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There are too few teachers and schools to meet the need for quality universal basic education. Therefore, alternative approaches to education provision need to be explored, such as open and distance learning methods and development and provision of curriculum-based Open Educational Resources (OER). However, distribution of printed materials is increasingly costly, and distribution of digital resources remains a challenge in areas with little or no connectivity. This case study explores the potential of using offline strategies to share digital OER. It suggests it is possible to provide access to digital learning resources even in the most remote areas by using appropriate technology, like the Commonwealth of Learning's Aptus device.

Children in sub-Saharan African countries face higher exposure to gender-based violence (GBV) compared to their counterparts in other world regions (United Nations Children's Fund [UNICEF], 2014). When GBV occurs in schools, it severely endangers access to education. Using the third round of data of the Southern and Eastern Africa Consortium for Monitoring Educational Quality (SACMEQ) from over 60,000 Grade 6 learners across 14 countries, we examined the relationship between GBV in primary schools and learners' absenteeism. Findings indicate that sexual harassment perpetrated by teachers significantly increases learners' absenteeism. In contrast, effects were less clear when the perpetrator was a fellow learner. Effects found are similar in magnitude for girls and boys. Violence prevention education programmes and stricter punishment for offenders are needed to establish a safer school environment and overcome harassment-related barriers to learning.

Previous studies have paid considerable attention to the impact on a child's primary education of attending pre-primary school. Researchers have asserted that early educational intervention can compensate for the effects of poverty and inadequate learning environments on child development and school success. This study analyzes the relationship between pre-primary education and student reading and mathematics achievement in the sixth grade, focusing on disadvantaged children, in countries that participated in the Southern and Eastern Africa Consortium for Monitoring Educational Quality (SACMEQ) III project. The results show that the achievement of children who attended pre-primary education is higher than that of those who did not. The achievement of children who have many home resources for learning is better than that of children who have a few such resources. In almost all countries, disadvantaged children's achievement is increased when they attend pre-primary education. However, the contribution of pre-primary education to ameliorating social inequalities is different in the various contexts of different countries. These findings contribute to the discussion on the importance of early childhood care and education, especially in sub-Saharan Africa.

This paper investigates the short and long-term pernicious impact of armed conflicts on education and educational agents (students, teachers and students' parents), using a multivocal review by means of the integration and qualitative analysis of 60 research reports (voices) found in two databases: Web of Science and PROQUEST in the period between 1995 -date of the first founding paper- until 2014. Through the analysis of source data (voices) and taking the "multivocal review" as a method, the voices have been combined in nine categories, namely: a) Refusal and impediments to a return to education; b) Educational infrastructure damaged or destroyed; c) Cuts in or withdrawal of spending on education; d) Loss of the educational and protective functions of the family; e) Loss of the academic community; f) Non-qualified teaching staff; g) Drastic loss of skills; h) Abandoning school (population movements, destruction of networks and social environment); i) Behavioural problems: traumas, pedagogical roles and self-victimization. These categories have highlighted the serious consequences arising from conflicts, infringing as they do the most basic human rights and in particular the right to a sound education during childhood.

The aim of this study was to develop the profile and competencies of a harmonised curriculum for a multi-country regional sector-specific higher education programme. The study, which was based on a case study of Renewable Energy involving six countries in Southern Africa, was based on established methodologies proposed by previous studies on harmonisation and profiling of higher education programmes. The study uses a general curriculum development approach leading to the definition of generic and specific competencies and feeding into a learning taxonomy to create alignment with specific learning outcomes at the intended qualification level. However, the approach extends the harmonisation concept to include industrialisation potential, which is crucial in the developing-country context. This allows for the exploitation of shared resources in sector-specific technology areas and supports the development of regional standards on technology and practice, as part of developing a sustainable regional economic sector. Twenty-two competencies, encompassing both generic and specific competencies, were defined. These competencies were grouped into six key competence areas, and later transformed into four clusters of competencies: core competencies, hard skills, soft skills and attitudes. These four clusters were then placed on a planetary system to represent the meta-profile for the qualification, which forms the framework for the future design of learning materials for the qualification.

In Africa women are underrepresented in higher education (HE) agricultural programs, despite the fact that they make up half of the agricultural labor force. This article discusses the reasons for women's low enrollment in HE agricultural programs, focusing on socio-cultural norms and gendered perceptions of agriculture. Moving beyond access, it also explores the institutional culture and learning environment in HE agricultural programs. We argue that women often feel unsafe, uncomfortable, and isolated in these programs and that conservative socio-cultural norms, which discriminate against women in society and family life, also permeate institutions of HE. The data comes from a literature review, a Southern and Eastern Africa regional workshop, and focus groups and interviews conducted with faculty and students in South Sudan and Mozambique. We conclude with recommendations for increasing the number of women in agricultural programs and improving their experience.

