UNAM Repository :: Browsing by Author "Mchombu, Kingo"

Browsing by Author "Mchombu, Kingo"

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Does mass media communication support HIV/AIDS prevention campaigns among the youth in Oshana Region, northern Namibia?
(University of Namibia, 2012) Shikongo, Regina Mpingana; Mchombu, Kingo
HIV/AIDS is a global health and social problem, and has affected people of diverse backgrounds and all walks of life. Since it was detected in Namibia in 1986, many people have become hospitalised and died due to the disease. However, many organisations have used mass media campaigns to communicate health messages in an effort to bring change in people’s lifestyles and sexual behaviours. This paper explores the impact of mass media communication aimed at HIV/AIDS prevention among the youth in Oshana region, northern Namibia. In this paper both quantitative and qualitative research approaches were employed. Survey research was conducted among the In-school youth (ISY) and Out of-school youth (OOSY). Participants were drawn from nine secondary and 26 combined schools and six youth organizations in the region. Respondents revealed that mass media campaigns are available in the region disseminating information to the youth using the conventional health education model. Data also revealed that the majority in both sets of youth groups are sexually active, have sexual partners and received behaviour change information mainly through mass media (radio, television and printed materials) regularly. Study results further revealed that in addition to knowledge, youth require understanding and dialogue to be able to manage change in their social and sexual behaviours.
Harnessing Knowledge Management for Africa’s Transition to the 21st Century
(SAGE, 2007) Mchombu, Kingo
The purpose of this paper is to analyse the factors which make knowledge management an important resource for accelerating the development of Africa as we move into the 21st century. As African information specialists we are faced with the urgent challenge of making our full contribution to ongoing efforts, in our respective countries, to end poverty and underdevelopment on our continent. The key objective of this paper is thus to answer the question: What are the methods that information and knowledge management can use to address poverty and underdevelopment in Africa? In addressing this topic, the paper raises the following sub-questions: 1. What are the basic concepts underlying the information and knowledge management revolution? 2. How best can Africa manage the transition process to an information and knowledge-based economy? 3. What role does knowledge management play in national development? 4. What challenges face information specialists in the knowledge revolution era? In addition to this introduction, this paper has five other parts. The next part provides basic concepts and definitions of knowledge management. The third part explores the management of the transition process from an agricultural society to an information and knowledge-based society. The fourth part focuses on the role information and knowledge plays in human development. The fifth part continues the exploration by analysing specific sectors of national development, and the sixth part looks at the challenges for information specialists in the knowledge revolution era.
The information needs for poverty eradication in the context of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) at Grenwell Matongo in Katutura, Windhoek
(2007) Mchombu, Kingo
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the eradication of poverty are two concerns that are wieldy supported by the Namibian Government, the United Nations and bilateral agencies. However within Africa, not much research has been done on what role libraries and community information resource centres can play towards meeting the goals of the MDG programme and the eradication of poverty. The City of Windhoek, through the Vantaa-Windhoek project, which addresses among others, promotion of culture of reading and enhancement of access to development information to communities in informal settlements. Both partners were keen to establish the information needs situation of the community to fight poverty and deprivation. Thus this report presents findings from the study carried out at Grenwell Matongo, Katutura, Windhoek, on information needs for poverty eradication in the context of MDGs. Focus group discussion were conducted with three groups consisting of young females, young males, and adults respectively. In addition, participants participated in drawing Venn diagrammes on various aspects of their information needs and use behaviours when dealing with poverty issues. The participants described the high levels of poverty in their community, and the low levels of hygiene and sanitation. There was recognition that education for children is important to overcome poverty. Poor facilities for homework at home, low parental support because of low level of education and hunger among learners make learning difficult. Gender relations are marked by alcohol related violence and rapes. The rates of HIV/AIDS and TB infections were thought to be high but kept secret because of fear of stigma. There were serious environmental problems in the community because of the use of inflammable fuel sources such as paraffin and candles in the corrugated iron shacks. The community information centre in the settlement is used intensively by young people to obtain educational information and for study facilities. Adults however, indicated that they only use the community information centre marginally, mainly for photocopying and literacy classes purposes. Recommendations are made on how to address the identified information needs of the community and capacity building in the context of MDG and poverty eradication. Overall the youth appeared to have a richer information environment with more sources and channels for accessing and sharing information compared to adults in the community, some of who appeared isolated disempowered and complained that no one listened to them. The key recommendations from this study include the following: Capacity building through the creation of a broad based information centre committee to provide advice and direction; expanding the range of information provided to the community, more facilities, expanding the size of the information centre to enable it to undertake more responsibilities, and introducing skills based and discussion forums into the information dissemination strategy. The need to network with other development agencies was also recommended as a way of providing support for the work being done at the centre.
