The thesis explores international donors’ promotion of civil society in post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan since the mid 2000s with a particular focus on how policy changes in the promotion of civil society have influenced Kyrgyz non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and their relations with the state. The thesis is based on tenmonths field research, which involved ninety semi-structured interviews with nineteen donors, forty-seven NGOs, six community based organisations, and three representatives of local authorities, together with two small-scale surveys with twenty-five NGO employees and thirty-three NGO leaders. The key finding is that donors’ focus on civil society promotion in Kyrgyzstan has decreased since the mid 2000s rather their agenda now aims at state capacity-building. Donors’ more limited funding to NGOs is targeted toward the promotion of NGOs’ advocacy role and the encouragement of collaborative relations between NGOs and the state. These findings indicate a shift from donors’ civil society promotion in the 1990s where the key stress was on building civil society in Kyrgyzstan from scratch. Consequently, the thesis discusses the return of the state to donor agenda and the interaction between the state, donors, and NGOs in Kyrgyzstan. These changes have impacted the NGOs sector in Kyrgyzstan. The research has revealed that, as a result of these changes, NGOs are becoming more professional and formal. The thesis argues that reduced donor funding has resulted in a stronger competition among NGOs for funds, while increased interaction with the state institutions has also placed pressure on NGOs to become more professional and to increase their institutional capacity. The thesis suggests that relations between the state and NGOs are characterised by apparently contradictory elements in which both cooperation and counterbalance feature. Notwithstanding the prevailing trend toward NGO professionalisation and formalisation, the thesis argues that NGOs also display other features such as voluntarism, philanthropy, and constituency responsiveness. Consequently, the thesis makes a contribution to the literature on civil society in Central Asia by providing a detailed account of the complex and diverse NGO sector in Kyrgyzstan.

Malaria was identified as one of the first infectious diseases recognised to spread through blood transfusion. Although transfusion acquired malaria is rare, nevertheless it can be lethal if it not diagnosed or treated immediately. It is a continuous challenge for the blood services to identify and exclude asymptomatic malaria infected donors, while minimising the exclusion of uninfected donors. The diagnostic tests in current use present certain limitations which include the use of inherently antigenically variable vaccine candidate proteins that have limited sensitivity against all human malaria species. Additionally, the blood transfusion services also require alternative methods for test and reagents that may be critical to the blood supply. There is therefore a scientific and an operational requirement to use alternative strategies to develop sensitive tests to all the species of malaria. In this study, we have used immunoproteomic approach to define conserved immunogenic malaria proteins. A total of 17 target P. falciparum proteins have been identified using cohorts of malaria immune sera from adults living in endemic areas, as well as by control sera from Europeans, who have never been exposed to malaria. The identified blood stage target antigens were cloned and expressed as recombinant proteins in a suitable bacterial system. In total, 15 target proteins have been expressed with 13 of them have been successfully purified. An ELISA-based system was developed, and the antigenicity of nine target antigens were evaluated using both non-malaria and malaria sera. Single antigen testing gave overall sensitivity of 50 - 84 %, with specificity consistently over 90%. Antigens such as Alpha tubulin and 26s protease showed promising immunogenicity, while Nucleosome assembly protein achieved 100% specificity. Further development of multiple antigens in an ELISA test will be required for continued evaluation of these antigens and the humoral immune response in malaria in general.

Post-conflict peacebuilding in Iraq started in 2003 following the military invasion by the Coalition of Willing forces. Since 2003, numerous actors have involved themselves in Iraq’s peacebuilding including governments, NGOs, the UN and the international financial institutions. Also, various activities and actions have been implemented in the humanitarian, political and economic domains. Today, all the indicators show that the country still faces the challenges of conflict, chaos as well as weak social and economic development. Many scholars attribute that to the deteriorating security conditions, which raises the questions of why does the country still face insecurity and why has peace not been consolidated? This research examines the impact of donors’ conditionality on post-conflict peacebuilding in Iraq. As the liberal peace is the basis of contemporary practice of peacebuilding, this research draws on the liberal peace theory as a point of departure. The Liberal peace is used as theoretical lenses in order to understand donors’ strategies and arguments in the context of Iraq, according to two main themes, political and economic transition. Overall, this research finds that the donors’ policy packages focused on how to build liberal democratic and a free market state. Donors, primarily the US, aimed at enhancing their control over the political process and formed the political structures according to their interests foremost and not according to the public will. The local community has not been adequately engaged or consulted. Also, transforming Iraq into a free-market economy by relying on the private sector to stimulate economic growth and restricting the role of the state while the country faces security problems has led to weak outcomes in all social and economic sectors.