This study investigates the impact of higher education on economic growth and is based on a sample of 18 African economies over the time period 1980-2015. The research makes use of a Panel Vector Autoregression (PVAR) framework to account for potential dynamic and endogenous relationship in modelling of the tertiary education-growth nexus. The findings show that higher education significantly increases the economic growth of the sample of African countries understudy with a lagged time. The economic effect of higher education is observed to be relatively smaller as those reported for the case of developed countries and also in comparison with primary and secondary education. Interestingly, this research also confirms the presence of a reverse causation as the economy's income is also a determinant of tertiary education, although with a lagged time. Domestic and foreign direct investment, education attainment as well as openness level are also observed to be other determinants of tertiary education enrollment. Finally, there is evidence that tertiary education encourages private and foreign direct investment thus indirectly affecting growth rates.

This article discusses the current dynamics at African universities concerning the quality of teaching, the role of research, the level of community outreach, and the position of higher education in the educational sector as a whole. Points of reference are experiences at the University of the North in South Africa as well as experiences at universities in other African countries such as Uganda, Tanzania, Mozambique, and Ghana. One of our central conclusions is that the system of education in Africa in general, and higher education in particular, is highly dysfunctional, especially in terms of wasted human capacity as well as financial resources. African higher education institutions cannot close their eyes to the immense skills shortage and the frightening percentages of (youth-) unemployment. This leads to the recommendation that the responsibilities of a university concerning the generation of relevant new knowledge, preparing students adequately as active citizens for the challenges in the labour market, contributing to the development of communities, and fostering critical thinking need to be given high priority.

This study investigates how an interviewer's characteristics affect how respondents answer survey questions about democracy and political engagement. I analyze data from the 2008 Afrobarometer surveys, in which 810 interviewers surveyed 27,713 respondents across 20 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Using these data, I study how interviewer education, age, and gender affect two outcomes: (1) response distributions to attitudinal and behavioral survey questions and (2) the likelihood of respondents saying 'don't know' to a survey question. The analysis also investigates how the respondent's perception of who sponsored the survey (NGO, private sector, government) affects attitudes. The results show that these interviewer characteristics affect the quality of survey data on political attitudes and behaviors. In the discussion, I consider the implications for research based on public opinion data about democracy and political engagement.

Purpose: To explore why substantial agricultural information gaps persist in African smallholder farming communities and how to reduce them. Design/methodology/approach: Using conservation agriculture (CA) as a case study, we deeply explore with 29 smallholder farmers why they are yet to obtain sufficient information to enable practice evaluation. Findings: Respondents asserted that their lack of information on CA was not reflective of a lack of interest in obtaining it, but of the unavailability and inaccessibility of learning opportunities. A deeper analysis revealed an underlying passive approach to seeking information and culture of financial expectancy. Practical implications: If extension systems are to catalyse broader sustainable intensification, we find the need for emphasis on (1) more inclusive extension mechanisms; (2) education of farmers about demand-driven extension; and (3) revision of direct input provision to lead farmers. Theoretical implications: While not contesting the value of farmer-to-farmer (F2F) extension systems for those socially connected to lead farmers, we find four research questions for further exploration regarding the practical application of F2F mechanisms that may impede their broader effectiveness, namely (1) Is extension coverage sufficient? (2) Do farmers understand demand-driven extension systems? (3) Do current incentive structures complicate farmer information seeking behaviour? and (4) Do current mechanisms encourage social stratification? Originality/Value: To date, adoption studies have largely utilised quantitative, econometric lenses that generally assume farmers are sufficiently aware of the technologies in question. Due to our in-depth qualitative analysis, we provide novel insights into how to close informational gaps that hamper efforts to increase the food and livelihood security of African smallholder farmers.

In studying language policy, it is not enough to look at central government management, but also at the influence of managers at levels ranging from the family to international organizations. Actual cases reveal that there are also non-linguistic forces such as demography, war, civil strife, and economic breakdowns which have major effects. This paper summarizes a study of the Portuguese empire and its aftermath. The empire enforced the hegemony of Portuguese as the civilizing force that would remedy deficits in conquered peoples. Because settlers were usually males, intermarriage with local women or slaves was common. However, colonial policy and acceptance by the leaders of independence movements as a unifying language, recognizing the benefits of elite closure, meant that postcolonial successor states kept Portuguese as the language of instruction and government, and did not use indigenous languages. Civil strife, warfare, corruption, and economic breakdown after independence prevented the improvement of education in many cases. Thus, while Portuguese provided access to an international language and served as the unifying symbol for Lusophone organizations, it was at the cost of the stigmatization of indigenous languages and left a social gap between the urban elite and the rural citizens limited to local languages.

School-based improvement programs represent a core strategy in improving education because they can leverage pre-existing social and organizational structures to promote coordinated and comprehensive change across multiple facets of schooling. School-based programs are generally designed to be implemented by intact schools/districts, frequently making it infeasible or atheoretical to assign students within the same school to different conditions while ensuring study validity. Rather, studies frequently assign intact schools/districts to treatment conditions to accommodate the multilevel structure of schooling and the theory of action underlying many school-based programs. In planning such studies, effective and efficient design requires plausible values of the variance partition coefficients and the variance explained by covariates during the design stage. Using representative samples of each country, we develop empirical estimates of design parameters within and across 15 countries that are intended to inform and facilitate the efficient design of multisite cluster-randomized studies of school improvement in sub-Saharan Africa.