An investigation into the information needs for poverty eradication at Greenwell Matongo in Katutura, Windhoek, in the context of the Millenium Development Goals (MDGs)
(University of Namibia, 2012) Mchombu, Kingo
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the eradication of poverty ore two concerns that are highly supported by African governments, bilateral agencies and the United Nations. However within Africa, not much research has been done on what role libraries and information services can play towards meeting the goals of the MDG programme and the eradication of poverty. The aim of this paper is to present preliminary findings from a study in Greenwell Matongo, Katutura, Windhoek, on information needs for poverty eradication in the context of MDGs. Focus group discussions were conducted with three groups consisting of young females, young males, and adults respectively. The participants described the high levels of poverty in their community, and the low levels of hygiene and sanitation. There was recognition that education for children is important to overcome poverty. Gender relations are marked by alcohol related violence and rapes. The rate of HIV/A!DS and TB infection were thought to be high but kept secret because of fear of stigma. There were serious environmental problems in the community because of the use of inflammable fuel sources such as p araffin and candles in the corrugated iron shacks. The community information centre in the settlement is used intensively by young people for educational purposes, but only marginally, by adults for photocopying and literacy purposes. Recommendations are made on how to address the identified information needs of the community and capacity building in the context of MDG and poverty eradication.
Libraries, literacy and poverty reduction: a key to African development
(2006) Mchombu, Kingo; Cadbury, Nicola
This paper examines the role of libraries as providing support in relation to two areas of knowledge, namely, literacy and survival information. Libraries play an important role in the acquisition, maintenance and development of literacy skills. They achieve this through offering access to reading materials that are relevant, stimulating, enjoyable or useful. Pleasure in reading, which in turn helps to foster a lifelong reading habit, is often experienced in the library in which readers gain their first opportunity to pick a book of their own choice. Libraries are also important for providing practical information that can be used to facilitate development, whether for seeking employment, understanding rights, learning a skill, checking a fact or developmental information, in health, agriculture, education and small businesses.
Mata-review and scoping study of the management of knowledgement for development
(IKM Emergent Research Programme, European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes. IKM Working Paper, 1, 1-46., 2008) Ferguson, Julie E.; Mchombu, Kingo; Cummings, Sarah
The development sector has not yet fully appreciated the strategic importance of knowledge to its work and because of this, has not developed effective responses to the knowledge asymmetries within and between organizations. Even where the strategic importance of knowledge to development is appreciated, development actors are struggling with the practical challenges of organizing and using information and knowledge. A substantial amount has already been written on knowledge management in development, including a number of literature reviews. Consequently, this paper will draw on existing literature reviews rather than repeating this exercise, providing a ‘review of reviews’, and supplementing it with linkages to other fields. This study explores the theoretical and conceptual background to the challenges facing the broad field of knowledge for development. It starts by providing an outline of the broad knowledge for development field, tracing its origins both within and outside the development sector (Part 1) and placing particular emphasis on the practice-based view of knowledge. Next, it provides an overview of stages and models of knowledge management (Part 2). These stages and models are of key importance as they show the perceived trends in knowledge management. A substantial part of the paper is devoted to a meta-review of literature reviews focusing on knowledge management for development (Part 3), identifying the main issues which need to be addresses in further work on this subject, and exploring differences in knowledge management approaches beyond the Anglo-Saxon discourse (Part 4). The next section (Part 5) goes on to draw the findings from all the other parts of the working paper to identify key issues that need to be addresses in future research in the areas of: • The Northern, Anglo-Saxon bias in the dominant knowledge management for development discourse; • Knowledge management in different constellations of development organizations; • The human face of knowledge management; • Knowledge asymmetries; and • Evaluation and impact assessment of knowledge management.
Overview and information issues concerning the HIV/AIDS situation in Africa
(2007) Mchombu, Kingo; Mchombu, Chiku M.
