How are Research for Development Programmes Implementing and Evaluating Equitable Partnerships to Address Power Asymmetries?

Unlabelled: The complexity of issues addressed by research for development (R4D) requires collaborations between partners from a range of disciplines and cultural contexts. Power asymmetries within such partnerships may obstruct the fair distribution of resources, responsibilities and benefits across all partners. This paper presents a cross-case analysis of five R4D partnership evaluations, their methods and how they unearthed and addressed power asymmetries.

Acceptability of a Pilot Intervention of Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision and HIV Education for Street-Connected Youth in Western Kenya.

Purpose: Street-connected youth (SCY) in Kenya and elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa are at high risk of HIV. Voluntary Male Medical Circumcision (VMMC) reduces the risk of female-to-male HIV transmission. Circumcision is also a traditional coming-of-age process in many Kenyan ethnic groups.

Stinging nettle and neem enhance antibody response to local killed and imported live infectious bursal disease vaccines in indigenous chicken in Kenya.

Immune responses are critical for protection of chickens from infectious bursal disease (IBD). In this study, the antibody response-enhancing effect of drinking water supplementation of 1% stinging nettle and neem on different IBD vaccines and vaccination regimes was evaluated, using 36 (n = 36) specific antibody negative indigenous chicks. The birds were allocated into 3 groups as follows: 1A-C, 2A-C, and 3A-B, while group 3C acted as the unvaccinated non-supplemented control.

Comparative evaluation of fluorescent in situ hybridization and Giemsa microscopy with quantitative real-time PCR technique in detecting malaria parasites in a holoendemic region of Kenya.

Background: Early and accurate diagnosis of malaria is important in treatment as well as in the clinical evaluation of drugs and vaccines. Evaluation of Giemsa-stained smears remains the gold standard for malaria diagnosis, although diagnostic errors and potential bias estimates of protective efficacy have been reported in practice. Plasmodium genus fluorescent in situ hybridization (P-Genus FISH) is a microscopy-based method that uses fluorescent labelled oligonucleotide probes targeted to pathogen specific ribosomal RNA fragments to detect malaria parasites in whole blood.

Toxicity of six plant extracts and two pyridone alkaloids from Ricinus communis against the malaria vector Anopheles gambiae.

Background: The African malaria vector, Anopheles gambiae s.s., is known to feed selectively on certain plants for sugar sources.

Community mobilization and service strengthening to increase awareness and use of postabortion care and family planning in Kenya.

Objective: To evaluate whether a community engagement and service-strengthening intervention raised awareness of family planning (FP) and early pregnancy bleeding (EPB), and increased FP and postabortion care (PAC) use.

Methods: The intervention was carried out in 3 communities in Kenya over 18months; 3 additional communities served as the comparison group. A pre-post, contemporaneously controlled, quasi-experimental evaluation was conducted independently from the intervention.

Malaysia collaborates with the new york academy of sciences to develop an innovation-based economy.

If Malaysia is to become a high-income country by 2020, it will have to transform into a knowledge-based, innovation economy. This goal will be achieved by developing an atmosphere conducive to experimentation and entrepreneurship at home; while reaching out to partners across the globe. One of Malaysia's newest partnerships is with the New York Academy of Sciences.