ICP-MS) konnte eine quantitative und qualitative Charakterisierung von NPs durchgeführt werden. Der MDG wurde verwendet um die Kalibrierungsfunktion für die massenspektrometrische Quantifizierung der Metalle in den Nanopartikelproben, die über den pneumatischen Zerstäuber eingeführt wurden, einzurichten. Der Hauptvorteil dieser Anordnung besteht darin, dass mit dem MDG für jedes Metall Tropfen einer gewünschten Größe hergestellt werden können und eine 100 %-ige Transporteffizienz gegeben ist. Die eingeführte Masse korrelierte mit der Signalintensität von Nanopartikeln, so dass die mit dem MDG generierten Tropfen für die Kalibrierung verwendet werden konnten ohne dass Referenzmaterial erforderlich war. Die aufwändige und fehleranfällige Bestimmung der Effizienz eines Zerstäubers, die für die Bestimmung des Metallgehaltes von NPs mittels eines Einzelpartikel-ICP-MS (spICP-MS) erforderlich ist, konnte dadurch vermieden werden. Unter Anwendung dieser dualen Einführungsmethode wurden Größen und Konzentrationen einer Reihe von Standard Silber (Ag) NPs und Referenz Gold (Au) NPs mit hoher Genauigkeit bestimmt. Zusätzlich wurde mit einem neuen kommerziell verfügbaren ICP-Flugzeitmassenspektrometer (ICP-TOF-MS) Ag und Au NPs in unterschiedlichen Matrices charakterisiert: in verschiedenen Salzsäure (HCl)- und Salpetersäure (HNO3)- Konzentrationen und in Gegenwart verschiedener Elemente. Bei den unterschiedlichen Matrices war die Größenbestimmung innerhalb der gegebenen Standardabweichungen korrekt. / In this doctoral thesis an analytical method for characterising metal nanoparticles (NPs) was developed and its application for investigating natural samples verified. An analytical system consisting of a microdroplet generator (MDG) used in combination with a pneumatic nebuliser (PN) and an inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer (ICP-MS) proved capable of quantitatively and qualitatively identifying NPs. The MDG was used to establish the calibration function for mass quantification of the metal present in the sample NPs introduced via the PN. The major advantage of this configuration is that the MDG generated droplets of tailored size for any given metal while offering a 100 % transport efficiency. The introduced mass correlated with signal intensities of NPs and thus the microdroplet generated droplets could be used for calibration purposes without the need for any reference material. Thus, the tedious and error-prone nebuliser efficiency determination step that is required when determining the NP metal content using the single particle mode ICP-MS (spICP-MS) approach, could be avoided. With this dual sample introduction method, the sizes and concentrations of a range of standard silver (Ag) NPs and gold (Au) reference NPs were determined with high accuracy. Additionally, together with a new commercially available ICP-time of flight-MS (ICP-TOF-MS) the characterisation of Ag- and Au-NPs was carried out in various matrices: In hydrochloric (HCl) and nitric acid (HNO3) at a range of concentration and in different elemental environments. In the presence of matrices, it was found that the size characterisation of the NPs is correct within the standard deviation.

The need for donor funding has increased significantly over the last decade. Without donor funding millions of people wouldn’t be alive today. Thanks either to research finding a cure, successful treatment, funds donated for food, aid toward building infrastructure, or giving people the opportunity to further their education. Donor funding thus facilitates a better future. A literature review was conducted to give background on the health sector and how these funds were distributed, ethical clearance, different types of reporting, the role project managers pays in a project and the sustainability of projects. Expenses in different countries were evaluated by gathering data from the internet, while two international funded projects are also used to state how funders divide their line items into different categories. The empirical study used a qualitative research approach by collecting and analysing data obtained from the MDG 2010 report and other freely available data on the web. The main findings from this thesis are: *The Millennium Development Goals (MDG’s) influence donor funding as it gives donors a guide towards funding needs. Donors are also influenced by their own preferences or what poses a burden to them individually. *The different types of reporting required for funding received, delay a project and the bureaucratic structures thereof are a hindrance. *Ethical clearance plays a fundamental role in the outcome of a project, as without ethical clearance a project cannot commence. *The objectives of a project play a critical role when applying for funding. This can change the focus of a project. *Expenses differ from country to country and funders need to take this into account when giving funding to recipient countries. *Project Managers and community involvement plays a critical role in ensuring sustainability of projects. THE SUSTAINABILITY OF DONOR FUNDED PROJECTS IN THE HEALTH SECTOR *The MDG’s are not on track and aid are focus on singular goals instead of multiple goals, to ensure an overall improved result. There is a major gap between needed funds and given funds. A single injection of funds will not be the solution to our health problem; different sectors need to collaborate together as we are facing a multi-dimensional problem. Trade and reform must also form part of this aid, ensuring a sustainable progression in the life’s of people. Donor funded projects may have a sustainable future, when taking in account the abovementioned findings. With the world trend in reporting changing rapidly, cost and management accountants as well as financial accountants and project managers have to equip them to adhere to the new way of reporting, namely integrated and sustainability reporting. South Africa is way behind and needs to catch up fast if they want to stay competitive in the “global donor funding market”. The limitations in this study were that not all expenses were evaluated and only 15 countries were looked at. An indebt look was taken into Africa with the empirical review, while Asia is also combating poor health issues. Some African countries like Sierra Leone and Zimbabwe did not have sufficient data to compare with other countries. From the research conducted, the following topics were identified that require further research: *Why are most projects in Third World countries not sustainable? *What plans are put into action to ensure that the MDG goals are reached? *Investigate what works for First World countries health systems and consider how that can be applied to Third World countries to ensure that they also get the best health care available. *Do donors take into account the different costs of countries when allocating funding to that specific country? *Establishing models to evaluate the sustainability of pilot projects and normal projects. *Establishing a model on how to distribute donor funds across different needs and not only one specific need. / MCom (Management Accountancy), North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2013

