Policy Capacity Building Research Articles

Analysis of the Policy Text of Entrepreneurship Education in Chinese Colleges and Universities (1998-2019)

In this paper, the policy text of entrepreneurship education in Chinese colleges and universities from 1998 to 2019 is sorted out, and the grounded theory is adopted to analyze the content of the text. The result shows that China has established a relatively complete policy system after undergoing over two decades of development. Four types of policies have been formed: capacity-building policies, entrepreneurial incubation policies, faculty incentive policies and environment optimization policies, which have played a great part in promoting the development of entrepreneurship education in Chinese colleges and universities. To better serve China’s economic and social needs, the government should further leverage the policy benefits, and guide the formation of a community of shared interests of entrepreneurship education in colleges and universities in a wider range of fields through policies, so as to revitalize the existing resources of entrepreneurship education, and encourage teachers to carry out entrepreneurship education activities continuously and steadily.

Assessment of the UK’s Climate Change Capacity-building Policy’s Implications on Korean Policy through Advisor’s Core Competency Analysis

Assessment of the UK’s Climate Change Capacity-building Policy’s Implications on Korean Policy through Advisor’s Core Competency Analysis

The challenges of behavioural insights for effective policy design

ABSTRACTBehavioural insights are becoming increasingly popular with policy practitioners. Findings and methods originally provided by cognitive psychology and later behavioural economics have found use in the formulation of public policies. Their most popularised application has emerged under the auspices of libertarian paternalism in the form of ‘nudging’. Its proponents claim to provide a new instrument to facilitate the formulation of effective and evidence-based policy, taking people’s actual behaviour into account from the outset, while preserving their liberty to choose. This article reviews the origins of libertarian paternalism and the behavioural insights it builds on and takes a critical look at the foundations nudging relies on as a policy tool. It also discusses the ongoing efforts to build policy capacity to integrate behavioural insights and experimental methods in the creation of public policy. Behavioural insights offer a powerful tool to reshape and design new evidence-based policy. However, designers ought to be aware of the underlying assumptions on individual behaviour, the broadness of the mandate the nudging approach claims and the challenges they pose for design effectiveness.

A framework to investigate drivers of adaptation decisions in marine fishing: Evidence from urban, semi-urban and rural communities

Traditional fishing livelihoods need to adapt to changing fish catch/populations, led by numerous anthropogenic, environmental and climatic stressors. The decision to adapt can be influenced by a variety of socio-economic and perceptual factors. However, adaptation decision-making in fishing communities has rarely been studied. Based on previous literature and focus group discussions with community, this study identifies few prominent adaptation responses in marine fishing and proposes credible factors driving decisions to adopt them. Further, a household survey is conducted, and the association of these drivers with various adaptation strategies is examined among fisherfolk of Maharashtra (India). This statistical analysis is based on 601 responses collected across three regional fishing groups: urban, semi-urban and rural. Regional segregation is done to understand variability in decision-making among groups which might be having different socio-economic and perceptual attributes. The survey reveals that only few urban fishing households have been able to diversify into other livelihoods. While having economic capital increases the likelihood of adaptation among urban and semi-urban communities, rural fishermen are significantly driven by social capital. Perception of climate change affecting fish catch drives adoption of mechanized boats solely in urban region. But increasing number of extreme events affects decisions of semi-urban and rural fishermen. Further, rising pollution and trade competition is associated with adaptation responses in the urban and semi-urban community. Higher education might help fishermen choose convenient forms of adaptation. Also, cooperative membership and subsidies are critical in adaptation decisions. The framework and insights of the study suggest the importance of acknowledging differential decision-making of individuals and communities, for designing effective adaptation and capacity-building policies.

Determinants and the Moderating Effect of Perceived Policy Effectiveness on Residents' Separation Intention for Rural Household Solid Waste.

Currently, villages “besieged with garbage” have become a serious problem in rural areas of China. Separation of rural residential solid waste (RRSW) is one of the main strategies for waste reduction. Although previous studies have analyzed the social and psychological motivations of residents’ separation intention for municipal solid waste (MSW), little attention has been paid to the situation in rural areas. This paper investigates key factors influencing rural residents’ separation intention, as well as analyzing the moderating effects of perceived policy effectiveness on the relationship between the determinants and the intention, using survey data of 538 rural residents in the province of Sichuan in China. The results show that all the proposed key factors influence the separation intention significantly. Furthermore, the policies were divided into two types and the moderating effects were tested for each type. The results show that the perceived effectiveness of both the inducement policy and the capacity building policy moderated the relationship between attitude and separation intention positively, while the perceived effectiveness of the inducement policy moderated the relationship between subjective norms and intention negatively. The findings provide insightful information for policymakers to design effective RRSW separation policies.

