Land relations under unbearable stress: Rwanda caught in the Malthusian trap

On the cognitive mechanisms supporting prosocial disobedience in a post-genocidal context

The aim of the present study was to offer a first investigation of the neuro-cognitive processes and the temporal dynamics at the neural level, together with cultural, social and psychological dimensions, that may support resistance to orders to harm another person. Using a novel experimental approach to study experimentally disobedience, we recruited individuals from the first generation born after the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. Seventy-two were recruited and tested in Rwanda and 72 were recruited and tested in Belgium. Results indicated that a higher neural response to the pain of others and a higher feeling of responsibility when people obeyed orders were associated with more resistance to immoral orders. We also observed that participants who had a higher processing, as measured through mid-frontal theta activity, when listening to the orders of the experimenter disobeyed less frequently to immoral orders. Further, participants experiencing a higher conflict before administering a shock to the 'victim' also disobeyed more frequently to immoral orders. Finally, a low cultural relationship to authority and a high estimated family suffering during the genocide were also associated with more disobedience to immoral orders. The present study opens new paths for interdisciplinary field research dedicated to the study of obedience.

Legacies of civil wars: A 14-year study of social conflicts and well-being outcomes in farming economies

Community processes to address fractured social relationships and well-being remain the least examined dimensions in studies of legacies of civil wars. This article addresses these limitations by analyzing how the wartime and postwar generations have negotiated the legacies of the civil war (1976-1992) in a farming economy region in Mozambique. Based on a 14-year (2002-2015) study of community courts in Mozambique, we analyzed the types of social conflicts and the associations with gender, age, risk factors, self-described health impairments, and the timing of farming activities. We identified n = 3,456 participants and found that perennial sources of disputes were related to family formation and maintenance, defamation, accusations of perpetration of serious civil wartime violations, mistrust, debts, and domestic violence. Furthermore, conflict relations were associated with gender, age, risk factors, and health problems. This study concludes that civil wars have lasting multifaceted legacies, but generational tensions, availability of community institutions, and economic resources shape social relationships and well-being outcomes while averting revenge cycles among civilian war survivors.

The Effects of Conflict on Fertility: Evidence From the Genocide in Rwanda

Our study analyzes the fertility effects of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. We study the effects of violence on both the duration time to the first birth in the early post-genocide period and on the total number of post-genocide births per woman up to 15 years following the conflict. We use individual-level data from Demographic and Health Surveys, estimating survival and count data models. This article contributes to the literature on the demographic effects of violent conflict by testing two channels through which conflict influences fertility: (1) the type of violence exposure as measured by the death of a child or sibling, and (2) the conflict-induced change in local demographic conditions as captured by the change in the district-level sex ratio. Results indicate the genocide had heterogeneous effects on fertility, depending on the type of violence experienced by the woman, her age cohort, parity, and the time horizon (5, 10, and 15 years after the genocide). There is strong evidence of a child replacement effect. Having experienced the death of a child during the genocide increases both the hazard of having a child in the five years following the genocide and the total number of post-genocide births. Experiencing sibling death during the genocide significantly lowers post-genocide fertility in both the short-run and the long-run. Finally, a reduction in the local sex ratio negatively impacts the hazard of having a child in the five years following the genocide, especially for older women.

Household Land Allocations and the Youth Land Access Nexus: Evidence from the Techiman Area of Ghana

Building inclusive societies that reflect the needs of all categories of people within the social spectrum is critical to achieving sustainable development. This is reflected in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which among things seek to ‘by 2030, empower and promote the social, economic and political inclusion of all, irrespective of age, sex. This places enormous tasks on all governments especially in developing countries like Ghana to ensure that the youth are not left behind in access and control over land as a building block for economic empowerment. This task is particularly critical in view of the sheer numbers of the youth and yet economically marginalized underpinned by high levels of unemployment and underemployment. This case study investigates the youth land rights within the context of household landholdings and allocations dynamics. The study took place in the Techiman area in Ghana. The study sampled 455 youth and 138 household heads. The study revealed that household lands are important building block for majority of the youth in the Techiman area. It gives them a sense of security in the usage. However, the youth’s ability to depend on this source to kick start independence economic life is beset with land scarcity, non-allocation and accumulation by the lineage heads who have prerogative over household lands. The study underscores the need for social welfare scheme for the aged farmers so that they can timely release land to the younger ones without fearing for what to sustain them. There is also the need for government to create land banks to support the willing youth to engage in agriculture.