The promotion of education has long been a priority of the successive regimes of Ethiopia. Combined with the momentum of Education for All (EFA) and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in recent years Ethiopia’s education sector has experienced a major expansion of primary school enrolment which has earned Ethiopia international acclaim and so much optimism in meeting the MDGs set for 2015. Despite this, however, large numbers of primary school aged children remain out of school, most of these are found in rural areas and many of them are girls. Many of the children that enrol do not stay on to complete the full cycle of their primary schooling. While there are numerous studies looking at rural children’s schooling, village-based ethnographic studies are rare, particularly in Ethiopia. The thesis offers a sociological insight as to why low enrolment and incompletion persist in rural areas. Drawing on an ethnographic approach study over extended period this thesis presents analysis of data from two local communities. Methodologically the analysis are anchored on the voices of the children, their parents and teachers and make a valuable contribution in emphasising not only the importance of bringing local people’s own voices into the debate, but also drawing attention to the ways voice may be utilised and calling for greater sensitivity to the way it is interpreted in scholarly and policy circles. Theoretically, the study shows the value of applying Bourdieu’s approach to social reproduction in analysing the challenges faced by rural children in completing primary school. Time spent with children, their families and their teachers suggests reproduction of educational inequality at all levels (home, school, community). While these are certainly important, this thesis argues that more attention needs to be paid to the social context in which children and their schooling are embedded. It suggests the challenges in schooling rural children are not simply explained either by the quantity of primary schools available, or a lack of value being accorded to education, or deliberate acts of discrimination (e.g. against girls). Rather, it has argued that discriminatory outcomes, or the reproduction of social inequality, have to be understood as the outcome of social practice, where ‘choices’ are made in circumstances of considerable constraint. Furthermore, it has shown that these patterns of social reproduction are as characteristic of teachers and the field of the school as they are of parents and children and the field of home and community. Rather than the school operating as an external change agent, as imagined in much of the education literature, the school is very much part of the local social context. The application of policies and the social practice of staff are significantly marked by their positionality within the communities which they serve.

