Elsevier, Ecological Modelling, Volume 360, 24 September 2017
Megacities contain at least 10 million people whose wellbeing largely depends on ecosystem services provided by remote natural areas. What is, however, most often disregarded is that nature conservation in the city can also contribute to human wellbeing benefits. The most common mind set separates cities from the rest of nature, as if they were not special kinds of natural habitats.
Elsevier, Women's Studies International Forum, Volume 64, September 2017
Given the increased vulnerability to, and rise in reports of, sexual violence in post-disaster situations this article seeks to explore the role of self-defense programmes as a response to addressing violence against women and girls. It draws on the authors’ experience of post-earthquake Nepal in 2015. We argue that self-defense training can play a crucial role in challenging normative gender roles, raising confidence and self-esteem in girls and women during and post disaster, and call for further research to take place at the local level to explore this important issue further.
Elsevier, European Journal of Soil Biology, Volume 82, September 2017
Climate change is modifying global biogeochemical cycles. Microbial communities play an integral role in soil biogeochemical cycles; knowledge about microbial composition helps provide a mechanistic understanding of these ecosystem-level phenomena. Next generation sequencing approaches were used to investigate changes in microbial functional groups during ecosystem development, in response to climate change, in northern boreal wetlands.
Elsevier, Tourism Management, Volume 61, 1 August 2017
‘Biosphere reserve’ is a United Nations (UN) designation stipulating that a region should attempt to follow the principles of sustainable development (SD). This paper adopts a stakeholder analysis framework to analyse the discourses of those tourism stakeholders who can actively affect SD in the Waterberg Biosphere Reserve (WBR), South Africa. Adopting an inductive qualitative methodology generated multiple research themes which were subsequently analysed using critical discourse analysis (CDA) techniques.
Elsevier, World Development, Volume 96, 1 August 2017
With over 700 million illiterate adults worldwide, governments in many developing countries have implemented adult literacy programs. Typically these programs have low rates of success partly because the quality of teaching is heterogeneous. Standardization of teaching provided by computer-aided instruction might be a solution. However, there is little rigorous evidence of the effectiveness of computer-based adult literacy programs in delivering high-quality literacy and numeracy in the developing world.
Elsevier, The Lancet Global Health, Volume 5, August 2017
Background Since 2002, Afghanistan has made much effort to achieve universal health coverage. According to the UN Sustainable Development Goal 3, target eight, the provision of quality care to all must include usually underserved groups, including people with disabilities. We investigated whether a decade of international investment in the Afghan health system has brought quality health care to this group.
Elsevier, World Development, Volume 96, 1 August 2017
Foreign aid agencies represent and champion global development priorities within a donor nation. Increasingly however, these agencies sit within donor governments that are strongly committed to upholding the national interest through their development commitments. This paper is concerned with how bilateral aid agencies manage this tension and how they might continue to serve the altruistic aims of development.
Elsevier, European Management Journal, Volume 35, August 2017
Strategic human resource management theory suggests that diversity and equality management (DEM) systems provide a firm with a competitive advantage, leading to superior performance. This study proposes and tests a moderated mediation model focusing on antecedents (i.e. top management team gender diversity) and consequences (i.e. performance) of DEM systems in the context of lower through middle management (LTMM) gender diversity. The model was tested in 248 medium-to large-sized organizations using time-lagged survey and archival data.
Elsevier, Ecological Economics, Volume 138, 1 August 2017
Existing studies on adaptation to climate change mainly focus on a comparison of male-headed and female-headed households. Aiming at a more nuanced gender analysis, this study examines how husbands and wives within the same household perceive climate risks and use group-based approaches as coping strategies. The data stem from a unique intra-household survey involving 156 couples in rural Kenya. The findings indicate that options for adapting to climate change closely interplay with husbands’ and wives’ roles and responsibilities, social norms, risk perceptions and access to resources.
