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Development, widely considered a solution to long-term population displacement, can paradoxically create more displacement. This chapter explores this paradox through the lens of evaluation studies. Early evaluation studies identified a gap between country laws, which positioned development displacement and resettlement as a subset of property and expropriation laws, and international policy, which centralized livelihood measures, living standards, and outcomes for people affected. The chapter explores the international policy conceptualization of livelihoods as embedded in a sociocultural context, requiring strategies to recreate livelihoods, monitoring and evaluation (M&E) and their results in terms of livelihood outcomes. It compares international policy perspective and evaluation outcomes with selected evolving Asian country safeguard systems, to examine the extent to which livelihoods are addressed and evaluated. The gap between international and national standards is narrowing, but livelihood measures form the weakest point in many laws concerning land takings. Differences in time frames, focus, mandates, and resources in project preparation and implementation reflect these divergent objectives. Methods for assessing livelihood risk, planning livelihood support, and for M&E of livelihood outcomes, are rare in country frameworks. Some approaches that may provide a way forward in building the knowledge base on livelihood success and sustainability through evaluation at the country level are presented.

Background Malnutrition contributes to functional and cognitive decline in older adults, which results in decreased quality of life and loss of independence. This study aimed to identify determinants of nutritional risk among community-dwelling adults in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Methods A cross-sectional survey was undertaken in 1008 subjects aged 60 years and over who were randomly selected by systematic sampling. Demographics, socioeconomic data and self-reported history of medical conditions were recorded. The Mini Nutritional Assessment-Short Form (MNA-SF) was used to screen for nutritional risk, and the Centre for Epidemiologic Studies Depression scale was administered to all subjects. Descriptive statistics and the Pearson chi-square and Kruskal-Wallis tests were used for statistical analysis. Logistic regression modelling determined predictors of nutritional risk. Results Of the 984 participants (mean age = 68.8 ± 7.4 years; range 60-103 years) who completed the MNA-SF, 51 % were classified as having a normal nutritional status, 43.4 % at risk for malnutrition and 5.5 % classified as malnourished. Men were more likely to be either at risk for malnutrition or be malnourished than women (p = 0.008), as were subjects with a monthly household income of ≤R1600 per month (~133 USD) (p = 0.003). In logistic regression models, depressed people were 2.803 (p < 0.001) times more likely to be at risk or be malnourished than those not depressed. Conclusion A high prevalence of risk of malnutrition was identified in older South Africans living in an urban area with poor infrastructure. Further investigations are warranted to determine whether the higher prevalence of depressive symptomatology in nutritionally at risk individuals is a determinant or a consequence of malnutrition, in order to develop targeted nutritional interventions in this age group.

BACKGROUND: Plasmodium falciparum has repeatedly evolved resistance to first-line anti-malarial drugs, thwarting efforts to control and eliminate the disease and in some period of time this contributed largely to an increase in mortality. Here a mathematical model was developed to map the spatiotemporal trends in the distribution of mutations in the P. falciparum dihydropteroate synthetase (dhps) gene that confer resistance to the anti-malarial sulphadoxine, and are a useful marker for the combination of alleles in dhfr and dhps that is highly correlated with resistance to sulphadoxine-pyrimethamine (SP). The aim of this study was to present a proof of concept for spatiotemporal modelling of trends in anti-malarial drug resistance that can be applied to monitor trends in resistance to components of artemisinin combination therapy (ACT) or other anti-malarials, as they emerge or spread. METHODS: Prevalence measurements of single nucleotide polymorphisms in three codon positions of the dihydropteroate synthetase (dhps) gene from published studies of dhps mutations across Africa were used. A model-based geostatistics approach was adopted to create predictive surfaces of the dhps540E mutation over the spatial domain of sub-Saharan Africa from 1990-2010. The statistical model was implemented within a Bayesian framework and hence quantified the associated uncertainty of the prediction of the prevalence of the dhps540E mutation in sub-Saharan Africa. CONCLUSIONS: The maps presented visualize the changing prevalence of the dhps540E mutation in sub-Saharan Africa. These allow prediction of space-time trends in the parasite resistance to SP, and provide probability distributions of resistance prevalence in places where no data are available as well as insight on the spread of resistance in a way that the data alone do not allow. The results of this work will be extended to design optimal sampling strategies for the future molecular surveillance of resistance, providing a proo