1,720,969 research outputs found
Energy policy in Nigeria : global development network conference 2019 : conference poster
No full textThe poster presents approaches to policy making based on research evidence. It uses energy policy as an example, depicting how to break down workable approaches to building public policy, including the agenda setting phase and the adoption vs. implementation gap
Where's the evidence? How to inform policy and processes for improved energy access in Nigeria
Get PDFThe workshop objectives were to promote communication among energy researchers, practitioners and policymakers, and to establish a platform for jointly framing the perception of scientific evidence among these stakeholder and policy-making groups. The report provides a review of sessions and discussions about the energy sector in Nigeria. For instance, erroneously subsuming cooking energy solutions under ‘access to electricity’ risks ignoring the realities of millions of women and girls (whose experiences of energy interventions often differ from those of men in the same context). These become missed opportunities to address the unique threats to climate change presented by ‘dirty’ cooking
Evidence matters : opportunities and challenges for science advice in the making of household energy policy in Nigeria
Get PDFThe paper provides a review of conference presentations and talks in terms of science and energy policy. The roundtable aimed at understanding and expanding the contribution of scientific evidence and advice to policy-making in Nigeria’s household energy sector. It was preceded by a workshop in 2018, to discuss participants’ experiences of evidence use (or non-use) in their everyday jobs as technical officers and decision makers. Recognition of the nuanced nature of evidence around household energy use should prompt policymakers to embrace the complexity and uncertainty associated with evidence-to-policy processes
What's cooking?: participatory and market approaches to stove development in Nigeria and Kenya
No full textImproved stoves have been promoted in the global South by international organisations from the North since the 1970s for a variety of reasons including mitigation of health and environmental hazards related to the widespread use of solid biomass for cooking. However, uptake of these stoves by poor households in the South remains low, bearing negatively on efforts to alleviate energy poverty and achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). This thesis examines the framing and impact of participatory and market-based approaches to stove development and dissemination which have been widely promoted since the mid-1980s to address the failures of the predominantly expert-led, subsidy-based models favoured in the early years. Specifically, I investigate and compare two Northern-led stove projects, one established by Project Gaia in Nigeria, where stove development efforts targeted at addressing energy poverty have been limited, and the second by Practical Action in Kenya, where such efforts are more visible.
Drawing on empirical data gathered from field observations, interviews and key documents, I argue that despite the rhetorical shift from expert-led to context-responsive approaches, engagement with local priorities is still limited, and the interests and priorities of Northern organisations continue to shape the stove development agenda. The research establishes that Project Gaia’s CleanCook project in Nigeria remains an expert-led intervention that fails to connect with the bottom of the socio-economic pyramid while seeking to create local market conditions for transferring stove technology. In Kenya, Practical Action has been more responsive to local realities in its efforts to engage marginalised women’s groups in participatory stove development; however, success is limited by the constraints of project funding and assumptions about homogeneity of the poor. Cultural preferences and socio-economic differences within Southern target populations challenge the Northern vision of improving stove dissemination through a combination of participatory methods and neoliberal market solutions
What's cooking?: participatory and market approaches to stove development in Nigeria and Kenya
Get PDFImproved stoves have been promoted in the global South by international organisations from the North since the 1970s for a variety of reasons including mitigation of health and environmental hazards related to the widespread use of solid biomass for cooking. However, uptake of these stoves by poor households in the South remains low, bearing negatively on efforts to alleviate energy poverty and achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). This thesis examines the framing and impact of participatory and market-based approaches to stove development and dissemination which have been widely promoted since the mid-1980s to address the failures of the predominantly expert-led, subsidy-based models favoured in the early years. Specifically, I investigate and compare two Northern-led stove projects, one established by Project Gaia in Nigeria, where stove development efforts targeted at addressing energy poverty have been limited, and the second by Practical Action in Kenya, where such efforts are more visible.
Drawing on empirical data gathered from field observations, interviews and key documents, I argue that despite the rhetorical shift from expert-led to context-responsive approaches, engagement with local priorities is still limited, and the interests and priorities of Northern organisations continue to shape the stove development agenda. The research establishes that Project Gaia’s CleanCook project in Nigeria remains an expert-led intervention that fails to connect with the bottom of the socio-economic pyramid while seeking to create local market conditions for transferring stove technology. In Kenya, Practical Action has been more responsive to local realities in its efforts to engage marginalised women’s groups in participatory stove development; however, success is limited by the constraints of project funding and assumptions about homogeneity of the poor. Cultural preferences and socio-economic differences within Southern target populations challenge the Northern vision of improving stove dissemination through a combination of participatory methods and neoliberal market solutions
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Factors Differentiating Primary Care Facilities under Performance-Based Financing in Nigeria
No full textThe determinants of primary health facility performance in developing countries have not been well studied. One of the most under-researched areas is health facility management. This study investigated health facilities under the pilot performance-based financing (PBF) scheme in Nigeria, and aimed to understand which factors differentiated primary health care centers (PHCCs) which had performed well, vs those which had not, with a focus on health facility management practices. We used a multiple case study where we compared two high-performing PHCCs and two low-performing PHCCs for each of the two PBF target states. Two teams of two trained local researchers spent 1 week at each PHCC and collected semi-structured interview, observation and documentary data. Data from interviews were transcribed, translated and coded using a framework approach. The data for each PHCC were synthesized to understand dynamic interactions of different elements in each case. We then compared the characteristics of high and low performers. The areas in which critical differences between high and low-performers emerged were: community engagement and support; and performance and staff management. We also found that (i) contextual and health system factors particularly staffing, access and competition with other providers; (ii) health center management including community engagement, performance management and staff management; and (iii) community leader support interacted and drove performance improvement among the PHCCs. Among them, we found that good health center management can overcome some contextual and health system barriers and enhance community leader support. This study findings suggest a strong need to select capable and motivated health center managers, provide long-term coaching in managerial skills, and motivate them to improve their practices. The study also highlights the need to position engagement with community leaders as a key management practice and a central element of interventions to improve PHCC performance
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