scholarly journals There and Back Again: The Making of Uganda’s Mobile Money Tax

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adrienne Lees ◽  
Doris Akol
Keyword(s):  
Low Income ◽  
Policy Design ◽  
Low Income Countries ◽  
Mobile Money ◽  
Key Stakeholders ◽  
Policy Adjustment

This paper evaluates the appropriateness of the tax policymaking process that led to the introduction, and the later adaptation, of a tax on mobile money transactions in Uganda in 2018. We examine the unusual source of the proposal, how this particular tax diverged from the usual tax policymaking process, and whether certain key stakeholders were excluded. We argue that weaknesses in the tax policymaking process undermined the quality of policy design, and resulted in a period of costly, and avoidable, policy adjustment. This case study is relevant for Uganda as well as for other low-income countries which could be exposed to similar challenges in designing effective taxes for the mobile money industry.

Conscious capitalism to help people with hearing disability in developing countries

2015 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Vepakomma Bhujanga Rao
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Cochlear Implant ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Low Income Countries ◽  
Hearing Disability ◽  
Care Access ◽  
The World ◽  
Implant Prosthesis

AbstractWith advances in medical technology, health care has improved the longevity, quality of life, and comfort of people across the world. Unfortunately, access to some of these health care technologies in many low-income countries and for certain people in developed countries is completely curtailed due to cost. The author presents a case study of a hearing technology that failed to reduce hearing disability (deafness) among profoundly hearing impaired people in developing countries despite the availability of cochlear implant prosthesis in the market for the last three decades. The recent World Health Organization (WHO) Report, released in 2013, is also silent on this issue while discussing many prevention and rehabilitation issues of hearing care across the world. There are nearly 25 million people suffering from profound hearing disability who need cochlear implant prosthesis, but are unable to afford one as each costs around USD 60,000. Most of these people suffer from social isolation, with limited employment opportunities that, in turn, severely affects their quality of life. With a personal average annual income of well below USD 2000 in low income countries, it is almost impossible to make progress against hearing disability. In the 21st century, should we allow people to suffer from hearing disability despite the availability of reliable technology? Why should any government or society indiscriminately consider the hearing disabled as helpless, incompetent, and dependent? Can the government, corporations, non-government organizations, the WHO, the United Nations Children’s Fund, and so on, not collectively take care of the hearing disabled by making cochlear implant prostheses affordable? It is time to draw attention to the fact that people with disabilities have equal rights with others. If we want to equip every profoundly hearing disabled individual with a cochlear implant that bestows the gift of hearing, neither pure socialism nor capitalism would help. Conscientious business leaders who can embrace a higher purpose beyond making profits are required. Hence, Conscientious capitalism is the only answer wherein efforts are directed to not-just-for-profit business models or conscious popular consumerism but also socially responsible investments. We have to build upon a health care access model that is open-ended and has positive aspirations with strict policies on adoption and diffusion of new technologies. The policies should be framed such that access is not denied due to the high price of the device and to clinical and hospital budgets. I have chosen a case study of the hearing disabled to showcase the plight of poor people, especially in low-income countries, in gaining access to many life-transforming medical technologies. I present a heath care access model related to hearing disability, treating it as a global issue.

Solar Sacrifice: How an Arizona Church Lost Money by Going Solar—and Solutions for When Energy Incentives Fail to Serve the Needs of Nonprofits

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Krantz
Keyword(s):  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Oral History ◽  
Policy Design ◽  
Religious Institutions ◽  
Solar Photovoltaic ◽  
The Sun ◽  
Photovoltaic Panels ◽  
Key Stakeholders ◽  
Oral History Interviews

By policy design, consumers are supposed to save money when they invest in solar energy. This paper presents a case study of what happens when a church goes solar and the finances go wrong. Following the installation of solar-photovoltaic panels, the Arizona church—in the Valley of the Sun, among the sunniest places in the country—decreased its energy consumption, but its electric bills went up. Through oral-history interviews of key stakeholders, the author investigates what happened, and what could be done to prevent other religious institutions and nonprofits from experiencing the church’s fate.

scholarly journals Availability, Accessibility, and Quality of Conservative Kidney Management Worldwide

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-87
Author(s):  
Meaghan Lunney ◽  
Aminu K. Bello ◽  
Adeera Levin ◽  
Helen Tam-Tham ◽  
Chandra Thomas ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Health Care Providers ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Kidney Failure ◽  
Low Income Countries ◽  
Multidisciplinary Teams ◽  
Spiritual Support ◽  
Care Providers ◽  
The Status ◽  
Kidney Health

