O agravamento das condições sociais de muitos países motivou 189 países-membros da ONU a aprovarem, em 2000, a Declaração do Milênio, que define os Objetivos de Desenvolvimento do Milênio (ODM). Os valores essenciais necessários para a promoção do bem-estar considerados pelos ODM, que definem os objetivos e as metas, levam em consideração o conceito de desenvolvimento humano da abordagem das capacitações e a Declaração Universal dos Direitos Humanos. Logo, para que haja desenvolvimento, deve haver expansão das oportunidades para que as pessoas possam viver com liberdade e dignidade, a fim de promover a expansão das capacitações fundamentais. Dessa maneira, por meio dos ODM, processo conduzido e monitorado pela ONU, busca-se promover as capacitações fundamentais. Um dos desafios desse processo, e de qualquer processo de desenvolvimento, é a produção de levantamentos estatísticos para o seu acompanhamento. Este estudo estrutura e analisa um indicador social agregado para o Rio Grande do Sul a partir dos ODM. Dada a natureza do indicador, uma das preocupações, além de preservar o seu caráter multidimensional, foi utilizar um sistema de ponderação para que o indicador reflita os pesos de cada dimensão e as variáveis em cada uma delas. Ou seja, levar em consideração que as diferentes dimensões não contemplam a mesma participação na satisfação do bem-estar. Para tal, foram utilizados dados secundários referentes aos ODM, para os 496 municípios gaúchos, coletados em diversas fontes (IBGE, FEE, Datasus, INEP, dentre outros). Inicialmente, através de técnicas estatísticas multivariadas de análise fatorial via componentes principais, foram estimados os pesos. No segundo momento, a partir dos pesos estimados, foi estruturado o indicador, geral e por dimensão, denominado de Índice dos Objetivos de Desenvolvimento do Milênio (IODM). Os resultados indicam que o índice é sustentado por três fatores: o primeiro, corresponde a 39,89% (indicadores de ensino básico, sustentabilidade ambiental e saúde materna); o segundo, com 32,58% (indicadores de pobreza e fome, igualdade entre os sexos e autonomia das mulheres); e o terceiro fator, com 27,53% (indicador de combate às doenças e mortalidade infantil). O IODM por município apresenta uma hierarquização diferente dos indicadores comumente utilizados, que levam em conta o princípio da equiproporcionalidade. Logo, infere-se que esse resultado não se dá somente pelas dimensões que o IODM utiliza, mas, também, pelo sistema de ponderação adotado. / The worsening of many countries´ social conditions urged 189 UN member-countries to approve, in 2000, the United Nations Millenium Declaration that establishes the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The essential values - which the MDGs consider necessary to promote well-being and establish the targets and goals - take into consideration the Capability Approach and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights´s concept of human development. Thus, to enhance development, there has to be an increase of opportunities so that people can live in freedom and dignity, and the expansion of the fundamental capabilities can take place. Accordingly, through the MDGs, a process led and monitored by UN, the fundamental capabilities have been fostered. One challenge of that process - and of any development process - is to create statistic surveys for its follow up. The present study organizes and analyses a social indicator added to Rio Grande do Sul as from the MDGs. Given the indicator´s nature, one of the concerns, besides maintaining its multidimensional feature, was that of using a weighting system so that the indicator can show the weights and variables of each dimension. That means taking into consideration that different dimensions do not participate equally in achieving well-being. Therefore, MDGs´ secondary data were used for 496 municipalities of Rio Grande do Sul, collected from several sources (IBGE, FEE, Datasus, INEP, among others). Firstly, weights were estimated by means of various statistic techniques, factor analysis through principal components. Secondly, the general and dimensional indicator - called Millennium Development Goals Index (MDGsI) - was established, as from the estimated weighs. The results show that the Index is supported by three factors: the first one corresponds to 39,89% (indicators of Primary Schooling, Environmental sustainability, and Maternal health); the second one, with 32,58% (indicators of Poverty and hunger, Gender equality and Women empowerment) and the third factor, with 27,53% (indicator of Combat of diseases and Child mortality). The MDsI per municipality shows a hierarchy which is different from the commonly used indicators that consider the principle of equiproportionality. So, one can infer that this result does not only occur due to the dimension that the MDSI uses, but also due to the weighting system used here.

