Equitable Resource Allocation Research Articles

Integrated multi-agency framework: sustainable water management

Equitable allocation of groundwater resources is a growing challenge due to increasing demand for water and the competing triple bottom line values placed on its use. Sustainable management of water resources comes with compromises and trade-offs of the other subsystems such as the environment and economic and social dimensions and almost ignores stakeholders' objectives and benefits. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the hypothesis that ‘through a multi-agency approach and management, a comprehensive multi-agency framework (MAF) can promote optimal, sustainable and equitable development and use of water resources for present and future generations'. The framework has been successfully demonstrated in a case study at the Gnangara mound groundwater system in Western Australia and showed what can be achieved with supporting tools such as a decision support system (DSS) to facilitate and support the MAF during trade-off analysis. Without a MAF, the potential for more conflict between agencies' objectives and actions increases. A MAF and DSS allow thorough understanding of the triple bottom line impacts, ease the selection of preferred options and result in better public involvement and investment.

Local Politics, Political Institutions, and Public Resource Allocation

This article examines how political institutions and local power structures interact with and influence local public resource allocation in the Indian state of Karnataka. We use data from 80 village councils and 225 villages to examine how this local political economy influences the allocation of public resources. Our empirical strategy exploits a unique policy of political representation in Karnataka that mandates representation, or reserves seats, in local governments for both historically disadvantaged groups and politically dominant groups. These policy-induced differences in the caste composition of these village councils therefore allow us to examine whether and how the form of such local politics distorts local public resource allocation. Representation in village councils is a nonlinear function of the demographic shares of these groups. Controlling for the latter allows us to identify the role of local power structures through the effect of social identities and the associated relative bargaining powers of different caste groups. We find that the design of political institutions matters to resource allocation. Although a formula-bound allocation of fiscal grants to the village councils was successfully implemented, the within-council allocation governed by a voting process reveals severe targeting failures. Importantly, we find that these targeting failures reflect elements of elite capture. Villages represented by politicians belonging to the historically disadvantaged groups get fewer fiscal resources. We also find evidence that villages represented by the politically dominant castes are likely to get more resources. Taken together, these results suggest that the capture of decentralized institutions by the local elite skews public resource allocation. The results also suggest that the use of a formula might lead to a more equitable intervillage allocation of public resources.

Integrating evidence into policy and sustainable disability services delivery in western New South Wales, Australia: the 'wobbly hub and double spokes' project

BackgroundPolicy that supports rural allied health service delivery is important given the shortage of services outside of Australian metropolitan centres. The shortage of allied health professionals means that rural clinicians work long hours and have little peer or service support. Service delivery to rural and remote communities is further complicated because relatively small numbers of clients are dispersed over large geographic areas. The aim of this five-year multi-stage project is to generate evidence to confirm and develop evidence-based policies and to evaluate their implementation in procedures that allow a regional allied health workforce to more expeditiously respond to disability service need in regional New South Wales, Australia.Methods/DesignThe project consists of four inter-related stages that together constitute a full policy cycle. It uses mixed quantitative and qualitative methods, guided by key policy concerns such as: access, complexity, cost, distribution of benefits, timeliness, effectiveness, equity, policy consistency, and community and political acceptability.Stage 1 adopts a policy analysis approach in which existing relevant policies and related documentation will be collected and reviewed. Policy-makers and senior managers within the region and in central offices will be interviewed about issues that influence policy development and implementation.Stage 2 uses a mixed methods approach to collecting information from allied health professionals, clients, and carers. Focus groups and interviews will explore issues related to providing and receiving allied health services. Discrete Choice Experiments will elicit staff and client/carer preferences.Stage 3 synthesises Stage 1 and 2 findings with reference to the key policy issues to develop and implement policies and procedures to establish several innovative regional workforce and service provision projects.Stage 4 uses mixed methods to monitor and evaluate the implementation and impact of new or adapted policies that arise from the preceding stages.DiscussionThe project will provide policy makers with research evidence to support consideration of the complex balance between: (i) the equitable allocation of scarce resources; (ii) the intent of current eligibility and prioritisation policies; (iii) workforce constraints (and strengths); and (iv) the most effective, evidence-based clinical practice.

