OIDA International Journal of Sustainable Development
Open access peer-reviewed journal
Self Help Groups (Shgs) of Women in Haryana
A Social Work Perspective
Manju Panwar a, Jitendra Kumar b
a Department of Social Work, BPS Mahila Vishwavidhalaya, Khanpur Kalan, Sonipat, Haryana, India.
b Department of Economics, Ch. Charan Singh University, Meerut, (Uttar Pradesh), India
Volume 05, Issue 10, Pg. 11-24, 2012.
Abstract
Both central as well as State government have been implementing various schemes and programmes for the eradication of poverty. But still poverty is persisting. After having tried many different projects for poverty’s alleviation, the Central government launched the Swarnajayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana (SGSY). The main aim of SGSY is to nurture Self Help Group (SHGs) right from formation to marketing stage.
SHGs have become a very important tool for reducing poverty. Credit is a powerful weapon. With appropriate credit institutions and credit policies, it is possible to lead a society towards a desired shape. The SHGs have contributed in developing the personality of women in molding the community into right perspective and in exploring the initiatives of women in taking up entrepreneurial activities. SHGs have emerged as the providers of social capital for transferring today rural India into a powerful society through micro finance. Thus, SHGs create a silent revolution which must be viewed as “change agents” in rural women. SHGs-bank linkage not only enhances the national conscience but also enable in achieving Millennium Development Goals.
Banks have a crucial role to play in the implementation of SGSY as it is credit-cum-subsidy programme wherein credit is the key component and subsidy is only a minor and enabling component. Therefore, close association of banks at all stages of the programme’s implementation is envisaged for its smooth implementation.
SHGs act as a forum for the members to provide space and support to each other. These groups enable the members to learn to cooperate and work in a group environment by providing savings and an effective credit delivery mechanism in order to cater to the economic needs of the members.
Keywords: Banks, Millennium Development Goals. Self Help Group, Swarnajayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana (SGSY), Women .
Food Insecurity Challenges and Sustainable Agricultural Development in Nigeria
Friday Ogar Idiku a, Augustine Oko Angba b, Monday Ekwuora Ushie c
a, b Department of Agricultural Economics and Extension, University of Calabar, Nigeria.
c Department of Sociology, University of Calabar, Nigeria.
Volume 05, Issue 10, Pg. 25-29, 2012.
Abstract: The aggregate index of agricultural production in Nigeria which has virtually remained in the hands of small holders has been on the decline thereby hindering the country’s historical challenge of providing the basic needs for the people. Meanwhile, the country as a member of the United Nations has keyed into the number one goal of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) which is halving poverty and hunger by 2015. It is therefore against this background that this paper examines generally the problem of food insecurity in Nigeria and sustainable development. Other specific objectives include examining the causes and effects of food insecurity in Nigeria, identifying policies formulated, and evaluating the policies in order to make appropriate recommendations. The study found that the root causes of food insecurity include: poverty, corruption and national policies that do not promote equal access to food for all; and also that the country lacks storage and mechanization facilities and thus spends substantial income from oil on food importation. Research, farmers and extension linkages was poor. Therefore, it is recommended that there is need for a strong political will to transform the predominantly small holders to become efficient as is the case with the Japanese experience by ensuring that food storage policy place emphasis on small scale food storage operations, the mechanization of Nigerian agriculture must be based largely on indigenous engineering initiative and research-extension-farmers linkages be strengthen and Nigeria will bid farewell to food insecurity for sustainable development.
Keywords: Food insecurity, Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), Policy, Small holders, Sustainable Development
HIV awareness challenges in South Africa: a conceptual analysis
Jenni Gobind a, Wilfred I. Ukpere b
a,b Department of Industrial Psychology and People Management,
Faculty of management, University of Johannesburg, South Africa
Volume 05, Issue 10, Pg. 31-37, 2012.
Abstract: This paper explores HIV awareness challenges in South Africa (SA) with a particular reference to the South African governments HIV awareness and prevention information dissemination initiatives. It further examines three significant South African legislation, namely the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa 108 of 1996 (Constitution), the Promotion of Access to Information Act 2 of 2000 (PAIA) and the Promotion of Administrative Justice Act 3 of 2000 (PAJA), in order to evaluate the challenges confronting HIV awareness campaign in SA. The paper posits that government’s inaction in terms of proper dissemination of information relating to HIV awareness, signalled unconstitutionality based on government’s contravention of basic constitutional right. Hence, government’s contravention of the constitution need not go unnoticed. If ordinary citizens are held accountable for breaking the law, should government also not be held responsible for the year of torpor with regards to HIV/AIDS information dissemination?