O agravamento das condições sociais de muitos países motivou 189 países-membros da ONU a aprovarem, em 2000, a Declaração do Milênio, que define os Objetivos de Desenvolvimento do Milênio (ODM). Os valores essenciais necessários para a promoção do bem-estar considerados pelos ODM, que definem os objetivos e as metas, levam em consideração o conceito de desenvolvimento humano da abordagem das capacitações e a Declaração Universal dos Direitos Humanos. Logo, para que haja desenvolvimento, deve haver expansão das oportunidades para que as pessoas possam viver com liberdade e dignidade, a fim de promover a expansão das capacitações fundamentais. Dessa maneira, por meio dos ODM, processo conduzido e monitorado pela ONU, busca-se promover as capacitações fundamentais. Um dos desafios desse processo, e de qualquer processo de desenvolvimento, é a produção de levantamentos estatísticos para o seu acompanhamento. Este estudo estrutura e analisa um indicador social agregado para o Rio Grande do Sul a partir dos ODM. Dada a natureza do indicador, uma das preocupações, além de preservar o seu caráter multidimensional, foi utilizar um sistema de ponderação para que o indicador reflita os pesos de cada dimensão e as variáveis em cada uma delas. Ou seja, levar em consideração que as diferentes dimensões não contemplam a mesma participação na satisfação do bem-estar. Para tal, foram utilizados dados secundários referentes aos ODM, para os 496 municípios gaúchos, coletados em diversas fontes (IBGE, FEE, Datasus, INEP, dentre outros). Inicialmente, através de técnicas estatísticas multivariadas de análise fatorial via componentes principais, foram estimados os pesos. No segundo momento, a partir dos pesos estimados, foi estruturado o indicador, geral e por dimensão, denominado de Índice dos Objetivos de Desenvolvimento do Milênio (IODM). Os resultados indicam que o índice é sustentado por três fatores: o primeiro, corresponde a 39,89% (indicadores de ensino básico, sustentabilidade ambiental e saúde materna); o segundo, com 32,58% (indicadores de pobreza e fome, igualdade entre os sexos e autonomia das mulheres); e o terceiro fator, com 27,53% (indicador de combate às doenças e mortalidade infantil). O IODM por município apresenta uma hierarquização diferente dos indicadores comumente utilizados, que levam em conta o princípio da equiproporcionalidade. Logo, infere-se que esse resultado não se dá somente pelas dimensões que o IODM utiliza, mas, também, pelo sistema de ponderação adotado. / The worsening of many countries´ social conditions urged 189 UN member-countries to approve, in 2000, the United Nations Millenium Declaration that establishes the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The essential values - which the MDGs consider necessary to promote well-being and establish the targets and goals - take into consideration the Capability Approach and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights´s concept of human development. Thus, to enhance development, there has to be an increase of opportunities so that people can live in freedom and dignity, and the expansion of the fundamental capabilities can take place. Accordingly, through the MDGs, a process led and monitored by UN, the fundamental capabilities have been fostered. One challenge of that process - and of any development process - is to create statistic surveys for its follow up. The present study organizes and analyses a social indicator added to Rio Grande do Sul as from the MDGs. Given the indicator´s nature, one of the concerns, besides maintaining its multidimensional feature, was that of using a weighting system so that the indicator can show the weights and variables of each dimension. That means taking into consideration that different dimensions do not participate equally in achieving well-being. Therefore, MDGs´ secondary data were used for 496 municipalities of Rio Grande do Sul, collected from several sources (IBGE, FEE, Datasus, INEP, among others). Firstly, weights were estimated by means of various statistic techniques, factor analysis through principal components. Secondly, the general and dimensional indicator - called Millennium Development Goals Index (MDGsI) - was established, as from the estimated weighs. The results show that the Index is supported by three factors: the first one corresponds to 39,89% (indicators of Primary Schooling, Environmental sustainability, and Maternal health); the second one, with 32,58% (indicators of Poverty and hunger, Gender equality and Women empowerment) and the third factor, with 27,53% (indicator of Combat of diseases and Child mortality). The MDsI per municipality shows a hierarchy which is different from the commonly used indicators that consider the principle of equiproportionality. So, one can infer that this result does not only occur due to the dimension that the MDSI uses, but also due to the weighting system used here.

