Household food insecurity, defined as "the inability to acquire or consume an adequate diet quality or sufficient quantity of food in socially acceptable ways, or the uncertainty that one will be able to do so”, affected almost one in ten Canadian households in 2004. Responses have been dominated by community-based food initiatives with little attention paid to potential policy directions to alleviate this problem. The lack of impetus for policy responses may stem from the paucity of evidence documenting the nutrition implications of household food insecurity. Further, the development of policy interventions is hindered by a lack of understanding of the factors that influence vulnerability to food insecurity. This thesis comprises three studies aimed at providing stimulus and directions for policy responses to household food insecurity in Canada. The first study, an analysis of data from the 2004 Canadian Community Health Survey, documents poorer dietary intakes and heightened risk of nutrient inadequacies among adults and adolescents in food-insecure households, providing evidence of the public health implications and public policy relevance of household food insecurity. The second and third studies are examinations of household-level factors associated with vulnerability to household food insecurity. Analysis of data from the 2001 Survey of Household Spending demonstrates the relevance of housing costs to household food access. Among lower-income households, as the proportion of income allocated to housing costs increased, the adequacy of household food spending declined significantly. Receipt of a housing subsidy was associated with an improvement in food spending but mean food spending adequacy fell below the cost of a basic nutritious diet even among subsidized households. The final study comprises a cross-sectional survey of 464 low-income Toronto families, two-thirds of whom were food insecure over the preceding 12 months. Analysis of predictors of severe food insecurity highlights the centrality of income and housing costs and raises serious questions about current definitions of housing affordability and the adequacy of current housing subsidy levels. This work provides a public health imperative for action and points to the urgent need for social policy reform to ameliorate problems of household food insecurity in Canada.

Achieving gender equity is an international priority. This research, guided by a critical social theory approach, explores and seeks to challenge dominant gender norms amongst young men and women living in the slum of Kibera, Kenya. To achieve this goal, 49 participants, recruited through convenience sampling techniques, engaged in a participatory diagramming technique of data collection and reflexive analysis. Findings from this research suggest that youth participants experienced numerous forms of social discrimination and exclusion that threatened health and development. Socio-economic status appeared to be the primary source of inequities, including gender inequity. Process and outcome changes were noted among participants throughout the course of this research. Participants created plans to minimize the impact of discrimination that was externally imposed on them as individuals, but challenged between members of the group. The findings underscore the significance of addressing the social, cultural, political, and economic context of health. They further suggest that groups and communities have the capacity to create integrated plans that address complex challenges.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the series of events and legislation that has led to the current system of welfare and wealth redistribution in the United State. I begin with a background of the origins of the welfare state in England and the United States, and discuss the social movements which gave rise to the modern welfare state. I discuss how wars, economic theories, and recessions have influenced policy, and how such policy has affected poverty and unemployment rates since the Great Depression. I have found that social welfare spending has steadily increased since the Great Depression, and that the current trend of deficit spending and expansion of the social safety-net is a product of the legislation passed during the Great Depression and the ‘Great Society’ of the 1960s. Although there have been many attempts to secure a minimum standard of living through social welfare spending, the problems of poverty and unemployment persist.

