Development studies

• WASHINGTON, Sept. 6, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences (SMHS) is hosting a free webinar on September 20 to discuss culturally responsive communication with patients.
• "For the Two in One program's second webinar on the topic of culturally responsive communication, we will emphasize how clinicians can share power with patients," said Maranda Ward, EdD, MPH, principal investigator of the Two in One Model and assistant professor of clinical research and leadership at GW SMHS.
• "In addition to discussing ways to facilitate culturally responsive communication, we will review what sharing power in the clinician-patient interaction looks like."
• The event is entitled "Culturally Responsive Communication, Part II: Sharing Power with Patients," and is scheduled for September 20, from 12 p.m. – 1 p.m.

• The conference launched mutual exchanges from the global rural development of the great vision, magnificent ideas, and extraordinary patterns, discussing rural revitalization and talking about the picture of common wealth, contributing wisdom and empowering the global rural development.
• The conference released the "Rural Construction of Common Wealth - Youyang Practice of Promoting Rural Revitalization", and identified Youyang as the permanent venue of the International Conference on Rural Development.
• Qi Meiwen, secretary of the CPC Committee in Youyang county, talked about the following points in his speech.
• Chinese President Xi Jinping emphasized the need to accelerate the implementation of global development initiatives, cultivate new momentum for global development, and build a global development community.

• South Africa has one of the world’s most expansive social grant system: 47% of the population relies on a monthly grant.
• Of these, 18 million are permanent beneficiaries and about 10 million receive a temporary Social Relief of Distress Grant.
• The vast majority of the grants are child support grants (R500 or around US$27 a month) paid to a child’s primary caregiver based on a means test.
• Although social grants are spent largely on food, there is growing evidence that they are also used for productive investments in livelihood activities.
• These findings point to the need to design multi-pronged poverty reduction strategies that combine grants with livelihood support services.

Livelihood activities

• In all three studies, regardless of the grant received and its value, interviewees said the grant monies were insufficient to meet their needs.
• Some were income generating activities like buying and selling of goods, providing services such as building, painting, photography, running restaurants or taverns, renting accommodation and traditional healing.
• Others invested in future livelihood strategies such as supporting children with their job search.
• Here's why

  Few grant beneficiaries were able to access formal support services from the government.

• A major barrier also relates to the precarious nature of informal work and the lack of protection for vulnerable workers.

Implications for social development policies

• There is a need for greater recognition of informal work and its role in poverty reduction as a national policy objective.
• The development of knowledge and skills and mentoring and coaching are also critical.
• There is room to scale up livelihood support through existing governmental, NGOs, development agencies and CSI programmes.
• However, more research and experimental intervention research is needed to inform the design of livelihood support policies and strategies.

• LONDON, March 22, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Global higher education analyst QS Quacquarelli Symonds has released the thirteenth edition of the QS World University Rankings by Subject , revealing the top universities in 54 academic disciplines, including three brand-new additions: Data Science, Marketing, and History of Art.
• The rankings are based on an independent comparative analysis of over 15,700 individual university programs taken by students at 1,594 universities in 93 countries and territories.
• The rankings were consulted over 120 million times in 2022 on TopUniversities.com and referenced 117,000 times by media globally.
• Ben Sowter, QS Senior Vice President, said: "Our largest-ever subjects rankings provides a deeper understanding of how global higher education excellence is achieved.