Academic literature on the topic 'Poor access'

As a result of increasing college costs and diminishing organizational support, poor and ethnic-minority students are finding it increasingly difficult to attend large public research universities. To investigate the potential relationship that exists between market-oriented practices in higher education and access for poor and ethnic-minority students, the Institutional Logics Perspective is employed as a theoretical frame to contextualize the precursors, content, and consequences of the market logic in the public higher education system. Hypotheses drawing out linkages between the mechanisms of the market logic and decreased student access are offered. A fixed-effect model is then constructed to evaluate proposed connections between university practices undergirded by the logic and access for both poor and ethnic-minority student populations. Results are discussed and the ramifications of the market logic for the future of accessible public higher education are explored in the context of social justice.
Ph. D.

Thesis (MDF (Business Management))--University of Stellenbosch, 2009.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die langtermynversekeringsindustrie het voorheen slegs finansiële produkte en dienste ontwerp, wat gefokus was op die middel tot hoër inkomstegroepe. Die armes was dus uitgesluit, primêr as gevolg van die laer inkomstegroepe wat nie lewensversekeringsprodukte kon bekostig nie. Inteendeel, arm huishoudings is, en was, meer kwesbaar vanweë die feit dat hulle geredelik blootgestel word aan meer diverse risiko’s – mensgemaakte, sowel as natuurlike risiko’s - terwyl hulle juis diegene is wat minder middele het om dit bestuur. Hierdie toedrag van sake het egter drasties verander gedurende die afgelope paar jaar. Die onderskeie partye, insluitend verteenwoordigers van die langtermynversekeringsindustrie, het konsensus bereik ten opsigte van die ontwikkeling van die Finansiële Sektor Handves wat in ooreenstemming is met die nasionale swart ekonomiese bemagtigingstrategie. Die oogmerk van die Finansiële Sektor Handves was nie net om mense in die laer inkomstegroepe te bemagtig nie. Dit het ook ten doel om finansiële insluiting te verseker, en mettertyd, die aktiewe deelname van die armes in die hoofstroom van die Suid-Afrikaanse ekonomie. ’n Stel toegangstandaarde was gevolglik ontwikkel en geïmplementeer, wat die langtermynversekerings-produkaanbiedinge aan LSM 1-5 reguleer (met ander woorde vir die doeleindes van hierdie verslag, huishoudings wat minder as R3 000 per maand verdien). Die doel van die standaarde wat ontleed word in hierdie verslag, is om te verseker dat die langtermynversekeringsindustrie geskikte produkte ontwerp wat die minimum standaarde soos beskryf in die Finansiële Sektor Handves, nakom. In beginsel word die toepaslikheid en geskiktheid van die toegangstandaarde in hierdie verslag geëvalueer, met die oogmerk om te bepaal wat die standaarde inhou vir beide die verbruiker asook die lewensversekeraar van ’n verslaggewingsperspektief. Die eerste deel van die toegangstandaarde wat goedgekeur is deur die Finansiële Sektor Handves in 2007, het slegs begrafnisdekking ingesluit, terwyl die tweede deel gefokus het op nie-begafnisprodukte en sedert 2008 geïmplementeer is. Laasgenoemde het die volgende dekking ingesluit: lewensversekering, dekking vir fisiese ongeskiktheid, kredietlewensversekering en gewone lewensversekering. Die toegangstandaarde wat van toepassing is op verbandlenings is egter nog nie gefinaliseer nie en is gevolglik nie ingesluit in hierdie verslag nie. ’n Fundamentele vraag ten opsigte van die daarstelling van toegangsprodukte vir die laer inkomstegroepe, is wat die rol is van die publiek vergeleke met die privaatsektor en dié van die regering. Terwyl die regering optree as die wetgewer, moet dit ook daarteen waak om nie te veel van ’n rigiede proses vir die privaatsektor daar te stel nie. Die wetgewer moet die relevante reëls en regulasies stipuleer en sekerheid verskaf ten opsigte van die inhoud daarvan. Terselfdetyd moet die wetgewer ook die privaatsektor asook `n klimaat van innovasie ondersteun, sowel as die daarstelling van ’n stabiele regulerende atmosfeer. Behalwe die ontwikkeling van geskikte, bekostigbare en minder komplekse produkte, berus die verantwoordelikheid op die privaatsektor om vertroue te skep in die langtermynversekerings-industrie asook om die noodsaaklikheid van risiko-dekking te propageer. Versekeraars het verder nodig om die laer inkomstegroepe as ’n winsgewende segment te beskou, terwyl die armes versekering as ’n noodsaaklike vereiste moet beskou. Hoe meer vertroue geskep word deur die versekeringsindustrie, hoe minder sal mense in die laer inkomstegroepe hul geld belê in die informele sektor wat gekenmerk word deur die afwesigheid van regulering, minder sekuriteit en hoër risikos. Dit is verder noodsaaklik vir die sukses van die verskaffing van toegang tot finansiële produkte, om in gedagte te hou watter impak dit op die verbuiker sal hê. Met betrekking tot die produkte wat ontwikkel en bemark word deur die lewensversekeringsindustrie: spreek dit werklik die behoeftes van die laer inkomstegroepe aan en dra dit positief by tot transformasie? Die privaatsektor is as gevolg daarvan grotendeels afhanklik van marknavorsing en analises oor verbuikerstendense gemeet oor tyd. Die impak wat finansiële produkaanbiedinge het op die laer inkomstegroepe, kan gevolglik nie onafhanklik beskou word nie want die behoeftes, verwagtinge en profiel van die onderste deel van die piramide sal met verloop van tyd verander. Mededinging dra as sulks ook positief by tot die daarstelling van toegang tot finansiële produkte en dienste. Dit dwing die privaatsektor (die lewensversekeringsmaatskappye) om vorendag te kom met innoverende wyses om effektiewe toegangsprodukte en dienste te kan lewer aan die armes. Die bring mee dat die verbruiker waarde vir geld kry wanneer finansiële produkte en dienste aangekoop word van lewensversekeraars. Met verwysing na die toepaslikheid van die langtermynversekeringsindustrie se toegangstandaarde en of dit die behoeftes van die armes bevredig: die lewensversekeringsindustrie het inderdaad baie bereik gedurende die afgelope paar jaar, deurdat konstruktiewe geleenthede geskep is vir die laer inkomstemark. Gegewe die minimum-vereistes soos uiteengesit in die Finansiële Sektor Handves, kan die armes nou ook langtermynversekeringsprodukte bekom wat uitdagings soos fisiese beskikbaarheid, toegang tot transaksies, bekostigbaarheid, diskriminasie en kompleksitiet aanspreek. Dit is daarom noodsaaklik vir die doeleindes van effektiewe finansiële insluiting, om vir verbruikersopleiding ook voorsiening te kan maak. Finansiële geletterdheid sal in beginsel die laer inkomstegroepe in staat stel om hulself te kan bemagtig en terselfdertyd die teikengroep in staat stel om meer ingeligte besluite te kan neem ten opsigte van hul finansies. Laasgenoemde kan egter nie in isolasie geskied nie. Finansiële geletterheid en dus verbruikersopleiding, is minstens net so belangrik. Dit is juis daarom dat, bo en behalwe die regering wat die rol as wetgewer vertolk deur die toepassing van die reg, al die betrokke partye veronderstel is om ’n gemeenskaplike oogmerk te hê. Met ander woorde, dit verwys direk na transformasie en die doelwit om mense in die laer inkomstegroepe te bemagtig – nie net om finansiële insluiting te bewerkstelling nie, maar van meer belang, om te verseker dat die armes oor die vermoë beskik om meer ingeligte besluite te kan neem oor hul finansies. Hierdie aspek sal veral bydra tot effektiewe toegang tot finansële dienste in die ware sin van die woord - as die armes ’toegelaat’ word om meer aktief deel te kan vorm van die hoofstroom van die land se ekonomie.