Planetary Epidemiology: Towards First Principles

PURPOSE OF REVIEW

To combine evolutionary principles of competition and co-operation with limits to growth models, generating six principles for a new sub-discipline, called "planetary epidemiology." Suggestions are made for how to quantify four principles.

RECENT FINDINGS

Climate change is one of a suite of threats increasingly being re-discovered by health workers as a major threat to civilization. Although "planetary health" is now in vogue, neither it nor its allied sub-disciplines have, as yet, had significant impact on epidemiology. Few if any theorists have sought to develop principles for Earth system human epidemiology, in its ecological, social, and technological milieu. The principles of planetary epidemiology described here can be used to stimulate applied, quantitative work to explore past, contemporary, and future population health, at scales from local to planetary, in order to promote enduring health. It is also proposed that global well-being will decline this century, without radical reform.

Defying the Footprint Oracle: Implications of Country Resource Trends

Mainstream competitiveness and international development analyses pay little attention to the significance of a country’s resource security for its economic performance. This paper challenges this neglect, examining the economic implications of countries resource dynamics, particularly for low-income countries. It explores typologies of resource patterns in the context of those countries’ economic prospects. To begin, the paper explains why it uses Ecological Footprint and biocapacity accounting for its analysis. Data used for the analysis stem from Global Footprint Network’s 2018 edition of its National Footprint and Biocapacity Accounts. Ranging from 1961 to 2014, these accounts are computed from UN data sets. The accounts track, year by year, how much biologically productive space is occupied by people’s consumption and compare this with how much productive space is available. Both demand and availability are expressed in productivity-adjusted hectares, called global hectares. Using this biophysical accounting perspective, the paper predicts countries’ future socio-economic performance. This analysis is then contrasted with a financial assessment of those countries. The juxtaposition reveals a paradox: Financial assessments seem to contradict assessments based on biophysical trends. The paper offers a way to reconcile this paradox, which also elevates the significance of biophysical country assessments for shaping successful economic policies.

Land registration and landownership security

Purpose

The assertion that land registration guarantees landownership security is common knowledge. Thus, efforts at securing landownership in particularly, the developing world have concentrated on the formulation and implementation of land registration policies. However, over the years, whilst some studies claim that land registration assures security, a lot of other studies have established that security cannot be guaranteed by land registration. Also, there is evidence from research that has shown that land registration can be a source of ownership insecurity in some cases. The purpose of this paper is to critically analyse the underpinning principles of land registration and their application in order to establish whether or not land registration can actually guarantee ownership security.

Design/methodology/approach

It is a literature review paper that looks at the existing literature on landownership, security and land registration systems. The land registration principles that have been subjected to critical analysis are the publicity function of land registration, the legality of ownership emanating from land registration and the warranty provided by the State in land registration, specifically, under the Torrens system.

Findings

An analysis of the underpinning principles of land registration shows that land registration per se cannot guarantee ownership security and this helps to explain the findings of the numerous studies, which have established that landownership security cannot be assured by land registration. The paper concludes by identifying the right role of land registration as well as a mechanism that can effectively protect or secure landownership.

Practical implications

Land registration policies and programmes in the developing world are often funded by the international donor community and the findings provide useful insights regarding the actual role of land registration and for policy change in terms of what can secure landownership.

Originality/value

Even though there are two schools of thought regarding research on the link between land registration on one hand, and landownership security on the other, none of the studies has made an attempt to consider the nexus by critically examining the principles that underpin land registration to support their arguments.

