To provide empirical basis for mental health interventions in the deprived sub-Saharan African region, this study explored the perspectives of the Igbo people of south-eastern Nigeria on four dimensions of mental illness: causal beliefs, attitudes towards sufferers, preferred treatment pathways and perceived barriers to accessing formal psychiatric care. Mixed sampling methods were used to select participants who completed quantitative questionnaires. The number of participants varied between 200 and 706 in the exploratory studies but remained constant (n = 1127) in the confirmatory studies. The study found mixed endorsements of the supernatural, biological and psychosocial causal explanations with supernatural causations being significantly more endorsed. The study also found mixed treatment preferences with formal psychiatric care being significantly more preferred to the spiritual pathway which was in turn significantly more preferred to the traditional pathway. Significant negative attitudes and desire for social distance from persons with mental illness were observed across groups. Barriers to accessing mental healthcare were also significantly perceived with ideological barriers being significantly more perceived than instrumental barriers. Systematic associations were found between causal beliefs and treatment preferences: supernatural causal belief predicted preference for the spiritual and traditional treatment pathways while psychosocial causal belief predicted preference for both formal psychiatric care and the traditional treatment pathway. Mixed causal attributions and treatment preferences reflect holistic view of health and healing and calls for the evolution of complementary model of care that would incorporate people's spiritual and cultural needs. The prospect is supported in psychosocial causal beliefs being associated with preference for the traditional treatment pathway. Significant negative attitude is a contradiction in the traditionally communitarian and predominantly Christian culture, and is deserving of intervention in the context where the solidarity of the social network should compensate for the inadequate mental healthcare. Significantly more ideological than instrumental barriers have crucial policy implication; improved conceptualizations of mental illness should precede improvement of facilities and services or else these could be underused. Demographic correlates of causal beliefs, negative attitudes, pathway preferences and barriers to accessing formal mental healthcare care were determined for targeted interventions.

En Afrique, les métropoles fleurissent sur le continent, avec leur florilège d’espérance et de défis. Le rural est en crise et les taux de croissance urbaine explosent, posant l’inévitable problème de l’alimentation des urbains. L’agriculture urbaine et périurbaine est très présente car elle répond à nombre d’enjeux des villes africaines : elle pourvoit des revenus à despopulations formées aux pratiques agricoles, notamment les migrants; elle fournit des produits alimentaires périssables adaptées aux urbains, en autre des légumes et de la viande ; et elle permet l’aménagement de zones inconstructibles ou périurbaines alors que l’intervention publique est insuffisante dans ce domaine. L’agriculture urbaine et périurbaine des villes du Sud est multifonctionnelle. Cependant elle est peu reconnue par les institutions et rarement incluse dans les plans de développement urbains, ce qui grève son avenir et sa durabilité. La particularité de cette agriculture est d’être en concurrence avec les activités urbaines pour les ressources, notamment pour le foncier. Dans deux villes, Yaoundé et Accra, l’activité agricole trouve sa place dans des espaces spécifiques, des bas-fonds, des open space, des terrains inconstructibles, des jardins et des cours, des parcelles qui attendent d’être construites, des villages périurbains menacés, etc. Elle se déploie sur des espaces intermédiaires, entre le rural et l’urbain, entre le droit coutumier et le droit légal, entre la tradition et la modernité. En fonction de l’âge, du genre et de la position dans la hiérarchie coutumière etfamiliale, les droits sont différents, que ce soit pour cultiver, pour prêter ou louer ou pour vendre, sans oublier les procédures légales qui octroient un titre foncier. Les stratégies de production dépendent grandement de l’accès au foncier et contrairement à ce qui se passe généralement en milieu rural, ce ne sont pas forcément ceux qui ont le plus de sécuritéfoncière qui sont le plus innovants. / In sub-saharan Africa, metropolises propser bringing chanllenges and hope. The rural regions are in crisis and the rates of urban growth explode, raising the inevitable problem of the food supply of the urban population. The urban and periurban agriculture is very present because she answers number of issues of the African cities: it provides income to agricultural populations, in particular the migrants; it supplies perishable foodstuffs adapted to the urban market, like vegetables and meat; and it allows the development of unbuildable or periurban zones while the public intervention is insufficient inthis domain. The urban and periurban agriculture in the South is multifunctional. However it is little recognized by institutions and rarely included in the urban plans of development, what burdens its future and its durability. The peculiarity of this agriculture is to be in competition with the urban activities for the resources, in particular for the land. In two cities, Yaounde and Accra, the agricultural activity tooks place in specific spaces, shoals, open space, unbuildable grounds, gardens andbackyards, plots of land which wait to be built, threatened periurban villages, etc. It deploys on intermediate spaces, between the rural and the urban, between the common law and the legal right, between the tradition and the modernity.According to the age, to the genre and to the position in the customary and family hierarchy, the rights are different, whether it is to cultivate, to give or rent or to sell, without forgetting the legal procedures which grant a land title. The strategies of production depend largely on the access to the land and contrary to what takes place generally in rural areas, it are not necessarily the ones which have most land security which are the most innovative.

