Culturally based goal displacement in an egyptian FP-MCH program
The adoption of an integrated family planning-maternal and child health care strategy in a cultural context non-supportive of family planning invites a shift in emphasis in which the means, MCH services, rather than the achievement of the goals, fertility reduction, become the focus of activities. This paper presents a case of such an occurrence of goal displacement. We conclude that without a carefully considered response which addresses the general cultural and organizational influences that affect project personnel, the effectiveness of integrated family planning/MCH programs in reducing fertility rates will be limited.
The Strategic Management of Development Programmes
The purpose of this paper is to report the findings of an international study of the managerial and institutional interventions associated with six relatively successful development programmes selected from different parts of the Third World (1). The important role played by managerial/organisational variables in project/programme performance has all along been recognised by development planners and policy makers, though this has been a neglected area of observation and study (2). As a result, the basic understanding of how these variables operate and interact in the public context and
Testosterone levels, handedness and sex ratio at birth.
Geschwind has hypothesized that levels of androgens in utero affect postnatal laterality preferences, high levels being associated with left-handedness of offspring. I have hypothesized that high parental androgen levels at the time of conception are associated with subsequent male births. However, left-handed parents seem to produce an excess of female, not male, offspring. This finding could be reconciled with the two hypotheses if individuals who were exposed to high levels of androgens in utero had low circulating levels in adulthood. Some evidence for this loophole is reviewed here. Lyster & Lloyd (1987, J. theor. Biol. 126, 125) have reported that (consistent with the hypotheses) index left-handed men have an excess of brothers; but, contrary to the hypotheses, index left-handed women have an excess of sisters. Accordingly these authors proposed that left-handedness in females is associated not with high levels of androgen in utero, but with a "sensitivity" to it. If such sensitivity were associated with low androgen levels, it might explain an excess of sisters among the sibs of left-handed women. It is shown here that evidence in agreement with this hypothesis (though not discriminating between it and Geschwind's) suggests that the sex ratios of offspring of LH male x RH female and of RH male x LH female matings, are both low.