Nonviolent civil insecurity is negatively associated with subsequent height-for-age in children aged <5 y born between 1998 and 2014 in rural areas of Africa

BACKGROUND

Civil wars and wars between states have occurred less frequently since the start of the 21st century, but civil insecurity outside the contexts of official wars continues to plague many parts of the world. The nutritional consequences of civil insecurity may disproportionately affect children, especially if experienced during sensitive developmental periods.

OBJECTIVES

This study estimated the associations between localized nonviolent and violent civil insecurity during key child nutritional periods and subsequent height-for-age z scores (HAZs) in 145,948 children born between 1998 and 2014 in Africa and examined the type of place of residence as a mediating factor.

DESIGN

A collection of 61 geo-referenced Demographic and Health Surveys implemented between 1998 and 2014 were merged with data from the high-resolution Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project to construct a repeat cross-sectional database, which was analyzed by using a difference-in-differences model with maternal fixed-effects.

RESULTS

Exposure to 1 nonviolent localized civil insecurity event (mean ± SD: 0.42 ± 1.87 events) during pregnancy for children living in rural areas was associated with a reduction of 0.01 SD in HAZ (P = 0.024). Exposure to 5 localized civil conflict fatalities (mean ± SD: 1.41 ± 10.21 fatalities) for children living in rural areas during the complementary feeding stage was associated with a 0.002-SD decrease in HAZ (P = 0.030). There were no measurable associations between civil insecurity and child heights in urban areas, even though children in urban areas experience more civil insecurity.

CONCLUSIONS

Exposure to both violent and nonviolent civil insecurity had negative associations with subsequent HAZ, but only in rural areas. The associations found were small in magnitude but still meaningful from a child-development perspective, because these events do not necessarily occur in the context of official wars, they are often nonviolent, and they are endemic to the region.

An empirical analysis of land property lawsuits and rainfalls

This article using the database of Taiwanese land property lawsuits studies the economic effects of rainfalls on land property lawsuits during the period of Japanese colonial rule (1920–1941). The results obtained from basic ordinary least squares indicate that it shows no significant influences. However, an interesting result is that, when we adopt the approach of two stage least squares and use the variables of temperature and evaporation as the instrument variables of rainfalls, we find that there are highly significant influences on the lawsuits of land property. If 1 year comes with low average rainfalls, it means that the costs of productive inputs increase, because the available natural resource will decrease, and brings the distorted using of land property.

Witchcraft beliefs and witch hunts: an interdisciplinary explanation

This paper proposes an interdisciplinary explanation of the cross-cultural similarities and evolutionary patterns of witchcraft beliefs. It argues that human social dilemmas have led to the evolution of a fear system that is sensitive to signs of deceit and envy. This was adapted in the evolutionary environment of small foraging bands but became overstimulated by the consequences of the Agricultural Revolution, leading to witch paranoia. State formation, civilization, and economic development abated the fear of witches and replaced it in part with more collectivist forms of social paranoia. However, demographic-economic crises could rekindle fear of witches-resulting, for example, in the witch craze of early modern Europe. The Industrial Revolution broke the Malthusian shackles, but modern economic growth requires agricultural development as a starting point. In sub-Saharan Africa, witch paranoia has resurged because the conditions for agricultural development are lacking, leading to fighting for opportunities and an erosion of intergenerational reciprocity.

Infectious disease emergence and global change: thinking systemically in a shrinking world

BACKGROUND

Concern intensifying that emerging infectious diseases and global environmental changes that could generate major future human pandemics.

METHOD

A focused literature review was undertaken, partly informed by a forthcoming report on environment, agriculture and infectious diseases of poverty, facilitated by the Special Programme for Tropical Diseases.

