To what extent have the Millennium Development Goals been a success Essay - 2

To what extent have the Millennium Development Goals been a success - Essay Example gender equality and also empowering women, reduction of child mortality, reduction of maternal mortality buy at least three quarters, combating malaria, HIV and other diseases, ensuring environmental sustainability and finally developing a global partnership to help in development. This paper aims at analysing the extent to which the Millennium Development Goals have been successful. It will use an evidence-based approach. It will cite the successes in individual countries as well as in the world. In relation to the first target that relates to eradication of poverty and hunger, Bangladesh can be seen as having most progress. Apart from being one of the most densely populated countries in the world, its population is rapidly increasing. This has been the trend between the years of 1990 to 2010 (United Nations Millenium Campeign et al. 2010). This goal aimed at reducing the number of people earning less than $1.25 per day. In the above years, over 10.5 million citizens in the country would advance to earning more than the $1.25 stipulated in the goal. Another 12 million citizens would rise to above Bangladesh’s poverty line. (Steele et al. 2008). The country attributes this success to the millennium development goals. In Africa, there has also been a noted decline in the number of people living in poverty in sub-Saharan Africa as well as other developing regions. According to preliminary estimates, the number of people living in extreme poverty by 2010 was half of what it was in 1990. Over the same decade, the number of people living in slums reduced by 6 percent. This is evidence of the success in the first millennium development goal. (Clarke et al. 2007). The second millennium development goal involved ensuring that by the year 2015, children all over the world would be able to complete primary school. Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of Congo has been seen to have the most success vis-Ã  -vis this goal. Tanzania has achieved a staggering 99.6 percent

