CHANGING LIVES: Making Research Real / IPS Inter Press Service

Wednesday, February 08, 2012 21:01 GMT

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Research findings may be widely published in scientific journals, peer-reviewed and academically admired -- but are they filtering through to the public, and bringing about tangible improvements to everyday life?

In partnership with www.research4development.info, IPS is seeking to answer these questions, enliven the debate about research, and help to ensure that it does indeed change lives.

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City dwellers in Kenya are growing their own food by using sacks in the slums of Nairobi....

IPS brings scientists and journalists together in Johannesburg in an effort to make research results more public.

More than four million people have taken an HIV test since the launch of the HIV Counselling and Testing Campaign (HCT) in April this year...

Gains have been made in the fight against HIV and Aids in South Africa; however more can and still needs to be done.

New medications, simpler testing and a concerted effort by Government and NGOs to combat HIV and Aids are making inroads in fighting the pandemic...

Lebogang Marishane of Womensnet (http://www.womensnet.org.za/) speaks to Tinus de Jager about gender based violence and the recording of the rape of a schoolgirl in South Africa by her fellow school mates.

25 November is the start of International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women and South Africa is looking at the role of the media in stopping the scourge of gender-based violence. Tinus de Jager asked William Bird, of Media Monitoring Africa, if more laws are needed to address the issues.

The Association for Progressive Communications is implementing Take Back the Tech! to End Violence Against Women