Sea-Level Rise and Storm Surges

As the climate changes during the 21st century, larger cyclonic storm surges and growing populations may collide in disasters of unprecedented size. As conditions worsen, variations in coastal morphology will magnify the effects in some areas, while largely insulating others. In this article, we explore the implications for 31 developing countries and 393 of their cyclone-vulnerable coastal cities with populations greater than 100,000. Combining the most recent scientific and demographic information, we estimate the future impact of climate change on storm surges that will strike coastal populations, economies, and ecosystems. We focus on the distribution of heightened impacts, because we believe that greater knowledge of their probable variation will be useful for local and national planners, as well as international donors. Our results suggest gross inequality in the heightened impact of future disasters, with 50% of the burden falling on the residents of 10 Asian cities and over 40% falling on Manila, Karachi, and Jakarta alone. In light of these huge asymmetries, we believe that careful targeting of international assistance will be essential for the effective and equitable allocation of resources for coastal protection and disaster prevention.

Who should receive recruitment and retention incentives? Improved targeting of rural doctors using medical workforce data

The objective of this study was to define an improved classification for allocating incentives to support the recruitment and retention of doctors in rural Australia. Geo-coded data (n = 3636 general practitioners (GPs)) from the national Medicine in Australia: Balancing Employment and Life study were used to examine statistical variation in four professional indicators (total hours worked, public hospital work, on call after-hours and difficulty taking time off) and two non-professional indicators (partner employment and schooling opportunities) which are all known to be related to difficulties with recruitment and retention. The main outcome measure used for the study was an association of six sentinel indicators for GPs with practice location and population size of community. Four distinct homogeneous population size groups were identified (0-5000, 5001-15,000, 15,001-50,000 and >50,000). Although geographical remoteness (measured using the Australian Standard Geographical Classification-Remoteness Areas (ASGC-RA)) was statistically associated with all six indicators (P < 0.001), population size provided a more sensitive measure in directing where recruitment and retention incentives should be provided. A new six-level rurality classification is proposed, based on a combination of four population size groups and the five ASGC-RA levels. A significant increase in statistical association is measured in four of six indicators (and a slight increase in one indicator) using the new six-level classification versus the existing ASGC-RA classification. This new six-level geographical classification provides a better basis for equitable resource allocation of recruitment and retention incentives to doctors based on the attractiveness of non-metropolitan communities, both professionally and non-professionally, as places to work and live.

Cross-boundary environmental effects of urban household metabolism based on an urban spatial conceptual framework: a comparative case of Xiamen

The cross-boundary environmental effects of urban household metabolism are of increasing interest in the context of global climate change and the sustainability of urban systems. To assess resource exchanges and environmental emissions, urban household metabolism was investigated using an ‘emergy synthesis framework’, with the city of Xiamen providing case study data. Two data sets, one from the highly urbanized Xiamen Island (XI) and the other from the less urbanized Xiamen Mainland (XM), were collected and analyzed using an ‘urban spatial conceptual framework’. Household consumption and its spatial environmental effects are embodied by exchanges of resources, energy, services, and wastes between the urban system's physical footprint (‘Urban Sprawl Region’, USR), and its ecological footprint (‘Urban Footprint Region’, UFR). The results show that Xiamen's USR is connected to its UFRs by approximately 98.74% emergy flows. The distinct emergy indicators identified within the results show that the driving forces, processes, influences, efficiency and sustainability of household metabolism vary dramatically between XI and XM, demonstrating that different urban and social contexts significantly affect household metabolism. The Emergy Sustainability Index reveals that USR households need to make lifestyles changes to sustain development. The employed frameworks (urban spatial conceptual framework and emergy synthesis framework) enable the computation of household consumption and cross-boundary environmental effects. The results may help foster alternative household consumption strategies which could result in more equitable resource allocation and effective mitigation of cross-boundary environmental influences.

About this title ‐ Military Aspects of Hydrogeology

This book, generated under the auspices of the Geological Society of London's History of Geology and Hydrogeological Groups, contains 20 papers from authors in the UK, USA, Germany and Austria. Historically, it gives examples of the influence of groundwater on battlefield tactics and fortress construction; describes how groundwater was developed for water supply and overcome as an obstacle to military engineering and cross-country vehicular movement by both sides in World Wars I and II; and culminates with examples of the application of hydrogeology to site boreholes in recent conflicts, notably in Afghanistan. Examples of current research described include hydrological model development; the impact of variations in soil moisture on explosive threat detection and cross-country vehicle mobility; contamination arising from defence sites and its remediation; privatization of water supplies; and the equitable allocation of resources derived from an international transboundary aquifer.

