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This present research explores a progressive repurposing of Virtual Reality technology, Virtual Immersive Contact (VIC), in a real-world setting to; explore viability to reduce prejudice and investigate the role of empathy in motivating prosocial behavior. The study employed a between-subjects repeated-measures experimental design of a randomized sample (n = 113) split into two conditions to reduce prejudice and discrimination in the active conflict area of the Central African Republic (CAR). In line with the study's hypotheses, VIC produced a significant increase in empathic concern for the Muslim outgroup and intentions to donate to a Muslim family, while also showing that the relationship between empathy and helping behaviours was mostly explained by confounding variables. This research provides both the first evidence of its kind that VIC could be a new form of fostering positive intergroup contact in an active conflict setting, crating a new facet of intergroup contact theory, and further evolving the literature on the empathy, prosocial behaviour relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While United Nations (UN) peacekeeping operations are increasingly deployed during ongoing violent conflict, they are also increasingly staffed with civilian personnel tasked with peacebuilding at the local level. How does violent conflict affect civilian peacekeepers' peacebuilding efforts locally? Shifting the research focus from military to civilian peacekeepers, we argue that the latter have various incentives and the capacity to concentrate their local-level peacebuilding efforts in violence-affected areas. We test our argument using novel, georeferenced data on peacebuilding by "Civil Affairs" personnel of the peacekeeping operation in the Central African Republic. Consistent with our expectation, violence positively correlates with civilian peacekeepers' peacebuilding interventions both within and across localities. Furthermore, mediation analyses suggest that this correlation is not merely due to greater UN military deployments in violence-affected areas. Instrumental variable regression supports a causal interpretation: violence leads to more efforts by civilian peacekeepers. These findings inform expectations and assessments of peacekeeping effectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Qualitative empirical enquiries into dynamics of security and insecurity often include a blind spot that bear theoretical ramifications because only those areas and respondents that allow for relatively safe fieldwork are studied. To transparently articulate the spheres of projection that creep into our knowledge production, we propose a distinction between inner and outer circles as highly fluid but separate geographical, socio-political and methodological spaces. Drawing on fieldwork in the Central African Republic and South Sudan, we discuss the risks posed by incomplete data and subsequently flawed inferences. We argue that the perceptions of fear projected onto the outer circle shape people's behaviour more than measurable insecurity incidents and that increased interaction between actors in both circles reduces the perceived threats coming from the outer circles. We demonstrate how studying insecurity from inner circles risks securitizing outer circles while further centralizing the inner ones. We thus urge transparency in data collection and the related inferences that underpin our knowledge production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the establishment of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) to be administered by the World Trade Organization. The objective of GATS is to ensure that key parts of the audiovisual service sector are progressively liberalized and privatized. The United States and the Central African Republic have made preliminary commitments in all subcategories of the audiovisual sector. A major criticism of the GATS is the secrecy and lack of transparency of the process.

A frequent sight along many roads, roadblocks form a banal yet persistent element across the margins of contemporary global logistical landscapes. How, this article asks, can we come to terms with roadblocks as a logistical form of power? Based on an ongoing mapping of roadblocks in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic, it sketches a political geography of "roadblock politics": a spatial pattern of control concentrated around trade routes, where the capacity to disrupt logistical aspirations is translated into other forms of power, financial and political. While today's roadblocks are tied up with the ongoing conflict in both countries, the article shows, roadblock politics has a much deeper history. Before colonization, African rulers manufactured powerful polities out of control over points of passage along long-distance trade routes crisscrossing the continent. The article traces how since precolonial times control over long-distance trade routes was turned into a source of political power, how these routes were forcefully appropriated through colonial occupation, how after the crumbling of the colonial order new connections were engineered between political power and the circulation of goods in Central Africa, and how control over these flows ultimately became a key stake in ongoing civil wars in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Little attention has been paid to the factual contribution of the state’s security forces to the physical security of African citizens. Reports about security forces adding to a widespread insecurity are frequent: the protectors become violators, and their appearance causes fear, not security. In many African crisis countries the realization of better security forces appears to be an elusive goal, either because violent conflicts are not definitively settled and therefore do not allow for decent reform or because a lack of capacity as a result of material constraints is not easy to remedy. Above all, the political will of governments to reform their security forces, including their composition and structure, is often limited. This contribution compares the security provision by official forces in Liberia and the Central African Republic, two extreme cases of strong and weak international involvement, respectively, in postconflict security-sector reform. Blueprint models for such reforms that do not take into account local expectations and experiences are bound to fail. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In early 1996, 481 women visiting the antenatal services of the 3 major governmental health centres in the capital city of the Central African Republic (CAR) were included in the study. All study participants underwent the health centre's routine gynaecological examination, including laboratory diagnosis of trichomoniasis, candidiasis, gonorrhoea, syphilis and bacterial vaginosis. Cervical secretions and blood samples from study participants were sent to the National STD Reference Centre for diagnosis of Chlamydia trachomatis, Neisseria gonorrhoeae, Candida albicans, Treponema pallidum, and HIV. Overall, 34% of the study women were diagnosed with at least one sexually transmitted infection (STI) (3.1% N. gonorrhoeae, 6.2% C. trachomatis, 9.9% T. vaginalis, 6.7% T. pallidum, 12.2% HIV-1). In addition, 29.1% of women were diagnosed with bacterial vaginosis and 46.6% with candidiasis. Only a small proportion of these women had sought treatment during the weeks before, despite the recognition of genital symptoms. Self-reported and health worker-recognized symptoms, signs and laboratory results exhibited only low sensitivities, specificities, and positive predictive values in the diagnosis of STIs. These findings confirm the high vulnerability of young African women to STIs and emphasize the need for specific control interventions which should include affordable and user-friendly services. Moreover, these results call for more effective quality control in case of laboratory-based STI control strategies and question the validity of syndromic STI management strategies in women attending antenatal care services in Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Bambari and Bria, 2 towns in the Central African Republic (CAR), we analysed a patient-led partner referral programme within enhanced sexually transmitted disease (STD) services. New (index) patients received syndromic management, counselling about notifying and treating contacts, and vouchers for distribution. From October 1993 to February 1996, 5232 and 4320 patient visits, of which 1814 (35%) and 4320 (30%) were contact referral visits, were logged in Bambari and Bria, respectively. Vouchers were distributed for at least 90% of contacts. Index and contact patients had similar age and sex distributions. In both towns, having a spouse (Bambari: odds ratio [OR] 1.5, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.4-1.7; Bria: OR 1.9, 95% CI 1.5-2.3) was a factor associated with successful referral of a partner. Successful referral was accomplished by both male and female patients. Appropriate counselling techniques and vouchers facilitated partner referral. Further research on how to reach casual partners would enhance STD control efforts using patient-led partner referral. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]