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Previously, the long-term insurance industry only developed financial products and services that were mainly targeted at the middle to high income groups. The poor have thus been excluded, primarily due to them not being able to afford financial products and services offered by life insurers. However, poor households are, and have been, more vulnerable because they are often exposed to more diverse risks, both ‘man- made’ and natural, whilst having fewer instruments to manage them. This state of affairs has drastically changed during the past couple of years. The respective stakeholders, including representatives from the long-term insurance industry, reached consensus with regards to the development of the Financial Sector Charter which is aligned to the national black economic empowerment strategy. The objective of the Financial Sector Charter is not only to empower people in the lower income groups. It also aims to ensure financial inclusion and, eventually, the active participation of the poor in the mainstream of the South African economy. A set of access standards that governs life insurance products and services offered to LSM 1-5 (i.e. for the purposes of this report, households earning less than R3 000 per month), were developed and implemented accordingly. The objective of the access standards, analysed in this report, is to ensure that the long term insurance industry develops appropriate products that meet the minimum standards defined in the Charter. In principle, this report evaluates the feasibility of the access standards with the aim of ascertaining what the standards imply for both the consumer as well as the life insurer from a reporting perspective. The first set of access standards, approved by the Financial Sector Charter in 2007, included funeral products only, whereas the second phase, which focused on nonfuneral products, came into effect in 2008. The latter is applicable to the following financial products: life cover, physical impairment cover and credit life cover. The access products standards relevant to mortgage protection are not yet finalised and have therefore been excluded from this report. A fundamental question in terms of providing access to the low income groups is the role of the public versus private sector delivery as well as that of government. Whilst government acts as the lawmaker, it also needs to be sensitive towards not creating too much ‘red tape’ for the private sector to comply with. The regulator should therefore stipulate and clarify the relevant rules and regulations, but at the same time support the private sector and encourage a climate of innovation as well as creating a stable regulatory environment. Apart from developing appropriate, affordable and less complex insurance products, the private sector’s responsibility is to create trust in the insurance industry as well as to promote the need for risk insurance. Insurers thus need to see low income earners as a profitable segment, whereas poor people need to see insurance as a necessity. The more trust is created by the insurance sector, fewer people in the low income groups will invest their money in the informal sector which entails no regulation, less security and higher risks. It is furthermore pivotal for the success of access to financial services to take into account how this will impact on the consumer. With respect to the products developed and marketed by the life insurance industry: does it really meet the needs of the poor and does it contribute positively to transformation? The private sector is therefore heavily dependent on research and analyses of consumer trends measured over time. As a result, the impact that financial product offerings have on the low income earners cannot be dealt with on its own, because as time passes so will the needs, expectations and profile of the bottom of the pyramid change. On its own, competition tends to also contribute positively towards access to financial services. It forces the private sector (i.e. life insurance companies) to come up with innovative ways of providing effective access, products and services to the poor. This ensures that the end user gets value for money, when procuring financial products and /or services from life insurers. In respect of the viability of the long-term insurance industry’s access standards and whether or not it speaks to the needs of the poor: the life industry has indeed achieved a lot over the past couple of years, by creating constructive opportunities for the lower end of the market. Given the minimum requirements as per the Financial Sector Charter, poor people can now also obtain long-term insurance products that address challenges with regards to physical accessibility, transactional access, affordability, non-discrimination and the level of complexity. However, more important for the low income group to participate effectively in the mainstream of the South African economy, is the fact that the need for financial literacy is even bigger. It is one thing to have the right of entry (i.e. access) to the financial services sector in terms of life insurance product offerings, but it is different if that same target audience does not have the ‘know-how’ to use and implement the products developed. It is hence an imperative for the purposes of effective financial inclusion to also make provision for consumer education. In principle, financial literacy will enable the lower income groups to become more empowered and at the same time, ensure that the target audience is equipped to make more informed decisions about the finances. Given the latter, it can however not happen in isolation. Financial literacy and thus consumer education, is equally important - if not more. It is therefore critical that, apart from government fulfilling its role as regulator by upholding the rule of law, all the stakeholders should have a universal goal. In other words, this directly addresses transformation and the objective of empowering people in the lower income groups – i.e. not only to ensure financial inclusion, but more importantly to enable poor people to make more informed decisions about their finances. And only this will contribute to effective transformation in the true sense of the word - if poor people are ‘allowed’ to become more actively involved in the mainstream of the South African economy.