Progress in coupling models of human and coastal landscape change

Humans are increasingly altering the Earth's surface, and affecting processes that shape and reshape landscapes. In many cases, humans are reacting to landscape-change processes that represent natural hazards. Thus, the landscape is reacting to humans who are reacting to the landscape. When the timescales for landscape change are comparable to those of human dynamics, human and ‘natural’ components of developed environments are dynamically coupled—necessitating coupling models of human and physical/biological processes to study either environmental change or human responses. Here we focus on a case study coupling models of coastal economics and physical coastline change. In this modeling, coastline change results from patterns of wave-driven sediment transport and sea-level rise, and shoreline stabilization decisions are based on the benefits of wide beaches (capitalized into property values) balanced against the costs of stabilization. This interdisciplinary modeling highlights points that may apply to other coupled human/natural systems. First, climate change, by accelerating the rates of landscape change, tends to strengthen the coupling with human dynamics. In our case study, both increasing sea-level-rise rates and changing storm patterns tend to increase shoreline change rates, which can induce more vigorous shoreline stabilization efforts. However, property values can fall dramatically as erosion rates and stabilization costs rise, which can also lead to the abandonment of expensive stabilization methods as shoreline change rates increase. Second, socio-economic change can also strengthen the human/landscape coupling. Changing costs of shoreline stabilization can alter stabilization decisions, which in turn alters patterns of coastline change. The coupled modeling illuminates the long-range effects of localized shoreline stabilization efforts; communities arrayed along a coastline are unwittingly affecting each other's erosion rates, and therefore each other's economies. Our coupled modeling experiments show that spatial distributions of property values and erosion rates can jointly affect economic outcomes, resource allocation between communities, and patterns of shoreline change. These findings raise questions about coastal management strategies, and efficient and equitable allocation of scarce resources among coastal communities.

Integrating noncommunicable disease prevention into maternal and child health programs: Can it be done and what will it take?

Noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) are the leading cause of mortality worldwide. However, these diseases have not been adequately addressed by health systems, especially in low-resource countries. Similarly, there is no equitable allocation of global resources for health commensurate with the burden of diseases occasioned by NCDs. This has resulted in poor access to care for women, girls, and other vulnerable groups affected by NCDs. Owing to their position in most societies, women lack control over resources and, hence, cannot afford quality care to treat NCDs. Women also face sociocultural, geographic, and economic barriers to access to care. They are less recognized and catered for in terms of accessibility, comprehensiveness, and responsiveness of healthcare systems. Considering that NCDs affect women more than the general population, tackling them as part of an integrated program for women's health will improve the coverage of the most vulnerable groups. This paper describes how NCD prevention and control could be integrated into maternal and child health programs to improve access to NCD services. It presents the effectiveness, benefits, and challenges of this approach when applied at the primary healthcare level.

Neurotrauma and the rule of rescue

The rule of rescue describes the powerful human proclivity to rescue identified endangered lives, regardless of cost or risk. Deciding whether or not to perform a decompressive craniectomy as a...

Application of a revised Water Poverty Index to target the water poor

The Water Poverty Index (WPI) has been recognized as a useful tool in policy analysis. The index integrates various physical, social and environmental aspects to enable more holistic assessment of water resources. However, soundness of this tool relies on two complementary aspects: (i) inadequate techniques employed in index construction would produce unreliable results, and (ii) poor dissemination of final outcome would reduce applicability of the index to influence policy-making. From a methodological point of view, a revised alternative to calculate the index was developed in a previous study. This paper is therefore concerned not with the method employed in index construction, but with how the composite can be applied to support decision-making processes. In particular, the paper examines different approaches to exploit the index as a policy tool. A number of alternatives to disseminate achieved results are presented. The implications of applying the composite at different spatial scales are highlighted. Turkana District, in Kenya has been selected as initial case study to test the applicability and validity of the index. The paper concludes that the WPI approach provides a relevant tool for guiding appropriate action and policy-making towards more equitable allocation of water resources.

