Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Civil Society Organisations in Liberia

This research report assesses the impact of the Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) pandemic on Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) in Liberia. The research further looks at CSOs' resilience during the pandemic, their contributions to the fight against the COVID-19, as well as their programming and operations during the pandemic. The study was informed by a sequential explanatory mixed methods design which involves first collecting and analysing the quantitative data followed by the qualitative data. It is however important to mention that the study began with a desk review where the in-country researcher reviewed existing literature on COVID-19 and its impact on the civil society sector.The findings from the review informed the development of survey questionnaires which was administered to 27 randomly selected CSOs in Liberia from the Electronic directorate of CSOs in West Africa by the West Africa Civil Society Institute (WACSI). The analysis and findings from the quantitative phase informed the design of the qualitative phase. The qualitative phase of the research collected data through Focus Group Discussion (FGD) with ten (10) CSOs comprising of eight (8) urban organisations and two (2) rural organisations randomly selected from the list of 27 CSOs who participated in the survey

Service-Learning and Multicultural/Multiethnic Perspectives: From Diversity to Equity

The missionary ideology that currently underlies much of the service-learning movement is mostly the result of a series of decisions intended to do good things for others, and so the movement does not directly acknowledge what those others, particularly communities of color, might hove to offer, the authors say. It\u27s time to change that

Traditional and industrial approaches to oil palm cultivation alter the biodiversity of ground-dwelling arthropods in Liberia (West Africa)

Oil palm cultivation is vital to global food security and economically important to farmers. However, the rapid expansion of oil palm plantations has caused large-scale deforestation in the tropics and, consequently, biodiversity loss and changes in ecosystem functioning. Oil palm is primarily cultivated in Southeast Asia, where the ecological impacts of production have been studied extensively. It is also grown in West Africa, using traditional and industrial methods of cultivation. However, in comparison to Southeast Asia, relatively little research on the impacts of oil palm cultivation in West Africa has occurred. Working in the framework of the Sustainable Oil Palm in West Africa (SOPWA) Project (Sinoe County, Liberia), we investigated differences in the biodiversity of ground-dwelling arthropods across rainforest (the regional natural habitat) and oil palm systems cultivated under traditional (called “country palm”) and industrial management. We sampled arthropods with pitfall traps (160 retrieved) across 54 monitoring plots in rainforest, country palm, and industrial oil palm. We found no differences in total arthropod abundance across systems, but we did find changes in arthropod order-level community composition, driven by differences in the relative abundance of Araneae, Collembola, Dermaptera, and Diptera. We conducted focused morphospecies-level analyses on spiders, owing to their key roles as predators within tropical agricultural systems, and to determine if our order-level findings held true at increased taxonomic resolution. Our spider analyses indicated that country palm supported the greatest number of spider individuals and species, and that all systems supported distinct spider assemblages. Our findings have implications for both arthropod conservation and oil palm productivity, owing to the important ecosystem functions (e.g., pest control) that many arthropods provide. Future research should investigate whether changes in on-farm management practices influence arthropod communities – and the ecosystem functions they support – in West Africa

The socioecological benefits and consequences of oil palm cultivation in its native range: the sustainable oil palm in West Africa (SOPWA) project

Agriculture is expanding rapidly across the tropics. While cultivation can boost socioeconomic conditions and food security, it also threatens native ecosystems. Oil palm (Elaeis guineensis), which is grown pantropically, is the most productive vegetable oil crop worldwide. The impacts of oil palm cultivation have been studied extensively in Southeast Asia and – to a lesser extent – in Latin America but, in comparison, very little is known about its impacts in Africa: oil palm's native range, and where cultivation is expanding rapidly. In this paper, we introduce a large-scale research programme – the Sustainable Oil Palm in West Africa (SOPWA) Project – that is evaluating the relative ecological impacts of oil palm cultivation under traditional (i.e., by local people) and industrial (i.e., by a large-scale corporation) management in Liberia. Our paper is twofold in focus. First, we use systematic mapping to appraise the literature on oil palm research in an African context, assessing the geographic and disciplinary focus of existing research. We found 757 publications occurring in 36 African countries. Studies tended to focus on the impacts of palm oil consumption on human health and wellbeing. We found no research that has evaluated the whole-ecosystem (i.e., multiple taxa and ecosystem functions) impacts of oil palm cultivation in Africa, a knowledge gap which the SOPWA Project directly addresses. Second, we describe the SOPWA Project's study design and—using canopy cover, ground vegetation cover, and soil temperature data as a case study—demonstrate its utility for assessing differences between areas of rainforest and oil palm agriculture. We outline the socioecological data collected by the SOPWA Project to date and describe the potential for future research, to encourage new collaborations and additional similar projects of its kind in West Africa. Increased research in Africa is needed urgently to understand the combined ecological and sociocultural impacts of oil palm and other agriculture in this unique region. This will help to ensure long-term sustainability of the oil palm industry—and, indeed, all tropical agricultural activity—in Africa