Improving Organizational Performance Essay Example for Free

Improving Organizational Performance Essay Celsey Evans, of Airdevils, has hired Peter Mallow, of Dream Teamworks, to address the problems currently existing in and affecting the Airdevils Company. These problems consist of dissatisfaction among customers, less wins at award ceremonies, a high turnover rate, and low job satisfaction among employees. Surveys, amongst other factors, determined that job dissatisfaction is particularly high among the stunt performers. With the stunt performers as the target group of the study, Celsey and Peter will identify the reasons for psychological underpinnings of low job satisfaction in the company. Using motivational and behavioral approaches and making adjustments to the core reasons for employee dissatisfaction will help Airdevils attain the status that they seem to have lost. Determining the underlying causes, implementing interventions, creating a team for preparing innovating stunts, and reducing stress among employees are the keys to catapulting Airdevils back to the status it deserves. According to the JDI and JIG (survey) scores for Airdevils’ employees the stunt performers are the least satisfied in general, but all of the employees are dissatisfied below acceptable levels in Promotion (infrequencies) and Pay (too low). Supervision and Work are also low with stunt performers but higher than â€Å"good† among other employees. If one were to rely on this information alone, one would determine that pay and promotion needs to be examined and adjusted. Further information provided, blogs and profiles, show that there are issues with ‘holier than thou’ attitudes among E8’s, less time at home with family members, low salaries, and drudge routines. After examining these factors one can determine generally that the main cause of low job satisfaction among stunt performers at Airdevils is that the stunts lack exciting challenges. Because the members of Airdevils performing teams were put into hierarchal positions, they were placed into spe cialized stunt routines. This created a more rigid organizational structure. * Though the budget does not allow a perfect overhaul to Celsey’s organization, many interventions can be chosen to be simply delayed. Recommended for the Airdevils immediately are allow participation in open competitions, entering in a new line of stunts, rotation in industry meets, and offering performance-based incentives in salaries. Allowing performers to perform outside work and cross-training are factors that should be considered quickly. After implementation of these interventions there proves to be a marked increase in the company’s performance and there is an improvement in job satisfaction. * In the next phase of the reorganization, Celsey wants to create a group of three people to begin preparing innovative stunts for the regular customers of the Airdevils. Should this idea work well, the customers will like the plans and will want to spend extra money for stunts consultation. In this case, the Airdevils will form a stunts consultancy division. Given seven excellent candidates for this three person team the three chosen by Dream Teamwork’s for Celsey’s team are Cari, Charlie, and Alverta because of their combined work experience, enthusiasm for the job, personalities, and high probability of achievement. Applying this decision is successful. The mixture of experience, high skill levels, and high emotional stability prove to be an excellent combination to make a powerful team for the Airdevils. * In the next phase, Dream Teamworks helps Celsey choose what measures should be taken by the Airdevils to reduce stress among the support crewmembers. After considerations of the measures available to the Airdevils those that would most benefit the company and its staff are relaxation training, stress-inoculation training, software training, modifying team structure, offering transportation services, establishing a code of conduct, and allowing a flexi ble work schedule. These are the best measure possible to reduce stress levels among crewmembers. The results are lower absenteeism, less stress, more teamwork, more personal time with family, and a better ability to cope with stressors from work (Britt Jex, 2008). Absenteeism, turnover, job performance, and counter-productive behavior can be addressed through motivation. Based on the situation illustrated in the simulation the theories of employee motivation that could be used by Celsey and the management team of the Airdevils team to tackle issues are need-based theories, cognitive process theories, self-determination theory, and job-based theories. A need-based theory such as need for achievement would be an effective place to start. Need-based theories propose that achievement and power are needs evoked by different stimuli in the environment (Britt Jex, 2008). Maslow’s need hierarchy does explain that the higher one gets on their hierarchy pyramid, from physiological to self-actualization, the more content a person becomes. This could explain why Airdevils has a need to reorganize their corporation. Making employees content in more factions of their lives makes more productive employees. ERG is another needs-based theory that could be considered. ERG allows for the possibility that the stunt performers in the Airdevils may be regressing because their needs at the most basic level of their work are not satisfied. They are too concerned with the issues that the they may have with the redundancy of the routines and personality issues. Also, they are not allowed to experiment and show their own individuality and true colors and feel as thpugh they are failing to live up to their potential. Need for achievement theory is another that could be considered for this situation. Those who have consistent distinguishing characteristics of perso ns who have a high need for achievement can describe many of the stunt performers at Airdevils. These characteristics include the tendency to set moderately difficult performance goals, seek feedback, and work long hours because they absorb themselves in work (Britt Jex, 2008). Goal-setting, Control, and Equity theories and behavioral approaches are just some examples of further applications that can be studied for this case. Many theories could be applied to the Airdevils’ situation. Should Celsey and Peter go through each of the theories that could be applied to their situation, they may find that each theory will touch on a subject currently adversely affecting the company and its profits. Through examining them all, they could reach conclusions on correcting behaviors throughout the company. Knowledge of human behavior, cognition, and affect can be used to enhance relationships in the workplace. Understanding how people interact with each other and why can help management can place people together in teams accordingly. It can also prepare the company for behavioral changes among the employees. This knowledge can help solve problems, create stress free workplace environments, and create productive and powerful teams. Employee workplace stressors can be reduced by organizations. By paying attention to the results of surveys, blogs written by employees, and general complaints throughout the company any organization can come to understand what particular stressors affect their particular employees. Clear definitions of job titles and descriptions of jobs would assist an organization from having role stressors. Workloads should be studied and divided amongst employees according to ability and pay to alleviate workload stressors. Independent control over their own workloads could be considered. For example, in regard to Airdevils, allowing more team members freedom to decide on adjustments to routines could reduce stress levels there. Alleviating interpersonal conflict by teaming like members together is one way that companies like the Airdevils can control stressors. Reducing organizational constraints is another example. In the case of the Airdevils’ organizational constraints, they do not allow their employees to participate in open competitions or rotate in industry meets. Releasing these constraints could strengthen the organizations relationships with their employees as well as relieve some of the stressors they face. Perceived control and work-family conflict are further stressors that should be examined. Making adjustments to schedules, pay, and employees behaviors will relieve many organizational conflicts and stressors and benefit the company greatly. Job security, layoffs, mergers and acquisitions are not currently affecting Airdevils but do affect other organizations. Stress management training, adjusting work schedules, providing telecommuting options, offering family-friendly benefits, and offering health and fitness programs are further ways that an organization can combat stress among its employees (Britt Jex, 2008). Careful consideration of each aspect by the organization will ensure that they can make informed decisions regarding each stressor. After analysis of survey, employee blogs, and paying attention to the behaviors of its employees, Celsey and Peter can make the changes that Airdevils desperately needs to survive and grow. The company has a superb foundation and understands that changes must be made to achieve success. By applying studying and understanding employees’ behaviors, cognition, and applying relevant theories Dream Teamworks and Airdevils can create a prospering work environment for Airdevils’ employees and will find more satisfied employees, be subject to less turnover, win more awards, and satisfy customers better than they ever have. Reference Britt, T. W., Jex, S. M. (2008). Organizational psychology: A scientist-practitioner approach. (2nd ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons

