The Historical Value of Speeches in Thucydides

The historical value of speeches in Thucydides In writing his history as a whole, it is fair to say that Thucydides has always been praised for his relative historical accuracy, be that due to his actual presence at events, his use of eyewitness testimony or his noted checking of facts. In style Thucydides kept his narrative sections rather impersonal thereby allowing the story to unfold itself. However, to then lay bare what stood behind the narrative, the moral possibilities, the mistakes, the fears and the motives, the device he used was the speech, a mechanism he employed with supreme mastery. Perhaps the best way to begin to answer the question in hand, we should examine the definition Thucydides himself gives us in his statement of methodology for his speeches that appears in 1. 22. 1. of his History of the Peloponnesian War. ‘In this history I have made use of set speeches some of which were delivered just before and others during the war. I have found it difficult to remember the precise words used in the speeches which I listened to myself and my various informants have experienced the same difficulty; so my method has been while keeping as closely as possible to the general sense of the words that were actually used, to make the speakers say what, in my opinion, was called for by each situation’’ It is not unreasonable to construe that at face value this statement is not at all a ringing endorsement for historical accuracy. This idea is taken up by Plant who correctly states that there is a lack of correlation between the first and second parts of the statement. He continues that it has long been debated whether the historian claimed and/or attempted to present verbatim accounts of the arguments put forward by the speakers on each occasion as best he could, or whether he felt free to modify or to invent particular arguments or even whole speeches. And the controversy has been fuelled by what has been widely regarded as the ambiguity of the second of the two parts of Thucydides' famous statement of aims and methods in 1. 2. 1. The accepted ambiguity of 1. 22. 1, moreover, has provided such scholars with what they consider to be primary evidence with which they might successfully call into question the â€Å"objectivity† of Thucydides as a â€Å"scientific historian,† and with which they might thereby persuasively promote the view of him as either an impassioned (outraged) moralist or a tend entious manipulator of his reader's sympathies. * It is clear therefore, that in the speeches what we encounter is in some sense Thucydides’ own voice. In terms of ultimate historical value, however, the thorny question has always been is it Thucydides’ view of what the speakers really meant, or his judgment of what they should have meant? To return to his initial statement for a moment, it is interesting to note that Thucydides seems to be making a virtue of the fact that he is not reporting verbatim. We must remember that in the times in which Thucydides was writing rhetoric was an everyday part of the society in which he lived and long speeches in literary works were commonplace. The contemporary readers of Thucydides were men habituated to a civic life in which public speech played an all important part. To a Greek of that age a written history of political events would have seemed strangely insipid if speech ‘in the first person’ had been absent from it especially if it did not offer some mirror of those debates which were inseparably associated with the central interests and the decisive moments of political life. On a further point of contemporary style and verbal accuracy, Cole argues that the complexity, compression, and frankness of the arguments in the speeches in Thucydides mean that they cannot have been made in the form he gives us on the occasions when he claims they were made. * Whether or not we accept Cole's thesis, or a modification thereof, we must still accept the strong influence of contemporary rhetoric on Thucydides. In any event, Thucydides’ Thomas F. Garrity’s article on ‘Thucydides 1. 22. 1: Content and Form in the Speeches, (autumn 1998), The American Journal of Philology *T. Cole, The Origins of Rhetoric in Ancient Greece (Baltimore, 1991) speeches are vital highpoints in his work and not only for the structure and form of the arguments they explore. They appear at great moments of decision and turning points and their dramatic impact is useful to Thucydides as an instrument of style. We therefore may have to accept that they are more great rhetorical set pieces rather than paragons of historical accuracy However, although the exact accuracy of the words spoken in the speeches produced by Thucydides in these works cannot be verified thereby inevitably devaluing their historical value, it can be said that the style and method of the speeches and debates that Thucydides includes in his work do provide us with an almost unwitting testimony of other facts which do have great significance and value for the historian. For example the Mytilenian debate between Cleon and Diodotus shows us how decisions were made, the grounds on which they were made, and the psychology used by the persuaders. In addition, it provides us with an insight into the considerations about the behavior of an imperial power at war, its relationship with the democrats among the allies and its attention to long-term finance. So by dramatizing a conflict between two orators, Thucydides records for us the interplay of various contemporary problems concerning the exercise of power and the conduct of war. The conclusion is that the speeches are not what we should call historical reporting in the same sense as the narrative. However there is no doubt that the impact of their presence in the work is very powerful. The reader is quite carried away in the midst of these marvelous orations to a point where, not only does he feel that he has seen the Peloponnesian War from the inside, but he is certain that he knows exactly what the issues were and why things happened as they did. The overall conclusion, therefore, must be that we cannot quantify the exact historical value of the speeches in Thucydides’ work as we can never be sure of their complete verbal accuracy. However, there is no denying that the speeches may be taken as a paradigm for a better understanding of his historiographical project in general and that there is a lasting satisfaction to be obtained from reading Thucydides’ speeches for their own sake as a direct and vivid aesthetic experience. Bibliography Connor W. Robert, Thucydides (1984) pages 146-158, http://www. umanitiesebook. org Garrity Thomas F. , Thucydides 1. 22. 1:Content and Form in the Speeches’ The American Journal of Philology, Vol. 119, No. 3 (Autumn 1998), pp. 361-384. JSTOR: http://www. jstor. org/stable/156676 Plant Ian M. ‘The Influence of Forensic Otatory on Thucydides’ Principles of Method’ Theh Classic Quarterly, New Series, Vol. 49, No. 1 (1999), pp. 62-73. JSTOR: http://jstor. o rg/stable/639489 Thucydides, History of The Peloponnesian War (1954), Trans. Rex Warner, Penguin Classics (London)

How successfully does Alan Ayckbourn slice into the soul of surburbia in Absurd Person Singular?

I feel Ayckbourn does it extremely well, as he takes three very different couples with very different lives and compares and contrasts them to give the everyday people and situations we come across in our own lives. The characters in this play become more familiar as it develops and people like Marion who has a 2 faced personality becomes recognisable with people in your life. She begins complimenting Jane and Sidney on their kitchen by saying sweet things such as â€Å"what a simply dishy kitchen† but when Jane and Sidney cannot see her she turns to her husband Ronald and claims the house is â€Å"loathsome† and demands her husband to take her home in â€Å"5 minutes† However Jane and Sidney fell everything is going wonderfully, as they have only invited these particular guests, to help them in the future. Sidney says to Ronald â€Å"I hope you've been giving a little bit of thought to our chat if you had a moment† Ronald is a bank manager and Sidney wants him to help him out a bit with loans. Then there is Geoff, who is married to Eva. Not that his marriage should mean anything as he constantly cheats on Eva and doesn't care if she does or doesn't know. Also he speaks openly about his filthy obsession. He describes one of his conquests as an â€Å"absolute little cracker†. His disloyalty unveils his shallow self but also reveals the reason for Eva's pain which has led to depression. As Ayckbourn â€Å"slices† through each character, we can see they are all pretending be something and they all appear to concerned with themselves, except Eva she doesn't act differently to her self or hide her problems, which is clear when she says to Sidney on the subject of her pills † they prevent me from turning into a raving lunatic†. Ayckbourn goes deeper to see her reasons for depression instead of trying to reveal a fake intention, which is what the others posses. * * * * In Act 2 the characters are slowly developing. This time the Christmas party is being held at Geoff and Eva's and it appears they aren't in the best of spirits as Geoff has just told Eva he's leaving her for another woman, this is seen when he says â€Å"Sally and I will probably get somewhere else together† these words are harsh and blunt and have turned Eva mute. When the guests finally arrive, Eva has decided to commit suicide, she begins to gas herself by placing her head in the oven, when Jane walks in and believes she's cleaning the oven and volunteers to do it herself and says â€Å"don't you worry about the oven†¦I must clean that oven if it kills me† Eva, upset that her plan has failed then attempts to overdose herself but accidentally drops the pills down the plug hole. Whilst trying to capture them, Sidney enters and thinks she's trying to unblock it and says â€Å"you'll never get a sink unblocked that way† then gets his tools kit and begins to ‘fix' it. This creates a black humour as Eva's situation is becoming more desperate as people keep interfering even though they believe they are helping but its also quite sad because it shows how little they know about each other as they can't even see Eva is suffering from serious depression. You can also see how involved they are with themselves and are completely oblivious to the fact that Eva is desperate to kill herself. There is a dramatic irony as Ronald sets about a routine repair of fixing a light bulb but Eva's condition is anything but routine. We become more and more sympathetic with Eva as she feels without Geoff she cannot live or his dismissal has led her to suicide but with Geoff we despise as he plays with Eva trying to twist things on to her by saying such things as â€Å"if your blaming yourself don't† which seems he thinks she should be and he also claims â€Å"other men don't have this trouble† when talking about his cheating as if it were some illness and deserves sympathy for it. As Eva continues to ignore him his impatience grows until he speaks of previous violence such as â€Å"I'm going to lose my temper. And we know what happens then don't we. I'll take a swing for you† his patronising and angry tone is almost creepy and furthers are hate for him. Throughout it all, Eva's many suicide attempts, Ronalds electrocution when changing the light bulb and Sidney drying himself from being soaked in dirty water while fixing the pipes. Is slightly over the top but that adds more comedy but the symapathy for Eva is still there as she is still suffering and suspension is created of what will become of the Brewster-wrights marriage as tension is created when Marion says â€Å"You'd never think it but he was a really vital young man, Eva you'd never think it to look at him† maybe claiming she is no longer attracted to him.