The aim of the current study is to create a composite statistic of educational quantity and educational quality by combining household data (Demographic and Health Survey) on grade completion and survey data (Southern and Eastern African Consortium for Monitoring Educational Quality) on cognitive outcomes for 11 African countries: Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Doing so overcomes the limitations of earlier studies that focused solely on either quantity or quality. We term the new statistic "access to literacy" and "access to numeracy" and report it by gender and wealth. This new measure combines both quantity and quality and consequently places educational outcomes at the center of the discourse.

Over the past six years, the authors have been project leaders for three distance education initiatives in Cape Verde and Mozambique: (1) a blended learning master's degree in multimedia in education for faculty in Cape Verdean public higher education institutions (2005-2008); (2) a teacher training programme for 1375 elementary teachers provided through distance education in Cape Verde (2006-2008); and (3) a blended-learning multimedia in education doctoral programme for staff, at the Centre for Distance Education, University Eduardo Mondlane, Mozambique (2008-11). This article describes the background to these projects, solutions adopted to meet the specific needs, capabilities, and constraints of the participants and institutions, and difficulties encountered. The project leaders reflect upon their experiences and the main lessons learned, while drawing conclusions that may be relevant to other higher education institutions in Africa and other developing countries embarking on planning and implementing distance education programmes and support units. (Contains 5 figures and 1 table.)

Explores the interface of technology and education for human development in southern Africa. Uses the case of Mozambique to describe the challenges presented by the global marketplace and local policy. Outlines the vision of the New Partnership for Africa's Development Centre (SARDC) to reduce the digital divide for Africa. (CAJ)

