Arquipélago dos Gladiadores

What They Mean:
Sixteen years ago, the life expectancy of a Botswana child was 64. The figure was typical for middle-income countries, and one of the longest in Africa. In 2004, a half-generation later, the AIDS epidemic has cut Botswana life expectancy to 35. This is the lowest figure in the world (based on World Bank figures for 208 countries and territories) and barely half the 59-year average for low-income countries. Similar figures appear throughout southern Africa -- The World Bank tables show life expectancy in Lesotho falling from 57 to 36 since 1990; in South Africa from 62 to 45, in Namibia from 62 to 47, in Swaziland from 57 to 42, and in Zimbabwe from 59 to 37.
Comparison puts the calamity in perspective. Life expectancy has risen almost everywhere in the world over the last 15 years, even during periods of conflict. Since 1990, the Bank's figures show Burma, though suffering from continuous low-level civil war and military government turmoil, gaining seven years; Sudan four; and Sierra Leone one. Even in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire), where continuous warfare is said to have killed as many as 4 million people between 1998 and 2004, life expectancy fell by only two years.
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Further Reading:
Twenty-five years later -- The Centers for Disease Control identified AIDS as a specific disease in June of 1981. By the end of 2005, according to the World Health Organization, the disease had killed 25 million people. Forty million people are now HIV-positive; nearly 5 million became infected in 2005; 3 million die of AIDS-related diseases annually. Africa remains the world's hardest-hit region, home to 26 million HIV-positive men, women, and children and suffering 2.4 million of last year's 3.1 million AIDS-related deaths. WHO's December 2005 report grimly suggests that the southern African epidemic has not yet begun to recede, and may be intensifying in Mozambique and Angola.
More hopeful signs -- WHO finds 1.3 million people in low-income countries receiving anti-retroviral treatments as of December 2005, triple the 400,000 figure in 2003. Its report cites Thailand as especially successful in raising treatment rates; Latin America as having the highest treatment rate overall; and Malawi and Zambia as having rapidly increased the number of treatment sites. In addition, national education campaigns, changes in sexual behavior and more frequent condom use have reduced HIV incidence in a number of countries. Examples include: Cambodia, Uganda, Thailand, Kenya, and perhaps recently Haiti.

Fonte: Progressive Policy Institute

Cada empregado municipal falta em média um mês de trabalho por ano. O absentismo nos cerca de 136,5 mil funcionários ronda assim os 22 dias úteis, revela um estudo divulgado pelo Diário de Notícias (DN).

Segundo a edição do jornal, esta é uma das principais conclusões de um estudo elaborado pela consultora Delloite. O objectivo é determinar a importância dos municípios no sector público e na economia portuguesa e toma o ano de 2002 como referência.

"O documento salienta o absentismo médio como um dos aspectos mais relevantes do emprego municipal, mas não descrimina as causas do fenómeno, que é visto na literatura como um problema de gestão de Recursos Humanos e de ambiente organizacional", refere o artigo.

O DN refere ainda que o número de 136,5 mil funcionários a trabalhar nos municípios representa 2,9 por cento da população activa empregada. Isto que torna evidente, segundo a Delloite, a "importância do emprego municipal e o seu papel dinamizador no tecido económico local e regional".

O estudo salienta também que as receitas do sector municipal representam 5,9 por cento do Produto Interno Bruto (PIB) e que os investimentos efectuados correspondem a 56,1 por cento do total realizados pelas administrações públicas.

O sumário executivo do estudo encontra-se disponível no site da Associação Nacional de Municípios Portugueses.