Reimbursement and Pay-for-Performance Essay

Introduction As we come into the 21st Century, we find Healthcare is at a crisis level. Every agency is working on healthcare reform from policymakers to the public and private sector, as well as federally funded Medicare and Medicaid. The business of Medicine is greatly influenced by the government (federal, state and local levels) and private health sections that initiate policies. Pay for Performance is a reimbursement method where physicians and hospitals can receive a higher reimbursement for duplicate services based on the fact that they deliver better quality care with better results and outcomes. This payment reform offers initiates intended to improve efficiency, value, and quality of health care (Hood, 2007). If all doctors receive the same dollar amount as a doctor with poor outcomes, then the doctor with great outcomes should receive a little more and there will be patients that do not mind paying a higher deductible for better medical services (Mayes, 2006). Definition for Pay for performance Kimmel (2005), â€Å"Pay for performance is a payment approach used in healthcare that is based on clinical information-driven reform. The fundamental concept is to tie payment to how well providers adhere to practice standards. The practice standards are evidence-based and tied to clinical outcomes. The primary areas of focus are preventive care delivery and disease management for chronic illnesses†. Effects on Reimbursement Pay for performance (P4P) is literally a group of performance indicators that are coupled with an incentive. The performance indicators supports the performance aspect of P4P while the incentive indicator is the pay component. Measuring patient outcomes and understanding the variances that  they have, has in part lead to the increasing rise in how pay for performance reimbursement is looked at. This style of reimbursement allows health plans and employers to pay increasing reimbursements to medical providers that have the better outcomes, give average outcome medical providers a chance to improve, and pay those medical providers with the lowest outcomes the least amount of money or not pay them at all (Cromwell, Trisolini, Pope, Mitchell, & Greenwald. 2011). In order to have a pay for performance system in place, you must decide what domains or areas you wish to track, measure, and reward. Some areas in this domain are clinical process, quality and patient safety, access to and availability of care, cost efficiency or cost of care, cost-effectiveness, administrative efficiency and compliance, adoption of information technology, and reporting of performance indicators. These can be set up as a single performance tracker or a multi-domain performance tracker and the measure needed for improvement, importance, and cost. Performance indicators should be valid, reliable, and informative (Cromwell, Trisolini, Pope, Mitchell, & Greenwald. 2011). The Incentive Schemes reward the performance measures, and is another important part of a pay for performance system. Funding proves to be another important part of this type of a reimbursement system. Types of funding include redistributing existing payments where additional funds will not have to be made and the quality of service is already high; however, medical providers with a lower quality of service will receive lower reimburs ements. Generated Savings and New Money are other sources of funding for performance measures. Generated savings claim that an increased quality of service will generate savings, although there are others who feel that new money should be used to fund the performance system. (Cromwell, Trisolini, Pope, Mitchell, & Greenwald. 2011). Impact of System Cost Reductions on the Quality and Efficiency of Health Care The Medicare Physicians Group Practice (PGP) was the first physician pay for performance model used by the federal government. The PGP believes that higher quality and better cost efficiency could be achieved by managing and coordinating patient care and by engaging in wider choices of care management that are able to improve cost efficiency and quality of health care. Interventions include; chronic disease management, high risk and higher cost care management, transitional care management, end-of-life and palliative care programs. If there were a more  successful payment and delivery method to increase the value of health care and improve quality of care, the cost would grow at a slower pace. The American people would be more likely to purchase health insurance coverage that is affordable and more valuable. (Kautter, Pope, & Trisolini, 2007). More progress toward effective delivery and system reform is one of the key elements to achieving the goals to push expanded coverage. Information technology is one of these key elements and a major part of pay for performance system. Information systems uses electronic medical records and patient registries have been created to improve the efficiency and quality of health care delivery. These type of initiatives that are being tested to see if cost savings are generated by reducing avoidable hospital stays, cutting down on readmissions and emergency room visits, while simultaneously improving quality of care (Kautter, Pope, & Trisolini, 2007). Effect of Pay for performance on Health Care Providers and Their Customers Meredith B. Rosenthal states, â€Å"Pay for performance will not replace the existing payment structure in either system, but it does allow payors to take into account a set of quality indicators, in addition to volume of service (as fee-for-service does now) or the nu mber of covered lives (in the case of capitation). In this view, pay for performance can be viewed as a mechanism to correct some of the distortionary incentives that already exist in the reimbursement system†. Physicians in the United States are paid on a fee-for-service basis. This encourages high volumes of services, where there is no regard to the value of services in regards to a patient. When services are reimbursed more generously than others it allows the payment system to influence additional medical services with a heavy emphasis on procedure-based care. Since the physicians pay is not attached to medical services provided, there is really no direct incentive to provide any services (How Will Paying for Performance Affect Patient Care?. (2006, March). Virtual Mentor, 8(3), 162-165). Effects of Pay for performance on the Future of Health Care Goldberg lists three points regarding the most significant implications of the movement toward paying for quality outcomes. These are that the quality and value become real parts of contractual reimbursement, the differences based on quality outcomes will be more evident grouped with provider tiers,  and quality metrics evolve to outcome-based and chronic disease management (Goldberg 2006). P4P is an incentive-based reimbursement system that rewards the best players. This pay for performance system is currently active in health systems, managed care settings, and private and group physician’s practices. P4P is likely to impact the entire health care environment and will provide yet another opportunity for pharmacy to become an active role player and leader with improving quality and efficient health care. The focus is not on value but on quality and cost. Pay for performance is not a new program, but in the age of informed choice, evidence based medicine, and patient safety, it can become the solution to our current health care dilemma (Pay for performance (P4P): Evaluating Current and Future Implications). Conclusion These pay for performance systems and programs will lead expansion across the United States health care industry in the near future. With the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, there has been a great amount of provision made to encourage continued improvement with quality of care. â€Å"Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) are groups of providers that agree to coordinate care and to be held accountable for the quality and cost of the services they provide† (James, 2012). There needs to be a consensus as to how much of an incentive will have to be given in order to affect the needed change and how should these incentive’s be paid out monthly, quarterly, or yearly; and how can these improvements be sustained over time. Continued experimentation with the pay for performance model should begin to incorporate monitoring and evaluation in identifying design elements that will also affect outcomes in a positive way. Variations in health care markets should be evaluated and include comparison groups to isolate pay for performance from other types of factors. Pay for performance has some great attributes to it and could definitely be the beginning to improvements in quality of service. If physicians are receiving patients and referrals based on their ability to provide quality of service with reduced readmissions and more satisfied consumers, then the care they take in providing services to patients from admission to discharge will create positive change. References Cromwell, J., Trisolini, M. G., Pope, G. C., Mitchell, J. B., and Greenwald, L. M., Eds. (2011). Pay for Performance in Health Care: Methods and Approaches. RTI Press publication No. BK-0002-1103. Research Triangle Park, NC: RTI Press. Retrieved June 15, 2014, from http://www.rti.org/rtipress Goldberg, L. (2006). Paying for performance a call for quality health care. Deloitte Center for Health Solutions. Retrieved from http://www.deloitte.com/assets/Dcom-UnitedStates/Local%20Assets/Documents/us_chs_p4p_032806%281%29.pdf Hood, R. (2007). Pay-for-Performance-Financial Health Disparities and the Impact on Healthcare Disparities. Journal of the National Medical Association, 99, 1-6. James, J. (2012). Pay-for-Performance. New payment systems reward doctors and hospitals for improving the quality of care, but studies to date show mixed results.. Health Policy Brief, 1-6, Retrieved June 15, 2014, from http://www.healthaffairs.org/healthpolicybriefs/brief.php?brief_id=78. Kautter, J., Pope, G., & Trisolini, M. (2007, Fall). Medicare physician group practice demonstration design: quality and efficiency pay for performance. Health Care Financing Review, 29(1), 15-29. Retrieved June 15, 2014, from http://www.cms.gov/Medicare/Demonstration-Projects/DemoProjectsEvalRpts/downloads/PGP_ Demo_Design.pdf Kimmel, K. (2005). Pay for Performance: An Economic Imperative for Clinical Information Systems. Retrieved June 15, 2014, from http://www.himss.org/content/files/PayForPerformance.pdf Mayes, R. (2006). The Origins of and Economic Momentum Behind â€Å"Pay for Performance† Reimbursement. Health Law Review, 15, 17-22. Pay for performance (P4P): Evaluating Current and Future Implications. Retrieved June 15, 2014, from https://www.ashp.org/DocLibrary/Policy/QII/Pay for performance.aspx Rosenthal, M. (2006). How Will Paying for Performance Affect Patient Care?. Virtual Mentor, 8, 162-165.