Cet ouvrage est composé de trois chapitres, dont deux traitent des politiques d’éducation et d’éducation publique liées à la criminalité, l’un porte sur la relation entre l’éducation et l’espacement des naissances et la fécondité. Dans le premier chapitre, j’étudie les mécanismes en jeu entre l’éducation et la criminalité lorsque le gouvernement met en place une politique visant à accroître l’accès à l’éducation, pour vérifier si, grâce à une conception de la politique optimale, nous pouvons réduire la criminalité malgré la croissance de la richesse globale produite par la croissance du capital. Dans le deuxième chapitre, j’analyse la relation dynamique entre l’accès à l’éducation, la qualité de l’éducation et la prévention de la criminalité, pour caractériser les conditions dans lesquelles la criminalité diminue et le rôle implicite de l’éducation. Le troisième chapitre est une étude empirique de la relation entre éducation et fécondité en Afrique subsaharienne, entre économie et démographie. Même si le sujet et les méthodes des deux premiers articles diffèrent beaucoup du troisième, ils sont tous liés par l’intérêt de mieux comprendre le rôle de l’éducation dans la croissance économique.Tant la criminalité et la violence que les taux élevés de fécondité et de croissance démographique, pour diverses raisons et grâce à des dynamiques particulières, compromettent les investissements économiques et le potentiel de croissance. L’objectif de cette thèse est donc de contribuer à la compréhension de ces raisons et de ces dynamiques, avec une attention particulière pour les pays en développement où l’accès libre à l’éducation est un acquis récent et où il y a encore du travail à faire pour améliorer la qualité du système éducatif et de l’enseignement. / This work is composed by three chapters, two of them deal with education and public education policies related to crime, one focuses on the relationship between education and birth spacing and fertility. In the first chapter I study the mechanisms at play between education and crime when the government introduces a policy to increase the access to education and whether choosing the right policy design we are able to reduce crime despite the raise in the aggregate wealth generated by human capital growth. In the second chapter I analyse the dynamic relation between education access, education quality and crime deterrence technology, to characterize the conditions under which crime drops and the implied role of education. The third chapter is an empirical study of the relationship between education and fertility in Sub-Saharan Africa, between economics and demography. Even if the topic and the methods of the first two papers differ a lot from the third one, they are all related by the interest to understand better the role of education in economic growth. Both crime and violence and high fertility rates and population growth, for diverse reasons and through peculiar dynamics, undermine economic investment and growth potential. The goal of this thesis is therefore to give a contribution to understand these reasons and these dynamics, with special attention to developing countries where free access to education is a recent achievement and where there is still work to do to improve the quality of the education system and teaching.

The extant entrepreneurship literature is replete with competing narratives about the concept of informal sector (IS). Also, IS’ potential as a source of income and the behavioural tendencies of operators in the sector remain highly contested but under-researched. In particular, not much is known about the incentives and the motivations for engaging in informal economic activity from the perspective of Sub-Saharan African (SSA) context where a significant proportion of all economic activities are informal. Thus, the lack of conceptual clarity and consensus about the underlying factors driving individuals into informal economic activity constitutes a major knowledge gap. To fill this gap, this study seeks to clarify the domain of IS from a SSA viewpoint, and through this paves the way for a more holistic understanding of the behavioural tendencies and motivations of IS operators in SSA. Specifically relying on the institutional, social exclusion, and personality trait theoretical frameworks, the study demonstrates how a combination of separate yet related phenomena of personality traits, institutional factors, and more importantly, situational factors that manifest as perceptions of social exclusion serve as the incentives and the motivations to engage in informal economic activity in SSA. To achieve its goal, qualitative primary data obtained through thirty-eight semi-structured interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed using Nvivo. Firstly, the study found that institutional ambiguity, institutional delinquency, institutional passivity, and institutional incongruence are sources of voids in Nigeria's institutional framework that influence an individual to enter the IS. Secondly, social exclusion regarding lack of access to requirements such as finance and formal education to start and sustainably operate a business influences people to enter into the IS. Lastly, the findings indicate that personality traits’ influence regarding the decision to engage in informal economic activities is dependent on individual circumstances. These are valuable contributions to the stock of knowledge about the IS. Particularly, the identification and categorisation of four specific institutional voids and partitioning of the sources of exclusion; the finding that in adverse economic circumstances personality traits could influence potential opportunity-entrepreneurs to start-up in the IS; the finding about the role of trade associations; and the new understanding about the collaborative dimension of corruption in the context of IS practice, represent a significant contribution of this study. These contributions are valuable not just in terms of creating new windows of research opportunities, but also for evidence-based policy relating to the IS that is appropriately targeted at relevant groups. This is in addition to facilitating collaborations for business support, enlightenment, improved business practice, and inclusive growth.