abstract: Through critical discourse analysis, this thesis explores the construction of poverty and development within and across the United Nations Millennium Development Goals and the proposed post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals texts. The proposed post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals frame the international development landscape for the next 15 years, therefore it becomes imperative for civil society to understand their dominant economic schemes for poverty alleviation in order to adopt or oppose similar methods of poverty abatement. Deductively, this thesis investigates Keynesianism and neoliberalism, the dominant economic discourses whose deployments within the goals have shaped transnational frameworks for interpreting and mitigating poverty. It assesses the failures of the Millennium Development Goals, as articulated both by its creators and critics, and evaluates the responsiveness of the United Nations in the constitution of the proposed post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals in relation to these critiques through the lens of liberal feminist and World Social Forum discourses. These activist and oppositional social discourses embody competing values, representations, and problem-solution frames that challenge and resist the dominant economic discourses in both sets of goals. Additionally, this thesis uses an inductive approach to critically analyze both sets of goals in order to identify any emergent discursive frameworks grounded in each text that assist in understanding the problems of, and solutions to, poverty. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Communication Studies 2015

O agravamento das condições sociais de muitos países motivou 189 países-membros da ONU a aprovarem, em 2000, a Declaração do Milênio, que define os Objetivos de Desenvolvimento do Milênio (ODM). Os valores essenciais necessários para a promoção do bem-estar considerados pelos ODM, que definem os objetivos e as metas, levam em consideração o conceito de desenvolvimento humano da abordagem das capacitações e a Declaração Universal dos Direitos Humanos. Logo, para que haja desenvolvimento, deve haver expansão das oportunidades para que as pessoas possam viver com liberdade e dignidade, a fim de promover a expansão das capacitações fundamentais. Dessa maneira, por meio dos ODM, processo conduzido e monitorado pela ONU, busca-se promover as capacitações fundamentais. Um dos desafios desse processo, e de qualquer processo de desenvolvimento, é a produção de levantamentos estatísticos para o seu acompanhamento. Este estudo estrutura e analisa um indicador social agregado para o Rio Grande do Sul a partir dos ODM. Dada a natureza do indicador, uma das preocupações, além de preservar o seu caráter multidimensional, foi utilizar um sistema de ponderação para que o indicador reflita os pesos de cada dimensão e as variáveis em cada uma delas. Ou seja, levar em consideração que as diferentes dimensões não contemplam a mesma participação na satisfação do bem-estar. Para tal, foram utilizados dados secundários referentes aos ODM, para os 496 municípios gaúchos, coletados em diversas fontes (IBGE, FEE, Datasus, INEP, dentre outros). Inicialmente, através de técnicas estatísticas multivariadas de análise fatorial via componentes principais, foram estimados os pesos. No segundo momento, a partir dos pesos estimados, foi estruturado o indicador, geral e por dimensão, denominado de Índice dos Objetivos de Desenvolvimento do Milênio (IODM). Os resultados indicam que o índice é sustentado por três fatores: o primeiro, corresponde a 39,89% (indicadores de ensino básico, sustentabilidade ambiental e saúde materna); o segundo, com 32,58% (indicadores de pobreza e fome, igualdade entre os sexos e autonomia das mulheres); e o terceiro fator, com 27,53% (indicador de combate às doenças e mortalidade infantil). O IODM por município apresenta uma hierarquização diferente dos indicadores comumente utilizados, que levam em conta o princípio da equiproporcionalidade. Logo, infere-se que esse resultado não se dá somente pelas dimensões que o IODM utiliza, mas, também, pelo sistema de ponderação adotado. / The worsening of many countries´ social conditions urged 189 UN member-countries to approve, in 2000, the United Nations Millenium Declaration that establishes the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The essential values - which the MDGs consider necessary to promote well-being and establish the targets and goals - take into consideration the Capability Approach and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights´s concept of human development. Thus, to enhance development, there has to be an increase of opportunities so that people can live in freedom and dignity, and the expansion of the fundamental capabilities can take place. Accordingly, through the MDGs, a process led and monitored by UN, the fundamental capabilities have been fostered. One challenge of that process - and of any development process - is to