Putting Christ Last Article Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Putting Christ Last - Article Example The man seems convinced, but he excuses himself to go and bury his father. In response, Jesus told him that the dead should bury their dead. Another man was too anxious to follow Christ, to the extent of openly portraying his willingness. However, his heart and volunteerism is blocked by the desire of minding about his relatives.1 The church members often put him as the last option; hence, the excerpt is very relevant to the modern Christianity. They first fulfil their life issues then Christ comes last. For example, one focuses on his or her needs prior to paying the tithes. Prayers are an issue, as people never have enough time to pray. Church attendance is also poor due to ‘unavoidable issues.’ All these aspects illustrate how the Christians have put Christ last. Even sinners put Christ last. They are fully immersed into sin and it remains difficult for them to come out of it. The pleasures of the world have made them not to have a resting place for Christ. They want to enjoy the pleasure of the world for a bit longer. They are at the epitome of peer pressure, fearing what their friends would comment if they turn to Christ. With reference to Luke 9:62, the segments of the population that fail to prioritize Christ in their lives should not be in the kingdom of God. If one fails to recognize Christ while, on earth, Christ will also fail to recognize that person in heaven. We ought to put God first; he is a jealous God and pleasures in those who put Him

Salon Business Management (Beauty Therapy) Examine and assess the Essay

Salon Business Management (Beauty Therapy) Examine and assess the properties, uses, benefits and potential results of using preservatives in the modern salon environment - Essay Example More importantly, the use of preservatives within the salon environment is meant to protect customers from potential negative reactions of cosmetic products on their skin or hair. Depending on the properties of cosmetic preservatives, they may irritate the skin, cause allergic reactions or carcinogenic effects. This means that effective salon business management practices should be focused at ensuring that the preservatives used in the salon are safe to the consumers (Draelos, 2005, p. 58). This paper presents an analytical discussion of various preservative products that are used within the salon environment with a view of illustrating their properties and uses in skin and hair care. The paper also describes the benefits of these preservatives in salon services and the implications of using them within the contemporary salon environment. Antioxidants are common preservatives for cosmetic products, which are commonly used in contemporary salon environments for their effective protective properties. Antioxidants act by inhibiting the oxidation of microorganisms and other molecules (Gray & Gummer, 2000, p. 124). The antioxidant properties of these preservatives make them suitable for protecting hair and skin care products from contamination with microbes. However, the level of protection that is achieved by antioxidants is relatively minimal, when compared to other preservatives. The antioxidant preservatives are commonly used within modern salons, with a goal of preventing rancidity in skin and hair care oils. The contamination of all oil based hair and skin care formulations is prevented when antioxidants are used as preservatives (Antczak & Antczak, 2001, p. 98). Pynogenol is an example of antioxidant that is used within salon environments. This antioxidant is used to strengthen collagen in hair and skin and blood v essels. This preservative is therefore used as an anti-aging agent (Michalun & Michalun, 1994). The use of antioxidants within modern

The Political Economy of States in the Middle East and North Africa Essay

The Political Economy of States in the Middle East and North Africa - Essay Example First, the report highlights the dominant economic activities and social service in Egypt. Second, the study will look at the political systems in Egypt with an emphasis on their connection with the citizens. Third, the paper will explore the citizenship rights and the role of women in politics and development of Egypt. Finally, the research will relate the views of international community about Egypt with a keen interest on the stand of U.S on the matter. Political Economy of Egypt Egypt leads in the population in the Arab world. It is the second populous country in the African continent. It has a population of about 80 million people living in different locations. The regions include Alexandria and Cairo, the banks of river Nile, and along Suez Canal. The regions support many people. They are in the category of the world’s densely populated regions. On average, a square carries over 3,820 persons. Egyptians are fairly homogeneous people of Hamitic origins. Most of the citize ns in Egypt are Muslims. However, there are minorities who are Christians (Aldosari 33). Egypt economy depends on petroleum exports, tourism, and agriculture. Egyptians practice agriculture in the fertile grounds of Nile Valley and Delta. This area is approximately 2.5 million hectares. The estimate of the workforce that engages directly in farming is about one-third. Egyptians who do carry out the tilling of the land make their fortunes from the agricultural industries. The factories deal with processing of agricultural products that feed the Egyptians. The surplus is exporter to earn foreign currency. There are projects in progress to convert the Egyptian deserts to productive lands. This is a government initiative to balance agricultural outputs in Egypt. A good example of such projects is the Toshka project in the Upper Egypt (Aldosari 1144). The warm weather and steady supply of water supports crop farming throughout the year. Predominantly, Egypt grows cotton, rice, sugarcane, sugar beets onions, wheat, corn, and beans. Cotton contributes significantly to agricultural exports. Egypt also produces fruits, vegetables, and flowers. Egypt export crops such as grapes, potatoes, and green beans to Europe. The close proximity of Egypt to the European markets boosts the export trade remarkably. This is because the short distance reduces the shipping costs. Farmers rear livestock in small quantities. These comprise of buffaloes, chicken, and water buffaloes. In addition to the agricultural capacity, the Nile Valley and Delta Egypt is endowed with natural resources. These include petroleum, natural gas, phosphates, and iron ore deposits. The gulf of Suez Canal and Western Desert contain rich sources of crude oil. Natural gas comes from the Nile Delta that is off the Mediterranean seashore, and in Western desert. Oil and gas product contributes to about 12% of the Egypt Domestic Gross Product (GDP). In the year 2008-2009 the petroleum and its products brought in $ 11.4 billion (Oxford Business Group 104). Tourism industry flourishes in Egypt. The country provides reliable domestic air service for tourists. Cairo is the major tourist hub in Egypt. Egypt leads in tourist destination in the Middle East. For instance, in the year 1996 Egypt tourists’ arrival reached a high mark of 3.9 million. This was an average stay of six nights. This contributes to 25 % of all of the total tourist traffic to the Middle East. The

The evolution of writing and reading Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

The evolution of writing and reading - Essay Example The earliest form it was developed out of pictographic symbols of objects, which we call pictographic writing. These Egyptians and Mesopotamians pictograms were just mere representations of the objects drawn, reading these symbols was only recognizing the representations of the objects. However, pictographic writing was independently developed in China during 1500 B.C. Later on, this form of writing slowly developed into ideograms (Gaur 16). Ideographic writing system is more of an abstract representation rather than a clear picture of objects. Unlike the earlier system, pictogram, ideograms represented images that had conventional meanings (Daniels and Bright 12). For instance, with the pictographic system, a picture of a star meant a star in the sky while in the ideographic system, a picture of a starry sky meant darkness because stars were normally seen at night. This development in the history of writing could be taken as an improvement in the development of the human intellect. When our ancestors invented writing, it was only a mere representation of objects but since the emergence of the ideographic writing system, they began thinking beyond what they saw. The earliest development of ideograms was in the East during the Bronze Age between 2500 B.C. and the first century B.C. During this development, experts found out that unlike the earlier form pictogram when our ancestors used their hands to draw symbols, they began using a wedged-shaped object in imprinting their writings in soft clay tablets (Daniels and Bright 15). In regards to the development of the human intellect that was shown through the emergence of ideographic writing that housed objects' abstract meaning, the use of a stylus was another notch higher than the earlier â€Å"handprint† style. This innovation showed progress in terms of how our ancestors before wanted to leave a more concrete proof of development in writing. â€Å"Sacred writing† or better known as the Egyptian hie roglyphic was the combination of the two earlier writing systems plus their sounds. Looking at in from today, the chronological order of our progress in writing seemed to be a systematic process of the development in the human brain. We may ask the reason behind it being not in a different order. Is this a natural way of development, considering that we, of course, learned sounds first before images? According to archeologists, anthropologists and other scientists, images were easier to express in writing than sounds even if oral communication was a natural instinct (Stuart 33). Another development in writing is logogram, which is the further progress towards figures. This form's graphemes represented words and was best known from the Japanese and Chinese systems. If we notice, this system is more complex than the other earlier forms of writing, which means that the human intellect again, indeed progressed. The emergence of the logogram can be seen as the basis of the modern alphabe t that we use today. How it has Changed? The emergence of technology surely made a big difference in our ways. Machines, automobiles, washing machines, computers, and the likes, seriously made a big impact in changing the lives of the people enslaved to them. The electronic mail or better known as email for instance, sends mails to other people across the globe in a snap. Unlike before, after the alphabet was invented, we used to write in scrolls and

American History Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

American History - Research Paper Example Year 1865 symbols a milestone of American history which marks the end of the American civil war which resulted heavy losses to both parties as well as the year which started post war reconstruction. And year 1980 marks the precedential election which brought Republican Ronald Regan to the power. Term Americans describes the all citizens of United States of America and they can be divided according to their racial or ethnic group as White Americans, Native Americans (Indians), and African Americans, Mexican American as well as other people who are accepted by United State of America as their citizens. Between years 1865 to 1982 many incidents took place which shows the unity and the separation among Americans. In order to prove the hypothesis of this thesis, author has listed significant events of American history from 1865 to 1980. Throughout this thesis author will prove the hypothesis and how they have affected the unity among Americans. The examples will be listed under two topics as incidents which are show the separation among Americans and incidents which are show the unity among Americans. When researching on separation and unity among Americans one might think race will be the major cause for the separation. Race is just one cause and there are many causes which create separation among Americans and following incidents provide examples for separation among Americans by their political view, nationality and gender. And provide a strong foundation to prove the hypothesis of this thesis, which is Americans have been more divided than united between 1865 and 1980 Right after the end of the civil war government had to find solutions for the status of the ex-slaves which were called as freedmen, loyalty and civil rights of the ex-rebels and the ex-confederate states. In the election of 1866, republicans took the control in congress, and were

Outsourcing Policies On German Car Manufacturing Industry Research Paper

Outsourcing Policies On German Car Manufacturing Industry - Research Paper Example German car manufacturers achieve cost-cutting through sub-contracting and outsourcing. How the process of outsourcing affected the German car industry, how it is done specifically, the related laws on outsourcing and labor and the impact of the recent crisis on the process of outsourcing and sub-contracting are the questions that this paper wishes to answer. With the aid of information coming from company reports, datamonitor, newspapers, websites, and researches, we try to examine all these aspects of outsourcing in the German car manufacturing industry. Business Process Outsourcing is one of the latest trends in business. To outsource is defined in the Merriam-Webster online dictionary as "to procure (as some goods or services needed by a business or organization) under contract with an outside supplier" (Merriam-Webster Incorporated, 2010). This is applied in either the manufacturing stage, the marketing stage or after-sales stage. Germany, specifically the automobile industry is one of those that adopt business process outsourcing as part of the business. The paper will include a detailed study and description of the use of outsourcing practices (to include outsourcing in areas such as components manufacture, servicing and retail operations) in the automotive industry in Germany. Before going into details about different outsourcing practices, I will present a brief overview of supply chain of automotive industry which is crucial to understand in order to fully apprehend the benefits and limitations of outsourcing. Consequently, I will analyze major car manufacturers in Germany in terms of their outsourcing activities and processes. Specifically I intend to focus on three major car producers: BMW, Daimler and VW. Their websites contain detailed annual reports that include also information relevant to outsourcing. In addition, I found substantial amount of information in Datamonitor database about specific outsourcing practices of each car manufacturer as well as trends, competitive landscape and supply chain analysis for global autom otive industry, specific countries, particularly Germany. A necessary part of the paper is an investigation of the effect of outsourcing policies on German car manufacturing companies in the past and in the present. The comparison between the past and the present will be to ascertain the effect of financial crisis and how it has changed the policies and practices of the car manufacturing companies regarding their outsourcing policies. The Research Questions and Objectives Research Questions To formulate