WELFARE INEQUALITY AND DEMOGRAPHIC DIVIDEND IN EAST JAVA: THE OVERLAPPING GENERATIONS (OLG) MODEL APPROACH

The issue of demography into an important discussion caused can affect economic growth and inequality in East Java Inequality in east Java showed an increase.Unequal distribution of income is a source of high inequality in East Java. This study aims to show the effectiveness of demographic changes can affect inequality in East Java with the approach of Overlapping Generations (OLG) model. The data used in this research is time series data in the first quarter of 2010- the fourth quarter 2015. Analyzer used in this research is Generalized Method of Moments (GMM). The results of this study show that demographic changes in East Java have the potential to increase inequality. The number of productive age populations with non-productive causes of high inequality. Consumption rate and the number of the productive workforces also become one of the sources of inequality. Therefore, the Settlement of inequality coupled with demographic changes in East Java needs the role of government through targeted social protection programs and infrastructure improvements. In addition, the need for land-based policies, opportunity-based policies, human resource capacity building policies, job matching.

Non-conformities to the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) standards: Empirical evidence and implications for policy-making in Brazil

The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) standards are becoming increasingly important in sustainable forest governance. In 2016, FSC certified a total forest area of 195Mha across 80 countries. While there is considerable room for expanding FSC's reach, there has been a lack of incentives for producers to seek certification, particularly in tropical countries. Information about existing barriers and challenges to comply with FSC standards are fundamental to promote such incentives. The objective of this study was to explore the main challenges faced by firms in the FSC certification process and discuss their policy implications. This was carried out by analyzing the quantity, spatial distribution, non-compliant principles, potential triggers and thematic areas of non-conformities (NCs) to FSC certification disclosed in the Public Summary Reports of third-party audits in Brazil. More specifically it tried to understand the specific issues to which the NCs were potentially associated to. This study generated descriptive and inferential statistics of a sample of 1086 NCs to FSC standards disclosed in the 110 Public Summary Reports, from which the overall majority were related to the certification of plantation forests that had gone through maintenance audits. The occurrence of NCs was found to be most frequently associated with FSC Principles 4 (26,07%), 6 (21,82%) and 8 (13,72%), which are related to the themes “Community Relations and Worker's rights”, “Environmental Impact” and “Monitoring and Assessment”, respectively. Many NCs were triggered by aspects of forest planning, operation and monitoring, which altogether accounted for 42.91% of all NCs. Problems related to occupational health and safety were also a relevant theme, accounting for almost 20% of the total non-conformities. Findings from the Kruskal-Wallis tests suggest that auditors tended to identify similar NCs, regardless of the geographical region, of the type of forest and of the type of audit (certification or maintenance). Spearman Correlation tests indicated significant relationships between certified forest area and non-conformities with FSC Principles 4 and 7 (Community Relations and Worker's Rights, and Management Plans, respectively). The meaning of this relationship is unclear. Overall, findings corroborate previous studies that found FSC Principles 4 and 6 among the most challenging of the global FSC system. There seems to exist an opportunity for the development of stronger technical guidance and capacity building policies related to community relations, worker's rights, and environmental impacts. If such issues are already challenging in the context of large forest plantations, Brazilian policy-makers should expect small-scale firms to face even higher levels of difficulty, given their lack of financial and human resources. The study concludes by discussing its limitations and suggesting future research avenues.