In the first part of the work discribes the poverty as the main development problem of the region sub-saharan Africa and other problems connected with poverty. The second part of the work summarizes the state and diferences of social systems in individual countries of the region. The last part is focusing on the possibilities of improvement social systems to achieve the reduction of development problems.

Urbanisation and the associated nutrition transition have been linked with the recent rise in osteoporotic fragility fracture incidence in many countries. Predictions indicate that hip fracture incidence will increase 6-fold in Africa and Asia by 2050, partially attributed to demographic transition and population ageing. Differences in areal bone mineral density (aBMD) between rural and urban locations indicate that urban regions of high-income countries (HIC) have lower aBMD and a higher incidence of hip fracture. The few studies conducted in low and middle-income countries (LMIC) provide inconsistent results; in contrast to HIC, most have found higher aBMD in urban populations. To investigate the impact of migrating to an urban environment, detailed studies of bone phenotype and factors affecting bone health have been conducted in two groups of pre-menopausal Gambian women: urban migrant (n=58) and rural (n=81). Both groups spent their formative years in the same rural setting of Kiang West, urban women were known to have migrated to coastal districts, concentrated in Brikama and Kanifing, when aged ≥16 years. Bone phenotype (bone mineral content (BMC); bone area (BA); aBMD, and size-adjusted BMC (adjusted for height, weight and BA) of the whole-body, lumbar spine and hip) was measured by dual energy x-ray absorptiometry (DXA), with further characterisation by peripheral quantitative computed tomography (pQCT). Data were also collected on anthropometry, body composition, food and nutrient intakes, physical activity, socio-demographic characteristics, vitamin D status, and 24hr urinary mineral outputs (Na, K, P, and Ca). Mean age and height of rural and urban migrant groups were not significantly different (p > 0.05). Urban migrant women were significantly heavier (p < 0.01). Significant differences in BMC and aBMD were found between groups at all skeletal sites, with urban women having higher BMC and aBMD; BA was not significantly different. The greatest difference in BMC was found at the lumbar spine (8.5% ± SE 3.0, p < 0.01), a meaningful difference, equivalent to 0.76 of rural SD. T- Scores were also calculated using a young adult (white, female) reference population, mean T- scores were -1.03 and -0.22, for rural and urban groups respectively. After adjusting for size, differences in whole-body and hip BMC were mostly attenuated (p > 0.05), but difference in spine BMC remained significant (6.2% ± SE 2.1, p < 0.01). These results indicate that rural-to-urban migration is associated with higher BMC; BA and height were similar, and difference in body weight could not fully account for higher BMC at the lumbar spine. Calcium intakes were low in both groups, urban migrant 294mg/d (IQR: 235 to 385) and rural 305mg/d (IQR: 222 to 420). Urban women had significantly lower intakes of potassium, magnesium and dietary fibre (p < 0.01), related to lower consumption of fruit, green leafy vegetables and groundnuts. 25-hydroxy vitamin D status was good in both groups, urban migrant 64.0 ± 14.2nmol/L and rural 68.3 ± 15.7nmol/L (M ± SD, p > 0.05). Implications for bone health of the nutrition and demographic transition, principally future fracture risk and other non-communicable diseases require further research in LMICs. ORIGINAL CONTRIBUTION TO KNOWLEDGE To my knowledge, this is the first study investigating the impact of rural-to-urban migration on bone health to be conducted in sub Saharan Africa. It is the first study of bone health and determinants of bone health in an urban population in The Gambia.