create statistic surveys for its follow up. The present study organizes and analyses a social indicator added to Rio Grande do Sul as from the MDGs. Given the indicator´s nature, one of the concerns, besides maintaining its multidimensional feature, was that of using a weighting system so that the indicator can show the weights and variables of each dimension. That means taking into consideration that different dimensions do not participate equally in achieving well-being. Therefore, MDGs´ secondary data were used for 496 municipalities of Rio Grande do Sul, collected from several sources (IBGE, FEE, Datasus, INEP, among others). Firstly, weights were estimated by means of various statistic techniques, factor analysis through principal components. Secondly, the general and dimensional indicator - called Millennium Development Goals Index (MDGsI) - was established, as from the estimated weighs. The results show that the Index is supported by three factors: the first one corresponds to 39,89% (indicators of Primary Schooling, Environmental sustainability, and Maternal health); the second one, with 32,58% (indicators of Poverty and hunger, Gender equality and Women empowerment) and the third factor, with 27,53% (indicator of Combat of diseases and Child mortality). The MDsI per municipality shows a hierarchy which is different from the commonly used indicators that consider the principle of equiproportionality. So, one can infer that this result does not only occur due to the dimension that the MDSI uses, but also due to the weighting system used here.

Magister Bibliothecologiae - MBibl / This research explored how the Smart Cape Access Project in Delft Public Library is used by the Delft community and how it related to the Millennium Development Goals asset out by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO). This study also investigated the Smart Cape Access Project, as an initiative by the City of Cape Town to ensure access to Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) for all citizens of Cape Town, and how it is utilised as a tool for economic and personal development. The research took place at Delft Public Library in Delft. Delft is a residential area with no industries, whatsoever. The area has a high unemployment rate, high crime rate and more than 60% of those employed earn less than R1600. 00 per month. These factors and the fact that the City of Cape Town recognizes the importance of ICTs for economic and social growth made Delft ideal for this research. The study also investigated whether the information given via the Smart Cape Access project is relevant for sustainable development. Sustainable development is on the agenda of many countries and the concept can be taken as far back as the seventies with the first United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm, Sweden and culminating in the World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002 in Johannesburg, South Africa. In South Africa several initiatives were implemented to bring ICTs to those who do not have access to ICTs, as the importance of ICTs to improve and uplift the quality of life are recognised by different role-players e.g. government, private sectors and nongovernmental organisations (NGOs). The researcher regarded this as sufficient reason to embark on this study, though the scope of the study only concentrated on the Smart Cape Access Project in one public library.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / The United Nations (UN) Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) drafted eight goals to be achieved by the year 2015, namely: eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, achieving universal primary education, promoting gender equality and women empowerment, reducing child mortality, improving maternal health, combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases, ensuring environmental sustainability and lastly developing a global partnership for development. Many public health studies often result in complicated and complex data sets, the nature of these data sets could be clustered, multivariate, longitudinal, hierarchical, spatial, temporal or spatio-temporal. This often results in what is called correlated data, because the assumption of independence among observations may not be appropriate. The shared genetic traits in the studies of illness or shared household characteristics among family members in the studies of poverty are examples of correlated data. In cross-sectional studies, individuals may be nested within sub-clusters (e.g., families) that are nested within clusters (e.g., environment), thus causing correlation within clusters. Ignoring the structure of the data may result in asymptotically biased parameter estimates. Clustered data may also be a result of geographical location or time (spatial and temporal). A crucial step in modelling correlated data is the speci cation of the dependency by choosing the covariance/correlation function. However, often the choice for a particular application