Keywords: Access, Administrative Justice, awareness, Constitution, dissemination, information, prevention.
Arab Youth: The Challenges Of Education, Employment And Civic Participation
Ghada Barsoum a
a Department of Public Policy and Administration, American University in Cairo, Cairo, Egypt.
Volume 05, Issue 10, Pg. 40-55, 2012.
Abstract: This paper argues for an urgent youth-focused policy agenda in the Arab world. The paper focuses on three areas of challenge facing Arab youth. These are the failure of education systems in the region, constrained employment opportunities and blocked channels for civic engagement. The paper shows that despite the diversity of lived experiences among Arab youth, there are notable similarities of the problems facing them along these three areas. Arab youth today are more educated than their parents and are more likely to attend universities and other tertiary education institutions. However, the education systems in the region. However, there are concerns about education quality as best captured by the results of Arab students in international aptitude tests. Education outcomes are highly gendered in Arab countries with the literacy rates among female youth continuing to lag behind those of male youth in most Arab countries. Despite increased access to education, the Arab region has one of the highest rates of youth unemployment in the world. With very few exceptions within the region, youth unemployment in Arab countries is much higher than the global youth unemployment rate. Young women are at a particular disadvantage with their unemployment far exceeding the unemployment rate among male youth in different countries. Female Arab youth are also more likely to be out of the labor force than male youth. Job quality issues are also central employment challenges in the region. The economic difficulty facing young Arabs in their transition to adulthood are further exacerbated by the blocking of channels of civic engagement and their exclusion from the decision making process. While the social media has been celebrated as part of the Arab spring, access to this tool is limited to the urban and educated. The paper concludes with a discussion of a youth-focused policy agenda. The paper builds on country-level macro data drawn from different resources on the three areas in addition to qualitative data collected as part of a larger study on Arab youth.
Keywords: Arab Youth, Education, Employment, Civic Participation
Position of Kazakhstan in the Kyoto and post-Kyoto Protocol regime
Saltanat Sabitova a
a Department of Law, Justus-Liebig University of Giessen, 3 Senckenbergstrasse, 35390, Giessen, Germany.
Volume 05, Issue 10, Pg. 56-64, 2012.
This paper introduces Kazakhstan’s position in the Kyoto and post-Kyoto Protocol framework. It starts with initiatives of signing the Kyoto Protocol given in section 2. Further the article shows what was done in support of these initiatives on the governmental and international levels in section 3. It explores the amended aspects of the national policy that were approved to make the country policy compatible with the Kyoto Protocol rules. Section 4 discusses Kazakhstan’s participation in the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol. Since signing the Kyoto Protocol Kazakhstan has been facing a number of complicated issues and details of how the country deals with them are also covered in section 4. Section 5 goes through pros and cons of the Kyoto Protocol since its text was developed and accepted in 1997. Section 6 describes possible scenarios for the Kyoto Protocol existence and looks at steps Kazakhstan may take in these scenarios. Section 7 concludes.
Effect of Income Diversification on Poverty Reduction and Income Inequality in Rural Nigeria: Evidence from Rice farming Households
Bola Amoke Awotide a, Timothy Taiwo Awoyemi b, Aliou Diagne c ,
Florent-Medagbe Kinkingnihound , Vivian Ojehomone e
a,b Department of Agricultural Economics, University of Ibadan, Nigeria
c,d Impact Assessment and Policy Unit, Africa Rice Centre, Cotonou, Republic of Benin
e National Cereal Research Institute (NCRI), Badeggi, Niger State, Nigeria
Volume 05, Issue 10, Pg. 65-79, 2012.
Abstract: The desire to increase household income and insure against agricultural production risk has led rural households to increasingly diversify their income sources. Yet the potential roles of income diversification on poverty reduction particularly among the rural farmers have not been adequately examined in Nigeria. Therefore, in order to fill this gap and complement other studies on income diversification, this study examined the effect of income diversification on poverty reduction among the rice farming households in Nigeria. Using the primary data collected from 600 randomly selected smallholder rice farmers in Nigeria and adopting the Foster-Greer-Thorbecke (FGT) poverty measures the study observed that farmers that participated in Non-Farm Wage Employment (NFWE) were better off than those in the Farm Related Employment (FRE) and the Non-Farm Self Employment (NFSE). The findings of this study revealed that diversification of income should be given more focus and attention by policy makers in the efforts to reduce poverty among smallholder farmers in rural Nigeria. Farmers should be encouraged to participate more in farmers’ organization, the issue of access to land in the rural areas should be thoroughly examined and gender equity in access to productive resources should also be looked into.