Gender and Equality Thesis Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Gender and Equality - Thesis Example Gender, equality and inequality all over the world vary immensely, and in various continents, the manner in which women are treated varies as a result of differences in culture. For instance, women residing in the Middle East are in most cases belittled by their spouses as well as the society because of traditional ideologies (Kelly & Breslin, 2010). On the other hand, the women in the western societies go through a different form of inequality whereby they can only access particular forms of employment, ways of living, wages as well as qualities that are similar to those enjoyed by men. Regardless of the fact that these inequalities are not supposed be inequalities as they are considered as gender aspects from a natural biological point of view in a practical manner, utilitarianism can be perceived as a form of discrimination regarding the biological difference that are evident. For instance, in the west, people of the female gender are not usually regarded as being good candidates for being employed at construction sites and other places that may be hazardous or might need the use of physical strength. In spite of the decades dedicated to feminist advances, countless inequalities against women have not been dealt with and are still in existence. The most notable is the number of women who are in corporate leadership as well as those in political leadership, which is comparatively low. Additionally, women are still entitled to low wages with this aspect being associated with fewer years of experience on the similar jobs to those being done by men as a result of pregnancy and raising children. There are also very limited opportunities for women in professional sports and numerous other areas that need some level of physical strength, as well as in the cases where there is an aspect of isolation or danger. Society also makes the women feel less safe than the men and they

The Pearl Harbor Attack Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

The Pearl Harbor Attack - Research Paper Example There were two in-flight attack waves, toting up 353 aircraft, instigated from six carriers of Japanese aircraft under the leadership of Commander Mitsuo Fuchida. The objective of the strike was protecting Imperial Japan advance to the Dutch East Indies, as well as and Malaya, due to their natural resources like rubber and oil, through the neutralization of the U.S. Pacific Fleet. Although the Japanese succeeded in fulfilling the attack, thereby potentially crippling the control of America over the Pacific, this success was only short lived. The following day, America pronounced war on Japan thus leading to the official American entry into World War II (Shelley & David 10). Under the leadership of US, the Western Countries had imposed derisory sanctions on Japan due to its invasion of China thereby impeding the Japanese military operations. As a result, Japan got into diplomatic negotiations along with US in order to break the impasse while using this time in launching an attack on P earl Harbor. Most of the Japanese fleet needed to sail not less than 4000 miles so as to get from its center to where the aircraft carriers intended to set off their planes for Hawaii. These planes got there just ahead of 8AM on 7 December. Before long, five of eight battleships at Pearl Harbor either got sunk or sinking while the rest got damaged. Although the most noteworthy casualty turned out to be USS Arizona, there were a number of other ships, as well as most Hawaii-based war planes also got knocked out with 2388 Americans ending up dead (Sakata 23). There are various reasons as to why Japanese attacked the Pearl Harbor including (Lord): I.) The banning of all exports of scrap iron, steel, as well as oil to Japan by President Roosevelt, which was due to the given Japanese invasion of China. This led to Japan losing not less than 90% of its oil supply. This economic seclusion crippled their economy, together with their military; II.) America had participated in the Second Worl d War yet since they were still stumbling from depression caused by the First World War. However, America still possessed the strongest nautical fleets. Based on this viewpoint, the Japanese were nearly as strong as the American navy. With the passage of time, America favored more and more in line of joining the war. The Japanese had the anticipation of a full-blown naval war together with America thereby deciding to act first by means of bombing Pearl Harbor; III.) Assumptions also involved the fact that the Japanese had the intention of becoming a naval superpower, while, at the same time, wanting to destruct any competition, comprising of American, along with British naval convoy; IV.) The United States intended Japan to abandon northern Indo-China; V.) Opposition from the US about Japanese expansion, together with Japan demands considering that they were not got by diplomacy; VI.) The Japanese were eager on expanding their empire thereby making a decision between giving in or go ing to war along with the United States; VII.) The Japanese wanted the US to consent to their spreading out into Asia; VIII.) Pearl Harbor happened to be the residence of the U.S. Pacific Fleet; therefore Japan did not intend the U.S. within the war since at that time; the greatest Naval force belonged to the United States of America.

Blue Remembered Hills Essay Example for Free

Blue Remembered Hills Essay When I first read the script of Blue Remembered Hills I thought it was quite naturalistic and it was well written from a childs perspective. The characters were all very believable and it seemed like a fun play to perform. I thought it would be easy to do because the characters are all children and I can still remember how I was at that age. In the performance I played the part of Peter, a young boy of about seven or eight years. He is the bully of the group and he tends to use his strength to get his own way over the others. He is not very intelligent and some of the characters use this to their advantage to get out of situations e.g. in scene two when Peter tries to steal Willies apple but Willie convinces him one bite would kill him. To get into our roles of young children, we did various exercises like childhood games and hotseating. I found hotseating particularly helpful because afterwards all of the class give their opinions and constructive criticism so I could improve my character. Playing childhood games helps to put you into the mind of an eight year old. After a few weeks we looked at the subtext of the play. This means you go through the script and look for the true meaning of the words that are spoken. For example if somebody says something sarcastically, you know to say it in a certain tone. Doing this helped with the language and how to speak the words in accent using the correct tone so that the true meaning is given across to the audience. I found the best way to improve voice, movement and gesture was to keep rehearsing it and talk to each other about how it looks and what could be improved. All of the characters wore similar clothing, as theyre all children of the same age living at the same time. For Peter I chose a pair of dirty, grey shorts and a plain dirty white shirt as this was typical for the time. He did not have any props specific to his character. I think that together as a group we worked very well. I found that constructive criticism and feedback from the other people in my group helped me greatly because it tells you what you look like to others and how the character comes across to the audience. We didnt experience many major problems throughout the project and other problems were easy to solve. Last minute rehearsals were just to polish off the scripts and make sure that all the scenes ran smoothly together. In the run-up to the final performance we would just act out each scene over an over and confirm that we had the play how we wanted it. I was quite pleased with the final performance but despite weeks of learning the lines, I still managed to make a few slip-ups, which I and the other character made up for by improvising. I thought that each person in the group fitted very well into their characters and worked very well together. We all added a bit of our own personality, which made the characters more believable. If I did the play again I might have made it more physical and at a faster pace. I didnt see any other groups performances so I cant compare ours to anyone elses. Over the past few weeks I have learned new techniques of character development and I feel my ability to work in a group has improved. I think I need sometimes to put in a bit more effort in the lessons and do every rehearsal as if it were the real thing as I lacked motivation in some lessons. It has prepared me a bit for the written exam because I have been analysing the performance, which is exactly what I have to do for the exam.

