Financing the sustainable management of Rwanda's protected areas

Rwanda's Nyungwe National Park is a biodiversity hotspot with the most endemic species in the ecoregion and the highest number of threatened species internationally. Nyungwe supplies critical ecosystem services to the Rwandan population including water provisioning and tourism services. Tourism in the Park has strong potential for financing enhanced visitor experiences and the sustainable management of the Park. This paper explores quantitatively the economic impacts of adjustment in Park visitation fees and tourism demand as a source of revenues to improve Park tourism opportunities and ongoing operations and maintenance. The methods developed in this paper are novel in integrating the results of stated preference techniques with a regional computable general equilibrium modelling approach to capture multisectoral, direct, indirect and induced impacts. Such methods have strong potential for assessing revenue generation alternatives in other contexts where park managers are faced with the need to generate additional revenue for sustainable park management while facing diminishing budget allocations. Results of this analysis demonstrate that adjustment of Park fees has a relatively small impact on the regional economy and well-being when compared with a strategy aimed at generating increased tourism demand through investment in improving the visitor experience at Nyungwe National Park.     

The Revenue–Expenditure Nexus: The Experience of 13 African Countries

Abstract: The aim of this paper is to investigate the causal relationship between government revenue and government expenditure for 13 African countries within a multivariate framework using a modified version of the Granger causality test due to Toda and Yamamoto (1995) . The empirical evidence suggests that there was a bi‐directional causality running between expenditure and revenue for Mauritius, Swaziland and Zimbabwe; no causality in any direction for Botswana, Burundi and Rwanda; unidirectional causality running from revenue to expenditure for Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Mali and Zambia; and a uni‐directional causality running from expenditure to revenue for Burkina Faso only.     

The protective effect of fences: providing protection to the 0-4 year-old

Abstract

In this study the minimum standards are investigated which must be imposed on fences in order for them to act as a barrier to children from the particular risk group (2 and 3-year-olds).The study sought to establish the minimum height usable, because a fence of this type can be climbed more easily by older children and young people, and hence damage due to vandalism (by these older people in order to pass it) is less likely to occur. This is very important, because damage of this kind also destroys the fence's ability to protect very young children.

By means of a literature study parameters were identified that are relevant for the ease with which fences can be climbed. These include: personal characteristics and fence characteristics such as: height, geometry (chain-link fabric, bars, and welded steel wires), top geometry and post flexibility. A design set-up was made having 5 different types of fences and the effective height of the fence could be changed during the study by means of steps in front and behind the fence.

The testers were 31 boys and 35 girls divided according to age (by half years), producing 7 groups of roughly 10 children each. The children were asked to climb these fences. Information is given on the percentage of children (per age group) stopped by each fence, and the mean time required for successful attempts. It must be concluded that it is hard to prevent somewhat older children (4-5 yrs old) from climbing a fence. The fence having flexible posts and the one having bars were found to be the most effective.