A Current Bibliography on African Affairs - Baywood Publishing

VOLUME 42, NUMBER 4—2009-2010 / 369
grain mould fungi due to reduced germination vigour and therefore, diastatic power. The
objectives of this study were to evaluate the effect of treating sorghum grains with different
NaOCl concentrations during steeping on fugal colonization, germination and root length
during the malting process.
ECONOMICS
1216. Cook, C. T., and K. Kalu. THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF HEALTH
POLICY IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA. Medicine and Law. 2008, 27(1):29-51.
This paper discusses the health status of Sub-Saharan Africa focusing on infectious and
parasitic diseases, HIV/AIDS, maternal and child health, famine, and political instability.
Its contention is that Africa is stuck in the second stage of the demographic transition (high
birth rate, low death rate) and the first stage of the epidemiological transition (deaths related
to pestilence, famine, and war). Africa’s lack of sustainable development is attributed to
ineffective governmental policy and leadership. The prognosis is that the health and wellbeing
of Africa’s most vulnerable population, women and children, will improve when
government shifts its attention from external funding and affairs to internal and concentrates
on retaining Africa’s ‘talented tenth’; that the ‘brain drain’ and political instability
has robbed Africa of its most talented young people, medical and science professionals,
who are needed to provide primary care and development to a region with a high mortality
rate, a low life expectancy, and a low per capita income.
1217. Ferraro, P. J. REGIONAL REVIEW OF PAYMENTS FOR WATERSHED
SERVICES: SUB-SAHARA AFRICA. Journal of Sustainable Forestry. 2009, 28:525-550.
This review of African Payment for Watershed Services (PWS) schemes describes
ongoing and proposed initiatives, and describes the factors that cause Africa to have far
fewer PWS initiatives than Latin America. An understanding of these factors can help
natural resource management and development practitioners identify the field characteristics
under which PWS programs can succeed. One particularly important element of
existing and proposed African PWS initiatives is their focus on poverty alleviation.
1218. Gurmu, E., and R. Mace. FERTILITY DECLINE DRIVEN BY POVERTY:
THE CASE OF ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA. Journal of Biosocial Science. 2008, 40(3):
339-358.
Demographic transition theory states that fertility declines in response to development,
thus wealth and fertility are negatively correlated. Evolutionary theory, however, suggests
a positive relationship between wealth and fertility. Fertility transition as a result of
industrialization and economic development started in the late 19th and early 20th centuries
in Western Europe; and it extended to some of the Asian and Latin American countries later
on. However, economic crises since the 1980s have been co-incident with fertility decline
in sub-Sahara Africa and other developing countries like Thailand, Nepal and Bangladesh
in the last decade of the 20th century. A very low level of fertility is observed in Addis
Ababa (TFR = 1.9) where contraception prevalence rate is modest and recurrent famine as
well as drought have been major causes of economic crisis in the country for more than
three consecutive decades, which is surprising given the high rural fertility.