The socioecological benefits and consequences of oil palm cultivation in its native range: The Sustainable Oil Palm in West Africa (SOPWA) Project

Agriculture is expanding rapidly across the tropics. While cultivation can boost socioeconomic conditions and food security, it also threatens native ecosystems. Oil palm (Elaeis guineensis), which is grown pantropically, is the most productive vegetable oil crop worldwide. The impacts of oil palm cultivation have been studied extensively in Southeast Asia and – to a lesser extent – in Latin America but, in comparison, very little is known about its impacts in Africa: oil palm's native range, and where cultivation is expanding rapidly. In this paper, we introduce a large-scale research programme – the Sustainable Oil Palm in West Africa (SOPWA) Project – that is evaluating the relative ecological impacts of oil palm cultivation under traditional (i.e., by local people) and industrial (i.e., by a large-scale corporation) management in Liberia. Our paper is twofold in focus. First, we use systematic mapping to appraise the literature on oil palm research in an African context, assessing the geographic and disciplinary focus of existing research. We found 757 publications occurring in 36 African countries. Studies tended to focus on the impacts of palm oil consumption on human health and wellbeing. We found no research that has evaluated the whole-ecosystem (i.e., multiple taxa and ecosystem functions) impacts of oil palm cultivation in Africa, a knowledge gap which the SOPWA Project directly addresses. Second, we describe the SOPWA Project's study design and—using canopy cover, ground vegetation cover, and soil temperature data as a case study—demonstrate its utility for assessing differences between areas of rainforest and oil palm agriculture. We outline the socioecological data collected by the SOPWA Project to date and describe the potential for future research, to encourage new collaborations and additional similar projects of its kind in West Africa. Increased research in Africa is needed urgently to understand the combined ecological and sociocultural impacts of oil palm and other agriculture in this unique region. This will help to ensure long-term sustainability of the oil palm industry—and, indeed, all tropical agricultural activity—in Africa

HOW SOCIAL DOMINANCE THEORY MIGHT CONTRIBUTE TO OUR UNDERSTANDING OF THE LIBERIAN CIVIL WAR (1989-2003)

Even though scholars and researchers have suggested that the Liberian civil war arose as a result of socioeconomic and political inequalities, oppression, discrimination, and marginalization of a certain group of people, Social Dominance Theory (“SDT”) suggests an alternate understanding: social group-based hierarchy is produced and maintained in society by legitimizing myths. SDT explains how these legitimizing myths tend to produce discriminatory and/or anti-discriminatory policies that are endorsed by dominant and subordinate groups, which, if left unattended, eventually lead to conflict

EALUASI ATAS PERHITUNGAN DAN PEMOTONGAN PAJAK PENGHASILAN (PPH) PASAR 21 DOSEN TETAP PROGRAM STUDI AKUNTANSI FAKULTAS EKONOMI UNIVERSITAS KATOLIK DE LA SALLE MANADO TAHUN 2018

Tujuan penelitian ini adalah untuk menilai tata cara perhitungan dalam pemotongan Pajak Penghasilan PPh Pasal 21 bagi dosen tetap yang dilakukan oleh Universitas Katolik De La Salle, Fakultas Ekonomi, Program Studi Akuntansi. Perhitungan yang menjadi pembahasan penelitian ini adalah Perhitungan PPh Pasal 21 Agustus tahun pajak 2018. Jenis penelitian ini adalah studi kasus. Data diperoleh dengan studi dokumentasi dan wawancara. Teknik analisis data dalam penelitian ini dengan cara deskriptif. Berdasarkan hasil analisis data, dapat disimpulkan bahwa untuk perhitungan PPh pasal 21 yang dilakukan Universitas Katolik De La Salle sudah sesuai sepenuhnya. Komponen-komponen perhitungan PPh pasal 21 sudah sesuai dengan Peraturan Pajak. Perhitungan PPh pasal 21 terutang pajak tahun 2018 yang dilakukan Universitas Katolik De La Salle sudah sepenuhnya sesuai dengan Peraturan Pajak. Kata Kunci : Evaluasi atas Perhitungan dan Pemotongan Pajak Penghasilan PPh Pasal 21 Dosen Tetap, Masa Pajak, Tahun Pajak