Operational Management Analysis | British Airways

Operational Management Analysis | British Airways British Airways and British Airport Authority managing Heathrow Airport at London, which has four terminals , terminal1, terminal2,terminal3, and terminal 4 built a new terminal 5 in 260 hectare land, with sophisticated and advanced infrastructure designed to handle thirty-five million passengers per year which costed  £4.3 billion with 19 years of hard work involving totally 60,000 individuals. the construction finished its last phase in march 2008 after the 68 trails by 15000 volunteers the terminal 5 was ready for business on march 2008. Her majesty The Queen opened the terminal 5 on March 14th 2008, and was ready for business for passengers on 27th march 2008. But instead of grand opening the terminal 5 opening went as a disaster, resulting in cancellations of about 38 flights, and misplaced luggage, operational and technical problems. Why this happened? Why the opening day became a disaster? Why it has become as a night mare to passengers? The following data deals with what actually happened on the opening day and why British airways failed on the day of opening. MANAGING OPERATIONS: British airways Heathrow airport INTRODUCTION: British airways British Airways plc or BA is the UKs largest international airline in the world, based at Heathrow airport in London and serves about 95 million passengers a year using 441 airports in 86 countries using more than 1000 planes through its own operations and its alliance partners like TAT European airlines in France, Qantas in Australia, and USAir in United states. In last financial year to march 31, 2008 it carried about 33 million passenger worldwide and 805,000 tonnes of cargo, (www.bashares.com) and is considered as one of the worlds longest established airlines. Heathrow and Gatwick airports are the two main operating bases of British airways. It earned  £9 billion in revenue in the year 2008/2009; passenger traffic accounted for 87.1 percent and 7.5 percent came from cargo and 5.4 percent from other activities. Heathrow airport which is owned by BAA is 15 miles from central London and is the worlds busiest international travel hub and now operates terminals 1,2,3,4 and terminal 5. When we go back in to little history of this airport it was started officially in 1946 as an army surplus. In 1951 plan was developed to build terminals. In 1955 Heathrow terminal 2 was ready for business a d considered as Heathrows first rear terminal. In 1960 construction of terminal 2 took place and was expanded in 1970 and in 1969 terminal 1 was officially opened by queen, in 1976 Heathrow became supersonic being services operated by British airways and air France . In 1986 terminal 4 was opened by prince and princess of Wales which was worth of  £200 million. About  £1milloin a day was spent in developing infrastructure of Heathrow. On 20th November 2001 the government gave approval to build a 5th terminal (t5) after a longest public enquiry in British planning history. The company aimed to move all its operations to terminal 5. Over the past few years terminal 5 is the largest building project in Europe costing  £4.3 billion to BAA. It was a big challenge to construct such a immense size building. it has a capacity to serve around 30 million passengers per year. The main terminal building has 1,100 piles. There are 5 tunnels serving terminal 5 with a length of 14km. The building has 96 checks in kiosks, a high glass cascade of 40 metre, and the terminal 5 lounge has a space for 2,500 passengers, and has 4,000 car parking spaces. This terminal will be used only by British airways .it took six years to finish the project, within time and within the budget. INTRODUCTION TO THE PROBLEM: British airways opened the terminal 5 for business on 27 march 2008, by her majesty the Queen describing it as a 21st century gateway to Britain. The opening ceremony was attended by hundreds of airport authorities and workers. The BAA and airline British airways who built the terminal for many years forecasted that new facility would give a fresh start for Heathrow and millions of premium passengers. But the Heathrows new  £4.3billion terminal 5 suffered a disastrous opening resulting cancellation of flights, long queues and delays in luggage system. British airways was forced to cancel 34 domestic flights, one problem was followed by other problem on the day. There was a problem to the staff in finding the car park. Then a technical problem has arisen which resulted in some flights departing without luggage on aboard. The first flight of the day coming from Hong Kong arrived eight minutes early and passengers off the building got their luggage quickly. But very soon the baggage reclaim system failed leading the passengers to wait more than two hours to collect their baggage. By lunch time due to continuous problems the British airways cancelled 20 flights in the beginning and later to 34 flights. One of the terminal 5s departure lounge the luggage belt failed. The road signs were not clear outside the terminal. A delay occurred in security screening of staff. The computers did not recognise the baggage handlers IDs and the handling system failed to log on because of these three flights took off without luggage. Live examples: taken from media resources Sir George martin a famous producer of the work Beatles was one among them said he was first impressed to see terminal5 but it led him to wait many hours and the flight has been cancelled. Mr Matt Duffy who was coming from Glasgow to terminal 5 was struck in the flight for more than one hour. Mr kerb a wheel chair user couldnt get in to the building without getting up a step, and he added its totally unbelievable. These are few examples of the chaos caused by British airways in terminal 5 on its opening day. Relationship with operational management: On the operational side there are many errors like little system testing, mechanical failures, technical errors. On the management side there was poor communication, a refusal to listen to the experts and staff, arrogance, complacency, poor training of staff with the new systems. What went wrong on the day: Logistics and planning: On the opening day staff arrived to work couldnt find the car parking, the signs to car parking was unclear, it took long time for the staff to park their car, because of this reason staff arrived very late to work, staff were almost two hours late to work. Even when the staff entered the terminal 5 building there were no clear signs to navigate within the building , union representatives told the workers didint understand where to go,some of the staff couldnt enter through security gates. Because of the communication problem staff couldnt navigate within the building , they were given no telephone numbers to contact. The luggage handlers couldnt get in to the terminal because of improper training and less knowledge on the building. They were just shown the whole building which cant be remembered because of its massive size and therefore arrived late to work. Technical and human errors: The computer system in the terminal didnt recognise the staff IDs, so that staff couldnt log in to the systems. This resulted in making only two desks working instead of 28 desks present. Even when the staff logged the systems displayed error messages showing access denied to logon to do their actual work. About 17 terminal lifts jammed and failed, because of this passengers faced difficulty in getting in to the stairs of difficulty and disabled customers could not enter in to the building. The transit system broke down hence failed to move passengers from main terminal to satellite terminal, which led to cancellations of flights. Doors which should be kept open were locked so that staff and passengers couldnt be able to navigate in to the building. The electronic screens, walkways, escalators, and carousels were failed. Due to technical errors they failed to work and staff couldnt log in to systems and there was no information displayed on the screens. The baggage handling system failed to work after first flight arrived resulted in baggage misplace. Staff due to lack of training overloaded the belt and it stopped working, because of this reason some flights even left without any luggage. Low morale and good will: from the sources it is come to know that most of the staff didnt turn up for training. Because of this reason the baggage handlers and ground staff were unhelpful when the problem occurred. There was not enough staff working on the day to volunteer. BA didnt recruit an extra staff and just asked the present staff to help on their day offs and without paying them. Lack of communication and crisis management: there was no proper communication from the BA to passengers this led most of passengers feel frustrated. There were no announcements and no information was seen on monitors and websites. On the very first day by 5:30am about 200 passengers were queued up for information about cancellations. There were about 26 operational desks on that day but only 2desks were seen working. Results: As a result within in five days about 250 flights have been cancelled and still there is a backlog of 15000 bags, the bags were sent to USA and Paris to identify the original owners of the baggage. It disrupted the travel plans of thousands of passengers and British airways were unable to find any hotel rooms to passengers.Even though the hotel rooms were found they gave compensation of only  £100 where the hotel rooms costs  £200, an extra burden to passengers. About tens of thousands of customers vowed they will never use the airline again, as they faced many difficulties like standing in queues for about two hours for information, the luggage has been misplaced, and no help was available. The opening of terminal 5 is considered as a most embarrassment for British Airways and British Airport Authority. Because of this chaos the shares of British Airways felt down by 3% which accounts for about  £9million of the income and lost its reputation. Discussion of relevant operational theory: Any success of organisation depends up on people and their perception of success or failure, and staff willingness to anticipate to the vision of organisation as defined by management. In the same way the failure of an organisation depends up on poor integration of different parts of change for example the implementation is poorly executed even though the build and develop phase goes well. High complex technology infrastructure becomes inaccessible to those who use it regularly. And the management has to recognise that the success criteria should be broader than bottom line considerations: The business driver is not only the share holder value but the staff working and customer satisfaction. Organisations should be socially beneficial behaviour and mission and vision should include social responsibility and sustainability as their parts. The management has to focus on the state of art infrastructure that is introduced in the large projects. Now a days the managers are more focused on multi disciplinary projects to re engineer business which provides competitive advantage. Rather than spending more time on traditional line management responsibilities the managers are spending time on project work. New projects tend to be exciting in first few years of the project life cycle. But some important project personals often show interest on the finishing stages of project. the operational management should be the key driving force of the project from the