Household food insecurity, defined as "the inability to acquire or consume an adequate diet quality or sufficient quantity of food in socially acceptable ways, or the uncertainty that one will be able to do so”, affected almost one in ten Canadian households in 2004. Responses have been dominated by community-based food initiatives with little attention paid to potential policy directions to alleviate this problem. The lack of impetus for policy responses may stem from the paucity of evidence documenting the nutrition implications of household food insecurity. Further, the development of policy interventions is hindered by a lack of understanding of the factors that influence vulnerability to food insecurity. This thesis comprises three studies aimed at providing stimulus and directions for policy responses to household food insecurity in Canada. The first study, an analysis of data from the 2004 Canadian Community Health Survey, documents poorer dietary intakes and heightened risk of nutrient inadequacies among adults and adolescents in food-insecure households, providing evidence of the public health implications and public policy relevance of household food insecurity. The second and third studies are examinations of household-level factors associated with vulnerability to household food insecurity. Analysis of data from the 2001 Survey of Household Spending demonstrates the relevance of housing costs to household food access. Among lower-income households, as the proportion of income allocated to housing costs increased, the adequacy of household food spending declined significantly. Receipt of a housing subsidy was associated with an improvement in food spending but mean food spending adequacy fell below the cost of a basic nutritious diet even among subsidized households. The final study comprises a cross-sectional survey of 464 low-income Toronto families, two-thirds of whom were food insecure over the preceding 12 months. Analysis of predictors of severe food insecurity highlights the centrality of income and housing costs and raises serious questions about current definitions of housing affordability and the adequacy of current housing subsidy levels. This work provides a public health imperative for action and points to the urgent need for social policy reform to ameliorate problems of household food insecurity in Canada.

La energía es un elemento fundamental para muchos aspectos del desarrollo socioeconómico. Los servicios que la mayoría de las personas en los países industrializados dan garantizados - iluminación adecuada, energía limpia para calefacción y cocina, telecomunicaciones, fuerza motriz y ocio - están fuera del alcance en gran parte de la población mundial. La falta de acceso a servicios energéticos confiables y asequibles representa un claro obstáculo para el desarrollo humano, social, económico y para el logro de los Objetivos de Desarrollo del Milenio. Constituyendo actualmente un hecho inaceptable e insostenible, la pobreza energética representa una cruda realidad que junto a otros problemas globales debe ser tratada de manera urgente. A pesar de los importantes esfuerzos realizados por las instituciones y los gobiernos locales, las entidades públicas y las organizaciones internacionales, la tendencia indica que el número total de pobres en términos de acceso a la energía aumente en las próximas décadas, a menos de que se inicien de forma inmediata acciones adicionales orientadas a evitar ese incremento. En este sentido, la historia ha demostrado que es posible lograr un significativo avance en acceso energetico en un corto espacio de tiempo. Este hecho se ha producido recientemente en varios países asiáticos (por ejemplo, Vietnam), Sudáfrica y Brasil. Sin embargo, a pesar de los avances realizados en los países mencionados, las iniciativas que hoy en día se están desarrollando a nivel global para erradicar la pobreza energética no son suficientes en cuanto a su tamaño y alcance. Las estrategias relacionadas con la promoción del acceso a la energía para el desarrollo socioeconómico deben ir mucho más allá de la iluminación para hogares pobres. Los objetivos de dichas estrategias deberían estar orientados a generar cambios estructurales que originen un desarrollo sostenible. Además, la reciente crisis ha provocado retrocesos en el desarrollo sostenible de los países. La comunidad internacional tiene que adaptarse rápidamente a las nuevas circunstancias y proporcionar asesoramiento y asistencia que sea duradera en el tiempo y adaptable a cada caso, de cara a provocar un ambiente propicio para el desarrollo interno en los países. Hoy en día, no existen barreras técnicas que impidan suministrar servicios modernos de energía de forma segura, fiable y asequible a los miles de millones de pobres que no tienen acceso a la misma. Es nuestro deber contribuir a lograr la aspiración de los países más desfavorecidos para avanzar hacia economías sostenibles, y la energía es fundamental para esta transformación. Afortunadamente, el tema de