is unclear and diagnostic tests will have to be carried out, following tting of a model. This study's view of developing countries investigates the prospects of achieving MDGs through the development of flexible predictor statistical models. The first objective of this study is to explore the existing methods for modelling correlated data sets (hierarchical, multilevel and spatial) and then apply the methods in a novel way to several data sets addressing the underlying MDGs. One of the most challenging issue in spatial or spatio-temporal analysis is the choice of a valid and yet exible correlation (covariance) structure. In cases of high dimensionality of the data, where the number of spatial locations or time points that produced the observations is large, the analysis of such data presents great computational challenges. It is debatable whether some of the classical correlation structures adequately reect the dependency in the data. The second objective is to propose a new flexible technique for handling spatial, temporal and spatio-temporal correlations. The goal of this study is to resolve the dependencies problems by proposing a more robust method for modelling spatial correlation. The techniques are used for di erent correlation structures and then combined to form the resulting estimating equations using the platform of the Generalized Method of Moments. The proposed model will therefore be built on a foundation of the Generalized Estimating Equations; this has the advantage of producing consistent regression parameter estimates under mild conditions due to separation of the processes of estimating the regression parameters from the modelling of the correlation. These estimates of the regression parameters are consistent under mild conditions. Thirdly, to account for spatio-temporal correlation in data sets, a method that decouples the two sources of correlations is proposed. Speci cally, the spatial and temporal e ects were modelled separately and then combined optimally. The approach circumvents the need of inverting the full covariance matrix and simpli es the modelling of complex relationships such as anisotropy, which is known to be extremely di cult or Lastly, large public health data sets consist of a high degree of zero counts where it is very di cult to distinguish between "true zeros" and "imputed" zeros. This can be due to the reporting mechanism as a result of insecurity, technical and logistics issues. The focus is therefore on the implementation of a technique that is capable of handling such a problem. The study will make the assumption that "imputed" zeros are a random event and consider the option of discarding the zeros, and then model a conditional Poisson model, conditioning on all cases greater than 0.

Magister Public Health - MPH / Introduction: The Health Extension Program (HEP) is an innovative, community based comprehensive primary health care program that Ethiopia introduced in 2003. It gives special emphasis to the provision of preventive and promotive services at community and household level. However, utilization of the HEP packages is low and reasons for this underutilization are not well known. Aim: The aim of this study is to assess the availability and utilization of the Health Extension Program Service in Akaki District of Oromia Region, Ethiopia. Methodology: Quantitative study using a cross-sectional survey design. The study was conducted in Akaki District of Oromia Regional State in Ethiopia with 79,162 inhabitants. Random sampling was used to select 355 households. A structured data collection tool/ questionnaire was employed to collect data from the study participants. Data were analyzed using SPSS for Windows version 19. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze socio demographic characteristics of the study participants and to assess the availability and utilization of each service component. Result: The response rate of the study was 100% with complete data obtained from 335 (94.4%) of the households. The majority (93.1%) of respondents were women. The availability of HEP services as described by the household visit of Health Extension Workers (HEWs) is very high with 86.6% visiting at least monthly and 11.3% visited sometimes. There was a highly significant association between the health extension workers’ visit to households and health extension service utilization during pregnancy (OR=16.913, 95% CI 8.074-35.427 at p<0.001). HIV testing utilization showed a tenfold increase among households who received education. Participation of households in the Model family initiative was another key factor associated with high levels of HEP services utilization. Conclusion and Recommendations: Though HEP services are available for most households, the frequency of household visits by HEWs and the involvement of Households in model family training greatly influenced service utilization. Improving frequency of services availability at household level and consistent health education will greatly improve services utilization.

