National Policy Instruments Research Articles

Towards Improved Policy and Institutional Coherence in the Promotion of Sustainable Biofuels in Mali

AbstractInterest in the promotion of biofuel investments to mediate the energy crisis and assist rural development is growing across sub‐Saharan Africa. However, empirical evidence on how policy can effectively promote sustainable biofuels is largely lacking. This paper presents new, multi‐level assessments of the implications of the Malian Strategy for Biofuels Development for the promotion of the oil‐bearing, non‐edible tree Jatropha curcas (Jatropha) as a sustainable development tool in Mali: a sub‐Saharan African country that has led Jatropha‐derived biofuel policy initiatives. In doing so, the paper addresses knowledge gaps on the role of national policy instruments in the uptake of biofuel activities. Semi‐structured interviews were undertaken with government departments, international organizations, private sector representatives, non‐governmental organizations and farming communities. Data show that mainstreaming internationally agreed principles into national policies is key to attract monetary, institutional and technical support from international organizations and donors. However, there are gaps between policy targets, actual yields and land cover. Jatropha oil supplies remain insufficient for improving access to fuel and substituting national consumption. Ambitious land cover targets set within national policies could risk land use shifts away from food towards biofuel production. Improved cooperation and coordination among state departments, enhanced monitoring of programmes and projects, as well as the establishment of adequate regulatory and fiscal frameworks governing private biofuel investments are needed to achieve sustainable outcomes. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment

International Financial Institutions (IFIs) and Sovereign Wealth Funds SWFs, Internal Improvement and the Socialization of Developing States

Especially since the start of the second decade of the twenty-first century, once more we have seen more focused interest in the use of SWFs by home states — less as a means of projecting sovereign financial power outwards and more as a means of internal financial management, and development. What makes this interesting from the perspective of SWF development is the role of international financial institutions (IFIs) in SWF development. This article takes a first look at the way in which IFIs have also begun to use SWFs in their interactions, with a emphasis on developing states. A review of some recent efforts to establish SWFs with a stabilization or development focus suggests the way in which these funds now may better serve the project of fiscal and governance internationalization, and the development of global policy coherence around the fiscal ideologies of IFIs, rather than as an instrument of national policy. Part II briefly sketches the IFI’s interest in and approach to SWFs as a part of their investment, capacity building and rule of law toolkits. Part III then reviews the manifestation of this approach in the development of SWFs in a number of developing states. The article suggests ways in which stabilization and development SWFs may better serve financial globalization than the particular interest of states establishing them precisely by transposing global standards of fiscal and governance behavior into the internal workings of states. In this sense, development and stabilization SWFs serve as an instrument of globalization from the top down (through IFI policy operationalization) perhaps as effectively as SWFs that seek to project national financial power through private market investments abroad. But it also creates the possibility of divergence in SWF character as the consequences of the use of SWFs as governance devices may produce substantial deviation from the traditional organizational parameters of SWFs as instruments of macroeconomic policy.

Területfejlesztési vagy iparpolitika? A francia versenyképességi pólus program tapasztalatai

A tanulmány felvázolja a területfejlesztési, a verseny- és az iparpolitika metszetében elhelyezkedő francia versenyképességi pólusok kialakulásának előzményeit, elméleti hátterét, és az alig egy évtizedes múltra visszatekintő gyakorlati tapasztalatok összegzésére vállalkozik. A versenyképességi pólusok az innovációs szereplők hálózatos kapcsolataira épülnek, fejlődésüket a szereplők közötti együttműködés minősége alakítja. Miközben a teljesítményszemléletű politikák a legdinamikusabban fejlődő régiókra összpontosítanak az ország európai és globális pozícióját szem előtt tartva és a pólusok esetében is a legígéretesebb csúcstechnológiai ágazatok támogatását szorgalmazzák, a közel fél évszázados múltú kiegyenlítő területfejlesztési politikák céljai a pólusok nagy számával és a hagyományos ágazatok támogatásával realizálódnak. A kettős célkitűzés egyidejűleg a pólusprogram esetében is nehezen teljesíthető, de mindmáig jelen van az ország jövőjét meghatározó területpolitikai vitákban.

The public health impacts of climate change in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

Projected climatic changes for the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia for the period 2025–2100 will be most intense in the warmest period of the year with more frequent and more intense heat-waves, droughts and flood events compared with the period 1961–1990. The country has examined their vulnerabilities to climate change and many public health impacts have been projected. A variety of qualitative and quantitative methodologies were used in the assessment: literature reviews, interviews, focus groups, time series and regression analysis, damage and adaptation cost estimation, and scenario-based assessment. Policies and interventions to minimize the risks and development of long-term adaptation strategies have been explored. The generation of a robust evidence base and the development of stakeholder engagement have been used to support the development of an adaptation strategy and to promote adaptive capacity by improving the resilience of public health systems to climate change. Climate change adaptation has been established as a priority within existing national policy instruments. The lessons learnt from the process are applicable to countries considering how best to improve adaptive capacity and resilience of health systems to climate variability and its associated impacts.