acceso a la energía está recibiendo una atención cada vez mayor en todas las esferas. Como ejemplo ilustrativo de este hecho, el año 2012 ha sido declarado por la Asamblea General, el principal órgano normativo y representativo de las Naciones Unidas, como el Año Internacional de la Energía Sostenible para Todos. Es fundamental aprovechar este impulso, ya que la energía es necesaria para enfrentar muchos de los desafíos clave actuales. Así, abordar la pobreza energética de manera integral tendría enormes beneficios en diversas áreas relacionadas con el desarrollo de los países (por ejemplo, salud, educación, igualdad de género). Los capítulos de esta tesis persiguen conformar un conjunto coherente de piezas individuales de análisis en torno a un tema central: el nexo entre energía y el desarrollo socio-económico. Los diferentes capítulos están basados en artículos independientes y ofrecen perspectivas contrastadas y a la vez complementarias en relación al tema en cuestión. En definitiva, se trata de un ejercicio de investigación aplicada así como de desarrollo metodológico y el conjunto deriva en una evaluación integrada de las implicaciones de la energía para el desarrollo sostenible. La tesis está organizada de forma que se presente como una narrativa coherente y estructurada. En términos generales de su estructura, los primeros capítulos describen el problema de la pobreza energética, como la falta de acceso a servicios energéticos modernos. Estos capítulos ofrecen una idea de la magnitud del desafío que nos ocupa y presentan una evaluación de los escenarios posibles para lograr el acceso universal a la energía. En los capítulos siguientes, se presenta la escala de la inversión necesaria para abordar la cuestión así como intervenciones concretas que permitirían superar algunas de las cuestiones que se discuten. La Energía y los Objetivos de Desarrollo del Milenio Aunque intuitiva, la relación entre energía y desarrollo sostenible es difícil de determinar cuantitativamente y no ha sido explorada ni analizada en detalle en la literatura científica. La correlación entre el acceso a los servicios de energía y el desarrollo socioeconómico se refleja a menudo, por ejemplo, mediante el uso de índices compuestos como el Índice de Desarrollo Humano (HDI), o a partir de un análisis centrado únicamente en las repercusiones económicas. Este trabajo presenta una articulación estadística que analiza la relación entre la energía y varios elementos clave del desarrollo socioeconómico, utilizando los Objetivos de Desarrollo del Milenio como marco de referencia. Los resultados confirman la influencia potencialmente positiva que el acceso a los servicios de energía genera. La evaluación desarrollada en el trabajo proporciona una perspectiva basada en una serie de supuestos que a menudo se emplean alrededor de la correlación entre energía y desarrollo, y examina reivindicaciones de sus beneficios universalmente positivos a las prioridades específicas de desarrollo socioeconómico. Entre las conclusiones, se destaca que los beneficios para el desarrollo sostenible del acceso a los servicios de energía varían considerablemente. Medición de la pobreza energética Cualquier política que pretenda ser efectiva para expandir de forma considerable el acceso a energía moderna ha de estar fundamentada en una sólida base documental. Por lo tanto los análisis cuantitativos que se pueden utilizar con fines comparativos y de seguimiento de los avances hacia los objetivos planteados, representan una herramienta de apoyo esencial. Este trabajo revisa la literatura relevante en la materia, y analiza la idoneidad y la aplicabilidad de los instrumentos existentes para medir la pobreza energética. Basándose en esos instrumentos y en sus resultados, se propone un nuevo índice compuesto para medir la pobreza energética. Tanto la metodología como los resultados iniciales obtenidos de la aplicación del índice son presentados para varios países africanos. Mientras que la mayoría de los indicadores e índices compuestos existentes se centran en la evaluación del acceso a la energía o en el grado de desarrollo relacionado con la energía, el nuevo índice desarrollado - el Índice de Pobreza Multidimensional de la Energía (MEPI) - se centra en la privación del acceso a servicios energéticos modernos. Este índice, refleja la incidencia e intensidad de la pobreza energética y proporciona una nueva herramienta para la elaboración de políticas. Escenarios de acceso a la energía hasta el año 2030 para el África subsahariana Con el fin de alcanzar una meta de acceso universal a servicios modernos de energía para el año 2030, se han considerado varias opciones de desarrollo de sector eléctrico así como el hecho de informar consecuentemente a los políticos e inversionistas, de cara a orientar de forma adecuada el diseño del sistema. Con este fin, y basándose en las herramientas y análisis existentes, se presentan varios escenarios de forma transparente y para toda la economía del sector energético de África