RESULTS

More than ten categories of infectious disease emergence exist, but none formally analyse past, current or future burden of disease. Other evidence suggests that the dominant public health concern focuses on two informal groupings. Most important is the perceived threat of newly recognised infections, especially viruses that arise or are newly discovered in developing countries that originate in species exotic to developed countries, such as non-human primates, bats and rodents. These pathogens may be transmitted by insects or bats, or via direct human contact with bushmeat. The second group is new strains of influenza arising from intensively farmed chickens or pigs, or emerging from Asian "wet markets" where several bird species have close contact. Both forms appear justified because of two great pandemics: HIV/AIDS (which appears to have originated from bushmeat hunting in Africa before emerging globally) and Spanish influenza, which killed up to 2.5% of the human population around the end of World War I. Insufficiently appreciated is the contribution of the milieu which appeared to facilitate the high disease burden in these pandemics. Additionally, excess anxiety over emerging infectious diseases diverts attention from issues of greater public health importance, especially: (i) existing (including neglected) infectious diseases and (ii) the changing milieu that is eroding the determinants of immunity and public health, caused by adverse global environmental changes, including climate change and other components of stressed life and civilisation-supporting systems.

CONCLUSIONS

The focus on novel pathogens and minor forms of anti-microbial resistance in emerging disease literature is unjustified by their burden of disease, actual and potential, and diverts attention from far more important health problems and determinants. There is insufficient understanding of systemic factors that promote pandemics. Adverse global change could generate circumstances conducive to future pandemics with a high burden of disease, arising via anti-microbial and insecticidal resistance, under-nutrition, conflict, and public health breakdown.

Sexual risk behaviors among youth heads of household in Gikongoro, south province of Rwanda

Background

As a result of the 1994 genocide and AIDS, Rwanda has a crisis of orphans. In 2005, the Ministry of Local Governance and Social Affairs of Rwanda has reported one million vulnerable children. Many of these are not only orphans but also youth heads of households (YHH). The purpose of this study was to: (a) identify risk behaviors that expose YHH to HIV infection, (b) determine gender-specific high risk profiles and, (c) determine predictors of sexual onset.

Methods

A household survey was conducted among 692 YHH, aged 12-24, all beneficiaries of a World Vision basic needs program in Gikongoro, Rwanda, from January to March 2004. Participants were interviewed using a structured questionnaire. Data was collected on socio-demographic variables, HIV/AIDS prevention knowledge and sexual risk behaviors. Bivariate analyses of the study variables were performed to examine differences between males and females. A logistic regression analysis was conducted to analyze factors that were independently associated with the debut of having sex.

Results

Forty-one percent of respondents reported sexual onset before age 15. Males were more likely to start earlier than females (50.4% versus 26.7%) but females reported more sexual onset with an older partner. Fifty-eight percent of females had their first intercourse with a partner who was four or more years older than themselves. While sexual activity was low (1.75 mean lifetime sexual partner, 0.45 mean sexual partner last twelve months), sexual experience was related to less social connectedness and use of drugs. Having a close friend also appeared to be protective for sexual debut. The analysis also found that although YHH were aware of some prevention measures against HIV/AIDS, there was low (19.8%) knowledge of the "ABC" prevention program promoted by the government. In addition, despite 85% of respondents knowing someone who had died of AIDS, only 31% perceived themselves at risk of HIV infection, and there was very low (13.2%) condom use among the sexually experienced.

Conclusions

Results suggest the urgent need of HIV prevention programs tailored to YHH that provide knowledge, enhance negotiations skills, and increase the perception of HIV infection risk among YHH in Rwanda.

Does infectious disease cause global variation in the frequency of intrastate armed conflict and civil war?

Geographic and cross-national variation in the frequency of intrastate armed conflict and civil war is a subject of great interest. Previous theory on this variation has focused on the influence on human behaviour of climate, resource competition, national wealth, and cultural characteristics. We present the parasite-stress model of intrastate conflict, which unites previous work on the correlates of intrastate conflict by linking frequency of the outbreak of such conflict, including civil war, to the intensity of infectious disease across countries of the world. High intensity of infectious disease leads to the emergence of xenophobic and ethnocentric cultural norms. These cultures suffer greater poverty and deprivation due to the morbidity and mortality caused by disease, and as a result of decreased investment in public health and welfare. Resource competition among xenophobic and ethnocentric groups within a nation leads to increased frequency of civil war. We present support for the parasite-stress model with regression analyses. We find support for a direct effect of infectious disease on intrastate armed conflict, and support for an indirect effect of infectious disease on the incidence of civil war via its negative effect on national wealth. We consider the entanglements of feedback of conflict into further reduced wealth and increased incidence of disease, and discuss implications for international warfare and global patterns of wealth and imperialism.