DEWATS Capacity Building for Primary Schools in Jordan and Palestine

Capacity building for Decentralised Wastewater Treatment Solutions (DEWATS) can play a significant role in the alleviation of water constraints in Jordan and Palestine. The paper summarises practical experience with a pilot teaching unit for primary schools based on demonstration technology and capacity building in the field of DEWATS. The training programme has the goal of raising public awareness and understanding of water issues, and gives pupils the opportunity to conduct experiments in water/wastewater analysis and build wastewater filters and construct wetlands models. This training encourages reflection about wastewater components and shows the participants the advantages of wastewater treatment and the potential for reusing wastewater in decentralised systems. Additionally, the experiments help students understand wastewater as a resource, especially in MENA (Middle East and North Africa) regions with water shortages. The students build a constructed wetland model, which helps them to view constructed wetlands treatment systems as a modern and ecological treatment technology that blends in well with the environment and can provide solutions for wastewater treatment and irrigation purposes. The paper aims to assess the results of a pilot training project conducted in primary schools during November 2008 in Ramallah, Palestine, and April 2009 in Al-Salt, Jordan. In addition, the paper looks at the essential challenges involved in developing the programme on a national scale in Jordan and Palestine, incorporating it into the official curriculum, and evaluating its local impact with the overall aim of more effective and equitable use and allocation of water resources.

Community Cohesion and Social Inclusion

In a global context of an emphasis on identity politics and a ‘cultural turn’ in social analysis, deep concern has been expressed about multiethnic Britain becoming a broken society with many ‘sleepwalking’ into segregation and separatism. Given the close correspondence between areas of acute ethnic segregation and those of multiple deprivation, intercommunal tensions have included disputes about the equitable allocation of scarce urban resources across ethnicity. This creates the possibility that urban programmes may inadvertently accentuate intercommunal tension and confound efforts to synchronise cohesion and inclusion agendas. Following recent debates about the implications of increased diversity, influenced by arguments that multiculturalism has encouraged ‘parallel lives’, an emergent policy framework emphasises more proactive integration to promote ‘common belonging’. Criticism of this agenda includes its confusion between community and social cohesion, and its disproportionate focus on cultural aspects such as identity formation and recognition, relative to structural issues of income and class. In exploring this contested terrain in Britain, the article suggests that the longer-term debate about segregation, deprivation and community differentials in Northern Ireland can offer useful insight for Britain’s policy discourse.

Scheduling with package auctions

In scientific collaborations, technologies have broadened access to scarce scientific and engineering resources. While broader access is often applauded, little attention has been focused on the problem of efficient and equitable resource allocation. This paper presents laboratory experiments designed to compare different allocation mechanisms for access to joint research facilities. Specifically, we study the Vickrey-Clarke-Groves (VCG) auction, a simultaneous ascending auction (the Resource Allocation Design, RAD), and a mechanism based on submitted rankings (Knapsack). Experimental results show that RAD and VCG are both more efficient than Knapsack, while Knapsack achieves a more equal distribution of resources than RAD or VCG. The findings highlight the need for systematic exploration of allocation mechanisms within collaboratories.

Paradoxes of Nationhood: Despondency and Belief in Tanure Ojaide’s Delta Blues and "Home Songs"

It is an incontrovertible fact that the Nigerian nation depends, in fact, survives on the wealth of the oil-rich Niger Delta. The intriguing paradox however, is that this most productive region is the least developed, as its wealth is used to develop the rest of the federation. This is the reason for the unrest in the region which has taken worrisome dimensions in recent times. The poetry of Tanure Ojaide, and indeed most poets from the region, is a reaction to this situation which they see as not only grossly unfair, but also patently aggressive. Delta Blues and Home Songs is Ojaide’s reaction to the killing of Ken Saro-Wiwa, a poet and martyred campaigner for a more equitable allocation of national resources. This paper shows how Ojaide balances acerbic criticism of a cannibalistic and cabalistic national leadership, with a patriotic belief in the corporate existence of this same nation. The paper shows that the poet’s interrogation of the Nigerian situation is his way of expressing his desire for the continued existence of his fatherland which he sees as capable of greater accomplishments.

Democracy and good governance: Nigerias dilemma

Despite its enormous resources and huge potentialities, Nigeria remains grossly undeveloped. Consequently, political instability, abject poverty, acute youth unemployment, heightened crime rate, poor health prospects and widespread malnourishment have been the main features of Nigeria’s political economy. The development tragedy in Nigeria fits into the trends of political instability for which Africa has become infamous for in the past three decades. This further lends credence to the arguments by some students of African politics that governance is one of the major problems in Africa. This paper argues that the problem of development in Nigeria is a problem of governance; when defined in term of the proper, fair and equitable allocation of resources for the achievement of the end or purposes of the state, which is the promotion of the common good. The paper submits that for good governance to be feasible in Nigeria, sound anti-corruption policies devoid of mere speeches must be put in place. Furthermore, the paper recommends a functional legislature, a viable and independent judiciary, and the attitudinal transformation on the part of the political elite, the absence of which good governance and development will continue to be a mirage. Key words: Corruption, instability, underdevelopment, democracy, good governance.