subsahariana hasta el año 2030. Estos escenarios se han elaborado teniendo en cuenta el contexto de las tendencias históricas y las diversas interpretaciones sobre el concepto de acceso universal a la energía. Los mismos, están diseñados para proporcionar una indicación de la escala general en relación al esfuerzo requerido por la comunidad internacional. Actualmente, la mayoría de las proyecciones con métodos tradicionales de predicción a largo plazo en materia de planificación energética muestran un aumento de aproximadamente tres veces la capacidad de generación instalada para el año 2030, pero probablemente se requiera que ese aumento sea de más de diez veces, si se pretende proporcionar un acceso completo a nivel global - incluso a niveles relativamente modestos de consumo de electricidad. Esto equivale a aproximadamente un 13% la tasa media de crecimiento anual, en comparación con un histórico (en las últimas dos décadas) de 1,7%. Escala de la inversión para el acceso a la energía universal Para ayudar a proporcionar una mayor claridad y apoyo a la toma de decisiones políticas, así como en el diseño de propuestas financieras, en este trabajo es considerado y analizado el nivel global de gasto requerido para satisfacer el acceso universal a servicios de energía modernos. Este trabajo revisa la literatura existente a nivel mundial, regional, nacional y de proyecto, y a su vez se realiza un desglose de las estimaciones de costos necesarios, a fin de proporcionar una mayor transparencia a través del desarrollo de indicadores comparables. Con la nueva metodología desarrollada, calculamos tres escenarios de costos nuevos que intentan abordar varias deficiencias analíticas existentes. Como conclusión, el costo total de proporcionar (de forma aproximada) el acceso universal se espera que probablemente sea considerablemente más alto que las estimaciones publicadas, que a menudo se centran principalmente en los costos de capital. Si bien se reconoce la naturaleza aproximada de los análisis, el costo anual del acceso universal a la electricidad y energía limpia para la cocinar se calcula que va desde USD 14 a 136 mil millones (de USD 12 a 134 mil millones para electrificación y de USD 1,4 a 2,2 mil millones para energía limpia para la cocinar). Actuales flujos financieros relacionados con el acceso a la energía De cara a contribuir al diseño de políticas apropiadas y eficaces para reducir la pobreza energética, este análisis presenta una evaluación de los flujos macro financieros actuales en el sector eléctrico y de distribución de gas en los países en desarrollo. Se basa en la metodología más extendida actualmente para cuantificar los flujos de inversión en el área de cambio climático. El enfoque se centra en las variables de formación bruta de capital fijo nacional, la ayuda al desarrollo procedente del extranjero y la inversión extranjera directa. Estas cifras proporcionan a los responsables políticos una idea de la escala de inversión necesaria, aunque esto representan sólo una pequeña parte de la información necesaria para diseñar los instrumentos financieros requeridos para lograr el acceso universal a la energía. Igualmente, estas cifras tienden a ocultar muchas variaciones entre sectores y países, así como las tendencias y otras fluctuaciones en el tiempo. En cualquier caso, se puede concluir que la corriente de inversión destinada a los países más pobres se queda muy corta (por lo menos cinco veces) si se pretende proporcionar un nivel básico de acceso a servicios modernos de energía limpia a los ‘pobres energéticos’. Mecanismo de Desarrollo Limpio y el Desarrollo Sostenible El Mecanismo de Desarrollo Limpio (MDL) tiene un doble objetivo: compensar las emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero y contribuir al desarrollo sostenible en el país anfitrión, aunque la contribución a este último objetivo parece marginal en la mayoría de las actividades del MDL. Además, las actividades del MDL están distribuidas de forma desigual entre los países en desarrollo. En respuesta a estas inquietudes, se han puesto en marcha varias iniciativas cuyo objetivo es la promoción de proyectos MDL que generen amplios dividendos orientados al desarrollo local sostenible, como el Gold Standard y el Community Development Carbon Fund (CDCF). La certificación Gold Standard recompensa las mejores prácticas de proyectos MDL, mientras que el CDCF se centra en la promoción de las actividades del MDL en comunidades desfavorecidas. A partir de un método de criterios múltiples, este trabajo analiza, la contribución potencial al desarrollo local sostenible de los proyectos del MDL, comparando los proyectos que tienen atributos particulares con los proyectos ordinarios. Los resultados obtenidos sugieren que generalmente aunque no siempre, los proyectos MDL con certificación, tienden a superar ligeramente a los proyectos similares sin certificación en términos de beneficios a nivel local. / Energy is central to many aspects of socio-economic emancipation. The services that