Magister Legum - LLM / The aim of this study is to critically analyse corporate social responsibility as a tool to accelerate the achievement of development goals in Zimbabwe. The main question is how CSR can be used to speed up the achievement of development goals? The paper will focus on how CSR can be used to achieve national development goals and MDGs that will soon be integrated into SDGs. Attention will be paid to MDG1 which goal is to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger; and MDG 5 which aims to improve maternal health and national development goals in Zimbabwe. The research is guided by the following objectives: 1. To examine international, regional and national legal frameworks that seek to promote corporate social responsibility in Zimbabwe. 2. To establish the connection between CSR and development goals in Zimbabwe, and explore how CSR can be used as a tool to fast-track the achievement of national development goals and UN development goals. The paper will investigate the efforts made by the Zimbabwean government to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger and to improve maternal health. The two MDGs are proving to be difficult to be achieved by the end of 2015. 3. To recommend measures that would facilitate the promotion of CSR into Zimbabwean companies and assist the government in achieving the developmental goals within the specified time frame.

In the 1960s, Nigeria was on a par, in terms of aspirations to attain a very high level of economic growth and development, with its fellow-oil producing and exporting countries such as Malaysia and Indonesia, but has since failed to keep pace with them. Nigeria’s agricultural, manufacturing and mining and quarrying sectors have played a continuous and significant role in the development of the country’s economy. The approval of the millennium development goals (MGDs) by the United Nations General Assembly therefore raises three pivotal questions for Nigeria. 1) Why is Nigeria still an underdeveloped and lowincome country? 2) What should the country do to make rapid economic and social progress? and 3) How can it attain a high level of economic development and growth?. This is the background of this study, which is an empirical investigation into the factors affecting Nigeria’s bid to achieve sustainable economic growth and development with particular reference to such sectors as agriculture, manufacturing and mining and quarrying (solid minerals) over the period of 1970-2005. This involves the analysis of the relevance of the health care and education sectors and examination of impediments to past economic development, a development model applicable to Nigeria, the efforts made and the challenges facing the country in achieving the MDGs, and the role of foreign development partners in complementing Nigeria’s development efforts. The methodology adopted for this study is sectoral-econometric modelling, using the Engle- Yoo (1991) model, which contributes to bridging the gap seen in empirical studies in the application of a multivariate dynamic econometric cointegration model on the effect of domestic and foreign financial resources investment for the development of the growth sectors in the Nigerian economy. The model captures the essential linkages between the growth sectors and the country’s efforts to achieve a high level of economic development. The results from the simulations are broadly consistent with findings described in theoretical and empirical literature. There is a strong positive relationship between the gross output of the agricultural, manufacturing and mining and quarrying sectors and labour input and public capital expenditure for the growth sectors. Also there is a strong positive relationship between the agricultural credit guarantee scheme, fertiliser and the gross output of agriculture. Furthermore, the findings show a positive impact of the structural adjustment programme with the agricultural and manufacturing production. Dynamic simulation of results was undertaken to assess the path of the 10 percent dynamic adjustment (shocks) on the relevant exogenous variables and the response properties show remarkable and positive significant impact due to the shocks. The estimated actual and forecast values of the equations in the model show notable increase in the amount and growth of the gross domestic product of the real sectors in Naira billion from 2005 to 2008. The study calls to question rigid government control over the mining and quarrying sector. The importance of mining and quarrying in accelerating the pace of economic growth in Nigeria should rather motivate the government to deregulate and reform the sector. This will enable the government to attract investors into the sector, while effectively planning to encourage the proliferation of small-scale artisan, medium-scale and large-scale miners. The deregulation of the mining and quarrying sector will boost production, growth and development through employment creation, increased income of household miners and upliftment of the social and economic status of the vast majority of Nigerians. Some of the reasons identified for Nigeria’s poor economic performance include: the serious effect of “Dutch disease”, reflected in the country’s inability to manage and diversify its oil wealth to transform and