beginning, but go live phase of the project is in danger as it didnt receive attention. The terminal5 in a successful project delivered on time and in the budget allocated .the architectural design won awards. It is believed that customers will get great service and satisfaction from terminal 5 when compared to terminal4 and 3. Here the operations management followed properly go live phase in project life cycle as a planned construction programme for six years, it included 400,000 hours of man power and software engineering to built conveyors for 17 kms., 66 trails has been made by 15,000 volunteers, staff were given a training and support of six months, before opening the terminal the baggage system was fully loaded and tested for about twenty times. Even though all these attempts were made the opening of terminal5 went as a disaster to customers and public. Sources taken from media showed that there were long queues in terminals, about 15000 baggage went missing, about 500 flights has bee cancelled in fist two weeks of its opening. There was big problem in sorting out the luggage to its actual owners , this luggage was sent to USA and Milan for sorting out. Even the insurance company didnt compensate the lost luggage saying this is a known risk. The management in companies should be fully aware of the prominence of the operational planning. And should be well prepared for go live phase of the project. In Heathrow terminal 5 the transport select committee was advised by chief executive officer of British airways that the building programme was not finished completely and this made to compromised the testing many time before opening. It was not that about 28 lifts are not working on the opening day, and there were discussions whether to delay the opening schedule of terminal 5, but it was neglected as the officials thought the potential risk will be low. Later the Chief Executive Officer admitted it was their fault to compromise on testing before opening. Application of TQM: According to Joel E. Ross and Susan Perry (1999) was cited in his book about the TQM is total quality management is the set of management processes and systems that create delighted customers through empowered employees leading to higher revenue and lower cost The main principals are customer satisfaction, employee involvement, and continuous improvement in performance. Customer satisfaction: the customer satisfaction factor has been lost on the opening day of terminal 5, where customers have to wait in long queues, loss of baggage, flights cancellations, and British Airways couldnt find the hotel rooms to customers. Employee involvement: employee involvement plays a crucial role in success of any organisation. On the day of terminal5 opening, staff arrived about two hours late to work and the baggage handlers were unable to through the building as there were no clear signs. Even the staff working on the ground didnt help them in any way. There were no announcements about the cancellations. Staff felt they were not responsible for the chaos going on. There was no one to volunteer the situation. Continuous improvement in performance: the testing has been compromised by the British Airport Authorities. Staffs were not trained properly, only six months of training was given. There was no improvement in the training statistics. The luggage handling systems were checked about twenty times before opening but on the day of opening it failed to work. Critical approach: Terminal 5 is a complex building with advanced infrastructure which was built with a goal of improving customer experience and to prove Heathrow airport as world class airport. To achieve this a smooth opening was required but unfortunately the opening was disaster and terminal 5 stood in all headlines of media and was a hot topic in the whole world. The problem was caused by combination operational and technical failures. But there are some issues regarding risk management whether they performed rehearsals or not, of so why they couldnt identify the problems before opening day. They would have hired some extra staff for the beginning days of the terminal. They would have tested it several times before opening it. If they would have tested they would have found all possible failures and would have rectified it before opening. If they would have done so we would have seen a good risk management system in operational management. According to media sources the airport staff was unable t o give answers to difficult questions. When the issue raised the British airways would have focussed a heavy spokesman so that the customer and the whole world have felt the British airways took the issue seriously. British airways would have given free food and hotel rooms when the issue happened so that they would have managed the long-term damage of company with minor compensation. Teething problems may be difficult to avoid for any major projects, but one of the oldest rule in business is anything can go wrong, will go wrong and the second oldest rule is the judgement is passed on recovery but not the mistake, and the third rule is when something goes wrong in an organisation the best thing is to admit it. In terminal5 there was no one with strong leadership skills, people with knowledge, and authority to sort it out ad it didnt go according to the script. It is not excusable for staff for not being able to find car parking and not for being able to get through security, and not for being able to login in to the systems to start their work, they would have gone a series of complete training, testing and rehearsals there is no excuse for the BA and BAA for saying the baggage system failed to work as they tested it only with few bags and assumed that it would work properly with 40,000 baggage, and tested escalators when it was empty but not when it is loaded. CHANGES TO IMPROVE THE QUALITY OR CUSTOMER SERVICE: The construction of Heathrow terminal 5 was very successful project as it was finished on time and in the budget given. But on the opening day it encountered technical problems and operational problems it would have been prevented it BA and BAA would have been followed some simple steps: There should have been clear signs outside the terminal 5 for car parking, as it is known from the problem that staff couldnt find the space for car parking they were about two hours late to work, so if correct signs and signals were given the staff would have arrived to work on time. There should be clear signs in the building, as the terminal5 is massive in its size with advanced infrastructure, they should have been provided with clear signs to navigate within the building, as we came to know from the problem that staff and luggage handlers couldnt find their designated places, they couldnt navigate within the building. The staff would have been trained several times before the opening day. Because on the opening day staff were unclear about using the new resource management system. When the disaster took place staff looked unhelpful, as they didnt understand what was really happening, they couldnt even answer to the customer standing in queues about the faults occurred. The management would have asked staff to arrive a bit early to work to encounter potential delays in entering in to the building which they never entered before. British Airport Authority and British Airways would have recruited some additional staff to volunteer the work on the opening day. The baggage handlers were not given enough training to handle the new unfamiliar highly sophisticated luggage handling system, they would have given some extra training . That new baggage system looked to have no backup system to recover when technical defaults occurs. And the staff keep on loading it even though it stopped working which resulted in sever delays in reclaiming back the luggage. It was seen there were no announcements made and system stopped working, and the system couldnt recognise staff ids. This is lack of testing done before opening. BA and BAA agreed it compromised on testing phase, if it would have been done several times before opening they would have avoided this disaster. WHAT BA AND BAA DONE TO IMPROVE: At London Heathrow terminal 5 after a one year of its opening day everything looks to be flowing smoothly, with more than 90 percent of flights departing and arriving punctually. And more than 16 million customers have now used the terminal 5 facilities properly. New high tech equipment has been installed in security gates which make customers to pass through them quickly and pleasantly. This reduced the waiting time near the security gates. A new system has been developed where passengers do not have to unpack their laptops as trays are available automatically and passengers dont have to take shoes and belt as the security scanning system is very sophisticated. The distance to the passenger gate is reduced to five minutes by walk and 45 seconds using unmanned shuttle. This reduced the time lapse between the entry and passenger gates. The baggage performance was increased significally, the baggage is arriving the carousal before the passenger arrives saving time of passengers for reclaiming baggage. And when there is a connecting flight between destinations the luggage transfer will be done automatically, and luggage arrive quickly than passenger comes out. BA has now more than 90 percent of flights arriving and departure on time. Hence keeping the chaos in mind the BA and BAA is following punctuality in departure and arriving times of the flight. Staffs has given more training and daily regular meetings to make them familiar with the infrastructure. So that the BA and BAA want to give its customers the best service. The building is designed in a way that BAA works closely and naturally with BA making them to interact and meet more often in contingency mode. So the two managements are under one roof now. BA and BAA are using customer feedback to improve the quality and got positive feedback from most of the passengers. Hence it used these feedbacks to improve its quality service to its customers. When compared to other airports and other Heathrow terminals the time taken to check in and drop baggage has been greatly reduced. This saves passengers time and increase the time for shopping and spending. British Airport Authority reduced the time of waiting at security search in terminal 5 with queue less than 5 minutes. BA moved all its staff and flights in to terminal 5, and made signals promising. Now it uses powerful satellite signalling system to manage air traffic of flights and another satellite is under construction which is due to finish by 2011. After the management accepted its faults that it compromise in testing they applied many principles of management and rectified the whole mistakes and now terminal 5 is working properly, with 4000 car parking space, including car finders and help desk to find out lost cars, it has now its own railway station with six platforms connecting London underground and Heathrow express and lifts are working excellently handling 50 persons in one go all together, it has now automated kiosks where a passenger can cjesk in automatically and select seats and 140 desk are available for check in, and it has highly sophisticated single terminal baggage handling system whic is the best in Europe, and has major brands like Harrods, Hughes and Hughes, Links, Mapin, Paul smiths, Smythson, Cafe Nero, Starbucks, Gordon Ramsey, Giraffe, and Wagamama for customer service. Hence the Heathrow Terminal 5 is definitely a successful project.