Assembling national biofuel development in the European Union – a comparison of Finland and Sweden

The author analyses the state powers steering biofuel development in two European Union (EU) Member States: Finland and Sweden. The different biofuel developments of these countries are approached through the concept of assemblages, which allows analysis of how the spatiality of national development is constituted in relation to the increasingly global development of biofuels. The approach illustrates how national policies implemented by Finland and Sweden are multiscaled in their origins and mediated by the agents of these assemblages. Materials in the study consist of EU and national policy documents, and 16 interviews from the key biofuel agents in Finland and Sweden. The author explains the differentiation of national biofuel assemblages through their distinguishing topologies, advocacy groups, and the properties of national policy instruments. The results demonstrate how Finnish and Swedish policies have influenced national biofuel developments. The EU's biofuel policies have diverging impacts nationally as they are translated into the specific patterns of biofuel production, consumption, and trade. Consequently, the agents of biofuel assemblages affect the transference of biofuel policies that originate from multiple scales into the national policy frameworks of the Member States.

Partisipasi Politik Masyarakat Difabel dalam Pembentukan Kebijakan Pendidikan Tinggi Inklusif

Inclusive education is an educational syem that accessible for everybody in any condition. In this case, the focus of inclusive education is for people with disabilities. People with any disability have the same right to acquire formal education. Until now, inclusive education is implemented in the elementary and middle school level, so higher education inclusive paradigm still needs to get more attention.Inclusive higher education is a continuity of inclusive education in the elementary and middle school level. In a formal sense, inclusive education in college has not gotten the policy that affirm the implementation of inclusive education in the college level. Therefore, people with disabilities and disabled-people activits, either from academic or non-academic settings, need to undertake the political efforts to toward policy makers for making policy about implementation of inclusive education in the college nationally. Community’s efforts to influence government decision-making is called political participation. Political participation is a form of community involvement to influence the policy-making process. In this case, the public policy form is called (regeling), which is the result of cooperation betwwen the local government and the local parliament and so president and parliament.In the context of democracy, people with disabilities is one of the people who are the actors in policy making. Participation of the population occurs not only in the electoral process, but also other places. It means that people with disabilities who certainly have interests, which interests will only be actulized if they are involved in political participation. Those which are strategic to realize is related with inclusive higher education by national policy instrument (UU). With the national policy, the rights of people with disability can be guaranted and protected to access the college.

Government programs for supporting and protecting young consumers: Instruments of food policy in Romania

In recent years, a number of preoccupations at the global, regional and national level have been aimed to find solutions to the current problems in the field of food consumption in children and young people, given the fact that both food insufficiency and food abuse generate negative effects on health. In Romania, the economic context consisting of the existence of a large number of children whose diet is insufficient made European programs for granting food in schools, during class hours, to be useful and to have social relevance. The article examines, starting from the Romanian legislative framework underpinning such programs, the coordinates of these efforts, concluding that they represent in the same time instruments of national food policy.

Custom and Treaties as Interchangeable Instruments of National Policy

As treaties decline, customary international law can be an important mechanism of international cooperation over the medium term. There are increasingly fewer treaties ratified by the United States, with a record-low number of five in 2009–2012, and fewer multilateral treaties adopted worldwide. Yet, the demand for global rules and standards has not abated. Thus, for many international questions where treaties are not available as a source of new rules, customary international law may serve as an interchangeable instrument of national policy.

Os grilhões do patrimônio: reflexões sobre as práticas do Iphan relacionadas aos quilombos

From the change of perspective embodied in the Constitution of 1988, the Institute of Historical and Artistic Heritage (Iphan), responsible for the protection and safeguarding of cultural heritage in Brazil, had to meet the demands arising from the recognition of the assets of reference array of African descent, among those related to quilombolas communities. Thus, the tombamento and, from 2000, the registry, as instruments of national heritage policy for private use Iphan, have been triggered as forms of recognition, protection and safeguard these assets. Within this universe, this article proposes a reflection on how cultural heritage of quilombolas communities have been treated in the field, seeking to identify the conflicts and possibilities in the recognition of collective rights of these communities through cultural heritage policies. Through this reflection, forms of equity merger "unconsecrated" by Iphan and separation of the field of cultural heritage in two distinct areas - tangible and intangible - are problematized.

Globalisation from within? The De-Nationalising of Australian Film and Television Production

Saskia Sassen argues that globalisation is taking place deep inside countries and ‘institutional domains that have largely been constructed in national terms’. This type of globalisation is localised to ‘national’ and ‘subnational’ settings, but is reorienting them towards global agendas and systems. The result is an unremarked de-nationalising of national policy domains, processes, activities and instruments. In this article, we argue that these globalising and de-nationalising processes are radically reshaping contemporary Australian film and TV production, and the terms and policy settings under which it is developed and monetised.