Rural improved water supply coverage in Uganda has stagnated around 64% for a number of years and at this point more than 10 million rural people do not have access to an improved drinking water source. It has been recognized that progress toward improved water supply coverage and increased service levels may be gained through Government and nongovernmental organization (NGO) support of private investment in household and shared water supplies, commonly known as Self-supply. Self-supply can be promoted by introducing and building local capacity in appropriate and affordable water supply technologies such as hand-dug wells, manually drilled boreholes, low-cost pumps, and rainwater harvesting. Support can also be focused on technical support, marketing, financing, and strategic subsidies that promote and enhance user investment. The Uganda Ministry of Water and Environment has embraced Self-supply as a complementary part of its water supply strategy while government and NGO programs that support Self-supply have emerged. The EMAS Pump is a low-cost handpump appropriate for use in household water systems in the developing world. There are more than 20,000 in use in Bolivia, with many constructed through Self-supply. The EMAS Pump is constructed from simple materials costing about $US 10-30, depending largely on installation depth, and can be fabricated with simple tools in areas with no electricity. The EMAS Pump is used with low-cost groundwater sources such as hand-dug wells and manually drilled boreholes or with underground rainwater storage tanks. It can lift water from 30 m or more below ground and pump water with pressure overland or to an elevated tank. The objectives of this research were to conduct an assessment of the EMAS Pump that considers pumping rates, required energy, and associated costs, to characterize the EMAS Pump for its potential for use in household water systems in Uganda, and to make relevant recommendations. The potential of the EMAS Pump was assessed through testing its use with 2 subject participants (male and female) on wells of 5.1 m, 12.6 m, 17.0 m, 18.4 m, 21.1 m, and 28.3 m static water levels as part of a side-by-side comparative assessment with the Family Model version of the Rope Pump, a more widely known low-cost handpump that has recently been introduced and promoted in Uganda. Shallow and deep versions of each pump were tested on selected wells for 40-liter pumping trials. The status and feasibility of low-cost groundwater development and underground storage tanks were also explored in order to help characterize the potential of the EMAS Pump as an option for low-cost household water systems in Uganda. In general, it was observed that the EMAS Pump performed comparably to the Rope Pump in terms of pumping rates for shallow depths, but the Rope Pump outperformed it on deeper wells. It was determined that the EMAS Pump required more energy for pumping during nearly all trials. A study of relevant supply chains in Uganda concluded that the EMAS pump has a material cost that is less than 50% of the Rope Pump for most applications and 21% of the cost for shallow wells. It was also determined that the EMAS Pump could feasibly be produced nearly anywhere in the country. There are indications that low-cost wells and underground rainwater tanks are applicable in many parts of Uganda and could be paired with an EMAS Pump to achieve significant affordability for Self-supply household water systems. Recommendations are provided in terms of the feasibility of introducing the EMAS Pump as a part of Self-supply strategy in Uganda.

Le discours des experts et des organisations internationales, de même que les initiatives des politiques et mouvements en faveur de l’émancipation et la place des personnes handicapées sont orientés vers la construction d’une école pour tous (Ainscow, 1991 ; Sen, 1992 ; UNESCO, 1990 ; UNESCO, 1994 ; UNESCO, 2000 ; ONU, 2000 ; ONU, 2006). Les politiques éducatives intègrent plus ou moins clairement la prise en compte des besoins éducatifs des enfants en situation de handicap. L’inclusion scolaire implique des modifications et des bouleversements tant dans les pratiques enseignantes que sur le plan de l’organisation scolaire dans son ensemble. Dès lors, il importe de s’intéresser aux perceptions des enseignants envers la politique nationale favorisant l’inclusion à l’école ordinaire des élèves handicapés en France et au Cameroun et de s’interroger sur les facteurs susceptibles d’influencer ou de déterminer, l’efficacité et la pérennité de cette politique qui peut être considérée comme leur étant imposée. Le modèle d’évaluation multidimensionnelle de la qualité des dispositifs scolaires empruntés à Tremblay (2012) et le modèle du comportement planifié d’Ajzen (1991), sont utilisés dans le cadre de cette recherche pour répondre aux deux objectifs principaux qui y sont visés. Un questionnaire à deux volets avec des propositions de réponses a été adressé à des enseignants du primaire. Notre recherche porte sur une population de 133 enseignants dont 65 camerounais et 68 français. Les dimensions étudiées pour le premier volet du questionnaire sont les suivantes : La pertinence des objectifs, les caractéristiques de la population du dispositif, l’adéquation des ressources, la fiabilité des actions, l’efficacité du dispositif et la flexibilité du dispositif. Les croyances normatives, les perceptions des difficultés et les croyances