most people in industrialised countries take from granted – adequate lighting, low-polluting heating and cooking energy, telecommunication and entertainment, motive power – are out of reach to large parts of the world’s population. A lack of access to affordable and reliable energy services represents a key obstacle to human, social, and economic development and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. As unacceptable and unsustainable as it is, widespread energy poverty represents a stark reality which must be dealt alongside other pressing global issues. Despite the significant efforts by local institutions and governments, utilities and international organisations, the absolute number of energy poor is expected to rise in coming decades in the absence of additional dedicated action. History has shown, however, that significant progress can be achieved with regard to improving energy access in a short timeframe. Remarkable improvements occurred rapidly in several Asian countries (e.g. Vietnam), South Africa and Brazil in the recent past. However, current initiatives to eradicate energy poverty are insufficient in scale and scope, and attempting to address the issue in the same incremental fashion as in the past is clearly inappropriate. Energy for development strategies must go well beyond merely providing light to poor households. They should aim at transformative changes that bring about sustainable development. The recent succession of crises has set back some development progress. The international community needs to adjust swiftly to the new circumstances and provide advice and assistance that is resilient and long-lasting, and creates an environment that is conducive to enhancing endogenous development. Today, there is no technical barrier to providing the billions of energy poor with modern, safe, reliable and affordable energy services. It is our duty to deal with the aspiration of countries to move towards modern economies, and energy is paramount to such transformation. Fortunately, the issue of energy access is receiving greater and greater attention. As an illustrative example, 2012 has been declared by the General Assembly, the main deliberative, policymaking and representative organ of the United Nations, as the International Year of Sustainable Energy for All. It is crucial to capitalise on this momentum, as energy is central to facing many of today's key development challenges. Addressing the issue of energy poverty in a comprehensive manner would have enormous multiple benefits (e.g. health, education, gender equality). The various chapters of this thesis form a coherent ensemble of individual pieces of analysis around a core topic, namely the nexus between energy and socio-economic development. The different chapters, which are based on stand-alone articles, provide contrasting and complementary perspectives around the issue at hand. It consists of applied research as well as methodological development, and forms altogether an integrated assessment of energy for sustainable development. The thesis is organised in such a way so as to present a consistent and structured narrative. In terms of broad structure, the first chapters gauge the issue of energy poverty, or the lack of access to modern energy services. They offer a sense of the magnitude of the challenge at hand, as well as present an assessment of scenarios towards universal energy access. This is followed by insights on the scale of investment required to address the issue. Finally, concrete interventions to overcome some of the issues are discussed. Energy and the Millennium Development Goals While intuitive, the relationship between energy and development is difficult to quantitatively ascertain and has not been analytically explored in detail in the scientific literature. The correlation between access to energy services and development is, however, often addressed in aggregate in the literature, for example by using composite indexes such as the Human Development Index (HDI), or by focusing strictly on economic impacts. This analysis presents a statistical articulation of the link between energy and various proxies of development, using the Millennium Development Goals as a framework. The outcomes confirm the potentially positive influence of access to energy services on development. The assessment provides a perspective on a number of often employed assumptions about the correlation between energy and development, and challenges claims of its universally positive benefits to specific development priorities. It is found that the benefits to development of access to energy services vary considerably. Measuring Energy Poverty Effective policies to dramatically expand modern energy access need to be grounded in a robust information-base. Metrics that can be used for comparative purposes and to track progress towards targets therefore represent an essential support tool. This analysis reviews the relevant literature, and discusses the adequacy and applicability