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ABSTRACT: With so much global attention and commitment towards making the Water and Sanitation targets of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) a reality, available figures seem to speak on the contrary as they reveal a large disparity between the expected and what currently obtains especially in developing countries. As studies have shown that the standard industrialized world model for delivery of safe drinking water technology may not be affordable in much of the developing world, packaged water is suggested as a low cost, readily available alternative water provision that could help bridge the gap. Despite the established roles that this drinking water source plays in developing nations, its importance is however significantly underestimated, and the source considered unimproved going by 'international standards'. Rather than simply disqualifying water from this source, focus should be on identifying means of improvement. The need for intervening global communities and developmental organizations to learn from and build on the local processes that already operate in the developing world is also emphasized. Identifying packaged water case studies of some developing nations, the implication of a tenacious focus on imported policies, standards and regulatory approaches on drinking water access for residents of the developing world is also discussed.

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The paper examined the state of the Yoruba old Palace Courtyards using Ilesa palace as a case study. It described the designs, construction of the old palaces courtyard and its function as a melting point of traditional Yoruba architecture. It opined that the palace courtyard design reinforces the Yoruba traditional dwellings and environment culture where the structure of the houses is built to support the people’s social and religious life. It argued that such structure gives the opportunity for a blend of function, decorative and religious elements all-in-one big space of which the courtyard is just an enclosure. The paper concluded by calling for the restoration and preservation of these edifices, noting that the architecture of a people best describes the artistic outward presentation of their belief system, sociology and creative life.

This paper attempted a review of the Black Festivals of Arts with a view to highlighting how the achieved cultural integration through the arts could be further explored for today’s realities and expectations. It attributed the first two editions of the Festivals of Blacks arts and culture which owed much to the ideologies of the Pan-Africanism and Negritude that preceded them, to the laid legacies that have continued to serve as strong reference points in the discussion of Africans and African descent relationship. It argued that apart from providing an unusual forum that brought to light the diverse contributions of Blacks and African peoples to the universal currents of thought and arts, both editions drew attentions to the expected relationship between the continental Africans and their offspring in the Diaspora. The paper observed that the events reassert the African identity thus creating the platform for continental Africa and the Diaspora to move through the borders of nation state and the psychosocial borders of racism which is central to all Pan-Africanist freedom movements. It however noted that forty eight years after the maiden edition of the festival (FESMAN) and thirty seven years after the second (FESTAC), the achieved cultural integration seem yet to translate into much expected economic, political, educational, philosophical and technological advancements of African nations and that of the Diaspora.