comportementales sont étudiées à travers le deuxième volet. L’analyse de la variance simple (ANOVA) est utilisée pour comparer les moyennes entre les pays et les corrélations étudiées pour évaluer les composantes principales du modèle d’Ajzen. Nos résultats montrent que malgré une grande adhésion à la politique visant l’inclusion des élèves en situation de handicap par les enseignants interrogés dans les deux pays, celle-ci ne semblerait pas être efficace. Pour les enseignants, ceci serait expliqué pour le cas de la France par les objectifs qui ne seraient pas atteints et au Cameroun par les ressources qui seraient insuffisantes. Des points de divergence observés portent sur certains aspects des dimensions étudiées telles que la taille de la classe, l’approche pédagogique, les ressources et les caractéristiques individuelles des élèves. En ce qui concerne notre modèle dérivé de la théorie d'Ajzen, l'analyse des corrélations montre des liaisons linéaires entre trois composantes : les difficultés perçues par les enseignants, leurs croyances normatives et leurs croyances comportementales. Les difficultés perçues se montrent négativement corrélées avec autant les croyances normatives (-.33) que les croyances comportementales (-.65). Il s'avère ainsi, conformément au modèle théorique élaboré, que l'intensité des difficultés ressenties engendre des croyances négatives chez les enseignants. Les croyances normatives (dans les principaux référents de l'Education nationale) sont positivement liées aux croyances comportementales (.50), qu'elles semblent favoriser. Il importe d'indiquer que les trois composantes ne détermineraient pas l'attitude des enseignants envers l'inclusion, puisque les corrélations ne sont pas significatives. Nos résultats suggèrent, au regard des corrélations faibles observées entre l’attitude des enseignants et les autres composantes du modèle, à rechercher d’autres facteurs exogènes au modèle que nous avions étudié, qui expliqueraient l’attitude des enseignants envers la politique de l’inclusion. / The discourse of experts and international organizations, as well as the initiatives of policies and movements in favor of emancipation and the place of people with disabilities, are oriented towards the construction of a school for all (Ainscow, 1991; Sen, 1992; UNESCO, 1990; UNESCO, 1994; UNESCO, 2000; UN, 2000; UN, 2006)). Educational policies integrate, more or less clearly, the educational needs of children with disabilities. Inclusive education implies changes and upheavals in both the teaching practices and the school organization as a whole. It is therefore important to take an interest in teachers' perceptions of the national policy favoring the inclusion of disabled pupils in mainstream schools in France and Cameroon and to consider the factors likely to influence or determine effectiveness and sustainability of this policy which can be considered as being imposed on them. The model of multidimensional evaluation of the quality of the educational devices borrowed from Tremblay (2012) and the model of planned behavior of Ajzen (1991) are used in this research to meet the two main objectives. A two-part questionnaire with proposals for answers was sent to primary school teachers. Our research concerns a population of 133 teachers including 65 Cameroonians and 68 French. The dimensions studied for the first part of the questionnaire are as follows: The relevance of the objectives, the characteristics of the population of the scheme, the adequacy of resources, the reliability of actions, the effectiveness and the flexibility of the system. Normative beliefs, perceptions of difficulties and behavioral beliefs are studied through the second component. Analysis of the simple variance (ANOVA) is used to compare the averages between countries and the correlations studied to evaluate the main components of the Ajzen model. Our results show that despite a strong adherence to the policy for the inclusion of students with disabilities by teachers interviewed in both countries, it would not seem to be effective. This would be explained in the case of France by the objectives which would not be achieved and in Cameroon by the resources which would be insufficient. Points of divergence are observed on certain aspects of the dimensions studied, such as the size of the class, the pedagogical approach, the resources and the individual characteristics of the students. As for our model derived from the Ajzen theory, correlation analysis shows linear links between three components: the perceived difficulties of teachers, their normative beliefs and behavioral beliefs. The perceived difficulties are negatively correlated with both normative beliefs (-.33) and behavioral beliefs (-.65). Thus, according to the theoretical model developed, the intensity of the difficulties experienced creates negative beliefs among teachers. Normative beliefs (in the main references of the National Education) are positively related to behavioral beliefs (.50), which they seem to favor. It is important to note that the three components do not determine teachers' attitude towards inclusion, since the correlations are not significant. Our analysis suggests, considering the weak correlations between the attitude of the teachers and the other components of the model, to look for other factors exogenous to the model we studied, which would explain the attitude of teachers towards the policy of inclusion.