of existing instruments to measure energy poverty. Drawing on those insights, it proposes a new composite index to measure energy poverty. Both the associated methodology and initial results for several African countries are discussed. Whereas most existing indicators and composite indices focus on assessing the access to energy, or the degree of development related to energy, the new index developed – the Multidimensional Energy Poverty Index (MEPI) – focuses on the deprivation of access to modern energy services. It captures both the incidence and intensity of energy poverty, and provides a new tool to support policy-making. Energy Access Scenarios to 2030 for sub-Saharan Africa In order to reach a goal of universal access to modern energy services by 2030, consideration of various electricity sector pathways is required to help inform policy-makers and investors, and help guide power system design. To that end, and building on existing tools and analysis, several ‘high-level’, transparent, and economy-wide scenarios for the sub-Saharan African power sector to 2030 are presented. These simple scenarios are constructed against the backdrop of historical trends and various interpretations of universal access. They are designed to provide the international community with an indication of the overall scale of the effort required. Most existing projections, using typical long-term forecasting methods for power planning, show roughly a threefold increase in installed generation capacity occurring by 2030, but more than a tenfold increase would likely be required to provide for full access – even at relatively modest levels of electricity consumption. This equates to approximately a 13% average annual growth rate, compared to a historical one (in the last two decades) of 1.7%. Scale of Investment for Universal Energy Access To help provide clarity, support political decision making, and inform the design of financial responses, the overall scale of spending required to meet universal access to modern energy services is considered. The existing literature at the global, regional, national, and project levels and disaggregate cost estimates is reviewed in order to provide increased transparency through comparable metrics. A new methodology is developed to calculate three new cost scenarios that attempt to address several existing analytical gaps. As a conclusion, the total cost of providing (near) universal access is expected to be likely considerably higher than published estimates which often focus primarily on capital costs. While recognizing the coarse nature of the analysis, the annual cost of universal access to electricity and clean cooking is estimated at ranging from USD 14 to 136 billion (USD 12 - 134 billion for electrification and USD 1.4 to 2.2 billion for clean cooking) depending on the various scenarios and assumptions. Current Financial Flows related to Energy Access To help inform the design of appropriate and effective policies to reduce energy poverty, this analysis presents an assessment of the current macro financial flows in the electricity and gas distribution sectors in developing countries. It builds on the methodology used to quantify the flows of investment in the climate change area. The approach relies on national gross fixed capital formation, overseas development assistance, and foreign direct investment. These high-level and aggregated investment figures provide a sense of the scale to policy-makers, but are only a small part of the information required to design financial vehicles. In addition, these figures tend to mask numerous variations between sectors and countries, as well as trends and other temporal fluctuations. Nonetheless, for the poorest countries, one can conclude that the current flows are considerably short (at least five times) of what will be required to provide a basic level of access to clean, modern energy services to the ‘energy poor’. Clean Development Mechanism and Sustainable Development The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) has a twofold objective, to offset greenhouse gas emissions and to contribute to sustainable development in the host country. The contribution to the latter objective seems marginal in most CDM activities. Also, CDM activities are unevenly spread among developing countries. In response to these concerns, initiatives with the objective of promoting CDM projects with broad local sustainable development dividends have been launched, such as the Gold Standard and the Community Development Carbon Fund. The Gold Standard label rewards best-practice CDM projects while the Community Development Carbon Fund focuses on promoting CDM activities in underprivileged communities. Using a multi-criteria method, the potential contribution to local sustainable development of those CDM projects with particular attributes is compared with ordinary ones. This evaluation suggests that labelled CDM activities tend to slightly outperform comparable projects, although not unequivocally.