The Last of the Mohicans Essay -- essays research papers

The Last of the Mohicans   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In James Fenimore Coopers' book, The Last of the Mohicans, we find a classic story set in the 1700's. During this time, the war between the French and English is raging, complicated by an additional contention between the Mohican Indians and the Huron Indians. The location is in the area of Lake George in the Hudson Valley,somewhere between New York and Canada. The theme of this book is a conflict between civilization and savagery, each being personified in both the whites, the Indians, and in nature itself. The author seems to be showing the truth of human nature: that there is a fine line between acting in a civilized manner and giving in to the primitive urge to totally destroy other human beings. The ruggedness of the region provided a similar conflict with man. At times, it was beautiful, sheltering, protecting, and nourishing the characters with food and water. At other times, it was obviously wild and untamed bringing danger and aiding in destruction.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  There were many prominent characters in the book. These include Chingachgook and his son, Uncas, who are the last remaining Mohicans and the protagonists of the story. Another was Hawk-eye, who is a white man raised from birth by Chingachgook. Major Duncan Hayward is an officer with the English military who is assigned to transport two sisters from Fort Edward to their father at Fort William Henry. The antagonist, or dominant enemy, of the story was Magua, a Huron Indian who was a leader of his people and was driven by the traditional savagery of his tribe.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The story begins with Major Hayward preparing to carry out his orders to transport Alice and Cora Monroe to their father, General Monroe, at Fort William Henry. In order to make the journey safely he hired a guide familiar with the area to lead the party through the treacherous territory. Unknown to him, his guide, Mage, had a plan to entrap them by leading them to the Huron's where they would surely be killed. As they pressed on through thick forests and deep rivers, they came upon a psalmist named David Gumet sitting beside the path. Gumet was a pleasant person and a gifted singer who had lost his horse and his provisions. They encouraged him to join them for his own safety. Shortly down the path, the Mohicans ambushed them with th... ...e bargained with Magua, Uncas tried to sneak up on him. Magua saw him and killed Cora. Uncas leaped on Magua trying to pull him down, but Magua stabbed Uncas multiple times killing him. Hawk-eye took his gun and shot Magua, causing him to fall down the steep mountain cliff to his death. After joining back together for a ceremony, the story comes to an abrupt end as they all went their separate ways.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Overall, the book was enjoyable to read because there was constant adventure and it was full of surprises. Cooper seemed to highlight the strength of the friendships between the characters throughout the book and how they were able to overcome adversity. The only Christian character in the story was David Gumet, who played a minor part. The story portrayed a definite secular worldview, particularly with the constant violence and the spiritual practices of the Indians. The wording was, at times, difficult toread and the author had a tendency to jump back-and-forth between characters and situations. Nevertheless, I would recommend this book to others because it was adventurous and not boring. I found it difficult to put down once I started reading it.

