Health is one of the most important components of human capital. It can affect production level of a country through various channels. In this study the causal relationship of health and real GDP per capita income in 5 low income countries of Africa south of the Sahara is analyzed using granger causality test. Unbalanced panel data set during the year 1970 to 2009 is used. Life expectancy and mortality rate are used as a proxy for health. The result revealed that mortality rate has a significant and negative impact on real per capita income. The Granger causality test showed, real GDP per capita and mortality rate have causal or bidirectional relationship. On the other hand, real GDP per capita does not granger cause life expectancy, but life expectancy granger cause real GDP per capita. The comparative descriptive analysis of the health indicators in different income groups of the world also showed that, higher income countries are better off in their health status.

In the wake of HIV and AIDS in Africa, culture has been identified as central to HIV prevention, care, and support. Therefore, scholars have argued that HIV intervention in communities should focus on cultural practices rather than just individual behaviour. Researchers have also taken note of the interconnectedness between religion and culture in Africa. Therefore the African theologian, Mercy Oduyoye, proposed the term ‘religioculture.’ In the light of this connection, it has become crucial to examine not just cultural practices but the response of religion to cultural practices in the context of HIV. Given that Zambia is a Christian country, this qualitative empirical study sought to examine the response of a church, the United Church of Zambia (UCZ), to traditional marriage practices that I consider to be harmful in the context of HIV. Traditional marriage practices such as child marriage and widowhood inheritance were analysed through gendered theological perspectives. The study was located in the United Church of Zambia in the towns of Mufulira and Kitwe in the Copperbelt Province of Zambia. The reason for choosing the practices of widowhood inheritance and child marriage as the areas of focus was twofold: first, throughout history and in the current context, the church and society’s perception of these two practices has been ambiguous. Depending on the time and event in history, the practices were seen as either a norm or a problem. In this study, I have questioned the extent to which this historical ambiguity towards these traditional marriage practices has contributed to the way in which the church today is responding to these culture practices. The second reason for choosing these two marriage practices was to highlight how the institution of marriage has been challenged in the context of HIV and AIDS. When marriage ceases to be a safe practice for couples, how should the church respond to the harmful cultural practices associated with marriage, especially in the context of HIV and AIDS? The question that this study posed, therefore, was: What role has the United Church of Zambia played in either promoting or discouraging harmful marriage practices in the context of HIV and AIDS? The methodology used to answer this question included: semi- structured interviews, openended in-depth interviews, Contextual Bible Study, and focus group discussions as forms of data collection from: church leaders, lay people, widows, girls involved in child marriage, and members of the Marriage Guidance Committee. Thereafter, the data was thematically ii analysed using the theory of African feminist cultural hermeneutics. The study is divided into eight chapters, each chapter answers one of the objectives of the study. Through the use of the tools for data collection stated above, the study drew a number of conclusions. Firstly, it was established that indeed child marriage and widowhood inheritance are contributing factors to the spread of HIV. Secondly, the Marriage Guidance Programme of the United Church of Zambia was identified as a point of entry in re-examining the theology of marriage that is contextual and holistic in the United Church of Zambia. Thirdly, the church’s ambivalence with regard to harmful marriage practices in the context of HIV and AIDS was attributed to people’s belief systems about their cultures which are embedded in their worldviews. Overall, the study has shown that there is a need for an analysis of culture within the church which can enable it to respond to harmful cultural practices in the context of HIV. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2011.

Thesis (Dr.P.H.)--University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, School of Public Health, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 114-126).

This dissertation focuses on the sub-national impact of foreign aid on civil conflicts by asking the question: How does foreign aid committed to contested areas affect the intensity of violence in those areas? The main theoretical contribution is to focus on how aid influences warring parties’ decisions to engage in contests over territorial control and how that in turn influences violence intensity. The study introduces two concepts: funding concentration and barriers to exploiting aid. A contested area has greater concentration of funding if warring parties expect a high value of aid to be distributed to only a few locations. Funding is instead diffused if the parties expect aid to be spread over many locations. A low barrier to exploiting aid is present if it is of a type that both state and non-state actors could potentially misuse. There is a high barrier if territorial control is required in order to exploit funding channels. The theory introduces three testable implications: First, greater funding concentration encourages conventional contests over territorial control, which increases military fatalities. The second proposal is that if there is a low barrier to exploiting aid (e.g. humanitarian and food aid) then there will be increased competition between warring parties and civilians, and hence more civilian fatalities. Third, high barrier funding (e.g. education aid) will motivate contests over territorial control and increase military fatalities. This dissertation uses geo-coded aid commitments data and introduces data of warring parties’ battleground control in sub-Saharan Africa, 1989–2008. The research design relies on propensity score matching where pairs of observations are matched based on a range of covariates. The results concerning barriers to exploitation are partially supported. High barrier aid increases military fatalities whereas low barrier aid has little impact on violence. Greater funding concentration increases military fatalities substantially compared to if there is low or no funding concentration. In line with theory, greater funding concentration does not increase civilian fatalities.