Adapting to changing climate risk by local government in New Zealand: institutional practice barriers and enablers

Adaptation to climate change has been reviewed in several developed nations, but in none where consideration of the effects of climate change is required by statute and devolved to local government. We examine the role of institutional arrangements, the players operating under them, the barriers and enablers for adaptation decision-making in the developed nation of New Zealand. We examine how the roles and responsibilities between national, regional and local governments influence the ability of local government to deliver long-term flexible responses to changing climate risk. We found that the disciplinary practices of law, engineering and planning, within legal frameworks, result in the use of static mechanisms which create inflexible responses to changing risk. Several enablers are identified that could create greater integration between the different scales of government, including better use of national policy instruments, shared professional experience, standardised information collection and risk assessment methods that address uncertainties. The framing of climate risk as dynamic and changing that differentiates activities over their lifetime, development of mechanisms to fund transitions towards transformational change, are identified as necessary conditions for delivering flexible responses over time.

The public health impacts of climate change in Macedonia

The public health impacts of climate change in Macedonia Vladimir Kendrovski1, Margarita Spasenovska2, Maria Kisman2, Allison Thorpe3, Bettina Menne4 1Medical faculty, Skopje, FYR Macedonia 2WHO-CO, Skopje, FYR Macedonia 3Brunel University, London 4WHO, ECEH, Bonn, Germany Background. Scenarios for Macedonia anticipate an average increase of 3.8 °? by 2100, more frequent and more intense heatwaves, droughts and flood events.Climate change adaption has been established as a priority within existing international and national policy instruments. Aims. The aims were to assess the health effects of climate change and to develop a national adaptation strategy and action plan. Methods.A variety of qualitative and quantitative methodologies were used: Literature reviews, interviews, focus group, time series and regression analysis, damage and adaptation cost estimation, scenario based assessment, and stakeholder engagement. The development of a national adaptation strategy followed a public health strategy process developed by the WHO Europe. Results. Climate change poses a significant threat to population health in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. An increase in average monthly temperatures of only 1ºC compared to the period 1996–2000 significantly influences the monthly distribution of total mortality. Climate change-attributed costs of approximately € 2.6 million were calculated. Projected direct health impacts include 5-10% higher salmonellosis notifications for each degree increase in weekly temperature, an increase in pollen distribution in early spring (March), and a change in the presence of vectors. Conclusions. The generation of a robust evidence base, a coordinated and systematic approach to climate change research and the development of robust stakeholder engagement can be used to support the formulation and implementation of sustainable, multisectoral strategies and promote adaptive capacity.

The Relationship between Diplomacy and Military Force: An Example from the Cuban Missile Crisis

Diplomacy and military force mutually support each other as instruments of national policy, functioning better in concert rather than as separate entities. The Cuban Missile Crisis is a useful case study of policymakers utilizing force and diplomacy synergistically. State Department efforts prior to the crisis paved the way for a unified front with Latin American neighbors against the emplacement of Soviet missiles in Cuba. With a backdrop of nuclear threats supporting the more usable capabilities of conventional air strikes, invasion forces, and blockading ships, the American threat of force made a negotiated settlement attractive to the leadership of the Soviet Union. The risks and political damage commensurate with the use of force encouraged the Kennedy administration to pursue a diplomatic solution. Military leaders tended to not consider the political effects of the use of force. President Kennedy understood the interrelationships between force and diplomacy, as did State Department leaders.

Low carbon mobility: Opportunities and challenges for local economic development

The automotive industry continues to face tremendous competitive pressures, an issue brought into sharp focus since the onset of a global economic downturn in 2008. Moreover, the sector finds itself on the cusp of a transformative shift, with commentators and politicians alike suggesting that its only future is one which embraces emergent low carbon technologies (see, for example, HM Government, 2009). This provides both challenges and opportunities with governments globally encouraging the manufacture and adoption of a range of alternatively fuelled vehicles and their supporting infrastructure. This is articulated through support both for manufacturers, to encourage investment in the design and production of electric, hybrid and fuel-cell vehicles and their components, and for public authorities and energy providers to install electric charging points and hydrogen fuel stations. At the same time, incentives to encourage consumer uptake of new vehicle technologies are being used as a demand-side stimulus. The driving forces behind these policies include concerns over CO2 emissions and their contribution to climate change, and the local economic impact of continued migration of volume car production away from established internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicle markets. The effects of these processes could offer significant new economic development opportunities for regions with a strong tradition of automotive manufacturing, especially for automotive supply-chains. Other regions may benefit economically from the development of integrated low carbon infrastructure facilitating the establishment of sustainable transport systems. Such initiatives are being widely encouraged through the confluence of various local, regional, national and supra-national policy measures and instruments. At the same time, a shift to low carbon mobility presents societal challenges. Policy makers need to ensure that the transformative shift already underway does not exclude sections of society less able to afford new technologies entering the market, particularly in the short to medium term when their cost