The Thing in the Forrest

Sometimes in life when we have an experience that deeply affects us, it can change our whole perspective. The story â€Å"The Thing in the forest† is a example of how this can happen. The two main characters Penny and Primrose meet when they are children and share a horrific experience in the forest. Then by chance meet back at the scene and briefly reassure one another that what happened really did happen. But their contact ends there once again almost as if seeing each other was too uncomfortable. Then oddly enough both women end up going back to the forest looking for some kind of resolve. In â€Å"The Thing in the Forest† the two little girls encounter a terrifying creature that profoundly affects their sense of reality; this results in similar personal traits and shared sense of searching for what’s real despite that they never talk of it. When the two girls meet not much is given about their characters, however throughout the story we find that the two ladies have quite a few things in common. This is due to their experience in the forest that they shared so long ago. Some of the similarities are within their character and some are sheer coincidence. Neither woman has married probably because of their disrupted childhood when they were exiled from their families and sent to live in the â€Å"great house† by the woods until it was safe again at home (Byatt). This is when Penny and Primrose decide to go into the woods and are followed by a younger girl who is never seen again. The girls encounter a creature that smelled of â€Å"liquid putrefaction† and looked like a mixture of â€Å"rank meat and decaying vegetation† (Byatt). The wake of the creature leaves â€Å"a trail of bloody slime and dead vegetation† in which the younger girl disappears (Byatt). Then the very next day the girls are placed with temporary families. Once home again both girls fathers die in accidents. Penny’s father died in a firefighting accident and Primroses was a causality of the war as he was soldier. The experience of being exiled, their fathers sudden deaths and and seeing this terrifying creature that possibly killed the younger girl has hanged their sense of what is real, I’m sure the concept of love and relationship is very easily questioned for the both of them. Both women also have chosen jobs that work with children; Penny becomes a child psychologist dealing mostly dealing in the dreams of children and Primrose among her other odd jobs becomes a children’s story time teller at the local mall. Both women are embroiled with children and their minds just on different ends of the spectrum. One lis tens and one tells. When Penny and Primrose meet by quirk of fate back at the â€Å"great house†, that has now been given to the nation and made in to a museum, they are taken aback by the unplanned visit. They become aware of each other while reading a description of a story in a book about a fabled worm like creature that supposedly lurked in the woods near by. The alarm of the story and the by chance meeting of the two women while simultaneously reading its historic description jolts the two. They feel as if they would have never recognized each other if it weren’t for the given situation. They reassure each other that they both really did see the creature that it is real. The women remark on how strange it is that the children’s presence during the exile is not depicted anywhere in the history of the house. This lack of mention about the children in exile ever being in the house reaffirms some of the question of what is real in the two women’s minds. They decide on having some tea and reminisce a little more about the time they spent in exile, on the train, in the â€Å"great house†, brief tidbits of their life and the younger girl named Alys who had disappeared. It did finish her off, that little one, didn’t it? † â€Å"I wonder if we’d made her up,† said Primrose. â€Å"Nobody ever asked where she was or looked for her,† said Penny (Byatt). The women are slightly relived at their agreement because this gives them the assurance they need not to feel as if they made the whole thing up. The assumed death of the you nger girl could be said to mirror the psychological death of Penny and Primrose, and this reassurance helps them feel as if they can finally move on. This brief conversation between the two is the last contact they will have with each other. The women both decide not to honor the dinner date they planed, I believe at this point the Penny and Primrose feel any further contact with each other is unbearable because of the underlying memories of any supplementary conversation. Yet they are still searching for what is real within them selves. Searching to the extent that both women are drawn back in to the woods and for the same reason. Primrose goes to the woods with purpose; she even follows the same path from years ago. Primrose had really been in a magic forest. She knew that the forest was a source of terror† (Byatt). While in the forest she questions what is real in her life, her home and how her mother disclosed that her father had been killed. She resolves that the forest and what happened in it to be truly real. In all of her thinking she decides she is satisfied and in turn wants to go home. The way Primrose views this experience and the woods around her in a story like fashion is very telling about why she deals in storytelling for a job. It all comes from the same place and this is why she has always careful not to scare the children she reads to. Penny on the other hand ends up in the forest even after purposely walking in the opposite direction of their original path. She is very perceptive of her surroundings in a different way than Primrose, who feels the need to almost coach herself along in a story like fashion, whereas Penny was looking for signs of the creature. She looked for all things that would be concrete evidence of the creature. It was the encounter with the thing that led her to deal professionally in dreams. Something that resembled unreality that had lumbered into reality, and she had seen it† (Byatt). Penny believed she could feel the creature and decided that it chose to recede back into the forest. She also spent some time thinking of her own father and how when he died her mother became a recluse, seeing this reaction scared her emotionally. This is the reason she threw herself in to study and possibly never married. At the end of it all this women still do not converse or sit with one another when taking the same train home. They just share an acknowledgeable stare at the train station then go their separate ways. Primrose goes home and back to work but with a new confidence, she decides to tell the story of â€Å"The Thing in the Forest† she is no longer afraid. Penny goes back to the woods with the conviction that she needs this, for this creature to come to her because it has become the most real thing she can recognize. â€Å"She was ready† and waiting for it (Byatt). Despite how different these women are, they are one in the same. Penny and Primrose shared something awful that forever changed them in very similar ways. They also shared separate experiences in the same forest and came to the same realizations that the creature is real and it had affected their person emotionally and steered their paths throughout life. It is apparent to me that that these similarities the women share cannot be a coincidence but are a direct result of that horrifying day they saw â€Å"The Thing in the Forest†.