Studying the patterns and characteristics of seismic activity and crustal deformation in Africa is vital for understanding the geodynamics and predicting seismic hazards in the region. By understanding the deformation characteristics, scientists can help mitigate the risk of earthquake-related disasters in Africa. However, assessing deformations has been difficult because of scarce historical and instrumental seismic records and geodetic data. In this study, the finite element analysis was used to determine the crustal deformations in the form of strains in the EARS from the tectonic model gravitational potential as a stress driver. The strain patterns in various regions were then assessed where reliable, independent studies could be validated. Finally, the inferences of crustal strains to crustal deformations in various parts of the continent were drawn. The simulation results showed us that the strain of the 2 × 10 - 8 / yr was observed in the Main Ethiopian rift, and it decreased in the EARS toward Mozambique. The strain in the convergent margins of North Africa was also in the order of ~ 2 × 10 - 8 / yr . However, the principal strains in the stable central and West African countries could reach ~ 4 × 10 - 9 / yr . Thus, the results were consistent with those from geodetic strains. In addition, a high degree of relationship existed between the seismic studies and model strains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: A central challenge to closing the mental health treatment gap in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) is determining the most effective pathway for delivering evidence-based mental health services. We are conducting a cluster-randomized, Type 2 hybrid implementation-effectiveness trial across 20 districts of Mozambique called the Partnerships in Research to Implement and Disseminate Sustainable and Scalable EBPs (PRIDE) program. Following training of nonspecialized providers in facilitation of evidence-based treatments for mental health and informed by the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR), we identified how PRIDE compares to care as usual and the perceived barriers and facilitators of implementation and modifications needed for widescale service delivery and scale-up. Methods: We conducted rapid ethnographic assessment using freelisting among 34 providers, followed by four focus group discussions (n = 29 participants) with a subsample of psychiatric technicians and primary care providers from 14 districts in Nampula Province. We used Thematic Analysis to inductively apply open codes to transcripts and then deductively applied the CFIR domains and constructs to organize open codes. Results: The main Outer Setting constructs relevant to implementation were recognition that patient mental health needs were significant. Additionally, numerous community-level characteristics were identified as barriers, including distance between clinics; shortage of providers; and low awareness of mental health problems, stigma, and discrimination among community members towards those with mental health struggles. The PRIDE program was perceived to offer a relative advantage over usual care because of its use of task-sharing and treating mental illness in the community. PRIDE addressed Inner Setting barriers of having available resources and training and provider low self-efficacy and limited knowledge of mental illness. Providers recommended leadership engagement to give support for supervision of other task-shared professionals delivering mental healthcare. Conclusions: Primary care providers and psychiatric technicians in Mozambique perceived the relative advantage of the PRIDE program to address mental health treatment access barriers and offered recommendations for successful sustainment and scale up of integrated mental health care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The topography of Madagascar and the strength of the Mozambique Channel Trough (MCT) modulate summer rainfall over southern Africa. A strong MCT hinders the penetration of moisture bearing easterlies from the South Indian Ocean into the mainland, thus reducing rainfall there and vice versa for weak MCT summers. Given the link between the MCT and rainfall, it is important to analyse how climate models represent the trough. Here, output from 20 models within the CMIP6 ensemble of Coupled General Circulation Models (CGCMs) are analyzed to investigate how state-of-the-art CGCMs represent the MCT and its link to southern African rainfall. Overall, the ensemble mean insignificantly underestimates the observed MCT. There is a large spread among the models, with the strength of the MCT significantly correlated with the Froude number based on the mountain height over Madagascar. In models, the vorticity tendency in the MCT area is dominated by the stretching and friction terms, whereas the vertical advection, tilting and residual terms dominate in the ERA5 reanalysis. The link between MCT and rainfall in the southern African subcontinent is missing in the models. Large rainfall biases are depicted over mainland even in models with a very strong MCT. It is found that the impacts of the MCT in the models could be masked by a complex mix of processes such as the strength of the Angola low, moisture fluxes from the Indian and South Atlantic Oceans as well as overestimated convection in the Mozambique Channel area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent biological surveys of ancient inselbergs in southern Malawi and northern Mozambique have led to the discovery and description of many species new to science, and overlapping centres of endemism across multiple taxa. Combining these endemic taxa with data on geology and climate, we propose the 'South East Africa Montane Archipelago' (SEAMA) as a distinct ecoregion of global biological importance. The ecoregion encompasses 30 granitic inselbergs reaching > 1000 m above sea level, hosting the largest (Mt Mabu) and smallest (Mt Lico) mid-elevation rainforests in southern Africa, as well as biologically unique montane grasslands. Endemic taxa include 127 plants, 45 vertebrates (amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals) and 45 invertebrate species (butterflies, freshwater crabs), and two endemic genera of plants and reptiles. Existing dated phylogenies of endemic animal lineages suggests this endemism arose from divergence events coinciding with repeated isolation of these mountains from the pan-African forests, together with the mountains' great age and relative climatic stability. Since 2000, the SEAMA has lost 18% of its primary humid forest cover (up to 43% in some sites)—one of the highest deforestation rates in Africa. Urgently rectifying this situation, while addressing the resource needs of local communities, is a global priority for biodiversity conservation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the growth, development, and spread of Boko Haram in West Africa and al-Shabaab in Eastern Africa with a view to drawing lessons to prevent the similar development of Ahlu Sunnah Wa-Jama (ASWJ) in Southern Africa. Recent developments of ASWJ in northern Mozambique send genuine fears among policymakers and scholars that unless tamed at this early stage, there is a high possibility that the group might spread and engulf large portions of Southern Africa with devastating consequences to peace security and development in Southern Africa. Evaluating the environment that allowed al-Shabaab and Boko Haram to evolve, grow, spread, and take root in Eastern and West Africa, respectively, this article argues that a similar environment exists in Southern Africa and that the fear of the ASWJ becoming a threat to regional security and development in the subregion is not far-fetched. It is therefore important to learn lessons from the two militant groups with a view to proposing viable ways to forestall the spread of ASWJ across Southern Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Labour studies in the African colonial period are facing a revival, but literature on the role and working