Needs assessment of international capacity building using a Delphi technique

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to engage African subject matter experts to assist with a needs assessment of international capacity building for developing countries in Africa, to establish a prioritized list of capacity building keywords substantiated by a current literature review.Design/methodology/approachA pragmatic mixed-method research design was used which involved conducting literature reviews and applying a modified Delphi technique to determine future research needs. The credibility of these results was strengthened by selecting a Delphi subject matter expert panel from African countries including Benin, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Ethiopia, Ivory Coast, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Madagascar, Cameroon, Congo, Burkina Faso, Eritrea, Algeria and Nigeria. Non-parametric statistical techniques were used to objectively analyze the qualitative data and prioritize the findings.FindingsThe results clearly identified seven literature keywords which could improve future African capacity building research (in order of highest importance first): Trade Union (regional economic integration), Governance, FDI, Emigration, Education, Economic (small business stimulation), and Brain Gain. Additional keywords surfaced in the literature related to these ones, namely healthcare and brain drain (emigrating academics and scholars).Research limitations/implicationsThe results of this study should generalize to government and capacity building policy administrators in Africa as well as to other researchers and practitioners in this field. The use of a novel modified Delphi technique should also be of interest to other researchers.Originality/valueThe modified Delphi technique commenced with a knowledge sharing conference where pre-selected subject matter experts collaborated to define the initial scope of questions. Another novel aspect of the customized Delphi technique was that the subject matter experts were required to conduct a literature review to substantiate their responses to questions.

Third sector capacity building: the institutional embeddedness of supply

Previous articles in Voluntary Sector Review have documented the evolution of third sector capacity-building policy (Macmillan, 2011) and addressed the focus on ‘market-making’, characterised by a discursive shift since 2010 that favours demand-led over supply-led delivery models (Macmillan, 2013). This article builds on these articles by using data from the National Survey of Charities and Social Enterprises (NSCSE) to investigate the characteristics of third sector organisations on the supply side of the capacity-building ‘market’. We argue that the ambitions of the demand-led model need to be understood in the context of the embeddedness of these organisations. This is based on findings that suggests that, immediately prior to the identified discursive shift, a significant proportion of third sector capacity-building providers were embedded in the supply-led model through relationships with and funding from the public sector locally and nationally. This, we suggest, could thwart the ambitions of the demand-led model.

Improving Policy Design and Building Capacity in Local Experiments: Equalization of Public Service in China's Urban‐rural Integration Pilot

SummaryPolicy design is important, and high policy capacity is necessary for social policy‐making. Local experimentation is helpful in building capacity and therefore supporting policy design. Since 2007, China has initiated an ‘urban–rural integration’ reform to equalize the access to public services between urban and rural residents. This paper uses the Chongqing urban–rural integration pilot as a case to illustrate how and to what degree a local experiment can be useful in building policy capacity and improving policy design. Regarding the Chongqing pilot, policy capacity in administration and governance has been improved through mechanisms including coordinating government departments through a small leading group led by local leaders as well as incentivizing bureaucrats by linking quantified policy targets with officials' performance evaluations. Equalizing access to public services by facilitating the mobility of factors, including labour, credit, and land, is the key rationale in the policy design of the Chongqing pilot. Under this policy design, fiscal capacity has been enhanced significantly, and policy initiatives have been financed with an improved fiscal capacity. At the same time, however, unintended consequences in the Chongqing pilot have been observed, including misallocation of resources and underdevelopment of some dimensions of policy capacity. Institutional reforms might also have been undermined. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Policy Surveillance: A Vital Public Health Practice Comes of Age.

Governments use statutes, regulations, and policies, often in innovative ways, to promote health and safety. Organizations outside government, from private schools to major corporations, create rules on matters as diverse as tobacco use and paid sick leave. Very little of this activity is systematically tracked. Even as the rest of the health system is working to build, share, and use a wide range of health and social data, legal information largely remains trapped in text files and pdfs, excluded from the universe of usable data. This article makes the case for the practice of policy surveillance to help end the anomalous treatment of law in public health research and practice. Policy surveillance is the systematic, scientific collection and analysis of laws of public health significance. It meets several important needs. Scientific collection and coding of important laws and policies creates data suitable for use in rigorous evaluation studies. Policy surveillance addresses the chronic lack of readily accessible, nonpartisan information about status and trends in health legislation and policy. It provides the opportunity to build policy capacity in the public health workforce. We trace its emergence over the past fifty years, show its value, and identify major challenges ahead.

Policy capacity in oceans governance: Rio+20 and Australia’s outcomes

ABSTRACTOceans were a key theme of the Rio+20 Conference in 2012 and the importance of conservation and sustainable use of the oceans was reinforced by the UN member states. This paper examines Australia’s policy capacity to develop and implement oceans policies in the context of its history of responses to key commitments to international forums, such as United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development and the World Summit on Sustainable Development. Our analysis highlights that governments such as Australia are now consciously making policies in oceans governance that they know they have the capacity to deliver. We conclude that Australian oceans governance has been constrained by this tendency towards focusing on relatively ‘safe’ areas of policy development, and that deeper more radical engagement is needed in order to build policy capacity so that Australia again becomes globally recognised as a leading nation in policy innovation in oceans governance.