Access to electricity is an important precondition to many aspects of human and economic development. Yet, in rural sub-Saharan Africa in particular, access rates remain very low — at an average of 17% and much lower in some cases. Rural electrification in Kenya, the focus of this thesis, had only reached 7% in 2014. Given the goal of universal electrification by 2030, formulated as part of Sustainable Development Goal 7, scalable and replicable approaches that are able to support productive and non-productive uses are required. Mini-grids are one promising solution to this problem, alongside grid extension and off-grid approaches such as solar home systems. However, their long-term operational sustainability has historically been a challenge. While the academic literature to date on sustainable energy access has largely been two-dimensional in its analysis of mini-grids (focusing on technology and economics or financing), this thesis contributes to an emerging body of recent contributions to the literature, which have begun to foreground socio-cultural considerations. Bridging the literature on collective action for common-pool resource (CPR) management and property rights theory, a refined theoretical framework is produced for the purpose of analysing the institutional conditions for sustainable management of rural mini-grids. The utility of this framework and of treating electricity in a mini-grid as a CPR is demonstrated via empirical analysis of three case studies of mini-grids in rural Kenya and evidence from 24 expert interviews. This yields insights on nontechnological approaches to addressing operational challenges relating to sustainable mini-grid management, e.g. fair allocation of limited amounts of electricity to different consumers in ways that are acceptable to the entire community. This thesis develops contributions to the literature on sustainable CPR management and collective action, property rights theory and energy access in developing countries. From these theoretical and empirical insights, it explores a novel institutional structure for sustainable management of pro-poor mini-grids in the form of a community–private property hybrid management platform, thereby opening up opportunities for future research into the implementation of such a platform. The thesis represents the first comprehensive attempt to analyse the institutional aspects of pro-poor mini-grid management as well as the first comprehensive attempt to treat electricity in a mini-grid as a CPR.