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Sorghum Proving Popular with Kenyan Farmers
By Isaiah Esipisu
MAKUENI DISTRICT, Kenya - Gadam sorghum was introduced to semi-arid regions of eastern Kenya as a way for farmers to improve their food security and earn some income from marginal land. The hardy, high-yielding sorghum variety has not only thrived in harsh conditions, it has won a place in the hearts - and plates - of local farmers.
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SOUTHERN AFRICA
Assessing the True Value of Water
By IPS Correspondent
WINDHOEK - As water resources in Southern Africa come under pressure from growing population, climate change and increasing industrial and agricultural use, economic accounting for water is among the tools that could aid better management.
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Sierra Leone Facing Facts of Teenage Pregnancy
By Mohamed Fofanah
FREETOWN - On Apr. 5, the United Nations Children's Fund will launch a report on teenage pregnancy in Sierra Leone. Teenage pregnancies account for 40 percent of maternal deaths in the country, and the report comes as public health authorities recalibrate strategy to address a problem that endangers both mothers and children.
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UGANDA
Sun Smiling on Renewable Energy Initiative
By Wambi Michael
KAMPALA - Clementine Auma was still living in a displaced person's camp in Gulu district when she acquired the treasure she's gone into the house to fetch. She re-emerges from her home with a white box in her arms: a solar oven.
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Combating Poverty With 'Poor Economics'
By A. D. McKenzie
PARIS - French economist Esther Duflo thinks poverty can be alleviated or even eradicated with the right policies. All it takes is for politicians to "translate research into action," implementing programmes that have been shown to work.
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MALAWI
Putting Knowledge Into Practice in Childbirth
By Claire Ngozo
LILONGWE - Post-partum haemorrhage is the leading cause of maternal mortality worldwide, according to the World Health Organisation. A decade of applying research to midwifery practice in one Malawi district demonstrates that PPH is quite easy to prevent.
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KENYA
Sustainable Energy in the Heart of the Slums
By Miriam Gathigah
NAIROBI - Talk about foul foundations: the Katwekera Tosha Bio Centre is built on the stuff that goes into toilets. This community centre in the Nairobi slum of Kibera goes well beyond solving sanitation problems - it is a model for green energy, a meeting place for locals, and turning a profit for its operators.
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SOUTH AFRICA
Who Says Research Can't Be Dramatic?
By Nyasha Musandu
JOHANNESBURG - In the early 1990s, a group of researchers set off for a small rural village in the eastern part of South Africa. Their intention was simple: teach the community how to rehydrate sick babies.
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DR CONGO
Beauty of a Bean Wins Farmers' Hearts
By Badylon K. Bakiman
KIKWIT, DR Congo - Smallholder farmers in Bandundu Province are boosting their harvests with the help of the sweetly-named velvet bean.
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Q&A
Studying Kenyan Farmers' Efforts to Adapt
Zukiswa Zimela interviews JUDI WAKHUNGU, executive director, African Centre for Technology Studies
NAIROBI - Climate change has become an important part of the development agenda. In Africa, farmers and consumers alike are feeling its effects on productivity and food security.
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KENYA
Community Turns Garbage Into Energy Source
By Miriam Gathigah
NAIROBI - A community-based organisation in the Kenyan slum area of Kibera set out to clean up garbage and deal with waste water; Ushiriki Wa Safi ended up creating a community cooker that turns waste into an energy source.
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Kenyan Pastoralists Look Back to Secure Their Future
By Isaiah Esipisu
NAIROBI - David Lenamira, watching as usual from a seat outside his compound, has no trouble picking out his sheep as the herd boys drive them home every evening. The red-brown animals are smaller than those in his neighbours' herds, but he's proud of them just the same.
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COTE D'IVOIRE
New Techniques, New Profits for Tomato Farmers
By Fulgence Zamblé
ABIDJAN - Even while the country has faced civil war and political crisis, innovative research organisations have worked to meet the challenges of food security and rural poverty.
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Cassava Combating Rural Hunger in Zambia
By Aston Mwila Kuseka
LUAPULA, Zambia - In Zambia, a silver lining has emerged for widespread rural hunger and poverty, thanks to homegrown agricultural research. Local scientists have successfully developed four new, early-maturing and high- yielding cassava cultivars in an ambitious research project conducted in the cassava-rich Luapula Province, under the on-going Root and Tuber Improvement Programme (RTIP).
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CHINA
Scientists Push Desalination To Meet Water Shortages
By Mitch Moxley
BEIJING - While China faces grave water shortages, researchers at institutions across the country are working on new water- saving and desalination technologies that they hope can alleviate the crisis in the crucial years to come.
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DEVELOPMENT-INDIA:
Less Water, But More Rice
By Manipadma Jena
BHUBANESWAR, India - When French Jesuit priest and passionate agriculturist Henri de Laulanie developed the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) method of cultivation for Madagascar’s poor farmers in the 1980s, he probably had no idea that millions of farmers elsewhere in the world would one day benefit from it as well.
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FOOD CRISIS
Two New Varieties of Vegetables on Kenyan Food Market
By Miriam Gathigah
NAIROBI, Kenya - Agriculture remains one of the most significant economic activities in Kenya. It accounts for over 24 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) with an estimated 70 percent of total production coming from small scale farmers who typically have about 2-5 acres of land, depending on the region.
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CHINA
Researchers Race Toward Renewable Energy
By Mitch Moxley
BEIJING - Researchers in China, the world’s leading provider of wind turbines and solar panels, are working toward making renewable energy cheaper, more efficient and a bigger part of the country’s power grid.
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PAKISTAN
Scientists Turn Sights on Childhood Meningitis
By Zofeen Ebrahim
KARACHI, Pakistan - She is already eight months old, but Aiman Azam can neither sit up nor clutch anything with her tiny hands. She cannot even hold her neck up or roll on her back. All she does is moan.
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INDIA
Wonder Irrigation Pump Goes A Long Way
By Manipadma Jena
BHUBANESWAR, India - Just two years ago, Ratha Majhi was at his wits’ end trying to eke out a decent living from his modest vegetable farm.
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HEALTH
Scientists Focus on Male Mosquitoes in Bid to Control Malaria
By Timothy Spence
SEIBERSDORF, Austria - After successfully suppressing scourges of fruit, tsetse and screwworm flies in the Americas, researchers are exploring whether the same sterilised insect technique can be used to control malaria, which kills some one million people every year, many of them in Africa.
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AFRICA
New Drugs To Speed TB Treatment
By Tinus de Jager
JOHANNESBURG* - Researchers are testing a new combination of tuberculosis drugs on patients in South Africa which they are hoping will shorten the treatment term of the disease to six months.
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Could Water-Efficient Maize Boost Africa's Food Security?
By Busani Bafana
BULAWAYO - As controlled field trials of a genetically modified (GM) crop are about to begin in five African countries amidst promises of improved crops grown under poor conditions, critics are charging organisations with selling out the interests of African farmers.
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SOUTH AFRICA
Satellite Preparing Scientists for New Space Industry
By Chris Stein
JOHANNESBURG - Though practically invisible to the naked eye, a uniquely South African satellite has been orbiting the earth for the past year, creating an archive of images and jumpstarting what its creators hope will be a space revolution in the country.
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Voices from the field

Protecting Women's Rights Online.