Monitoring HIV and AIDS Related Policy Reforms: A Road Map to Strengthen Policy Monitoring and Implementation in PEPFAR Partner Countries.

Achieving an AIDS-free generation will require the adoption and implementation of critical health policy reforms. However, countries with high HIV burden often have low policy development, advocacy, and monitoring capacity. This lack of capacity may be a significant barrier to achieving the AIDS-free generation goals. This manuscript describes the increased focus on policy development and implementation by the United States President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). It evaluates the curriculum and learning modalities used for two regional policy capacity building workshops organized around the PEPFAR Partnership Framework agreements and the Road Map for Monitoring and Implementing Policy Reforms. A total of 64 participants representing the U.S. Government, partner country governments, and civil society organizations attended the workshops. On average, participants responded that their policy monitoring skills improved and that they felt they were better prepared to monitor policy reforms three months after the workshop. When followed-up regarding utilization of the Road Map action plan, responses were mixed. Reasons cited for not making progress included an inability to meet or a lack of time, personnel, or governmental support. This lack of progress may point to a need for building policy monitoring systems in high HIV burden countries. Because the success of policy reforms cannot be measured by the mere adoption of written policy documents, monitoring the implementation of policy reforms and evaluating their public health impact is essential. In many high HIV burden countries, policy development and monitoring capacity remains weak. This lack of capacity could hinder efforts to achieve the ambitious AIDS-free generation treatment, care and prevention goals. The Road Map appears to be a useful tool for strengthening these critical capacities.

Can learning sets help policy managers with their wicked problems?

This paper reports on an evaluation of a national action learning set for health policy managers from three Australian state/territory health authorities, conducted during 2010–2011. We collected and analysed qualitative data about the major problems the participants encountered in their work, their experiences of the learning set and their perceptions of the outcomes. The predominant concerns of participants were ‘wicked problems’ in four areas: managing the environment, managing the policy process, managing the self and managing the policy team. Participants reported that the learning set had assisted them to gain greater awareness of and ability to navigate their environment, developed their judgement, strategic and problem-solving skills, contributed to empowerment and self-efficacy, and assisted them in providing support for their staff and building capacity in their organisation. Aspects of the method that contributed to learning included engaging with problems experienced by other members and discussing one’s own problems and strategies; and gaining new insight into ways of framing, analysing and responding to problems. The findings suggest that learning sets can be a powerful method for building policy capacity amongst middle-senior policy managers.

Key determinants of willingness to support policy measures on recycling: A case study in Hong Kong

Abstract Over the past three decades, the municipal solid waste in Hong Kong had increased by nearly 80% while the population growth was merely 36%. This indicated that the people in Hong Kong were producing waste at an alarming rate. This problem should be addressed systematically. Recycling had been considered as one of the major strategies in the waste management framework both in Hong Kong and across the globe. Hong Kong people have become more outspoken about their demands and asked for higher degree of participation in policymaking since the change of sovereignty in 1997. Therefore, policy makers should understand the determinants of policy support for recycling so as to address the environmental concerns and the rising sentiments of people in policy participation. Previous studies had identified key factors influencing people's willingness to support policy measures in various policy domains. Nevertheless, there is no comprehensive list of well-established constructs in predicting policy support on recycling and little is known about the key psychological determinants in predicting people's support for different policy tools. To research this issue that has parallels in other countries, a model is developed and tested in this study with a sample of 246 people in Hong Kong. The results showed that support for inducement policy measures is influenced by attitude, past behaviour and perceived policy effectiveness, while support for capacity-building policy measures is influenced by external influences and perceived benefits.

Unpacking "Health Reform" and "Policy Capacity": Comment on "Health Reform Requires Policy Capacity".

Health reform is the outcome of dispersed policy initiatives in different sectors, at different levels and across time. Policy work which can drive coherent health reform needs to operate across the governance structures as well as the institutions that comprise healthcare systems. Building policy capacity to support health reform calls for clarity regarding the nature of such policy work and the elements of policy capacity involved; and for evidence regarding effective strategies for capacity building.