The need for donor funding has increased significantly over the last decade. Without donor funding millions of people wouldn’t be alive today. Thanks either to research finding a cure, successful treatment, funds donated for food, aid toward building infrastructure, or giving people the opportunity to further their education. Donor funding thus facilitates a better future. A literature review was conducted to give background on the health sector and how these funds were distributed, ethical clearance, different types of reporting, the role project managers pays in a project and the sustainability of projects. Expenses in different countries were evaluated by gathering data from the internet, while two international funded projects are also used to state how funders divide their line items into different categories. The empirical study used a qualitative research approach by collecting and analysing data obtained from the MDG 2010 report and other freely available data on the web. The main findings from this thesis are: *The Millennium Development Goals (MDG’s) influence donor funding as it gives donors a guide towards funding needs. Donors are also influenced by their own preferences or what poses a burden to them individually. *The different types of reporting required for funding received, delay a project and the bureaucratic structures thereof are a hindrance. *Ethical clearance plays a fundamental role in the outcome of a project, as without ethical clearance a project cannot commence. *The objectives of a project play a critical role when applying for funding. This can change the focus of a project. *Expenses differ from country to country and funders need to take this into account when giving funding to recipient countries. *Project Managers and community involvement plays a critical role in ensuring sustainability of projects. THE SUSTAINABILITY OF DONOR FUNDED PROJECTS IN THE HEALTH SECTOR *The MDG’s are not on track and aid are focus on singular goals instead of multiple goals, to ensure an overall improved result. There is a major gap between needed funds and given funds. A single injection of funds will not be the solution to our health problem; different sectors need to collaborate together as we are facing a multi-dimensional problem. Trade and reform must also form part of this aid, ensuring a sustainable progression in the life’s of people. Donor funded projects may have a sustainable future, when taking in account the abovementioned findings. With the world trend in reporting changing rapidly, cost and management accountants as well as financial accountants and project managers have to equip them to adhere to the new way of reporting, namely integrated and sustainability reporting. South Africa is way behind and needs to catch up fast if they want to stay competitive in the “global donor funding market”. The limitations in this study were that not all expenses were evaluated and only 15 countries were looked at. An indebt look was taken into Africa with the empirical review, while Asia is also combating poor health issues. Some African countries like Sierra Leone and Zimbabwe did not have sufficient data to compare with other countries. From the research conducted, the following topics were identified that require further research: *Why are most projects in Third World countries not sustainable? *What plans are put into action to ensure that the MDG goals are reached? *Investigate what works for First World countries health systems and consider how that can be applied to Third World countries to ensure that they also get the best health care available. *Do donors take into account the different costs of countries when allocating funding to that specific country? *Establishing models to evaluate the sustainability of pilot projects and normal projects. *Establishing a model on how to distribute donor funds across different needs and not only one specific need. / MCom (Management Accountancy), North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2013

Millennium Development Goal 1 (MDG 1) on halving extreme poverty is measured with the international poverty line. The purpose of the study is to evaluate the measurement of MDG 1 by reviewing the robustness of the international poverty line and some of its national sub-reports. There are at least two problems in assessing a reliable poverty line, namely what constitutes extreme poverty and what kind of life situation this refers to. Through a qualitative content analysis, the study shows that the selected national reports lack a reliable reference for human dietary energy requirements pivotal for estimating a fair threshold for food needs. In the case that a reliable source was used, the activity level was prone to a wide range of interpretations and lacked procedural consistency.  The FAO (2011) has presented minimum dietary energy requirements that are below the references used in the national reports, which could shift the poverty line. The study also shows that the concept of “extreme poverty” has been used inconsistently. MDG 1 identifies extreme poverty as the inability to meet basic food- and non-food needs. The international poverty line is based on a myriad of national poverty lines ranging from minimum- to generous needs, where extreme poverty is defined as people barely having enough for the food component alone. These two variables create obstacles in setting a reliable international poverty line. A small shift in the international poverty line changes the poverty rates substantially, making it difficult for poverty programs and MDG 1 in truly identifying the people in most need of help.

This paper aims to describe the dynamics of objective health and welfare in five populations, from the year 2000 to 2009, qua a methodological study. It proposes a three step approach to ensure the validity criteria in the conducted research process: firstly, to identify the relevant variables as predictors of the two phenomena, empiric studies and sociological theories by Esping-Andersen (1999) Nussbaum (1999, 2000, 2011), were consulted. This (with the data availability) frames the study to include five related categories of objective health and welfare indicators, including (1) demographic (e. g. life expectancy (LE), total fertility rate (TFR)), (2) child-welfare (i. e. under-five mortality rate (U5MR), (3) welfare services (immunization coverage and prevalence of tuberculosis (TB)), (4) education, and (5) indicators on health expenditure (HE). The applied theoretical frame–in a combination with the four posed research questions–indicates a need of an overall methodological approach that is primary quantitative. The data analysis follows an observational epidemiological type that is descriptive study, to analyse the indicators in five populations and two control groups. The study obtains descriptive data from three data bases, which are selected upon a qualitative analysis, to account for their validity and reliability. Further data analysis is strengthened qua the inclusion of the two control groups of populations, when appropriate. Since it wasn’t possible to compare data on populations across time, due to different data production methodologies. Main findings indicate that HE, immunization, TFR, male and female LE, U5MR and school enrolment, tend to diverge between and within the five populations, expressed in absolute and relative terms. The comparison of the estimated data for the five populations with the two control groups of populations, shows that most objective health and welfare indicators tend to converge, (within categories 1, 2 and 3, except TFR) when expressed in absolute and relative terms. When estimated data is analysed in the light of two sociological theories, it is evident that the existing gap between male and female LE, U5MR, and HE indicators can improve further. / B