The paper examines the information and knowledge issues concerning the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Africa. The paper starts by presenting an overview of the HIV/AIDS pandemic citing evidence which shows clearly HIV/AIDS is spread out in Africa, the hardest hit continent. The impact of HIV on the youth, women and girls, and orphaned and vulnerable children (OVCs) is explored and reasons for the high levels of infections presented. This outline provides the backdrop for analyzing the HIV/AIDS information and knowledge issues which include overlapping information functions and responsibilities which have led to the emergence of a non traditional scientific communication model; the absence of an HIV/AIDS infostructure and infrastructure at grassroots level leading to an information vacuum in places away from the major urban areas; and the negation of the impact of information on behaviour change because of socio-economic and cultural factors. The final section proposes knowledge management at national and grassroots level as the best way to improve the local production, transfer and sharing of HIV/AIDS knowledge and information in Africa which will lead to innovation and concrete action to curb the spread of the disease.
Scholarly Communication at the University of Namibia: Case study report
(2014) Trotter, Henry; Kell, Charlene; Willmers, Michelle; Gray, Eve; Mchombu, Kingo; King, Thomas
African scholarly research is relatively invisible for three primary reasons: 1. While research production on the continent is growing in absolute terms, it is falling in comparative terms (especially as other Southern countries such as China ramp up research production), reducing its relative visibility. 2. Traditional metrics of visibility (especially the ISI/WoS Impact Factor) which measure only formal scholar-to-scholar outputs (journal articles and books) fail to make legible a vast amount of African scholarly production, thus underestimating the amount of research activity on the continent. 3. Many African universities do not take a strategic approach to scholarly communication, nor utilise appropriate ICTs and Web 2.0 technologies to broaden the reach of their scholars’ work or curate it for future generations, thus inadvertently minimising the impact and visibility of African research. Visibility in this context amounts to more than just “accessibility” – it means digital accessibility. It means that a scholarly object is profiled in such a way that makes it easily findable by search engines or databases through a relevant search string. Thus, it requires a communications strategy, one of the ingredients missing in many African universities’ and scholars’ approach to research dissemination. A key way to enhance Africa’s research visibility, reach and effectiveness is by communicating it according to open access principles. Making all African research outputs clearly profiled, curated and made freely available to the public would give African research a higher likelihood of not only shaping academic discourse because it would be more visible to scholars, but of getting into the hands of government, industry and civil society personnel who can leverage it for development. This approach is already taking root in the global North. In the past few years, major funding bodies in the EU, the UK and the USA have legislated open access mandates, requiring that all research funded by them must be made open access. This will raise the visibility of those regions’ research while (comparatively) lowering the visibility of Africa’s research, which is not produced under a similar mandate. However, most of the technologies required for engaging in open access communication are either already available at African institutions, freely available on the internet, or relatively inexpensive to purchase. Most also have access to the same free Web 2.0 technologies that allow individual scholars to enhance their scholarly profiles and collaborative opportunities. But these have not been incorporated into a strategic plan concerning scholarly communication, nor have enough African universities dealt with the skills and capacity challenges that new scholarly communication imperatives demand.
Sharing knowledge for community development and transformation: A handbook
(2004) Mchombu, Kingo; Evans, Gwynneth; Bruton, Kelly; Cocks, Andrea
The handbook comes from hours of discussion and exchange during workshops and symposia on information, knowledge and community development in the Horn of Africa. Kingo Mchombu led these discussions. He introduced the Community Information Resource Centre (CIRC) as the tool that serves the purpose of development. Men and women responded to the training sessions and asked the Horn of Africa Capacity Building Programme (HOACBP) to provide a handbook that the partners could use in their local situations. The second edition of the Handbook is the result of an evaluation of the first edition by HOACBP partners who had used it in their communities. Some minor editorial changes have been made to the original text. At their request, a few new sections and two chapters have been added. They expand the work to include the current state of development in Africa, the importance of HIV/AIDS information resource centres (chapter 6) and an assessment of the developments in Ethiopia (chapter 7). These additions bring the text up-to-date and increase its value as a community development tool.
Using the internet for social science research
(University of Namibia, 2004) Mchombu, Kingo; Beukes-Amiss, Catherine M.
It is estimated that Internet users around the world are over 200 million (Clarke 1998). Others have claimed that by 2005, Internet users will number one billion. Chadwick notes that few technologies have generated as much interest, paranoia, and hype as the Internet (Chadwick 1998). Apart from its vast reach, another characteristic of the Internet is the fast development of the technology. In fact the technology is developing so fast that it seems capable of running ahead of definitions. As recently as 1999, for example, the Internet was defined as "a large number of interconnected computers in a single cooperative global system". To date, such a definition would be inadequate because of the rapid advances in technology. An appropriate definition would have to include: Satellite technology, Wireless applications (WAP), 1-mode (wireless Internet connection via cell-phones), TV sets, to mention but a few possibilities.

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