Current literature asserts that recipients of social services in South Africa are characterised by their history, race and ethnicity (Pharoah, 2007; Scheurmans and Visser, 2005). This study attempted to either confirm or challenge such assertions, based on the experiences and strategies implemented by Eleos, a unique non‐ profit organisation that is entrenched in communities that are diverse. The primary aim of this study was to explore the ethos of Eleos, in its interventions to address poverty in underprivileged communities. The study drew from two groups of participants. The first sample of eight participants was drawn from the two beneficiary communities of Eleos. One project is located in Booysens West and the other in Danville. The second group of participants were key informants who were drawn from the management committee as well as representatives of the individual projects. The research instruments took the form of two different semi‐structured interview schedules with open‐ended questions. One for key informants and another for beneficiaries. The research design that was used in the study was the case study design and was exploratory in nature. The collected data was transcribed and analysed using ‘thematic content analysis’ or ‘conceptual analysis’. Main findings indicated that donors seemed to impose a more radicalized view of the world, more so than the beneficiaries and organisation it self.

Student Number : 0500919V - MA research report - School of Social Sciences - Faculty of Humanities / Governance reform in Africa has attracted both local and international attention. African initiatives, such as NEPAD and African Union, have endorsed good governance as a precondition for Africa’s emancipation from poverty while the international community has appreciated the need for well-governed proactive states in Africa in place of minimalist view that donors promoted with structural adjustment programmes. Donors’ proactive view of states led to governance reform as a criterion for receiving aid. Thus, limiting corruption by creating anti-corruption agencies became one of the requirements for donors’ support. Though not concentrating on anti-corruption agencies exclusively, this research report captures the complexity of donor conditions in reforming governance in Kenya through anti-corruption initiatives. It concludes that conditions are inevitable in an aid dependent country but cannot be sustained by external actors if they work without local support. The central argument of this paper is that there is need for promotion of a convergence of approach in reforming governance. The donor community and indigenous Africans need to view and promote governance reform from a developmental perspective in order to make foreign aid count in meeting Africa’s objectives. The policies donors espouse will bear out on African development if electorates buttress them and these policies need to be consistence with the welfare of the populace especially economically marginalized groups of population as Millennium Development Goals seek to encourage.

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Transfusion of blood products is a common medical procedure, and maintaining adequate blood supply depends on the unpaid donation of a small share of the general population. The absence of pre-donation testing for iron status allows many donors with iron deficiency to donate blood. This dissertation seeks to enhance our understanding of the causes of iron deficiency among blood donors, the resultant symptoms, and the likely effectiveness of alternate strategies for reducing the risk of iron deficiency. In Study 1, we used data from the REDS-II RISE prospective cohort study, over a 2-year follow-up period, to evaluate whether higher levels of dietary iron protect against incident iron deficiency in blood donors. Responses to a brief checklist of consumption of animal proteins were combined into an Iron Composite Score weighted for iron content and reported frequency. We found that donors reporting the lowest levels of iron consumption were more likely to develop advanced iron depletion during follow-up. In Study 2, we performed an analysis of observational data from the STRIDE study, a randomized trial, to evaluate whether improvements in iron status were associated with improvements in reported fatigue levels. Using linear regression, we found that many donors had sizable changes in both reported levels of fatigue and in measures of iron status, but neither iron status nor changes in iron status was associated with fatigue at the end of 20–24 months follow-up. In Study 3, we conducted a simulation study to evaluate the range of outcomes of different strategies that might be adopted by blood centers to reduce the prevalence of iron depletion in blood donors. Using inputs primarily from the REDS-II program, we simulated approaches that extended the minimum interval between donations, that promoted use of iron supplementation by blood donors, and that performed ferritin testing to determine donor iron stores and extended the donation interval to those with iron depletion. Only extending the current 8-week interval to 26 weeks approached a reduction by half of the proportion of blood donors who were iron deficient, but the estimated impact on blood supply was a 21% drop in blood availability. Those interventions impacting supply less were also less effective in reducing iron depletion.

The aim of this thesis is to analyze motivation of companies to support social, environmental and development projects. The analysis is focused on Central European companies, namely the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Poland. In the empirical part of the research interviews with selected companies and non-profit organizations are conducted. By interviewing both sides we can see how both donors and main recipients view the motivation behind the support. Afterwards, the relationship between supporting social, environmental and development projects and long term financial performance is examined. Coefficients are assigned to each company according to their involvement in the three categories - social, environmental and development. As measures of financial performance we choose stock market returns, which are then regressed on the three coefficients and selected control variables. The regression results show that supporting development projects tends to have a positive influence on companies' stock market performance. We do not confirm that supporting social and environmental projects improves stock market performance of companies. This outcome suggests that supporting development projects is a win-win situation for both companies and non-profit organizations. Companies can improve their...

Thesis (M.S.)--Ohio University, November, 2009. / Release of full electronic text on OhioLINK has been delayed until December 1, 2011. Title from PDF t.p. Includes bibliographical references.

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