Using ICTs to combat
Gender Based Violence.

Empowered over their fields, empowered over their lives. Food security response to HIV and gender inequities. By UNAIDS

The relationship between researchers and policy makers has to improve for research results to have an effect on lives says Themba Mhlongo, the head of programmes from the Southern African Trust.

Trials on new tuberculosis drugs that could halve the treatment time for the disease by 75% is starting in South Africa.

Children in Namibia, especially in the smaller towns like Rehoboth, are increasingly dependent on social grants.

Zambia’s opposition says efforts to alleviate poverty have been hampered by the global economic crisis and a lack of political will in the Southern African country.

Small-scale wheat farmers in Africa are at risk from new mutations of a wheat-killing fungus

South African children are dying at the same rate as they did twenty years ago.

A microbicide gel may for the first time give women the power to prevent HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases.

Civil society groups say South Africa will struggle to deliver quality education to more of its population by 2015, as set out in the Millennium Development Goals.

Research shows HIV among men who have sex with men in Kenya is the same as the strain found in heterosexuals.

The World Health Organisation says 43 million toddlers in sub-Saharan Africa do not get enough Vitamin A.

Research in South Africa shows children caring for parents with HIV/AIDS are as badly affected psychologically as those that have lost parents to the pandemic.

Brian Moonga reports on a new vitamin A-rich maize variety which could improve the health of Zambians

(Dis) Enabling the Public Sphere: Civil Society Regulation in Africa
By Bhekinkosi Moyo
In its simpler meaning, the ‘public sphere’ is a space in social relations where people come together to discuss issues of common interest in order to regulate the authority of the state, or what is normally called the ‘Sphere of Public Authority’. In other words, this is a space where public opinion is gathered to influence political-including economic decisions. It is a mediation mechanism between civil society, the private sector and the state. A classical illustration of the public sphere right now is the associational protests that have just erupted in North Africa - Tunisia and Egypt - for now - demanding good governance, equality and equitable development.

Tracking violence against women in online spaces
By Jan Moolman
Information and communication technologies (ICTs) - like radio, mobile phones and the Internet - have changed the way we live and work. The speed, reach and ease with which we are able to communicate, share information and connect with each other has created opportunities to overcome the boundaries of location, language and distance.

Prisoners of Familiarity
By Ernest Darkoh
I have always loved the title of Dugmore Boetie's book, 'Familiarity of the Kingdom of the Lost'. Each decade of my global health career has revealed the increasing poignancy of these words. Despite the large number of public health initiatives, the last four decades have seen Africa become the top ranking abode of some of the world's nastiest pathogens and diseases. So why are these inherently addressable problems so resistant to solutions?

Is Information the Solution?
By Richard Humphries
The World Bank's new chief economist for Africa recently penned an entry on his new blog with the title: Is information the solution? His comments drew on pioneering research in Uganda by World Bank staffers in the 1990s on the role that information played in ensuring better development outcomes.

Telling the Story of a Changing Climate
By Leonie Joubert
How do you tell a story as complex as climate change: where the cause is centuries' worth of pollution, trickling steadily into an ocean of air as vast as the sky above our heads; where the effluent is largely invisible; where the culprits straddle generations; where the victims come decades later? Cape Town hosted scientists and journalists at a conference last month, which was geared towards honing the craft of storytelling in the realm of a shifting climate. Science journalist Leonie Joubert jotted down some of her observations.

Who and what were the xenophobic attacks in South Africa about?
By Temba Sipho B. Masilela
In the aftermath of the xenophobic attacks ambiguity about nationality has acquired dangers that cannot be ignored. However, the transfixing events and horrifying images of murder in the name of being a real and proven South African national are about more than just language and nationality identity. They are also about shortcomings in policy narratives and the ineffectiveness of the links between policy and community action.

African Civil Society Must Provide Stronger Leadership
Analysis by Dr Berhe Costantinos
Today, Africa is in the grip of an unprecedented crisis, heightened by the inability of home grown African organisations to readily engage in the search for solutions to the continent's problems. Nonetheless, Africa still struggles to be at the forefront of the global development agenda.

Research Is About Changing Lives
Analysis by David Dickinson
I live in a country where it has become normal to bury men and women in their thirties. At least it is so at township funerals.

IPS gratefully acknowledges the support of the Department for International Development
(DFID http://www.dfid.gov.uk/).

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