conditions of children remains over-generalized. At the same time, child labour has played a central role in economic activities in Africa, and it still does. This article contributes to filling this gap by studying Portuguese colonial Africa as a narrative of tension between labour market forces, public policy, and (limited) agency of children. Labour scarcity facing demand hikes contributed to the increased use of children for labour in the colonial period. We contribute to the history of African labour by compiling data on the – until now – largely neglected use of child labour in mining and agriculture in the Portuguese African colonies. We find children were used to support adults or, with less agency, simply replaced (often forced) adult labour in plantations, mining, and other activities abandoned by adults. (Promised) wage differentials, taxes, forced labour, pass systems, and forced cultivation schemes acted as (dis)incentives to labour migration. Intra and inter-country movement of large numbers of adult labourers stimulated the demand for child labour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research attempts to provide a contribution to the study on coastal barrier‐lagoons in the SE Africa generated by sea‐level fluctuations, and climate change during the Late Holocene. To achieve this goal, the grain‐size analysis and morphoscopic description helped to detect cyclic facie sequences with sediments sized over 200 μm mixed with silt, bioclasts and organic matter. Moreover, the magnetic susceptibility and X‐ray diffraction (XRD) analyses displayed over 90% of quartz and isolated mica, feldspar and heavy minerals. Additionally, the X‐ray fluorescence (XRF) results display the interplay between terrigenous (>Ti and Al) and marine influence (S, Cl and ~Ca) over the last ~3,500 cal. yrs. BP. The geochemical tracer fluctuations detected suggest five distinct deposits including beach, washover, lacustrine system, aeolian deflation that rest on top of the Pleistocene palaeodunes, which are tentatively associated with the sea‐level variations, extreme marine events or with local floods. Although the multiproxy data record refers to a study in Bilene‐Mozambique, it is interesting to understand the mechanisms and variables related to the evolutionary dynamics of coastal barrier lagoons generated by sea‐level fluctuations and climate change, especially in the SE Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Distribution and abundance under climate change of particularly non‐timber forest product tree species is vital since they sustain many livelihoods, especially in rural sub‐Saharan Africa. The aim of the study was to determine the current and future natural range of mopane (Colophospermum mopane (J. Kirk ex Benth.) J. Léonard, Fabaceae), a dominant tree species in mopane woodlands of southern Africa. An ensemble model was built in 'biomod2' from eight algorithms and used to estimate the current and future distribution. Seven bioclimatic variables and 269 occurrence records were used to calibrate individual models that were later combined into an ensemble model. The ensemble model was projected to two time periods, 2041–2060 and 2081–2100, under two shared socio‐economic pathways (SSPs), SSP2‐4.5 and SSP5‐8.5, and three general circulation models (GCMs). The ensemble model showed high performance (KAPPA = 0.770, ROC = 0.961, TSS = 0.792, ACCURACY = 0.900). A map of the current distribution shows occurrence predominantly in low‐lying areas, including the Zambezi, Save and Limpopo valleys, Okavango and Cuvelai basins, and in southern and central Mozambique. Projection maps show expansion under all SSPs, GCMs and time periods. Averaged across GCMs in 2041–2060, the range expanded by 22.37% under SSP2‐4.5, and by 19.94% under SSP5‐8.5. In 2081–2100, the range expanded by 20.43% under SSP2‐4.5, and by 27.62% under SSP5‐8.5. Notably, the range expansion was highest under SSP5‐8.5, an SSP that envisages unmitigated greenhouse gas release and the largest mean global temperature increase. It is highly likely that mopane is not directly threatened by climate change. Indirect climate change threats, however, remain uncertain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The contemporary food system pushes agriculture to a globalized value-chain, affecting landscapes, resource access, and institutional arrangements. Institutions operating in Africa adopt development corridors to integrate multisector investments and induce export-driven primary sector, leading to massive land deals, also known as land-grabbing. Organizations struggle to monitor land deals accurately, lacking spatial precision and contextual information for affected communities. This research examines Mozambique's Nacala Corridor, using geospatial data as a tool to detect spatial (re)configurations due to exported-oriented policies and infrastructure. Data from land conflicts databases (Land Matrix and Environmental Justice) were analyzed with remote sensing Landsat and MODIS imagery using multiple indexes, an EVI time series, and the application of the LandTrendr algorithm. The results show that the temporal and spatial analysis of remote-sensing data is in line with the major political and economic dynamics of the region. Hotspots of land cover changes were detected in the same areas where land grabbing were reported; however, reported and detected land areas did not coincide. Temporal analysis showed that institutional changes played a greater role in triggering land use changes than infrastructure implementation. We conclude that land cover modifications, conflicts, and spatial development initiatives follows policies and institutional arrangements targeting international investments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What does international order look like when analysed from its margins? Such a question is the obvious consequence of efforts within International Relations (IR) to take empire, colonialism and hierarchy more seriously. This article addresses this question by examining one of IR's most important touchstones – the Great War – through the experiences of peoples in southeast Africa. It argues that to do this, we should use the methodological approaches of histories 'from below' and contrapuntal analysis. When looking at the Great War from the vantage point of southeast Africa (contemporary Mozambique), the key patterns of interaction organising the international look different to those emphasised in traditional accounts of international order and hierarchy. Notable features are the significant continuities and intersections between structures of war and colonialism, the racialisation of death and suffering, the effects of white imperial prestige as a strategic preoccupation and the deep historical roots of anti-colonial resistance. Reading upwards and contrapuntally from these histories, the paper argues for a redescription of international order as reflecting not predominantly a balance of power or a normative framework for the organisation of authority, but a dynamic matrix of structural violence. Reading order from below in this way helps us better capture how the international is implicated in the production and reproduction of everyday life for many people, as well as in more dramatic political transformations such as those generated by experiences of war and resistance to colonialism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Changes in precipitation and land use have direct and indirect effects on seedling establishment in southern Africa. • Survival of a pioneer species (Erythrina lysistemon) was limited by flooding, while later successional species (Khaya anthotheca and Millettia stuhlmannii) were limited by drought. • Herbivory was higher in disturbed sites and was correlated with a reduction in E. lysistemon root biomass but compensatory growth in terms of height. • Surviving seedlings grew well under all precipitation and land-use conditions, so promoting early survival will help restoration as will planting mixtures of early and later successional species. In intact