Background and objectivesPeople with kidney failure typically receive KRT in the form of dialysis or transplantation. However, studies have suggested that not all patients with kidney failure are best suited for KRT. Additionally, KRT is costly and not always accessible in resource-restricted settings. Conservative kidney management is an alternate kidney failure therapy that focuses on symptom management, psychologic health, spiritual care, and family and social support. Despite the importance of conservative kidney management in kidney failure care, several barriers exist that affect its uptake and quality.Design, setting, participants, & measurementsThe Global Kidney Health Atlas is an ongoing initiative of the International Society of Nephrology that aims to monitor and evaluate the status of global kidney care worldwide. This study reports on findings from the 2018 Global Kidney Health Atlas survey, specifically addressing the availability, accessibility, and quality of conservative kidney management.ResultsRespondents from 160 countries completed the survey, and 154 answered questions pertaining to conservative kidney management. Of these, 124 (81%) stated that conservative kidney management was available. Accessibility was low worldwide, particularly in low-income countries. Less than half of countries utilized multidisciplinary teams (46%); utilized shared decision making (32%); or provided psychologic, cultural, or spiritual support (36%). One-quarter provided relevant health care providers with training on conservative kidney management delivery.ConclusionsOverall, conservative kidney management is available in most countries; however, it is not optimally accessible or of the highest quality.

scholarly journals The Utilization of Mobile Money Services in Small Scale Enterprises:A Case Study

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Suryakanthi Tangirala ◽  
Samuel Nlondiwa
Keyword(s):  
Mobile Phone ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Small Enterprises ◽  
Mobile Money ◽  
Different Types ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Transactional Costs

Mobile money is an electronic wallet service that allows users to store, send and receive money using their mobile phone. This research is an effort to find out the adoption and utilization of mobile money services in small sized enterprises located in Gaborone, Botswana. Inevitably, other aspects such as different types of transactions carried out using mobile money services in small business, customer’s perception on quality of mobile money service providers, impeding factors of mobile money adoption are also studied for wider understanding of the subject. The findings of the study show that small enterprises use mobile money services to carryout transactions but the level of adoption is not significant. The study revealed that transactional costs and connectivity issues are major barriers of adoption of mobile money services. In conclusion the study recommended that the service providers must improve the connectivity issues and reduce transaction charges in order to increase the utilization of mobile money services

REGENERATION OF A DECAYING URBAN INDUSTRIAL AREA DRIVEN BY ENDOGENOUS HOME INDUSTRIES: A CASE STUDY OF MARÉ FAVELA, RIO DE JANEIRO

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 237-248
Author(s):  
Shanshan Wu ◽  
Hao Li
Keyword(s):  
Urban Communities ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Rio De Janeiro ◽  
Industrial Area ◽  
Production Model ◽  
Home Production ◽  
Home Industries ◽  
The City

ABSTRACT Favelas are low-income urban communities in Brazil, and Maré in Rio de Janeiro has the largest cluster of favelas in the country. The prevailing view of a unique, regulated, and normative city conflicts with the reality of the continued expansion of the favelas, posing challenges for architects and urban planners in developing new strategies for integrating informal areas with the main city. This study focused on a decaying industrial area adjacent to the Maré favelas and explored a sustainable path for improving both the quality of the built environment and the quality of life of the residents. Effective infrastructure and socioeconomic links between the favelas and the city were proposed. The home production model that emerged from the favelas inspired the use of the abandoned industrial area as a home-industry incubator. The study proposed an urban regeneration strategy involving a bottom-up industry-space process evolving from home industries to group industries, and finally to larger community industries. This strategy can accelerate Maré’s development and integration with the city of Rio de Janeiro.

The House of Love and the Mental Hospital

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Murphy Halliburton
Keyword(s):  
Family Support ◽  
Family Involvement ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Global Mental Health ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Epidemiological Studies ◽  
Low Income Countries ◽  
Rehabilitation Centre

The Movement for Global Mental Health has defined the person suffering psychopathology in low-income countries as an abused and suffering subject in need of saving by biomedical psychiatry. Based on fieldwork in Kerala, South India, carried out at psychiatric clinics and a psychosocial rehabilitation centre, this paper examines patients’ experiences of illness, the degree and quality of family support, and attributions made to the role of ‘sneham’, or love, in recovery. The role of love and family involvement may help explain the provocative finding by WHO epidemiological studies that ‘developing’ countries – and India in particular – showed better rates of recovery from severe mental illness when compared to developed countries.