Microfinance has gained prominence as a policy option for addressing poverty. Although microfinance has a long history, its growing appeal is usually associated with the attention given to the Grameen Bank of Bangladesh, which pioneered group-based lending to poor women. Following the ‘successes of Grameen and the promotion of ‘cloned’ institutions, advocacy for microfinance has focussed primarily on microcredit. Consequently, microfinance as savings, insurance, and other forms of financial intermediation received far less attention. It was believed that microcredit was a more reliable and faster means to achieve poverty reduction, especially through supporting the entrepreneurialism of the poor. Microcredit then became a mantra of the microfinance sector, increasingly identified as its ‘raison d’être’ and the justification for the investment of billions for dollars. This thesis focuses on the relationship between microfinance and poverty. It puts savings at the centre of the research through an analysis of a savings-led financial services co-operative known as the ‘Village Banks’ in South Africa. The research considers the asserted link between microfinance and poverty from both a theoretical and empirical interrogation. It questions the limited engagement that the microfinance literature has had with the various theories on poverty and attempts to formulate a more nuanced understanding of relations between the two. The empirical contribution is a mixed method of qualitative analysis, in the form of focus groups held in four different Village Bank communities, and quantitative analysis from an original panel of households in one community. The thesis argues that a savings-led model of microfinance has the ability to contribute to the challenges of poverty reduction more than is currently acknowledged. It will also argue that, when provided with the necessary support, member-owned financial institutions, such as the Village Banks, offer a potential solution to addressing the inherent challenges of providing low-cost banking services in rural areas.