Faminism in Anna Karenina

In the closing chapters of Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina (Penguin Books, 2003), Dolly, Anna’s sister-in-law, reveals that â€Å"Whatever way one lives, there’s a penalty. † This is the central message in Tolstoy’s work, a tragedy whose themes include aristocracy, faith, hypocrisy, love, marriage, family, infidelity, greed, and every other issue prevalent among human beings. Anna Karenina is a tragic figure, but she can also be considered a feminist one. Her experiences resonate with female readers because she does the unexpected: she moves against the grain.And with any woman—at least in literature—who accomplishes the unexpected, the inappropriate, she pays the price for it. A Princess, an aristocrat married to Count Alexei Karenin, an important man twenty years her senior, Anna Karenina is a socialite, a respected woman, a wife, and a mother. It seems as if she has it all, until she meets the handsome and charming young Count Alexei Vr onsky. He stirs things in her—physical and emotional—that she has never experienced. This lack of experience in the spaces of love and desire is common—historically—for women.They married who they were told to marry—for money, for titles, and for security. Not for love. Anna Karenina is not in love with her husband. She tolerates him, but secretly she feels repulsed by this rigid, domineering, and paternal man twice her age. Vronsky’s wooing of her endanger s her place in society, her marriage, and even her role as mother. When she succumbs to an affair with him, she does so with open eyes, aware of all that she is sacrificing for the sake of love.And this isn’t the tragedy of the novel, of the situation. The tragedy is that she is a woman in a man’s world: â€Å"It was fate; she was doomed† from the start. And she was doomed because she was a woman acting out on her desires. Paralleled to her brother, Stiva, and his ins uppressible and known womanizing, the novel demonstrates the evident attitudes society had at this time toward men and women acting in similar fashion. Men, the public faces of society, had the power, the voice, and the volition to act in any way they wished.Stiva’s womanizing is something his wife, Dolly, has to suffer silently. She has no power to stop it. She is merely the wife. She goes about her business taking care of the home and her children, knowing that gossip and shame shadow her footsteps. Although infidelity is looked upon as an act of dishonor, society looks the other way when men succumb to its powers. Men continue to keep their marriages, the power in the home—over their wives and children, their jobs, and their place in society goes unvarnished.Even Vronsky, who openly seeks the affections of Anna, a married woman, a mother, and has an affair with her, has eyes rolled at him, but his career is never placed in danger. He does not lose his place in socie ty, his options, his money, or his power. He loves, he takes what he wants, and then when he is done—when Anna becomes too obsessive, too cumbersome an affair—he simply walks away. In the end, he’s lost nothing. He gave up nothing. With women, following their hearts is not so acceptable. It’s a tragedy, as we come to see with Anna.In following her heart, her passions, Anna loses her marriage, which is controlled by Karenin, who kicks her out of their home, but refuses to give her a divorce. In this way, she cannot marry Vronsky. She is forced to become his mistress and live with him in disgrace. When she takes her love out into the public, she is shunned by the same people who once loved her, while everyone shakes Vronsky’s hands. And the most valuable asset that she loses is access to her son, who is told that she is dead. Having lost everything and everyone, the only thing that remains is Vronsky.And she grabs on to him with great force, with des peration, pushing him farther and farther away from her with every aching need she can muster. But he grows tired of her love and confesses to her that â€Å"A man needs his career,† for he still has that fall back on. She has nothing. In losing him, she loses everything, and it is no wonder that she commits suicide. A woman in her day, having lost her place in society, her role as mother and wife, she cannot sustain herself. She gave everything up for love, for passion, for herself, to feed her own desires, but no one gave anything up for her.She dies tragically, while everyone around her continues to move on without her. Today, we can look at a character like Anna Karenina and come face-to-face with a feminist: she is strong, determined, bold, and she fights the patriarchal powers that tell her she cannot have what men are allowed, no matter their place in society. And even though her attempts come crashing around her in the end, resulting in her violent suicide, she had th e courage to act against the norm. This is empowerment. This is a feminist.