Keywords: Income, Diversification, Poverty, Farmers, Nigeria.
Regional Bulk Purchase of Imported Rice Initiative by ECOWAS: A Feasibility Assessment
Rose Fiamohe a, Ibrahima Bamba b, Papa A. Seck a, Aliou Diagne a
a Africa Rice Center (AfricaRice), 01 BP 2031 Cotonou, Benin.
b International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD),
Via Paolo di Dono, 44, 00142 Rome, Italy.
Volume 05, Issue 10, Pg. 79-91, 2012.
Abstract: Rice being the leading source of food energy in West Africa and with all ECOWAS member states being net rice importers, the adverse impact of the 2007-2008 food crisis hit the region very hardly. To mitigate its pervasive effect and prevent future international price shocks on domestic markets of the region, a regional bulk purchase of imported rice was considered by ECOWAS in 2008.
In several major rice exporting and importing countries, state trading companies and government-to-government contracts play active roles. Government-to-government rice agreements often involve importing countries such as Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines, and exporting countries such as Myanmar, Pakistan, Thailand and Vietnam. In West Africa however, rice is typically imported by each individual country. There is currently no regional instrument for regulating rice imports into West Africa economic regional body like ECOWAS. The trading companies and government-to-government contracts have advantage to permit economies of scale, to increase market power and to reduce transaction costs and uncertainty across stages involved in trading rice in the international market. It becomes therefore imperative for ECOWAS States to implement a regional bulk purchase of imported rice on the international rice market.
This study aims to provide some empirical evidence which support or reject the implementation of regional bulk purchase of imported rice by ECOWAS. Specifically, we estimate the ECOWAS collective market power in the international rice market. The extent to which West African can exploit some market power is determined by estimating both the elasticity of the aggregate West African import demand for rice and the elasticity of supply for major rice exporters like Thailand. Based on the residual demand and supply models, a two-country partial equilibrium rice trade model is applied to the Thailand-ECOWAS and Thailand-Nigeria rice trade.
The data employed spanned from 1988 to 2010 and were collected from different sources including United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) website, United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) website, OSIRIZ and GIEWS Food Price Data and Analysis tools etc. The primarily empirical results indicate that the ECOWAS region as a whole does possess a strong and significant market power in the international rice export market. These findings imply that bulk purchase of imported rice can confer to ECOWAS member states a greater bargaining power into rice import market. Also, Nigeria possesses more market power than Thailand exporters. Nevertheless, Nigeria market power is not really expressed in Thailand rice market due to the lack of Nigeria’s policy instrument for regulating rice imports which could allow Nigeria to face the strong exporter government interference in Thailand rice market.
In conclusion, with the enhancement of the common external tariff on imported rice, which is in perspective within the ECOWAS, the implementation of imported rice bulk purchase would facilitate the rice imports trade and allow a better balance between rice imports and rice production in West Africa countries, giving producers the chance to bring production into line with regional market development. However, the type of regulation, institutional arrangements and coordination needed to ensure the effectiveness of a policy scheme such as the regional bulk purchase of imported rice needs to be further investigated. In addition, further evidence-based research is needed to inform the type of policy and institutional innovations needed in terms of public-private partnership.
Keywords: ECOWAS, imported rice market, bulk purchase, market power.
Effect Of Credit On Small Ruminant Production In Delta State, Nigeria: Implications For Sustainable Development
G. O. Alufohai a, F. Ejenavi b, M. J. Koyenikan c
a,b,c Department of Agricultural Economics and Extension Services, University of Benin, Benin City, Nigeria
Volume 05, Issue 10, Pg. 56-64, 2012.
