Articles

Oil Palm Expansion: Aspects and Gender Roles in Rural Oil Palm Farm Households

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This paper comprehends that commercialization in Indonesia, especially in the plantation sector, has increased every year. In this paper, the focus of this research is on oil palm plantations which are expected to increase every year. One of the actors playing a role in this expansion is farmer households. The purpose of this paper is to analyze and describe gender aspects and roles in oil palm farmer households. This research used qualitative and quantitative approaches. There were 20 informants in the study for qualitative data and 80 respondents for quantitative data. The types of data used in this research were secondary data and primary data. Primary data were obtained through observation, in-depth interviews, and questionnaires, while secondary data were obtained from literature studies and documents related to this paper. The results of this study reveal that this expansion changes and influences gender aspects in oil palm farmer households, such as increasing women’s working time due to entering productive sectors, and the emergence of new sources of economic income for women.

The Forgotten Factors Affecting the Expansion of Medical Laboratory Services to cope up the Rising Health Demands in Sri Lanka

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Introduction: The government of Sri Lanka identifies health laboratory service as an essential component in the health care service and is committed to providing quality essential laboratory services to healthcare seekers. Ministry of Health, Sri Lanka is responsible for the establishment and enactment of relevant legislation, and for providing technical and managerial guidelines for the maintenance of laboratories which comply with nationally and internationally accepted standards. Epidemiological and demographic transitions in Sri Lanka have compelled it to focus its attention to combat noncommunicable diseases, which are accounting for an estimated 80% of the annual deaths in the country. Improvement of diagnostics was identified as a priority in Health Master Plan 2016-2025 and by Primary Health Care System Strengthening Project.

Methodology and results: Qualitative methods such as key informant interviews, attending meetings and desk reviews were used to collect the factors affecting the expansion of laboratory services and the most crucial factors were identified by using the 80:20 rule. Issues related to the implementation of the National Laboratory Policy, laboratory financing, human resource issues, accreditation, and lack of making sense of data were found to be the most crucial factors that need to be addressed strategically to successfully expand laboratory services across healthcare institutions.

Conclusions: It is essential to improve the competencies and capabilities of the Policy Analysis and Development Unit of the Ministry of Health to facilitate policy analysis, reviews, and preparation of groundwork for National Policy enactment. Lack of accredited health laboratories and a plan to accredit may reflect adversely on the technical competence. Widespread unavailability and compartmentalization of information management systems have led to underutilization of laboratory-related data and this has resulted in a lack of a viable plan for evidence-based laboratory finance allocation and human resource development.