Emerging health issues: the widening challenge for population health promotion

The spectrum of tasks for health promotion has widened since the Ottawa Charter was signed. In 1986, infectious diseases still seemed in retreat, the potential extent of HIV/AIDS was unrecognized, the Green Revolution was at its height and global poverty appeared less intractable. Global climate change had not yet emerged as a major threat to development and health. Most economists forecast continuous improvement, and chronic diseases were broadly anticipated as the next major health issue. Today, although many broadly averaged measures of population health have improved, many of the determinants of global health have faltered. Many infectious diseases have emerged; others have unexpectedly reappeared. Reasons include urban crowding, environmental changes, altered sexual relations, intensified food production and increased mobility and trade. Foremost, however, is the persistence of poverty and the exacerbation of regional and global inequality. Life expectancy has unexpectedly declined in several countries. Rather than being a faint echo from an earlier time of hardship, these declines could signify the future. Relatedly, the demographic and epidemiological transitions have faltered. In some regions, declining fertility has overshot that needed for optimal age structure, whereas elsewhere mortality increases have reduced population growth rates, despite continuing high fertility. Few, if any, Millennium Development Goals (MDG), including those for health and sustainability, seem achievable. Policy-makers generally misunderstand the link between environmental sustainability (MDG #7) and health. Many health workers also fail to realize that social cohesion and sustainability--maintenance of the Earth's ecological and geophysical systems--is a necessary basis for health. In sum, these issues present an enormous challenge to health. Health promotion must address population health influences that transcend national boundaries and generations and engage with the development, human rights and environmental movements. The big task is to promote sustainable environmental and social conditions that bring enduring and equitable health gains.

Integrating nutrition with ecology: balancing the health of humans and biosphere

Objective

To show that current rates of global population growth, production and consumption of food, and use of living and physical resources, are evidently not sustainable. To consider ways in which nutrition and allied sciences can respond to this great challenge of the twenty-first century.

Method

Past, current and future projected trends in production and consumption patterns are examined. These show that overall present and projected patterns cannot be sustained; and also show increasing unacceptable inequity between and within rich and poor regions and countries.

Discussion

Nutrition science classically focuses on nutrients in relation to human physiology, metabolism, growth, health and disease. The social and environmental conditions of the modern, interconnected, market-oriented world, and the consequences for food production and consumption, are extending the research and policy agenda with which nutrition science must now urgently engage. Historically, much attention has been paid to eliminating nutritional deficiency states, and this remains an important task. In modern urban populations ‘malnutrition’ encompasses new forms of dietary imbalance, especially excesses of certain nutrients. These contribute to various non-communicable diseases and, particularly, to overweight/obesity and its attendant metabolic derangements and disease risks. As a mass phenomenon the current surge in obesity has no historical precedent. The escalating impact of humankind on the natural environment, with its ramifications for present and future food production, is also unprecedented.

Conclusion

The essential challenge for nutrition science is to develop new understanding and strategies to enable a balance between promoting, equitably, the health of humans while sustaining the long-term health of the biosphere. Extension of nutrition science and food policy to meet those goals will be aided by understanding better how dietary conditions shaped the biological evolution of humankind. The fundamental long-term task is to integrate human health with the health of the biosphere.