achieve dynamic industrial (manufacturing), agricultural, mining, health and educational and other growth sectors. Nigeria also suffers the effects of a troubled political history, during which military rule persisted for extended periods. This study shows the importance of improving the knowledge base for policymaking, where intersectoral linkages between economic and social factors can be identified, and direct and indirect macroeconomic policy effects discerned. This distinguishes the study from earlier work in Nigeria on development policy. Achieving a high level of economic development through transforming the country’s real sectors will not only reduce poverty by providing food security, increased agricultural and industrial exports, increased per capita income and consumption, but will also bring about improved literacy and a healthy workforce and foster peace and security in Nigeria. In addition, success in transforming the real sectors will strengthen and broaden the productive base of the country, which currently relies heavily on the petroleum sector as the major earner of foreign exchange. In order to achieve a high level of economic development and growth, attention should be concentrated on channelling global financial resources to the above-mentioned sectors because of their strong linkages with and powerful value-added effect to the rest of the economy. Under the new democratic dispensation, there ought to be large investment into the growth and support sectors from domestic and external sources if the country is to attain the international growth target of achieving a high and sustainable level of economic development. Therefore, with a strong will to become a patriotic civil society, stable and prosperous, and enough wisdom to elect leaders with good will and fairly good knowledge of the country’s economy, great prospects lie before the Nigerian economy. / Thesis (PhD (Economics))--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Economics / unrestricted

Human African Trypanosomiasis (HAT) is an infectious, vector-borne protozoal disease which is amongst the so-called neglected diseases. In 2000, at a summit of the United Nations, eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were set, to be achieved by 2015. MDG 6 states “to combat HIV/AIDS, malaria & other diseases”. With just under 2 years to go before the end of 2015, HAT is still thriving in developing countries. The drugs currently used for the treatment of HAT are in short supply, have severe side effects and those used to treat late stages of the disease are very difficult to administer. The aforementioned challenges call for research into this neglected disease in order to develop new, safe and easy-to-use medicines. Naphthoquinones are a class of compounds shown to possess anti-parasitic activity, amongst a variety of other biological activities, and therefore this pharmacophore was selected for this study. The purpose of this study was to synthesise derivatives of 2,3-dichloro-1,4- naphthoquinone to be tested for anti-trypanosomal activity and thereafter conduct structureactivity relationship studies. A series of reactions were carried out using thiophenol, phenol and aniline nucleophiles to synthesise thioether (-S-), ether (-O-) and amino (-NH-) derivatives of 2,3-dichloro-1,4-naphthoquinone with various halogen or methyl substituents. Purification of the products was carried out by recrystallisation. Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), infra-red (IR) and high pressure liquid chromatography coupled to an electro-spray ionisation mass spectrometer (HPLC-ESI-MS) were the analytical methods used for structural confirmation of the products. There were eighteen 1,4-naphthoquinone derivatives that were successfully synthesised using ethanolic solutions. Unfortunately, attempts to synthesise 1,4-naphthoquinones in reactions involving 2-(trifluoro-methyl)aniline and 2-isopropyl-5-methylphenol were unsuccessful, presumably due to steric hindrance by the bulky ortho-substituents. Although the aims of the synthetic procedures were to obtain both mono- and disubstituted products by nucleophilic displacement of the chlorine atom(s) of 2,3-dichloro-1,4- naphthoquinone, only monosubstituted products were obtained from substitution with aniline and phenol nucleophiles. Thiol nucleophiles, however, selectively yielded disubstituted products only. Synthesised naphthoquinone derivatives were tested against Trypanosoma brucei and calculation of the EC₅₀ values from the obtained dose-response curves was carried out using the four parametric equation. All the 1,4-naphthoquinones showed a degree of potency, except compounds 1b, 3c and 3e, which had little or lack of potency. Structure-activity relationship studies (SARs and QSARs) were carried out to determine which structural features or functional group substituents of the naphthoquinone derivatives contribute or take away from the desired anti-trypanosomal activity. It was found that compounds with the best in vitro anti-trypanosomal potencies in the series of analogous 1,4-naphthoquinone derivatives had EC₅₀ values in the range 2.137 to 2.884 μM. The most potent compound in the series was 2-chloro-3-(4-(trifluoromethyl)phenylamino)-1,4- naphthoquinone 1e; but it was 142-fold less potent than the reference standard of melarsoprol.