Securing the public good of health research and development for developing countries

PerspectivesSecuring access to medicines and other health technologies in developing countries continues to be among the major challenges for global health. The challenge lies in ensuring that existing health products are delivered at afford-able prices and that innovations and discoveries meet the health needs of developing countries. This policy prob-lem calls for both global and national policy instruments. When in 2001 the Commission on Macroeconomics and Health categorized diseases as typeI, II and III based on the extent to which they affected countries at different eco-nomic levels, it was alienating for many public health professionals.

Delegitimizing Aggression: First Steps and False Starts after the First World War

The interwar years marked the movement in international law towards the prohibition of aggressive war. Yet a notable feature of the 1920s and 1930s, despite suggestions to the contrary at the Nuremberg and Tokyo tribunals, was the absence of legal milestones marking the advance towards the criminalization of aggression. Lloyd George’s proposal to arraign the ex-Kaiser for starting the First World War came to nothing. Resolutions mentioning the ‘international crime’ of aggression, such as the draft Treaty for Mutual Assistance and the Geneva Protocol, were never ratified. And the Kellogg-Briand Pact, while renouncing war ‘as an instrument of national policy’, made no mention at all of aggression, much less individual responsibility for it. Not until the closing stages of the Second World War, with defeat of the Axis powers within sight, did politicians and jurists reconsider the problem of how to deal with enemy leaders, and contemplate the role that a charge of aggression might play in this process.

Growth Effects of Spatial Redistribution Policies

Regional income disparities have increased in many European countries during the last three decades, even as national and supra-national policy instruments were created to correct them. To explain these evolutions, we develop a two-region, two-sector model with migration and public investment in infrastructure and education. Accumulation and creation of new ideas and technologies are at the core of differential regional growth. Together with regional migration, these forces are also responsible for diverging industrial structures, with the lagging region also falling behind in innovation. In this framework, we assess the effectiveness of structural funds, modelled on the EU policy. In a numerical example calibrated to Portugal, we find that, to diminish the initial gap in income per capita, the backward region needs to receive around 9% of its own GDP in structural funds, while the actual disbursements were around 4%. We also find that maximizing innovation in the backward region conflicts in the short run with the goal of maximizing its income per capita. Moreover, the rich region has an incentive to bias the allocation of structural funds towards human capital formation.

Growth effects of spatial redistribution policies

Regional income disparities have increased in many European countries recently, even as national and supra-national policy instruments were created to correct them. To explain these evolutions, we develop a two-region, two-sector model with migration and public investment in infrastructure and education. Accumulation and creation of new ideas and technologies as well as migration are at the core of differential regional growth. In this framework, we assess the effectiveness of structural funds, modeled on the EU policy. In a numerical example calibrated to Portugal, we find that, to diminish the initial gap in income per capita, the backward region needs to receive over 8% of its own GDP in structural funds, while the actual disbursements were around 4%. We also find that maximizing innovation in the backward region conflicts in the short run with the goal of maximizing its income per capita. Moreover, the rich region has an incentive to bias the allocation of structural funds towards human capital formation.

Renewable energy in European regions

The regional dynamics of energy innovation, in particular the shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy in the EU, is discussed within the framework of neo-Schumpeterian theory. The EU’s 4.2% average annual growth in renewable energy production in the last decade has been accompanied by diverging performances among the EU countries. Regional performances within a country also vary. The periphery regions seem to underperform, as is shown for five regions in Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, Sweden and the UK. Cases of innovation networks in five forerunning regions, in Austria, Germany, Spain and the Netherlands, suggest that the development of renewable energy emerges from social innovations aimed at regional development, and it is driven by those change agents that can pull together national and regional policy instruments for project implementation. Based on an assessment of a province in the Netherlands, it is concluded that this development leads to the socially beneficial scaling up of renewable energy, albeit requiring capital at low interest rates.

Alberta: Policy inaction, crises, unintended consequences and cluster success in the semi-periphery

The developmental state literature has typically focused attention on the role of nation-state actors. However, cities are increasingly important centres of innovation and commerce (OECD, 2006). Thus as national state policy instruments are progressively governed by international conventions (Wade, 2003), can non-national level actors influence industry development? This paper explores the role of policy in the development of Calgary's (Alberta, Canada) wireless cluster. The paper shows that while the Alberta Government was important in the early phase, it withdrew leaving the cluster struggling through recent crises. Policy suggestions that are pro-market and pro-innovation and relevant to the context are indicated.