According to the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (2012-2013), access to higher education is limited in most of the developing countries due to inadequate budgets and lack of schools and teaching staff. The use of educational technology could help bridge the gap, but research has only explored the use of available technologies to enhance learning where higher education is already accessible. The purpose of this case study was to investigate the use of one-to-many videoconferencing as an education access tool for high school seniors seeking higher education in the most devastated areas of Haiti. The theoretical framework for this study is based on Bandura's social learning theory, activity theory, and constructivist epistemology. This study attempts to explore the feasibility of using one-to-many videoconferencing learning to enhance access to education in Haiti. The study also analyzes the experiences of various sets of participants. The data were drawn from 13 interviews involving the school principal, the school's technology expert, 10 students, and one instructor corroborated by hours spent observing the same participants engaged in classroom activities via videoconferencing. The participants were interviewed on their experiences with the new delivery method proposed and utilized in the study. The data from this study suggest that by preserving the features of the familiar classroom model, videoconferencing could be successfully utilized to compensate for the lack of other facilities for higher education. The data was coded and analyzed using the NVivo data analysis software. The study will allow Haitian professionals living outside of the country to affect change in access to higher learning in Haiti.

The premise of the thesis is that the developmental use of urban land should be ethical, fair and promote social justice. Using multiple research approaches and mixed methods this thesis examines the urban land question in South Africa and particularly Cape Town where land distribution and ownership are inequitable. The thesis unpacks land redistribution, land tenure reform and land restitution within this context. It is argued that the South African Constitution commits government to protect the property rights of those who currently own property and at the same time redistribute land to those who have been dispossessed and explores what this tension means for urban land redistribution and reform using the freedoms approach developed by Amartya Sen as a conceptual framework and as alternative to the neo-classical model. The main findings of the thesis can be summarized as follows. a) The thesis demonstrates that there is no logical reason why the freedoms approach cannot be extended to include urban land. b) The entitlements and endowments that urban land could bestow on the urban poor are shaped by how the State invests in land through the instruments of land planning and land use management which call for a significant role for the State as custodian of public land to not only make explicit the land asset register under public ownership but also instill trust in the poorer sectors of urban society. c) A two track system of land planning and land use management may be more appropriate in the post apartheid South African city, one stream for market driven land and one for targeted public land programmes that directly address urban poverty provided that the State is able to make strong connections between the philosophical and the technical aspects of land and land use management systems. d) As a two track system is suggested the land use management system requires to be reframed. To facilitate land redistribution and reform in urban areas of South Africa therefore, the thesis suggests that a deliberative and systemic planning approach needs to be adopted that is intervention focused. Only when the State assumes a more critical interventionist role in public land programmes would it be possible to obtain social justice and the principles of the good city in the South African urban context. e) Gaining access to and control over land resources beyond the market is possible but limiting for the majority of the urban poor when land and housing debates are conflated. This conflation results in other land debates being silenced yet these have the potential to offer alternatives to the neo-classical model of land and land use management as well as promote a wider role for public land than just housing.

In many situations, we need to build and deploy separate models in related environments with different data qualities. For example, an environment with strong observation equipments (e.g., intensive care units) often provides high-quality multi-modal data, which are acquired from multiple sensory devices and have rich-feature representations. On the other hand, an environment with poor observation equipment (e.g., at home) only provides low-quality, uni-modal data with poor-feature representations. To deploy a competitive model in a poor-data environment without requiring direct access to multi-modal data acquired from a rich-data environment, this paper develops and presents a knowledge distillation (KD) method (RDPD) to enhance a predictive model trained on poor data using knowledge distilled from a high-complexity model trained on rich, private data. We evaluated RDPD on three real-world datasets and shown that its distilled model consistently outperformed all baselines across all datasets, especially achieving the greatest performance improvement over a model trained only on low-quality data by 24.56% on PR-AUC and 12.21% on ROC-AUC, and over that of a state-of-the-art KD model by 5.91% on PR-AUC and 4.44% on ROC-AUC.

