PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIP FOR RESPONSIVE EXTENSION EDUCATION: THE CASE OF SAFE AND UCC IN GHANA

Developing nations in Africa are not shielded from the pressures of a globalized competitive agricultural marketplace. With an appreciable bulk of her people deriving livelihoods from diverse agricultural enterprises, these nations must respond to important contemporary issues shaping global agriculture. Farmers from such nations, including Ghana, will be able to improve their participation in the competitive local, regional and global agricultural marketplace if the appropriate agricultural technologies and extension information support are available. To achieve this, a new breed of agricultural extension graduates who can respond to current and emerging challenges in agriculture and interface effectively with farmers must be produced through responsive extension education and training. While extension education can produce effective extensionists to hasten agricultural development, budgetary constraints make it difficult for most African governments to successfully and sustainably implement such educational programs. However, public-private partnership (PPP) initiatives offer a way out of this financial dilemma. Beginning in 1993, the Sasakawa Africa Fund for Extension Education (SAFE) worked with the University of Cape Coast (UCC) in Ghana to develop an innovative extension education program through a public private partnership. The program, comprising a BSc. and Diploma components, was designed to respond to the myriad of challenges facing higher agricultural extension education in Ghana. A key practical feature of the curricula is the “Supervised Enterprise Projects” (SEPS), which enable students to work with relevant stakeholders to identify and tackle agricultural problems in farming communities through experiential extension approaches and action research. The SAFE-UCC initiative fulfils important education goals such as: expanding and improving access; ensuring quality and relevance; ensuring funding and mobilizing resources for sustainability; building partnerships and linkages; and promoting international co-operation. The paper discusses the underlying conditions for a successful public private partnership in agricultural and extension education and sheds light on the impacts, lessons learned and challenges.

NUTRITION AND HEALTH STATUS OF HIV-INFECTED ADULTS ON ARVS AT AMREF CLINIC KIBERA URBAN SLUM, KENYA

The health of people living with HIV and AIDS (PLWHA) is nutritionally challenged in many nations of the world. The scourge has reduced socio-economic progress globally and more so in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) where its impact has been compounded by poverty and food insecurity. Good nutrition with proper drug use improves the quality of life for those infected but it is not known how PLWHA exposed to chronic malnutrition and food shortages from developing nations adjust their nutrition with use of Anti-Retro-viral Drugs (ARVs). This study assessed nutritional status, dietary practices, and dietary management of common illnesses that hinder daily food intake by the patients and use of ARVs with food recommendations provided by the health care givers. A descriptive case study design was used to sample 120 HIV-infected patients using systematic sampling procedure. These patients sought health care from an urban slum, Kibera AMREF clinic. Data were collected by anthropometric measurements, bio-chemical analysis, semi-structured questionnaire and secondary data. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) and the Nutri-Survey software packages were used to analyze data. Dietary intakes of micro-nutrients were inadequate for >70% of the patients when compared to the Recommended Daily Requirements. When Body Mass Indices (BMI) were used, only 6.7% of the respondents were underweight (BMI<18.5kg/m2) and 9.2% were overweight (BMI> 25kg/m2), serum albumin test results (mean 3.34±0.06g/dl) showed 60.8% of the respondents were protein deficient and this was confirmed by low dietary protein intakes. The BMI was not related to dietary nutrient intakes, serum albumin and CD4 cell counts (p>0.05). It appeared that there was no significant difference in BMI readings at different categories of CD4 cell count (p>0.05) suggesting that the level of immunity did not affect weight gain with ARV as observed in many studies from developed countries. Malnutrition was, therefore, evident among the 60.8% of the cases as identified by serum albumin tests and food intake was not adequate (68%) for the patients as they ate once a day due to lack of food. National food and nutrition policy should incorporate food security boosting guidelines for the poor people infected with HIV and using ARVs.