Abstract: The study examined the effect of credit on sheep and goat production in Delta State, Nigeria. The specific objectives were the identification of the socio-economic characteristics of the farmers as they affect their access to credit, the sources and volume of credit available to these farmers, areas of sheep and goat development that accessed credit was applied and effect of credit on output and income. Data were obtained with the aid of pre-tested questionnaire administered to 360 sheep and goat farmers. The multi-stage sampling procedure was employed, involving both purposive and simple random sampling techniques. Data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistics such as frequency counts, percentages, mean scores, and the logit model. The findings were that sheep and goat production was dominated by males (58%) as against 42% females. Majority of the respondents fell within the age bracket of 51-60years and were all married, 76.1% of the respondents had one form of education or the other with mean family size of 6, mean farming experience of 19years and 20years for the credit beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries respectively. An annual mean income of N121,050.46 was recorded for credit beneficiaries as against N29,316.96 for non-beneficiaries of credit with mean annual difference of N91,733 which was significant at 5% level. Majority of the credit beneficiaries (60%) invested the accessed funds on feeds, veterinary services, provision of modern pens for their stock as well as the purchase of better breeds of animals. The Logit analysis showed that gender (0.763) and education (0.538) had the probability of increasing access to credit, while the effects of credit on production for those that had access to credit were: increase in stock population, acquisition of more animals, improvement in infrastructures for their stocks as well as increase in income resulting from increased sales. Mobilization of sheep and goat farmers into economic groups is recommended to enhance access to technologies and credit for sustainable production and empowerment of farmers.
Keywords: Credit, Effect, Small Ruminant, Production, Delta, Nigeria
Analysis of Organization Behavior of Member from Political Party in Indonesia
Ahmad Dirwan a
a University of Suryadharma
Protokol Halim Perdana Kusuma Main Street, East Jakarta, 13610, Indonesia.
Volume 05, Issue 10, Pg. 102-108, 2012.
Abstract : The purposed of this study was to analyse the behavior of political organization in Indonesia. Recently, political elites and member of political parties simply moved the other party (leafhopper). This behavior made political party become weak and difficult to build a democracy. As the study sample, would be taken from the secondary sources of election results in 2009 and the results of the 2012 election, for the first round of the Governor of Jakarta. The main consideration using this sampling, because Jakarta as the Capital of the State already became a baro meter elections in Indonesia. From the results of data processing, founded the correlation coefficient to r = 0.393, which indicates the inconsistencies voters using their vote’s rights based on political party. From the above phenomena, variables to be analyzed from a political party organization behavior approach was : perceptions, values and ideology, organizational understanding, commitment, and personality. From the analysis, will be found why elite party members easily switch from one party to another. Further to this, according to research result, we would given recommendations based on a behavioral approach political organization in Indonesia, including how to strengthen the party’s ideology and increase members’ commitment.
Keywords: Commitment, “leafhopper”, Political Party Behavior, Values as Ideology.
3r’s critical success factor for integrated solid waste management in higher educational institutions
Jibril Dan’azimi Jibril a, Ibrahim @ Atan Bin Sipan b, Jamilu Mohammed Lawal c
a, b, Faculty of Geo-information & Real Estate, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 Skudai, Johor, Malaysia.
c Computer Science and Information Technology, University of District of Columbia (UDC), USA.
Volume 05, Issue 10, Pg. 110-121, 2012.
Abstract: Higher Educational Institutions (HEI’s) in Malaysia has been faced with a wide population increase in the past decades, with an estimated population of 35,000 students and staff in Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), these lead to force a shift which results the University to an increasing volume of municipal solid waste, attached to these increase, it is an economical social and environmental development which has raised the standard of living and changing the waste generator’s habits within the HEI’s environment, these gave birth to the higher volume of solid waste generation. This paper focus on a strategic implementation and practice of 3R’s (Reduce, Reuse and Recycle) in integrated solid waste management, thus it becomes everyone’s responsibility to minimize the waste generation. The shift brought about the need to get proper solutions for the sustainable leaving condition of public within the HEI’s. Questionnaire survey, interviews and walkthrough were used to examine the level of attitudes and awareness base on 3R’s practice amongst the waste generators in HEI’s and propose a new Critical Success Factor for a sustainable solid waste management in HEI’s. The findings indicated that, the success of Integrated Solid Waste Management in HEI’s depends on the participation of students and academic staff using 3R’s in Integrated Solid Waste Management Hierarchy, with emphasis on source reduction, intermediate treatment then final disposal and enlighten the waste generators on the importance of 3R’s, these will serve as a substantial measure to reduce, reuse and recycle the generated solid waste there all days. Finally it was revealed that, proper 3R’s practice amongst the waste generator in HEI’s will help to reduce the environmental impact and running cost of solid waste management. It will also lead to developing environmental consciousness amongst graduate professionals and HEI’s staff as a whole.
Keywords: 3R’s awareness; Higher Educational Institution; Integrated Solid waste management; Malaysia; and Universiti Teknologi Malaysia.