La plaza de l’Esglèsia forma parte del antiguo castillo de Portell. En esta plaza, una antigua escalera, en mal estado y con excesiva pendiente, conectaba el desnivel entre la población y la parte superior del recinto amurallado. Se sustituye la escalera existente construyendo un nuevo acceso más cómodo, ocupando un pequeño solar municipal recayente a la plaza. El nuevo acceso asciende entendiéndose como depositado sobre el terreno natural, facilita un recorrido más pausado y cómodo que invita a parar y sentarse, al encuentro y la conversación. Los nuevos muros construyen un pequeño recinto y, por otra parte, se relacionan con lo existente. Un muro de hormigón configura los límites de la plaza. sin mostrar directamente el nuevo acceso, sino más bien, se sugiere detrás de él e invitan a entrar y recorrerlo.***The church square is part of the old castle of Portell. In this square, an old staircase, in poor condition and with excessive slope, connected the gap between the town and the upper part of the walled enclosure. The existing staircase is replaced by building a new more convenient access, occupying a small municipal plot located next to the square. The new access comes up as if it were deposited on the natural ground, thus facilitates a more leisurely and comfortable promenade that invites to stop and sit down, join and converse. A small enclosure is built with the new walls and, on the other hand, they co-exist with what already existed. A concrete wall configures the boundaries of the square not directly showing the new entrance.

Abstract Damage-free gate oxide is one of the important factors to ensure device performance and reliability. Special wafer accepts test structures such as a large size MOS capacitor must be laid on test line to monitor the oxide process issue and process window. However, it brings about many challenges to failure analysis engineer. To overcome the EFA and PFA limitations, fresh samples were taken from the passed wafer and the failed ones to identify the root cause of VBD failure. A novel lapping down method was used to access the capacitor structure. Two VBD failure cases were studied. In this study, poor wet clean process was defined as the cause of the silicon substrate surface damage and crystalline defect. It induced poor oxide deposition, which reduced breakdown voltage. Additionally, 12hrs BOE dip was shown to be an effective method for removing poly and oxide layers from large MOS capacitors.

Through first-hand accounts of marginalisation and discrimination, the research paper in question explores the reality of life in Pakistan for poor Hindu women and girls who face intersecting and overlapping inequalities due to their religious identity, their gender and their caste. They carry a heavy burden among the marginalised groups in Pakistan, facing violence, discrimination and exclusion, lack of access to education, transportation and health care, along with occupational discrimination and a high threat of abduction, forced conversion and forced marriage.

Sending SMS reminders increased the probability of on-time renewals of IDs by 12 percentage points, while also allowing citizens to renew their IDs online only increased renewals by 8 percentage points. Providing an online option (instead of in-person renewals) was less effective due to a poor user experience with the online procedure. The poorest individuals who received reminders were also more likely to receive transfers from an emergency in-kind transfer delivered through digital vouchers.

The urban population of Africa, the fastest urbanizing continent, has increased from 19% to 39% in the past 50 years, and the number of urban dwellers is projected to reach 770 million by 2030. However, while rapid urbanization has increased mobility and created a subsequent growth in demand for public transport in cities, this has not been met by the provision of adequate and sustainable infrastructure and services. The majority of low-income residents and the urban poor still lack access to adequate transport services and rely on non-motorized and public transport, which is often informal and characterized by poor service delivery. Lack of access to transport services limits access to opportunities that aren’t in the proximity of residential areas, such as education, healthcare, and employment. The urban public transport sector not only faces the challenge of poor service provision, but also of gender inequality. Research shows that, in the existing urban transport systems, there are significant differences in the travel patterns of and modes of transport used by women and men, and that these differences are associated with their roles and responsibilities in society. Moreover, the differences in travel patterns are characterized by unequal access to transport facilities and services. Women are generally underrepresented in the sector, in both its operation and decision-making. Women’s mobility needs and patterns are rarely integrated into transport infrastructure design and services and female users are often victims of harassment and assault. As cities rapidly expand, meeting the transport needs of their growing populations while paying attention to gender-differentiated mobility patterns is a prerequisite to achieving sustainability, livability and inclusivity. Gender mainstreaming in urban public transport is therefore a critical issue, but one which is under-researched in East Africa. This research explores gender issues in public transport in East Africa, focusing in particular on women’s inclusion in both public transport systems and transport policy decision-making processes and using case studies from three cities: Nairobi, Kampala and Dar es Salaam.