L’hétérogénéité des formes de travail en Afrique subsaharienne conduit à repenser ce que l’on entend ordinairement par « travail » dans la relation entre travail et développement. À la diversité des activités industrieuses répond effectivement une pluralité de cadres normatifs plus ou moins formalisés qu’on ne saurait légitimement passer sous silence. En effet, ces différents systèmes de normes façonnent dans une très large mesure la manière dont se déroule le travail réel. C’est pourquoi nous avons voulu interroger leurs articulations, leurs interférences, voire leurs contradictions que les acteurs doivent surmonter dans l’activité.Pour ce faire, nous avons examiné un projet de transfert de normes organisationnelles au sein du Ministère congolais de l’Environnement, Conservation de la Nature et Tourisme à Kinshasa, en République Démocratique du Congo. Contrairement à l’idée reçue, nous défendons la thèse que le rapport au travail dans les pays d’Afrique subsaharienne n’est pas marqué de spécificités culturelles et d’exotisme ; il est le résultat d’une expérience anthropologique tissée de choix plus ou moins conscients entre des normes vitales, sociales, juridiques, politiques ou techniques, au niveau individuel ou collectif. En tant que lieu de vives tensions normatives, le travail se révèle être une entrée féconde dans l’analyse et la compréhension des changements sociaux, et interroge ainsi les espaces politiques et scientifiques dans lesquels se construisent les savoirs sur et pour le développement. / The diversity of working situations in sub-Saharan Africa requires a re-examination of the common conception of “work” within the relation of work and development. These industrious activities respond to more or less formalized normative systems, which cannot legitimately be ignored. These different systems of norms largely shape the practice of real work. The aim of this research is to question the interferences or the contradictions between these different systems of norms, which the actors are required to cope with in their activity. To this end I examined a capacity building development project inside the Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Tourism in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo. I defend the thesis that the relation to work in Africa is not characterized by cultural specificities or exoticism. Instead, it is the result of an anthropological experience made of more or less conscious choices among vital, social, legal, political or technical norms, on an individual or collective level. As a locus of intense normative tensions, work appears then as an appropriate point of entry into a broader analysis of social change, and therefore questions the political and scientific institutions where knowledge for and on development is produced.

<p>The purpose of this BA-thesis is to identify the patterns in the HIV/AIDS communication in four Namibian newspapers and examine the causes to why it is portrayed in that manner. The newspapers, <em>The Namibian</em>, <em>New Era</em>, <em>Windhoek Observer</em> and <em>Informanté</em>, vary in ownership, funding and style; from government loyal to tabloid and the journalists themselves have different backgrounds. A combination of quantitative content analysis of issues from September and October 2009, and interviews have been used. Main theories are Thomas Tuftes version of the <em>Model for Communication</em> <em>on HIV/AIDS</em>, Denis McQuails interpretation of framing and the media’s informative role and finally Silvio Waisboards <em>Strategic communication</em>. The results found are that articles on HIV and AIDS are common in the daily range of news but that HIV/AIDS is generally not the main subject in the text. According to the journalists the reason for this is that by isolating the subject it can enhance the risk of stigmatizing the people with HIV/AIDS. None of the newspapers have a policy on how to address HIV and AIDS, <em>New Era</em> is, however, in the progress of implementing one. All newspapers have had discussions on how to report on HIV/AIDS. The most common way to report about HIV and AIDS is to write about the spread of the disease and the people affected by it. Even though they appear frequently they do not get their own voice in the texts. Instead official representatives and civil society are the most common sources. The reason for this is not only lack of resources but also, as one journalist points out, an unwillingness from the reporters side due to the sensitivity of the subject. Some of the journalists stress the importance of writing to change individual behavior but none of the journalists mention that they include the structural causes behind the disease in their reporting. Reader fatigue is mentioned as a cause for the seemingly decreasing trend of coverage on HIV/AIDS. Some of the journalists say that their own personal opinions and experiences on HIV/AIDS affect their writing. They believe that committed reporting is not in conflict with the journalistic convention of impartialness. All the reporters have a journalistic aim of creating social change in the Republic of Namibia and they believe that the media has the power to do that. </p>