The production and distribution of film and audiovisual works is one of the most dynamic growth sectors in the world. Thanks to digital technologies, production has been growing rapidly in Africa in recent years. For the first time, a complete mapping of the film and audiovisual industry in 54 States of the African continent is available, including quantitative and qualitative data and an analysis of their strengths and weaknesses at the continental and regional levels.The report proposes strategic recommendations for the development of the film and audiovisual sectors in Africa and invites policymakers, professional organizations, firms, filmmakers and artists to implement them in a concerted manner.
Xala (1974) by the pioneering Senegalese director Ousmane Sembene, was acclaimed on its release for its scorching critique of postcolonial African society, and it cemented Sembene's status as a wholly new kind of politically engaged, pan-African, auteur film-maker. Centring on the story of businessman El Hadji and the impotence that afflicts him on his marriage to a young third wife, Xala vividly captures the cultural and political upheaval of 1970s Senegal, while suggesting the radical potential of dissent, solidarity and collective action, embodied by El Hadji's student daughter Rama and the group of urban 'undesirables' who act as a kind of raw chorus to the affairs of the neocolonial elite. James S. Williams's lucid study traces Xala's difficult production history and analyses its daring combination of political and domestic drama, oral narrative, social realism, symbolism, satire, documentary, mysticism and Marxist analysis. Yet from its dazzling extended opening sequence of revolution as performance to its suspended climax of redemption through ritualised spitting, Xala presents a series of conceptual and formal challenges that resist a simple reading of the film as allegory. Highlighting often overlooked elements of Sembene's intricate, experimental film-making, including provocative shifts in mood and poetic, even subversively erotic, moments, Williams reveals Xala as a visionary work of both African cinema and Third Cinema that extended the parameters of postcolonial film practice and still resounds today with its searing inventive power.
In the early 1900s the motor-vehicle (car, bus, lorry or motor-cycle) was introduced in sub-Saharan Africa. Initially the plaything and symbol of colonial domination, the motor-vehicle transformed the economic and social life of the continent. Indeed, the motor-vehicle is arguably the single most important factor for change in Africa in the twentieth century. A factor for change that thus far has been neglected in research and literature. Yet its impact extends across the totality of human existence; from ecological devastation to economic advancement, from cultural transformation to political change, through to a myriad of other themes. This edited volume of eleven contributions by historians, anthropologists and social and political scientists explores aspects of the social history and anthropology of the motor-vehicle in Africa.
In the past 20 years micronutrients have assumed great public health importance and a considerable amount of research has lead to increasing knowledge of their physiological role. Because it is a rapidly developing field, the WHO and FAO convened an Expert Consultation to evaluate the current state of knowledge. It had three main tasks: to review the full scope of vitamin and minerals requirements; to draft and adopt a report which would provide recommended nutrient intakes for vitamins A, C, D, E, and K; the B vitamins; calcium; iron; magnesium; zinc; selenium; and iodine; to identify key issues for future research and make preliminary recommendations for the handbook. This report contains the outcome of the Consultation, combined with up-to-date evidence that has since become available.
The Nutrition and Health series of books have, as an overriding mission, to provide health professionals with texts that are considered essential because each includes: 1) a synthesis of the state of the science, 2) timely, in-depth reviews by the leading researchers in their respective fields, 3) extensive, up-to-date fully annotated reference lists, 4) a detailed index, 5) relevant tables and figures, 6) identification of paradigm shifts and the consequences, 7) virtually no overlap of information between chapters, but targeted, inter-chapter referrals, 8) suggestions of areas for future research and 9) balanced, data driven answers to patient /health professionals questions which are based upon the total ity of evidence rather than the findings of any single study. The series volumes are not the outcome of a symposium. Rather, each editor has the potential to examine a chosen area with a broad perspective, both in subject matter as well as in the choice of chapter authors. The international perspective, especially with regard to public health initiatives, is emphasized where appropriate. The editors, whose trainings are both research and practice oriented, have the opportunity to develop a primary objec tive for their book; define the scope and focus, and then invite the leading authorities from around the world to be part of their initiative. The authors are encouraged to provide an overview of the field, discuss their own research and relate the research findings to potential human health consequences.
The World Malaria Report 2015assesses global malaria disease trends and changes in the coverage and financing of malaria control programs between 2000 and 2015. It also summarizes progress towards international targets, and provides regional and country profiles that summarize trends in each WHO region and each country with malaria. The report is produced with the help of WHO regional and country offices, ministries of health in endemic countries, and a broad range of other partners. The data presented are assembled from the 96 countries and territories with ongoing malaria transmission, and a further five countries that have recently eliminated malaria. Most data are those reported for 2014 and 2015, although in some cases projections have been made into 2015, to assess progress towards targets for 2015.
The Department of Child and Adolescent Health has developed guidelines on optimal feeding of low birth weight infants in low- and middle-income countries. These guidelines include recommendations on what to feed low-birth weight infants, when to start feeding, how to feed, how often and how much to feed. The guidelines were developed using the process described in the WHO Handbook for Development of Guidelines. Systematic reviews were conducted to answer 18 priority questions identified by the guidelines development group. The population of interest is low-birth weight infants, and the critical outcomes include mortality, severe morbidity, growth and development. The implementation of these guidelines in low- and middle-income countries is expected to improve care and survival of low birth weight infants.
'Focus on African Films' offers pluralistic perspectives on filmmaking across Africa, highlighting the distinct thematic, stylistic, and socioeconomic circumstances of African film production.