Evolution of Science and Technology Policy in Korea

This paper provides an overview of the key policy instruments and capacity building policy tools used in each development phase of science and technology in Korea. In the 1960s and ’70s, the Korean government built an institutional foundation for the development of science and technology. In the later part of the ’60s, the Ministry of Science and Technology and the governmentfunded research institute became key organizations to implementation of policies intended to foster the advance of science and technology in Korea. The Korean government also focused on learning about and absorbing foreign technologies by licensing and by importing capital goods. From 1980 to 1997, the Korean government shifted its policy direction from technology learning to developing by its own scientific and technological capacity in high-technology sectors, which requires an indigenous R&D capability. It launched large-scale R&D programs that targeted certain fields to close what was a large gap between advanced countries and Korea. Korea became a fast follower, making a massive investment in certain fields, such as the semiconductor, electronics, steel and chemical industries. In the late 1990s, the Korean government developed a plan to build a national science and technology innovation system. Although the relevant infrastructures had been in place for 40 years and an R&D capability for innovation was in the works, those were not perceived to be systematically working together, which is crucial for sustainable innovation. The government response to this problem was to design a policy that tried to systemize the whole process of science and technology innovation.

Building policy capacity at the Ukrainian centre: The policy units project

AbstractThis article chronicles a CIDA technical assistance project to build central policy capacity in the Government of Ukraine in 2000–01. Over ten months, 48 senior officials received intensive policy training and worked in policy units on priority issues. Evidence suggests that the project was effective at the individual and institutional levels: participants expressed high satisfaction with their learning; some outputs were immediately adopted by the government; and during 2005–11, without further Canadian support, the government used the project template to develop more policy analysis units. This success stands in contrast to recent accounts of failed technical assistance programs in eastern Europe. Critical success factors were shared vision, Ukrainian ownership and direction, and professionalism. The authors call for rigorous evaluation of human resource development, and identify topics for further research.

A research agenda for helminth diseases of humans: health research and capacity building in disease-endemic countries for helminthiases control.

Capacity building in health research generally, and helminthiasis research particularly, is pivotal to the implementation of the research and development agenda for the control and elimination of human helminthiases that has been proposed thematically in the preceding reviews of this collection. Since helminth infections affect human populations particularly in marginalised and low-income regions of the world, they belong to the group of poverty-related infectious diseases, and their alleviation through research, policy, and practice is a sine qua non condition for the achievement of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. Current efforts supporting research capacity building specifically for the control of helminthiases have been devised and funded, almost in their entirety, by international donor agencies, major funding bodies, and academic institutions from the developed world, contributing to the creation of (not always equitable) North–South “partnerships”. There is an urgent need to shift this paradigm in disease-endemic countries (DECs) by refocusing political will, and harnessing unshakeable commitment by the countries' governments, towards health research and capacity building policies to ensure long-term investment in combating and sustaining the control and eventual elimination of infectious diseases of poverty. The Disease Reference Group on Helminth Infections (DRG4), established in 2009 by the Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases (TDR), was given the mandate to review helminthiases research and identify research priorities and gaps. This paper discusses the challenges confronting capacity building for parasitic disease research in DECs, describes current capacity building strategies with particular reference to neglected tropical diseases and human helminthiases, and outlines recommendations to redress the balance of alliances and partnerships for health research between the developed countries of the “North” and the developing countries of the “South”. We argue that investing in South–South collaborative research policies and capacity is as important as their North–South counterparts and is essential for scaled-up and improved control of helminthic diseases and ultimately for regional elimination.

Negotiating Tensions in Developing Organizational Policy Capacity: Comparative Lessons to be Drawn

This article explores how organizational policy capacity can be developed, drawing on a study conducted in a large human services agency in Australia. Building policy capacity within government agencies is widely acknowledged as important for successfully responding to complex policy problems. The existing literature suggests a range of strategies for building organizational capacity. Findings from interviews with policy workers support the principles for building policy capacity identified in the literature but uncovered a surprising degree of scepticism pointing to significant barriers to their realization. These barriers are identified as emerging out of the tensions between policy capacity and two other domains of governing capacity: administrative capacity and state capacity. These tensions however are highly contingent and dynamic; managing them requires a degree of discretion and judgement, in brief, policy leadership. A focus on developing policy leadership at the level of policy units and teams may present a strategic approach to building organizational capacity for policy work.