Optimal resource allocation among transit agencies for fleet management

Most transit agencies require government support for the replacement of their aging fleet. A procedure for equitable resource allocation among competing transit agencies for the purpose of transit fleet management is presented in this study. The proposed procedure is a 3-dimensional model that includes the choice of a fleet improvement program, agencies that may receive them, and the timing of investments. Earlier efforts to solve this problem involved the application of 1- or 2-dimensional models for each year of the planning period. These may have resulted in suboptimal solution as the models are blind to the impact of the fleet management program of the subsequent years. Therefore, a new model to address a long-term planning horizon is proposed. The model is formulated as a non-linear optimization problem of maximizing the total weighted average remaining life of the fleet subjected to improvement program and budgetary constraints. Two variants of the problem, one with an annual budget constraint and the other with a single budget constraint for the entire planning period, are formulated. Two independent approaches, namely, branch and bound algorithm and genetic algorithm are used to obtain the solution. An example problem is solved and results are discussed in details. Finally, the model is applied to a large scale real-world problem and a detailed analysis of the results is presented.

A new model for equitable and efficient resource allocation to schools: the Israeli case

This paper sets out a new budget allocation formula for schools, designed to achieve a more equitable distribution of educational achievement. In addition to needs-based elements, the suggested composite allocation formula includes an improvement component, whereby schools receive budgetary allocations based on a new incentive measure developed in this paper: Improvement in the Educational Achievement Distribution. The development of the budget allocation formula is demonstrated utilizing Israeli data. Large-scale, nationwide datasets relating students’ academic achievement to student background variables, teacher profiles, and school characteristics were analyzed to identify appropriate needs-based formula components and to estimate their weights. The results are compared with the funding formulas currently used in Israel.

An Evaluation of the Economic Approaches Used by Policy Actors towards Investment in Place‐Based Partnerships in Victoria

Place‐based partnerships are supported by the state and include various organisations and interests within particular geographic areas. The Victorian government has established place‐based partnerships to plan and coordinate resource allocation decisions to meet objectives such as economic development and social inclusion. In the literature there are positive and negative views of these partnerships. One view is that they allow regions to build competitive advantage, while another is that they are a means of pursuing a neoliberal policy agenda that seeks to reduce government protection and investment. We help clarify the tensions between positive and negative views of partnerships by examining the economic approaches used by policy actors toward place‐based partnerships in Victoria. We find that policy actors combine neoclassical and institutionalist approaches to argue that partnerships generate networks that enable more efficient and equitable resource allocation within places.

Costs of vaginal delivery and Caesarean section at a tertiary level public hospital in Islamabad, Pakistan

BackgroundPublic hospitals in developing countries, rather than the preventive and primary healthcare sectors, are the major consumers of healthcare resources. Imbalances in rational, equitable and efficient allocation of scarce resources lie in the scarcity of research & information on economic aspects of health care. The objective of this study was to determine the average cost of a spontaneous vaginal delivery and Caesarean section in a tertiary level government hospital in Islamabad, Pakistan and to estimate the out of pocket expenditures to households using these services.MethodsThis hospital based cost accounting cross sectional study determines the average cost of vaginal delivery and Caesarean section from two perspectives, the patient's and the hospital. From the patient's perspective direct and indirect expenditures of 133 post-partum mothers (65 delivered by Caesarean section & 68 by spontaneous vaginal delivery) admitted in the maternity general ward were determined. From the hospital perspective the step down methodology was adopted, capital and recurrent costs were determined from inputs and cost centers.ResultsThe average cost for a spontaneous vaginal delivery from the hospital's side was 40 US$ (2688 rupees) and from the patient's perspective was 79 US$ (5278 rupees). The average cost for a Caesarean section from the hospital side was 162 US$ (10868 rupees) and 204 US$ (13678 rupees) from the patient's side. Average monthly household income was 141 ± 87 US$ for spontaneous vaginal delivery and 168 ± 97 US$ for Caesarean section. Three fourth (74%) of households had a monthly income of less than 149 US$ (10000 rupees).ConclusionThe apparently "free" maternity care at government hospitals involves substantial hidden and unpredicted costs. The anticipated fear of these unpredicted costs may be major factor for many poor households to seek cheaper alternate maternity healthcare.