‘It makes you someone who changes with the times’: health worker and client perspectives on a smartphone-based counselling application deployed in rural Tanzania

2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (4) ◽  
pp. 307-315 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristy Hackett ◽  
Mina Kazemi ◽  
Curtis Lafleur ◽  
Peter Nyella ◽  
Lawelu Godfrey ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Care ◽  
Health System ◽  
Data Management ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Community Intervention ◽  
Health Workers ◽  
Low Income Countries ◽  
Maternal And Newborn Health ◽  
Pregnancy And Childbirth

AbstractMobile health (mHealth) applications have been developed for community health workers (CHW) to help simplify tasks, enhance service delivery and promote healthy behaviours. These strategies hold promise, particularly for support of pregnancy and childbirth in low-income countries (LIC), but their design and implementation must incorporate CHW clients’ perspectives to be effective and sustainable. Few studies examine how mHealth influences client and supervisor perceptions of CHW performance and quality of care in LIC. This study was embedded within a larger cluster-randomized, community intervention trial in Singida, Tanzania. CHW in intervention areas were trained to use a smartphone application designed to improve data management, patient tracking and delivery of health messages during prenatal counselling visits with women clients. Qualitative data collected through focus groups and in-depth interviews illustrated mostly positive perceptions of smartphone-assisted counselling among clients and supervisors including: increased quality of care; and improved communication, efficiency and data management. Clients also associated smartphone-assisted counselling with overall health system improvements even though the functions of the smartphones were not well understood. Smartphones were thought to signify modern, up-to-date biomedical information deemed highly desirable during pregnancy and childbirth in this context. In this rural Tanzanian setting, mHealth tools positively influenced community perceptions of health system services and client expectations of health workers; policymakers and implementers must ensure these expectations are met. Such interventions must be deeply embedded into health systems to have long-term impacts on maternal and newborn health outcomes.

scholarly journals Exploring referral systems for injured patients in low-income countries: a case study from Cambodia

2009 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 319-327 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Nakahara ◽  
S. Saint ◽  
S. Sann ◽  
M. Ichikawa ◽  
A. Kimura ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Low Income ◽  
Low Income Countries ◽  
Referral Systems ◽  
Injured Patients

scholarly journals Factors that influence the scale up of new interventions in low-income settings: a qualitative case study of the introduction of chlorhexidine cleansing of the umbilical cord in Bangladesh

2020 ◽  
Vol 35 (4) ◽  
pp. 440-451
Author(s):  
Jennifer A Callaghan-Koru ◽  
Munia Islam ◽  
Marufa Khan ◽  
Ardy Sowe ◽  
Jahrul Islam ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Health Systems ◽  
Umbilical Cord ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Qualitative Case Study ◽  
National Level ◽  
Scale Up ◽  
New Drugs ◽  
Low Income Countries

Abstract There is a well-recognized need for empirical study of processes and factors that influence scale up of evidence-based interventions in low-income countries to address the ‘know-do’ gap. We undertook a qualitative case study of the scale up of chlorhexidine cleansing of the umbilical cord (CHX) in Bangladesh to identify and compare facilitators and barriers for the institutionalization and expansion stages of scale up. Data collection and analysis for this case study were informed by the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR) and the WHO/ExpandNet model of scale up. At the national level, we interviewed 20 stakeholders involved in CHX policy or implementation. At the district level, we conducted interviews with 31 facility-based healthcare providers in five districts and focus group discussions (FGDs) with eight community-based providers and eight programme managers. At the community level, we conducted 7 FGDs with 53 mothers who had a baby within the past year. Expanded interview notes were thematically coded and analysed following an adapted Framework approach. National stakeholders identified external policy and incentives, and the engagement of stakeholders in policy development through the National Technical Working Committee for Newborn Health, as key facilitators for policy and health systems changes. Stakeholders, providers and families perceived the intervention to be simple, safe and effective, and more consistent with family preferences than the prior policy of dry cord care. The major barriers that delayed or decreased the public health impact of the scale up of CHX in Bangladesh’s public health system related to commodity production, procurement and distribution. Bangladesh’s experience scaling up CHX suggests that scale up should involve early needs assessments and planning for institutionalizing new drugs and commodities into the supply chain. While the five CFIR domains were useful for categorizing barriers and facilitators, additional constructs are needed for common health systems barriers in low-income settings.

Sustaining Long-Run Growth and Macroeconomic Stability in Low-Income Countries—The Role of Structural Transformation and Diversification

Policy Papers ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 2014 (38) ◽  
Author(s):  
Keyword(s):  
Structural Transformation ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Low Income Countries ◽  
Macroeconomic Performance ◽  
Export Structure ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Trading Partners ◽  
Per Capita

Diversification and structural transformation play important roles in influencing the macroeconomic performance of low-income countries (LICs). Increases in income per capita at early stages of development are typically accompanied by a transformation in a country’s production and export structure. This can include diversification into new products and trading partners as well as increases in the quality of existing products.

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