The purpose of this study is to use a qualitative approach to highlight the western involvement in Thai orphanages and, on basis of Western moral development workers and volunteers, enlighten how Western colonial heritage can be recreated in the humanitarian economic aid. The study is based on the recent tsunami disaster in 2004 which led to a huge voluntary effort by Western volunteers and organizations who wanted to rebuild the country. Now, seven years after the disaster, the country has recovered well and thanks to a strong turism, and industrial growth, the country has now reached the position of a middle income country with regional power. The study presents a selection of previous ressearch in the area from different critical perspectives. It is a field study based on qualitative interviews with six informants that highlights the individual engagment in humanitarian assistance. Theories based on Post-colonialism and globalization have been used in order to analyze and reach the result of this study.

One in seven Canadian women lives in poverty. There is a considerable body of research on the factors that cause women’s poverty in Canada and on how poverty affects women’s lives. There are also a number of programs and organizations that help women living in poverty. However, there is a lack of research that examines the meanings and experiences women have with these programs and the role these programs may play in their lives. This study has attempted to fill this gap by examining an innovative training and employment program for women living in poverty. A qualitative approach was taken, which included in-depth, semi-structured interviews with eight women who had recently completed the program, as well as an informal interview with the program director. The interviews explored the women’s experiences with the program, the meanings they associated with the program, and the ways in which participation in the program had influenced their lives. A grounded theory approach was used to analyze the interview data, and socialist feminist theory provided a lens to guide the study as a whole. The analysis led to the development of a number of themes and sub-themes. Safety, stability and connections with others were found to be particularly meaningful and important components of the program. These features enabled the participants to discover a new sense of self through the development of skills, confidence and empowerment. These findings suggest the importance of providing a holistic program, and one that addresses the broad range of challenges and concerns that affect the lives of women in poverty. Programs that focus narrowly on employment and job training may be insufficient. The implications of this research are discussed in terms of the diverse needs of women living in poverty and the range of barriers that they face. Community programs such as the one studied can help women make significant gains in their lives, which can, in turn, contribute to overcoming poverty and achieving economic independence.

Achieving gender equity is an international priority. This research, guided by a critical social theory approach, explores and seeks to challenge dominant gender norms amongst young men and women living in the slum of Kibera, Kenya. To achieve this goal, 49 participants, recruited through convenience sampling techniques, engaged in a participatory diagramming technique of data collection and reflexive analysis. Findings from this research suggest that youth participants experienced numerous forms of social discrimination and exclusion that threatened health and development. Socio-economic status appeared to be the primary source of inequities, including gender inequity. Process and outcome changes were noted among participants throughout the course of this research. Participants created plans to minimize the impact of discrimination that was externally imposed on them as individuals, but challenged between members of the group. The findings underscore the significance of addressing the social, cultural, political, and economic context of health. They further suggest that groups and communities have the capacity to create integrated plans that address complex challenges.

The study aimed at getting a grass root opinion on poverty and why Ghana is still poor after 50 years of independence in spite of her richness in natural resources, second largest producer of cocoa in the word and appreciable stable political environment. The opinions of the ordinary people in the Bia district and their observed living conditions was analysed in line with theoretical basis of the study and previous studies to justify the stance that poverty should be considered as an abuse of human rights. It was concluded based on position of informants and previous data available that though many factors have been raised by previous scholars as the cause of poverty, the actions and inactions of both internal and external power-holders is the main source of poverty in Ghana. It was proposed that for poverty to be reduced in a sustainable way there should be strong civil society groups and active citizens through civic education to hold power-holders accountable. Until the actions and inactions of power-holders which have subjected many Ghanaians into intergenerational poverty are seen as human rights abuse, the rights of many Ghanaians would be constantly abused. This will eventually defeat the promotion of human rights culture in Ghana.

No description available.