ecosystems, factors such as herbivory and light and water availability affect seedling establishment. Land-use change and climate change are now affecting forests globally, influencing seedling establishment directly via changes in light availability and precipitation and indirectly by affecting herbivory. The present study evaluated the ecological complexity of seedling establishment in response to interactions between these factors. The growth and survival of a pioneer species and two later successional species were measured in a factorial experiment testing the effects of land-use change, water availability, and herbivory. The study was conducted on Mt. Gorongosa in central Mozambique, a protected area that is experiencing high levels of land-use change and is in need of forest restoration. The pioneer species, Erythrina lysistemon, gained the most height in undisturbed, shaded environments where it invested resources in accessing light. Erythrina lysistemon grew the most in diameter in open areas. Khaya anthotheca , a later successional species, gained more biomass in disturbed, high light areas. The growth of Millettia stuhlmannii , another later successional species, was not affected by light. Drought conditions reduced survival of the later successional species, while flooding limited the survival of the pioneer species. Herbivory increased in disturbed areas and was negatively correlated with E. lysistemon root biomass. In summary, this study indicates land-use change and climate change may alter seedling establishment and community composition. Restoration efforts should focus on increasing seedling survival because although survival is limited in disturbed sites, seedlings that do survive grow successfully. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Biodiversity loss is recognized as a grand challenge of the twenty-first century but ascertaining when a species is "lost" can be incredibly difficult—since the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. This may be a relatively easy task for large and conspicuous animals, but extremely difficult for those living hidden lives or at low population sizes. We showcase this challenge by focusing on Africa's montane skink, Proscelotes aenea (Barbour & Loveridge 1928). In this study, we embarked on a year-long intensive survey to find this fossorial species in Lumbo, Northern Mozambique, the only remaining location where it may still occur but was recorded for the last time over 100 years ago. We located the species already after 20 days of intensive and targeted searching by five members of our team. The finding allowed us to describe, for the first time, details on the biology and ecology of the species, alongside photos and videos of live specimens (including a pregnant female), and to sequence DNA from the species, which we used to infer the phylogenetic placement. Our combined 12S and 16S phylogenetic analysis weakly suggest that the genus Proscelotes may not be monophyletic and therefore requires further phylogenetic work and potentially taxonomic revision. We also gathered evidence of a possible decrease in population abundance and, based on the species' ecology, we identified urbanization as a potential key threat, which could lead to the local or global extirpation of the species. We call for urgent conservation actions that help protect the future of the montane skink, and additional surveys to map its full distribution. As countries now work towards implementing the goals and targets of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, our study demonstrates the need for proper investments in biodiversity inventories and monitoring in order to halt species extinctions by 2030. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The region of southern Africa (SAF) is among the most exposed climate change hotspots and is projected to experience severe impacts across multiple economical and societal sectors. For this reason, producing reliable projections of the expected impacts of climate change is key for local communities. In this work we use an ensemble of 19 regional climate model (RCM) simulations performed in the context of the Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX) – Africa and a set of 10 global climate models (GCMs) participating in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) that were used as the driving GCMs in the RCM simulations. We are concerned about the degree to which RCM simulations are influenced by their driving GCMs, with regards to monthly precipitation climatologies, precipitation biases and precipitation change signal, according to the Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 8.5 for the end of the 21st century. We investigate the degree to which RCMs and GCMs are able to reproduce specific climatic features over SAF and over three sub-regions, namely the greater Angola region, the greater Mozambique region, and the greater South Africa region. We identify that during the beginning of the rainy season, when regional processes are largely dependent on the coupling between the surface and the atmosphere, the impact of the driving GCMs on the RCMs is smaller compared to the core of the rainy season, when precipitation is mainly controlled by the large-scale circulation. In addition, we show that RCMs are able to counteract the bias received by their driving GCMs; hence, we claim that the cascade of uncertainty over SAF is not additive, but indeed the RCMs do provide improved precipitation climatologies. The fact that certain bias patterns during the historical period (1985–2005) identified in GCMs are resolved in RCMs provides evidence that RCMs are reliable tools for climate change impact studies over SAF. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Southern Africa experiences a great number of wildfires, but the dependence on low-resolution products to detect and quantify fires means both that there is a time lag and that many small fire events are never identified. This is particularly relevant in miombo woodlands, where fires are frequent and predominantly small. We developed a cutting-edge deep-learning-based approach that uses freely available Sentinel-2 data for near-real-time, high-resolution fire detection in Mozambique. The importance of Sentinel-2 main bands and their derivatives was evaluated using TreeNet, and the top five variables were selected to create three training datasets. We designed a UNet architecture, including contraction and expansion paths and a bridge between them with several layers and functions. We then added attention gate units (AUNet) and residual blocks and attention gate units (RAUNet) to the UNet architecture. We trained the three models with the three datasets. The efficiency of all three models was high (intersection over union (IoU) > 0.85) and increased with more variables. This is the first time an RAUNet architecture has been used to detect fire events, and it performed better than the UNet and AUNet models—especially for detecting small fires. The RAUNet model with five variables had IoU = 0.9238 and overall accuracy = 0.985. We suggest that others test the RAUNet model with large datasets from different regions and other satellites so that it may be applied more broadly to improve the detection of wildfires. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: HIV infection and malaria have been associated with different complications during pregnancy and delivery. HIV‐positive pregnant women are at increased risk for all adverse outcomes of malaria during pregnancy. The main objective was to analyse the obstetric and perinatal consequences of malaria, HIV infection and HIV/malaria co‐infection in pregnant women and newborns, which has been less well evaluated. Methods: A cross‐sectional study was carried out in the Maternity Service of the Provincial Hospital of Tete Mozambique, involving completion of a structured questionnaire that included demographic data, and information on the current pregnancy, delivery and the newborn. In total, 819 women (13–45 years old) in the immediate postpartum period were enrolled between 1 March and 31 October 2016. Results: The overall prevalence of HIV and malaria, considered separately, in pregnant women was ~12% (103 women with HIV and 101 with malaria). Only one‐fifth of HIV‐infected women knew their HIV status before pregnancy. A significantly higher proportion of women with HIV attended four or more antenatal care visits than women without HIV. Caesarean section was less frequent in HIV patients, and peripartum urinary infection was more frequent than in seronegative women (13/103 [12.6%] vs. 34/716 [4.7%]). HIV/malaria co‐infection were 17/819 (2%) and was significantly associated with the development of pre‐eclampsia when HIV‐infected patients received anti‐retroviral treatment, and with an increase in urinary tract infections around delivery. With respect to the newborn, co‐infection increased the frequency of early neonatal death, as well as neonatal asphyxia and jaundice. Conclusions: In Mozambique, the prevalence of malaria and HIV infection in women of childbearing age continues to be high and contributes additively to complications during pregnancy and childbirth, and in the newborn. Therefore, integrating HIV, malaria and reproductive health services is essential if maternal and foetal outcomes are to improve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Antibiotic consumption is the primary driver of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). The non-prescribed use for self-perceived diseases is one of the chief contributing factors to the unwise use of antibiotics as it paves the way to the development, growth, and spread of AMR. We aimed at describing the underlying factors influencing self-medication with antibiotics (SMA) in Maputo city, Mozambique. Methodology: A qualitative cross sectional study was conducted between October 2018 and March 2019 with 32 participants. Using purposeful sampling, participants were recruited and interviewed after purchasing antibiotics without prescriptions from nine pharmacies in Maputo city. Out of 32 participants, 20 enrolled for individual in-depth interviews and 12 for focus group discussions that were audio-recorded, transcribed, coded, and analyzed using latent content analysis. The Consolidated Criteria for Reporting Qualitative Studies (COREQ) checklist by (Tong et al. Int J Qual Health Care 19:349–357, 2007) was performed. Results: The participants declared recurrent practices of SMA to treat self-perceived illnesses. The private pharmacies were the main platform to access the non-prescribed antibiotics (NPA). The main factors driving the pratices of SMA were the easy availability of antibiotics, previous experience with antibiotics, easy access to pharmacist's advice, long wait to access health care facilities, perceived poor quality of assistance at health care facilities, considering minor illness that do not need to seek professional health care, influencing role of the people from the social circle, cultural beliefs on the healing power of antibiotics, and time and financial constraints. Conclusion: The practices of SMA are influenced by various factors that flow from the health care system, to the participant's health-seeking behavior. These are reinforced by the public's cultural belief that "antibiotics heal all diseases," which determines the social representations of medicines shape the attitudes and behaviors of SMA. The culturally rooted behavior, the social representations of the health care system, and the therapeutic itineraries the public adopt are to be considered as having an ever-present effect on all different stages of the disease and healing process. Understanding the phenomenon of SMA to better address the promotion of rational use of antibiotics is urgently needed in Mozambique. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Feminist political economy has illuminated the gendered dimensions of the globalisation of production. Whilst this literature provides essential insights on gendered exploitation in export-oriented industries, women's work in localised labour markets in the Global South remains underexplored. This paper seeks to address this gap by putting into dialogue three bodies of literature – feminist political economy of globalisation, political economy of development in southern Africa and the social reproduction of the everyday. It proposes an integrated conceptual framework to analyse women's working lives and applies it to northern Mozambique. It makes two key findings. First, the lives of those working in localised labour markets are shaped by global capitalism through extreme fragmentation of labour regimes forcing people into multiple precarious forms of work – a process that entails the appropriation of women's productive and reproductive labour. Second, the imperatives of social reproduction shape employment trajectories and expose differentiation among working women, seen for example through gendered constraints to mobility, care obligations and contributions to ceremonies. The implications are that the analysis of women's working lives needs to capture three key aspects: social differentiation among working women, temporal and spatial dynamics of the everyday and the centrality of the reproduction of the social. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social Reproduction Theory (SRT) rejects the classical political economy distinction between productive and unproductive labor, the latter defined as all labor that does not produce surplus-value. Rather, much non-commodified labor, particularly that done in the domestic sphere, is not unproductive but necessary since it produces labor-power. Hence, SRT has proposed an alternative distinction: productive versus reproductive spheres of labor. This article argues that this opposition too is analytically and politically misleading. Capital is concerned with profit, not with the reproduction of the living labor within which labor-power is always embedded. It is the everyday struggles of living labor that determines its reproduction. These take place not just in the kin-based sphere of the family but in overlapping, shifting places and processes, including struggles for better wages and working conditions in capitalist firms. This paper uses two different contexts in southern Africa to make this argument: an influential debate over how to understand changes in apartheid in South Africa in the 1970s; and a sugar-cane plantation in Mozambique where interdependent contradictions of class, gender and race defined a social division of labor that systematically compromised the reproduction of living labor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on the refugee crisis in the world and highlights the importance of remembering that behind each number there is a person with a story of pain and shattered dreams. Different reasons causing this unprecedented human displacement are mentioned, such as poverty, internal violence, wars, religious fanaticism, food crisis, and climate change. Examples of people affected by this crisis are presented, such as Naomí from Nigeria, Bartholomew from Burkina Faso, Francisco from Mozambique, and Basman from Syria. The situation in Ukraine is also mentioned, where millions of people have been displaced due to the Russian invasion. The article informs about the situation of refugees in different parts of the world. In Ukraine, the Russian invasion has left nearly 5 million refugees outside the country, while more than 7 million displaced people have fled their homes in search of safety in the western part of the country. In Mozambique, Francisco Faustino, known as "Chico," lives as a displaced person and received help from the Church in the form of microcredit to open a small store. The article emphasizes the importance of providing comfort and hope to the displaced and mentions the number of displaced people in the world according to the Annual Global Trends Report by UNHCR. The work of the Pontifical Foundation Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) in support of refugees is also mentioned. [Extracted from the article]

