No abstract available. / Dissertation (LLM)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / gm2014 / Centre for Human Rights / unrestricted

Magister Public Health - MPH / The study utilized a qualitative case study design to explore the problem of poor access to ART in Benue State. PLWHAs, policy makers, program managers and health workers were involved in an effort to describe the factors influencing access to ART in the State. Semi structured interviews, exit interviews and focus group discussions were used. To analyse the findings, categorization was done into facilitators and barriers to access, in addition to the ways respondents believe these barriers can be overcome. Other sub-themes were also identified and sorted. Themes were linked to direct quotes from the respondents. Additional literature review was done to review available information on the themes identified. Facilitators of access included free cost and increased number of sites; beneficial effects of ART; disclosure, membership in a support group and having a treatment partner. Barriers included stigma and discrimination; hunger, poverty, transportation and opportunity costs; hospital factors; non-disclosure; inaccurate knowledge and perceptions about HIV and ART; certain religious beliefs and advice; coverage, capping of services and fear of non-availability of ART. In addition to stigma, patients bypass closer ART access points to further away hospitals because of business opportunities; financial assistance; perceived better standard of care and hope that a cure, when found, will be more accessible to patients in bigger hospitals. / South Africa

Magister Public Health - MPH / At the end of 2008, Nigeria had the third largest number of people living with HIV/AIDS(PLWHA) in the world, with an estimated 2.95 million people and an average prevalence rate of 4.6%. According to the 2008 prevalence survey, prevalence rates in Nigeria’s 36 states and capital ranges between 1.0% in Ekiti State, to 10.6% in Benue.In Benue State, as at December 2008, only 12% of those requiring treatment were enrolled in an ART programme and only about half of the 23 Local Government Areas (LGAs) had a health centre providing ART services. There are several possible causes for poor coverage of ART services. This study explores some of the barriers preventing PLWHAs from accessing treatment in Benue State.The study utilized a qualitative case study design to explore the problem of poor access to ART in Benue State. PLWHAs, policy makers, program managers and health workers were involved in an effort to describe the factors influencing access to ART in the State. Semi structured interviews, exit interviews and focus group discussions were used.To analyse the findings, categorization was done into facilitators and barriers to access, in addition to the ways respondents believe these barriers can be overcome. Other sub-themes were also identified and sorted. Themes were linked to direct quotes from the respondents. Additional literature review was done to review available information on the themes identified. Facilitators of access included free cost and increased number of sites; beneficial effects of ART;disclosure, membership in a support group and having a treatment partner. Barriers included stigma and discrimination; hunger, poverty, transportation and opportunity costs; hospital factors; non-disclosure; inaccurate knowledge and perceptions about HIV and ART; certain religious beliefs and advice; coverage, capping of services and fear of non-availability of ART.In addition to stigma, patients bypass closer ART access points to further away hospitals because of business opportunities; financial assistance; perceived better standard of care and hope that a cure, when found, will be more accessible to patients in bigger hospitals.In conclusion, improving health worker attitudes through training; reselection of non-ARV drugs used in HIV management to ensure an uninterrupted supply; highlighting the importance of membership in a support group through patient enlightenment; working with religious leaders to reduce stigma and improve access; income-generating programs for patients; decentralization of ART services and upgrading of primary healthcare centres are important strategies to improve ART access in the state.

This master's thesis deals with the topic of poverty in developing countries of Sub-Saharan Africa. The goal of the thesis is to identify the factors of poverty in this region and suggest possible solutions to the problem. The main causes of deprivation in the countries of Sub-Saharan Africa are deemed to be the governance system, war conflicts, dependence on natural resources and an insufficiently diversified economy. All these factors are applied to the example of Nigeria, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Gabon. In order to make aid from more advanced countries more effective, it is proposed to participate more in the resolution of conflicts as a mediator in the negotiation, rather than trying to reform the developing countries politically.

Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) is a significant source of capital for economic growth in developing countries. The increasing financial links across countries, especially between industrial and developing countries have been associated with the liberalization of international financial markets. Moreover, globalization in production, due to technological innovations in communications and transport coupled with better policies in developing countries, are often considered to be the primary forces that drove globalization and foreign direct investment in the 1990s and recent times. The literature on FDI can be categorised into three main groups: the first group investigates the effect of FDI on macroeconomic indicators, such as economic growth, exchange rate, rate of inflation, balance of payments, and rate of unemployment. The second group examines the impact of FDI on different factors such as technology transfer to recipient countries, management practices by national firms, and labour skill and productivities in hosting countries. The third group focuses on the characteristics of FDI and the driving forces for its inflows and outflows to different countries. This research focuses on the latter strand thereby enabling an investigation of the location characteristics of MNEs location decision in the banking sector. The main aim of this thesis is to examine and analyse FDI location characteristics in the Ghanaian banking sector. This has been achieved by making use of both qualitative and quantitative data series’ to ascertain whether the major location factors are the characteristics/determinants of MNEs location decision in relation to a specific industry (banking) and a specific country (Ghana). Using a multimethod approach, the findings of this thesis reveal that political and legal factors are very significant, followed by macroeconomic policy factors and infrastructure factors. Market factors and labour market factors which have been found in previous studies (Lall 2001; Asiedu; 2003; Dunning 2004; Helpman; 2006 and Felbermayr et al. 2011) to be important determinants of FDI inflows have been found in this thesis to be the least important factors for MNEs’ location decision in relation to FDI inflows to Ghana.

A model of development aid, which has been known for more than 50 years is clearly ineffective in Sub-Saharan Africa. This is because such assistance demonstrably negatively affects local governments and strongly contributes to the proliferation of corruption and deterioration of the elements od democracy. The theory of the vicious circle of poverty as one of the main arguments of the proponents of this aid is refuted in the thesis and replaced by the theory of the vicious circle of political instability, which is associated with that governments and their policies. It is necessary tu support a citizens' initiative, which will seek the establishment of democratic institutions, not governments, which are responsible for poverty of their country. Development aid is not the only thing that harms poor countries. Less visible, but with a strong negative effect there are protectionist measures in the form of non-tariff barriers, the Common Agricultural Policy of the EU and its export subsidies, or debt relief of bad governemtns. The failure of these policies are so fundamental that the best advice would probably be to end the government subsidies for poor countries and a focus on small development projects helping specific people, instead of grand plans and aid volumes sounding into space.

The main goal of master thesis is to proof that investment into renewable energy may have a positive impact on standard of living for local community and the region of Sub-Saharan Africa. The thesis is divided into three main chapters, while the first one is dedicated to detailed analysis of renewable energies, demographic and geographical indicators, the second one is focused on investment and financing of energy projects. The last chapter leads readers through case study of small hydropower plant into findings that are essential in proving the main idea of whole thesis.

The aim of the theses is to identify long-term consequences of the clash of African and European cultures and its current political, economic and social consequences on the contemporary Sub-Saharan Africa. In the methodological part the terms of socio-cultural complex, socio-cultural structure, clash of civilizations and culture gap are explained, followed by the basic characteristics of African culture and a brief outline of the local history with a special emphasis put on the historical influences of Europe. The application part is divided into three sections according to the areas in which the effects of culture gap are analysed - namely political, economic and social spheres. Each area is further divided into four parts that using specific examples describe consequences of the clash of European and African cultures in contemporary Sub-Saharan Africa.

Building relations with China is a topic of broad and current interest, when it comes to establishing and deepening new economic cooperation between Sub-Saharan Africa and other regions. This thesis analyses current economic cooperation between these two regions with the prevailing emphasis on the African partner. The thesis is formally divided into five chapters. The first two chapters focus on selected theoretical and factual starting points related to the main topic of the thesis, which create a foundation stone for the other chapters. In the third chapter of the thesis, selected statistical data about current trade and investment cooperation between both partners are introduced. The main goal of the following fourth chapter is to analyze real impact of mutual cooperation on the selected country of Sub-Saharan region. The last chapter of the thesis analyses a relatively problematic and widely discussed issue: the classification and allocation of financial flows from China in the Sub-Saharan Africa.

This Thesis applies one of the most popular household models to the allocation of resources within poor rural households. Based on Browning and Goertz (2007) seminal Collective Household Model, the first Chapter conducts a literature review and derives conditions for identifying and testing the model. The next Chapter amends this model to evaluate efficiency of the intra-household allocation of male and female labour inputs in the domestic production of multiple crops. Using survey data from Uganda it is found that the division of labour between food and cash crops is made according to comparative advantage, but that Pareto improvements could be achieved by reallocating labour between male- and female-controlled plots. The final Chapter analyses the distribution of private consumption and leisure within rural couples in Tanzania. The findings provide limited support for the Collective Model, but are consistent with non-unitary household behaviour.