Pleistocene Rewilding: An Optimistic Agenda for Twenty‐First Century Conservation

Large vertebrates are strong interactors in food webs, yet they were lost from most ecosystems after the dispersal of modern humans from Africa and Eurasia. We call for restoration of missing ecological functions and evolutionary potential of lost North American megafauna using extant conspecifics and related taxa. We refer to this restoration as Pleistocene rewilding; it is conceived as carefully managed ecosystem manipulations whereby costs and benefits are objectively addressed on a case-by-case and locality-by-locality basis. Pleistocene rewilding would deliberately promote large, long-lived species over pest and weed assemblages, facilitate the persistence and ecological effectiveness of megafauna on a global scale, and broaden the underlying premise of conservation from managing extinction to encompass restoring ecological and evolutionary processes. Pleistocene rewilding can begin immediately with species such as Bolson tortoises and feral horses and continue through the coming decades with elephants and Holarctic lions. Our exemplar taxa would contribute biological, economic, and cultural benefits to North America. Owners of large tracts of private land in the central and western United States could be the first to implement this restoration. Risks of Pleistocene rewilding include the possibility of altered disease ecology and associated human health implications, as well as unexpected ecological and sociopolitical consequences of reintroductions. Establishment of programs to monitor suites of species interactions and their consequences for biodiversity and ecosystem health will be a significant challenge. Secure fencing would be a major economic cost, and social challenges will include acceptance of predation as an overriding natural process and the incorporation of pre-Columbian ecological frameworks into conservation strategies.

Reviewing institutions of rural health centres: the Performance Initiative in Butare, Rwanda

In many low-income countries, performance of pyramidal health systems with a public purpose is not meeting the expectations and needs of the populations they serve. A question that has not been studied and tested sufficiently is, 'What is the right package of institutional mechanisms required for organisations and individuals working in these health systems?' This paper presents the experience of the Performance Initiative, an innovative contractual approach that has reshaped the incentive structure in place in two rural districts of Rwanda. It describes the general background, the initial analysis, the institutional arrangement and the results after 3 years of operations. At this stage of the experience, it shows that 'output-based payment + greater autonomy' is a feasible and effective strategy for improving the performance of public health centres. As part of a more global package of strategies, contracting-in approaches could be an interesting option for governments, donors and non-governmental organisations in their effort to achieve some of the Millennium Development Goals.

Sex selection: Treating different cases differently

This paper contrasts ethical approaches to sex selection in countries where discrimination against women is pervasive, resulting in selection against girl children, and in countries where there is less general discrimination and couples do not prefer children of either sex. National sex ratio imbalances where discrimination against women is common have resulted in laws and policies, such as in India and China, to deter and prevent sex selection. Birth ratios of children can be affected by techniques of prenatal sex determination and abortion, preconception sex selection and discarding disfavored embryos, and prefertilization sperm sorting, when disfavored sperm remain unused. Incentives for son preference are reviewed, and laws and policies to prevent sex selection are explained. The elimination of social, economic and other discrimination against women is urged to redress sex selection against girl children. Where there is no general selection against girl children, sex selection can be allowed to assist families that want children of both sexes.

Human Health, Well-Being, and Global Ecological Scenarios

This article categorizes four kinds of adverse effects to human health caused by ecosystem change: direct, mediated, modulated, and systems failure. The effects are categorized on their scale, complexity, and lag-time. Some but not all of these can be classified as resulting from reduced ecosystem services. The articles also explores the impacts that different socioeconomic-ecologic scenarios are likely to have on human health and how changes to human health may, in turn, influence the unfolding of four different plausible future scenarios. We provide examples to show that our categorization is a useful taxonomy for understanding the complex relationships between ecosystems and human well-being and for predicting how future ecosystem changes may affect human health.

Human carrying capacity and human health

The issue of overpopulation has fallen out of favor among most contemporary demographers, economists, and epidemiologists. Discussing population control has become taboo. This taboo could be hazardous to public health

Ventral medial hypothalamus: involvement in hypoglycemic convulsions

Attaining sustainability will require concerted interactive efforts among disciplines, many of which have not yet recognized, and internalized, the relevance of environmental issues to their main intellectual discourse. The inability of key scientific disciplines to engage interactively is an obstacle to the actual attainment of sustainability. For example, in the list of Millennium Development Goals from the United Nations World Summit on Sustainable Development, Johannesburg, 2002, the seventh of the eight goals, to "ensure environmental sustainability," is presented separately from the parallel goals of reducing fertility and poverty, improving gains in equity, improving material conditions, and enhancing population health. A more integrated and consilient approach to sustainability is urgently needed.