The article discusses the malaria outbreak in Africa. Topics include the research in Mozambique to find the reasons of malaria; aim of the project in helping answer a bigger question: Why, after Mozambique and its international partners have spent years pouring money and energy into fighting malaria, impact of the fever on children.

The Zambezi watershed is essential for water supply, irrigation, fishing activities, and river transport of the populations of Southern Africa. The importance and variability of these water resources make it necessary to develop studies that may help understand and manage them. Despite this need, water resources studies for this region are still scarce. Therefore, the present work aims to present a strategy for forecasting the daily water flow of the Zambezi River in the Cahora Bassa dam, located in Mozambique, an important energy producer in the country and the fourth largest dam in Africa. Historical rainfall, evaporation, and humidity records collected from 2003 to 2011 are used for training and testing a model that forecasts water flow using the Group Method of Data Handling algorithm. The results achieved were compared, through error metrics, with those of other models to prove the effectiveness of the assembled model. They revealed that the proposed model achieves a satisfactory performance for the forecast horizon and could become a helpful tool in monitoring hydrographic basins and forecasting their daily streamflow values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land-use frontiers are territories with abundant land for agriculture and forestry, availability of natural resources relative to labor or capital and predisposed to rapid land-use change, often driven by large-scale land investments and capitalized actors, producing commodities for distal markets. Strategic spatial planning (SSP) represents a consolidated long-term governance practice across high- and low-income countries. One of the objectives of SSP processes is to articulate a more coherent and future-oriented spatial logic for the sustainability of land-use patterns and typologies, natural-resources protection, and investments. SSP may thus constitute a useful approach in addressing some of the challenges affecting land governance in frontier settings; to date, its potential contribution to land-use frontiers lacks explicit exploration. In this paper, we examine how SSP can play a role in governing land-use frontiers through a case-study analysis of Mozambique as an emerging frontier, located on the southeast coast of Africa. We gathered empirical evidence by interviewing experts involved in resource management, territorial planning, and development in the country. The theoretical spine of the paper builds on the literature focusing on land-use challenges and SSP. We show that emerging land-use frontiers face several challenges, such as transnational land deals and the intensification of commercial plantations. Interview data show that several structural factors are hindering the establishment of a long-term territorial development strategy. These are, among others, the short-termism of political cycles and the absence of a long-term strategic vision. Our analysis reveals that SSP processes could contribute to addressing land-use challenges in frontier contexts, such as poverty traps and land degradation spirals, should various local and distant actors join forces and marry interests. We conclude by presenting a systematic rationale, explaining how SSP could play a role in governing land-use frontiers, with a view to promoting the well-being and sustainability of rural communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In "Literature and Economy in Portuguese-speaking Southern Africa", Thomas Waller offers a comparative reading of literary responses to neoliberalization in Portuguese-speaking southern Africa. Reading the proliferation of spectral effects in the Mozambican literature of the late 1980s alongside dystopian depictions of societal collapse in contemporary Angolan fiction, he suggests that writers in the two states have used distinctive aesthetic idioms to register the reintegration of southern Africa into the neoliberal world-system. In the fiction of Mozambican writers Aldino Muianga and Anfbal Aleluia, he shows how the legacy of colonial underdevelopment and its role in the transition to neoliberalism in Mozambique is figured at the level of form through spectral and broadly gothic aesthetic strategies that intimate the rise in class tensions attendant on the establishment of a new national bourgeoisie. In Angola, similarly, he reads speculative novels by Pepetela and Jose Eduardo Agualusa as literary responses to the ecological fallout of the heightening of capitalist extractivism that has accompanied the transition from Afro-Marxism to free market capitalism in post-independence Angola. In this way, Waller shows the extent to which literary production in Mozambique and Angola has been used in an attempt to register and critique the trajectory of neoliberal politics in southern Africa and its systemic relation with the restructuring of political economic parameters across the globe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Insecticide-based vector control is key to the reduction and elimination of malaria. Although insecticide resistance is common in malaria vector populations, the operational implications are often unclear. High intensity pyrethroid resistance in the major malaria vector Anopheles funestus has been linked to control failure in Southern Africa. The aim of this study was to assess linkages between mosquito age, blood feeding and the intensity of pyrethroid resistance in two An. funestus laboratory strains that originate from southern Mozambique, namely the moderately pyrethroid resistant FUMOZ and the highly resistant FUMOZ-R. Resistance tended to decline with age. This effect was significantly mitigated by blood feeding and was most apparent in cohorts that received multiple blood meals. In the absence of insecticide exposure, blood feeding tended to increase longevity of An. funestus females and, following insecticide exposure, enhanced their levels of deltamethrin resistance, even in older age groups. These effects were more marked in FUMOZ-R compared to FUMOZ. In terms of programmatic decision-making, these data suggest that it would be useful to assess the level and intensity of resistance in older female cohorts wherever possible, notwithstanding the standard protocols for resistance testing using age-standardised samples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]