Sub Saharan Africa Ssa Politics Essay

Sub Saharan Africa Ssa Politics Essay Sub-Saharan Africa is the largest current aid recipient region of the world since 2001 having overtaken Asia as the largest aid-receiving region. Since more than five decades ago, over $1 trillion has been disbursed to the region to spur development and integration into the global economy (Moyo, 2009; Dessai and Porter, 2009; and Handley et al. 2009). Despite the huge amount of aid flow to sub-Saharan Africa, widespread poverty, chronic hunger and prevalence of life-threatening diseases are unprecedented in the region. Institutions and scholars are now referring to food-malnutrition-hunger problems in the developing countries as the third crises' (Chibba, 2011:76-77).There are also increasing dependency on aid, foreign technologies, institutions and value system, (Todaro and Smith, 2011; Collier, 2008; Kelsall, 2008). The World Bank (2008) on the monitoring of the progress of MDG reported that the first goal of halving absolute poverty has been disappointing in sub-Saharan Africa. The failure of aid has generated debate among scholars and policy practitioner alike. This is because of the failure of fifty years of challenging aid interventions. Poor political leadership and weak state institution of recipient countries, and the agenda and conditionality imposed by donor countries and governments are attributed for the failure of aid politics and economics of aid. However, the availability of abundant natural resources in Nigeria and other sub-Saharan African countries have not affected their fortune so-called resource curse (Ushie, 2012:1; TI, 2012; Handley et al 2009). The aid-growth debate, multilateral and bilateral institutions and prominent scholars like Jeffrey Sachs and Arndt et al. in Chibba (2011) support the view that aid has a key role to play in achieving poverty reduction and development. There are increasing demand for focussed aid to developing countries, especially small states, low-income countries and post-conflict states (Chibba 2011, Paulo and Reisen, 2010). Critics of Sachs work on aids role in development such as William Easterly (2006), Dambisa Moyo (2009) among others argued that poverty could be solved more by income redistribution than by growth and that aid is destructive to the economy of developing countries. However, the most important thing is finding workable and real-world solutions to address both poverty and development challenges. The role of institutional quality of a country is more significant and not closely related to the volume of development assistance to the country. It is also more important than the geographical location and integration of the country into world trade (Booth, 2011). He said this could be an argument for lack of strong positive link between aid and development outcome in sub-Saharan Africa. Kofi Annan in UNDP 2006 noted that governance issues remain crucial elements of all strategies towards poverty eradication and human development governance matters for development. Institutions, rules and political processes have major roles to play in whether children have access to quality education, whether people have access to basic things of life, and whether there is development or retrogression. Promoting human development is beyond overcoming economic, social and technological challenges: it includes political and institutional challenges, which causes poverty and insulation to developmen t (UNDP, 2002; Abdellatif, 2003). The governance crisis in sub-Saharan Africa is obvious in prevalent corruption, public services that are inefficient and inability of citizens to exercise their basic rights to choose their leaders court without justice, public officials demanding bribe and hospital without doctors and drugs. Good governance is crucial in eradicating poverty and promotes development through effective institutions and rules. These can be achieved through accountability, transparency, empowerment, participation and rule of law. Failures of social policies often occur because the beneficiaries lack political power and adequate representation in the decisions that affects their lives. Developing countries will promote human development for all with governance systems that are fully accountable to the citizens. People can be better off when they can participate in the debates and decisions that affect their lives (UNDP 2002). For aid to achieve its aims, the people that aid target must be empowered. Aung San Suu Kyi cited by UNDP (2002:52) argued, Development as growth, advancement and the realisation of potential depends on available resources and no resources are more effective than people being empowered are. Governance for human developments must protect human rights; promote wider participation of the people in the institutions and rules that affects their lives. It is not just about efficient, equitable economic and social outcomes, but must embrace fair process. Succinctly, it must be democratic in substance and in form by the people and for the people (p, 52). Todaro and Smith (2011) noted that development needs improved functioning of the public, private and citizens sector. Each of these actors has their weaknesses accountability. These weaknesses must be addressed to achieve balanced, shared and sustainable development. Civil society organisations have the capacity to reduce accountability gap in global governance. Scholars and policy-makers have come to accept the fact that active involvement of civil society organisations in governance will provide solution to accountability deficit in global governance (Scholte, 2011). Civil society should be a major player to achieve that goals by mobilising communities, delivering services and shaping policies (Ibrahim and Hulme, 2010; Bank and Hulme 2012; and Collins 2012). To critics, civil society might aggravate the problem because they themselves are poorly accountable to their constituency even if they have one (Scholte 2011; Steffeks et al, 2008, Kaldor 2002). The recent studies and international commitments reiterate the necessity of increasing research on poverty eradication and achieving sustainable development. Official monitoring of the impact of Paris Declaration where developed and developing countries make commitment to make aid effective by 2011 showed that only one of the thirteen targets has been met(OECD, 2011). Making aid effective and achieve its goal remains a crucial goal of development. Democratic governance is the answer good governance or good enough governance is democratic governance from human development perspective (UNDP 2002; Grindle, 2007). 1.1 RESEARCH OBJECTIVE This research intends to study how to overcome constraints to poverty reduction and achieving sustainable development in sub-Saharan Africa. The research intends to answer these questions: What are the obstacles to poverty reduction and development in sub-Saharan Africa? What are the role of NGOs and civil society in promoting democracy in global and national governance institutions? What are the roles of civil society and NGOs in shaping governance policies and as alternative provider of social services? 1.2 METHODOLOGY There is an extensive literature on the role of state and non-state actors in governance of aid and capacities of different actors in governance institution towards poverty eradication and achieving human development in developing countries. This research will provide answers to the above questions by reviewing literature as a secondary data source. This method is selected considering the timescale of the study. It is possible to carry out this type of research by evaluation of secondary data source in assessing the core issues and approaches in providing solution to the research questions. This allows the critical appraisal of different literature source. Ethically, there is no research participant, hence no implication on any. This research is limited to the review of relevant literature on role of CSOs in poverty reduction, development and aid in developing countries and no field research This research work is structured in five chapters. The first chapter contains introduction of the issues in aid governance, the rationality for this research and research objectives methodology. Second chapter captures the rationality for aid in the development of sub-Saharan Africa. Its shed light on the challenges facing sub- Saharan Africa, and why aid has not been effective in reducing extreme poverty and promote human development. The concluding part of the chapter discusses global governance challenges and previous roles of NGOs and civil society in global governance and development. The third chapter discuss the centrality of democracy in governance and achieving sustainable human development. The focus of chapter four is the roles of NGOs and civil society in promoting democracy and addressing economic and development policy challenges. The fifth chapter is the conclusion of this research CHAPTER TWO LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1. RATIONALE BEHIND AID, AID DEBATE AND HUMAN DEVELOPMENT Attainment of development by any nation depends on combination of factors. These include the countrys resources endowment and population; its governments policies and objectives; the availability of external capital and technology international flow of financial resources; and the international trade environment (Todaro and Smith, 2011). External capital comes in three main forms. The first of these involves private foreign direct and portfolio investment by large transnational corporations and purchase of bonds, stocks and notes in the developing countries credit and equity markets by private institutions and individuals. The second involves remittances of earnings by international migrants; and the third involves public and private development assistance foreign aid. In the case of sub-Saharan Africa, there are factors that make it unattractive for private foreign direct and portfolio investment. Political instability and incessant military take-over; economic factors and poor bu siness environment; geographical factors majority of the countries in the region are landlocked nations; and insecurity of life and property and poor infrastructure makes it unattractive as a place for foreign investment (Sachs, 2005:63). In addition, remittances of earnings by international migrants are small. According to United Nation report cited by Todaro and Smith (2011), only Nigeria and Egypt have remittance of 4.7 and 5.8 percent of their GDP. The above situation makes the role of aid in the development of sub-Saharan Africa significant. Aid aims to fill the gap limiting development by supplementing savings to boost investment for improving productive capacity and needed infrastructures that facilitate development (Burnell, 2008; TI, 2011 and Todaro and Smith, 2011:702). The argument is that developing countries lacks adequate domestic savings required for investment opportunities. Coupled with this, African countries have low foreign-exchange earnings to finance imports. Lack of physical and human capital to attract private investment does not also help matter. Despite the increasing flow of aid, government policies and objectives are militating against its effectiveness. Defining foreign aid is conceptually problematic. To Dambisa Moyo (2009), aid is simply the sum total of both concessional loan and grants. Concessional loans are funds to be repaid, but with a more favourable repayment conditions to the borrower than what can be obtained through standard financial markets. It is sometimes at the expense of the lending countries. Grants are money given for nothing in return. She mentioned three types of aid. The first is humanitarian aid. That is, aid in response to catastrophe and calamities. The second is charity-based aid. These are aid disbursed by charitable organisations (NGOs and other voluntary sectors) to institutions or people on ground (p7). The third form of aid is systemic aid. This is aid payments made directly to governments which could be either through government-to- government transfer( bilateral aid) or transfer through institution such as World Bank(multilateral aid). The widely used concept of aid is the combination of all official grants and concessional loans. It may be in kind or currency. Peter Burnell(2008), viewed aid as including transfer of finance, commodities and other goods, technical cooperation and debt relief and grants is the common form of bilateral aid to least developed countries because of their inability in the past to service concessional loans acquired,(p.503). The intention is transfer of resources from developed countries to developing countries to reduce poverty and facilitate development the common target of aid now (Todaro and Smith, 2011; TI 2011). The focus of aid on the human development, poverty reduction and good governance is a recent development in aid governance. The reason for the new focus of aid is the increasing high profile of other non-state actors in governance, particularly, civil society organisations (TI, 2011, UNDP 2007). This weakened the monopoly of the state in promoting development and the role o f these non-state actors are increasing as the power of the state declines and global economic activities intensifies (Dessai and Porter, 2008: 499). They defined the state as the network of government, quasi-government and non-governmental institutions (traditional institutions) that coordinates, regulates and monitors economic and social activities (p. 499). The US Marshall Plan (1948-51) of post-war reconstructions in Western Europe success set spur the use of aid vehicle in promoting development, but the failure of aid to achieve same in least developed nations is a case for concerns. The contemporary experiences generated heated debate on the relevance of aid to national development and spurred the queries of rationalities behind aid (Moyo, 2009; Burnell, 2008 and 1997; Collier, 2008 and Todaro and Smith, 2011). In the first decade of twenty-first century, the common reason given by donor nations for giving aid are moral and humanitarian interest in helping the less privileged. Some development assistance has been in the form of emergency food relief and medical program currently in Afghanistan, Somalia, Haiti, Southern Sudan and Syria. As true as that may be, there are historical evidences that support the claim that no donor nation give aid without expecting something in return. Some of the reasons are political and economic gain, counterterrorism especially after September 11, antinarcotics in Mexico and Latin America, and prevention of HIV and AIDS. Common motivation by donor countries is political benefits. Burnell (2008) argued that even US aid for post-war reconstruction in Western Europe was motivated by political and concerns for national security and superpower competition with USSR (Todaro and Smith, 2011). The hidden rationale of the US Marshall Plan was mainly to contain the spread of communism. The success achieved in bringing Western Europe back on sound economic footing was clear, but it also gave US the advantage of influencing foreign policy with that part of Europe becoming its allies. It enhanced the emergence of US-led multilateralism (Moyo 2009:12). The focus shifted in 1950s from Europe to developing nations while the agenda of containment embodied in the US aid programme dictated a shift in emphasis toward political, economic, and military support for friendly less developed nations especially those considered geographically strategic (Todaro and Smith, 2011:701). The Cold War marked the political contest between USSR and US. African countries were used as battleground to make the newly independent nations either communist or capitalist. The protracted disaster in Syria reflects the hegemony between