The PROACT project uses Village Savings and Loan Associations (VSLAs) to enable rural financial inclusion. The VSLA approach is targeted at combating increased poverty and improving the resilience of poor rural farming households in Kebbi and Adamawa States, Nigeria. The three case studies presented here reflect the new, transformative realities of increased income, access to loans, safe spaces for women, improved rural enterprise and the empowerment of women engaged in the VSLAs.

Despite a UN-brokered peace agreement in December 2018, the conflict in Yemen has run into its sixth year. In Taiz Governorate, civilians continue to bear the brunt of conflict. Every day, they face death or injury from indiscriminate attacks, gender-based violence in their homes and poor access to food, water and medical care. As people’s resources are further exhausted, their safety, security and well-being are only likely to worsen. The COVID-19 pandemic has added an additional layer to the ongoing crisis. The people of Taiz –and across Yemen as a whole – desperately need a lasting and inclusive peace process to end the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

The availability and quality of pedestrian infrastructure play key roles in enabling access to transit. Many transit operators face challenges in facilitating this access, however, because they lack land use authority and encounter other institutional and programmatic impediments to effecting changes in the pedestrian environment. This report identifies the barriers to pedestrian access to transit in suburban communities located in the Pace Suburban Bus service area in northeastern Illinois and suggests potential solutions to overcome these barriers. The research team led several activities to collect data, including: conducting an academic literature review; reviewing pedestrian plans, policies, and programs in the region; surveying and interviewing key stakeholders; reviewing pedestrian funding sources; surveying and conducting case studies of peer transit agencies; conducting physical audits of pedestrian infrastructure; and interviewing residents of six municipalities about their transit access experiences. Lack of adequate funding, difficulties planning across jurisdictional boundaries, and conflicts in transportation priorities are major impediments to building pedestrian infrastructure. While planners and decision-makers tend to value pedestrian planning, challenges such as funding constraints and the need to retrofit suburban infrastructure are key barriers to implementation. Peer transit agencies face similar barriers to Pace and use strategies such as plan and policy development, diverse funding opportunities, and collaborative partnerships with stakeholder agencies and advocacy groups to overcome these barriers. Transit riders generally reported positive experiences with pedestrian access to transit in their communities. Many locations had robust infrastructure, but common deficiencies included poor sidewalk connectivity, incomplete crossings, lack of lighting and transit shelters, and deficiencies in Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) infrastructure. A suite of policy recommendations for Pace and other partners that focus on planning, policy, funding, interagency coordination, education and training, infrastructure prioritization, and transit amenities address the full range of physical and institutional barriers identified in the research.

Ahmadi Muslims are criminalised for practising their faith in Pakistan which has resulted in widespread discrimination and continuous, sporadic acts of violence leading many to flee their cities or their country altogether. This is not always an option for those who are poor and socioeconomically excluded. A recent study into the experiences and issues faced by socioeconomically excluded women from the Ahmadiyya Muslim community has found that Ahmadi Muslim women in particular are marginalised, targeted, and discriminated against in all aspects of their lives, including in their lack of access to education and jobs, their inability to fully carry out their religious customs, day-to-day harassment, and violence and lack of representation in decision-making spaces.