Russia, China and US. In the Latin America, Alliance for Progress in 1960s was established to promote economic development of the region, but underlying that is the motivation to counter rise of Fidel Castro in Cuba and the fear of communism in other Latin America nations. The doomed fate of the Alliance for Progress showed its irrelevance to US scheme of affairs. Dated back to 1940s, Britain government gives aid for infrastructural projects to poorer nations, majorly to commonwealth member countries and British Colonial Development and Welfare Act was established to fund social services (Moyo, 2009). In sum, Western donors give aid as a political instrument to prop up friendly political regimes in developing nations based on their own national security interest. Critics of aid argued that the fight against AIDS is to prevent it from spreading to the West and likely state collapse that might be a haven for terrorist (Moyo, 2009; Maathai, 2009). There is strong economic rationale for foreign aid from developed countries. Chief among them are Japan and Germany. Japan gave aid to less developed Asian neighbours to promote its private investments and expanding trade. Chinas aid in Africa currently have same motive. The aim of Marshall Plan was for Europe to regain their social, political and economic stability and to regain their level of development. US injected about $100bilion (current value of the aid package) as rescue package under George C. Marshal, the then US Secretary of State in 1947, for post- Second World War reconstruction in Europe. The birth of Breton Wood institutions (IMF, World Bank and WTO) in 1940s with the agenda of restructuring international finance, establishing a multilateral trading system and formation of framework for economic cooperation to avoid the experience of the Great Depression of 1930s reinforce aid system. They were to enhance capital investment for reconstruction and manage global financi al system purposely to share investment risk between countries where all member nation bankroll the risk involved (Moyo, 2009; Todaro and Smith, 2011 and Dessai and Porter, 2008). Economic benefits also accrues to the donor countries especially from tied aid loans or grants that requires the recipient countries to use the fund to purchase goods and services from the donor countries. According to Todaro and Smith (2011:705), a large fraction of US aid has been spent on American Consultants and other US businesses. The recipient countries accept aid based on their belief on the economic tenets of developed nations as a requirement for the achievement of their own development and in some cases and lack of domestic resources. To some corrupt leaders aid is attractive because they hardly account for it and sometimes used to suppress opposition and retain power military assistance. Moral obligation, some argued, compel the donor countries to assist the less developed nation on humanitarian ground. They believe that the rich countries, especially former colonial masters such as Britain, US, France, Italy, Spain Portugal to mention a few, owe the poor countries reparation for their past exploitations. Aid and aid governance has generated hot debate and political disagreement among scholars, policy-makers and the public (Collier, 2008:99). The first argument is on aid effectiveness in promoting development. Proponents of aid believe that it has engendered economic growth and transformed many developing countries. The Nobel Laureate, Maathai (2009), in her book The Challenge for Africa observed that Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) alone has provided over $650 billion in development assistance to sub-Saharan Africa. She noted the flows have not reversed the increasing death of poor African because of malaria, HIV/AIDS and other deadly diseases. However, the impact of foreign media and development experts concern on Africa issues especially on preventable diseases has been helpful, but that is not the concerns of sub-Saharan Africa public officials. Collier (2008) noted that aid tends to speed up growth. In Africa, he pointed out that aid has added about 1 percent to the countries annual economic growth rate of the bottom billion. Though not encouraging, but according to him, the growth rate in those countries has been less than 1 percent or even zero. The aid addition to the growth rate is the difference between economic stagnation and severe cumulative decline and without aid, cumulatively the countries of the bottom billion over would have become poorer than they are today: aid has been a holding operation preventing things from falling apart (Collier, 2008:100). The renewed commitment of the world leaders and international organisation involved in the governance of aid reinforced the position that aid is relevant to the development of sub-Saharan Africa. They agreed that properly administered aid would meet its development objectives (Paris Declaration, 2005). Critics of aid argue that aid does not promote growth and develop ment, but contrarily may even be destructive to development of developing nations. Moyo (2009) vigorously criticised aid in Africa. She argued: the notion that aid can alleviate systemic poverty and has done so is a myth. Millions in Africa are poorer today because of aid; misery and poverty have not ended but have increased. Aid has been and continue to be, an unmitigated political, economic, and humanitarian disaster for the most part of the developing world (p.xix). In the same vein, Peter Baueras cited by Moyo (2009), noted that aid distort development as the fund ended in the hand of a selected few. He said aid is a form of taxing the poor in the developed countries to enrich the new elites in their former colonies. Baueras concluded that aid-based theories and policies are inconsistent with sound economic management and with reality of the situation in developing nations. The argument that aid had had little or no impact on the development of sub-Saharan Africa is strong. However, one can be curious to ask what befell the income from the countries earnings from natural resources and other revenues. In reality, those resources also have not been of any impact on the development of the region (Ushie, 2012; Handley et al. 2009; and Chibba 2011, TI 2012). Moyo (2009) agreed on this and admitted that the problem of Africa is beyond aid because domestic earnings also seem to be a curse. Collier argued that the growth rate in countries with natural resources (oil windfall) such as Nigeria that earned over $280 billion from crude oil were not different from those other countries without such resources and with even negative effect of oil windfall on their economies. He lamented that more aid without changes in approach to governance is doomed to fail: but as a general instruments (aid) for developing the bottom billion they would be more reassuring had oil and other natural resources revenues been more successful in achieving development(2008:102). Maathai supported this claim: Unfortunately, too many African governments have used their budgets, and their natural resources, not to invest in their people, but in precisely the opposite manner(Maathai, 2009:75). Another dimension of aid debate is aid-conditionality. Formal president of South Africa, Dr Nelson Mandela, at the United Nation Summit in 1995 said it is to perpetuate difficulties of the South for the North to relate to us as hapless victims to dictate to regarding loans and the employment of aid (cited by Todaro and Smith,2011:684). Argument against conditionality is popular among civil society, governments and the international institutions involving in the governance of aid. Conditionality-based lending started in 1980s with recommendation for economic policy and institutional reform with Structural Adjustment Programme taken central stage. It incurred resentment because people viewed it as coercive and offensive to sovereignty (Burnell, 2008:505). Based on Dollar and Burnsides (1998) recommendation, selectivity was introduced to aid favouring countries that show commitment to sound development policy and good governance. Critics view this as depriving assistance to countries that desperately need the help. Nevertheless, Collier noted that aid agencies have little incentives to enforce conditionality because people get promotion by disbursing fund, not by withholding it. He advocated for a shift in the focus of governments to the welfare of their citizens. He argued that the internal process by which citizens force government to be accountable to them is weak in developing nations and must be strengthened. To achieve this, external pressure is needed and legitimate: Why should we give aid to governments that are not willing to let their citizens see how they spend it (2008:110). The focus of all stakeholders in aid governance now must be how to make it effective in meeting its development goals, because aid is at the heart of governance today and it is unlikely to disappear, (Moyo, 2009:66). Aid effectiveness can be viewed as efforts gear toward ensuring the maximum impact of development aid for getting the most possible lives improved. Elliot Stern et al (2008:20) based on the principle of Paris Declaration (PD) defined aid effectiveness as arrangement for the planning, management and deployment of aid that is efficient, reduces transaction costs and targeted towards development outcomes including poverty reduction. The theme of PD is how to improve the way aid is delivered and it was to supplement PRSP. It demands from donors to harmonise their assistance with the policies and systems of recipient countries to support country-owned development (Booth 2011). Development effectiveness of aid is conceived as the effectiveness of aid in promoting development. Human development requires more than achieving economic growth in GDP and raising income. The focus of development must shift from national income accounting to people-centred policies. Development is defined as the process of improving the quality of all human lives and capabilities by raising peoples levels of living, self-esteem, and freedom (Todaro and Smith, 2011:5). Sakiko Fukuda-Parr (2003) viewed development as the elimination of obstacles to what a person can do in life. Obstacles such as illiteracy, ill health, lack of access to resources or lack of civil and political freedoms. Amartya Sen (2001) noted that development should be viewed as a process of expanding the real freedom that people enjoyed. UNDP (2001) supported this by saying that the fundamental capabilities for human development are to live healthy and long lives, to be educated, to have access to resources for good standard of living and ability to participate in the life of the community. THE CHALLENGES TO DEVELOPMENT IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA Challenges facing sub-Saharan Africa are multi-dimensional, most importantly, the prevalence of extreme poverty and chronic diseases across the region. They form one-sixth of the world population, described by Paul Collier (2008) as the bottom billion. Sachs (2005:18) described them as too ill, hungry, or destitute to step the ladder of development. The webs of poverty make it extremely difficult to escape it on their own. Extreme poverty, according to him, means that households are unable to meet their basic physiological or biological needs for survival. Education is unaffordable for the children and there is no proper shelter for the household. Sachs (2005) reported that 93 percent of the world poor population lives in three regions: East Asia, South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. While it has reduced substantially in Asia, the percentage of extremely poor people has risen in sub-Saharan Africa (Handley et al. 2009; Moyo 2009; and Collier 2008). National Bureau of Economic Research (NGO) as quoted by Maathai (2009) reported that the economic growth of the world grew at 2 percent between 1960 and 2001, but the reverse was the case in Africa. She noted, GDP growth was negative from 1974 to mid-1990s and by 2003, sub-Saharan Africa GDP lowered by 11 percent than thirty previous years (p.48). In early 1960s, only 10 percent of the world poor were African, but in year 2000, African population formed 50 percent of the world poor. The growth rate of sub-Saharan Africa countries did not exceed 0.5 since 1960 when the population was 277million. With a population of over 900million, the growth rate remains unchanged. Such economic performance cannot guarantee meeting the basic needs of the people. Moyo (2009) also noted that sub-Saharan Africa remain the poorest region in the world with per capital income of $1 a day, lower than what it was in 1970s. The number of people from that region living in abject poverty doubled between 1981 and 2002. UNDP(2007) cited by Moyo(2009) predicted that by 2015, one-third of third of the world poor would be African contrary to one fifth in 1990. Life expectancy stands at 50year, the lowest in the world. And still, across important indicator life expectancy, literacy rate, maternal- infant mortality and income inequality the trend in Africa is not just downwards: Africa is (negatively) decoupling from the progress being made across the rest of the world(Moyo 2009:6). Collins (2012) described poverty as one of the greatest challenges to human security and basic human needs. In Nigerian newspaper, the Punch of 27th February 2013, former president of US, Bill Clinton said the cause of Boko Haram (Western Education is bad) insurgency in the Nige ria and other sub-Saharan countries are rooted in prevalence of extreme poverty. Sub-Saharan Africa is now a theatre of terrorism. Some of the factors adduced for these challenges in sub-Saharan Africa are classified as geographical, historical, cultural, tribal and institutional. Collier (2008) argued that geographical environment and topography of a country determines its wealth and success. Some environments are easier to manipulate than others are. This gives some society opportunity to tend plants and animal better than others do. The climatic condition, location, topography, species of plants and animals influences peoples ability to provide food for consumption and export. These have positive impact on the economic and development (Moyo 2009). Jeffrey Sachs (2005) gave example of how the climate and location of Britain helped in its economic and social development. He said, Geographical location of Britain enabled it to benefit from trade, productive agriculture and energy resources in vast stock of coal (p.35). He revealed that Britain has favourable climatic condition for agriculture and extensive navig able river ways for internal and external trade. The reverse is the case in sub-Saharan Africa. Historical factors particularly, colonialism was given as one of the reasons for poverty and underdevelopment in Africa. Sachs (2005) opined that Europe superior powers coax weaker societies to take action favourable to their advantage. They commandeered natural resources including natural wealth of Africa, and private army were raised to ensure compliance (p.41). Maathai (2009) also noted that the legacy of colonial master the territories they established was meant to serve their interest. They had no genuine interest in the development of the local population, but in raw materials to their various countries. She noted that outcasts of the traditional society that cooperated with the colonial authority were elevated to positions that they would never have held in traditional societal institutions. This cultivated a system that de-emphasised merit and competence that still endures today. It perpetuates underdevelopment because merit and competence is not a condition in filling offi cial positions against sound governance and justice. Even after independence, the new leader faile