Draft Policy Research Articles

Cultural mediators and the protection of ethnic minority cultural rights: reflecting on successes and challenges around quilombo heritage in Brazil

ABSTRACT This article discusses the protection of quilombo land and cultural rights in Brazil, through an examination of pottery production in a quilombo community in Maranhão state. Quilombos are village communities with a legally protected status that is similar to that of indigenous peoples in Brazil. In this article, the focus is placed on the production and management of ‘quilombo heritage’ by the potters and the different cultural mediators involved in various stages of this process. In doing so, the article examines what the different parties regard as the major advances achieved and the challenges currently faced in the protection of their cultural rights. The discussion critically explores cultural mediators’ role in promoting, enriching or restricting quilombo cultural production and their different views on heritage. Finally, the article reflects on the need for community participation in the drafting and implementation of cultural heritage policies.

Boil the Plan, But Do Not Fry The Issue; Indonesian Cooking Terms Metaphor

Cultural a spect and experiential basis is two of the components in the metaphor production. Several studies have been conducted in conceptual metaphor framework, but there haven’t many of the studies relate how the daily Indonesian cultural life affects the metaphor production. This paper aims to focus on the use of Indonesian cooking terms in media news headlines. The conceptual metaphor theory (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980) is used as the theoretical framework. Qualitative method is used during this study with purposive sampling data collection method. The source of the data is ten news headlines from Indonesian online media news that use cooking terms metaphor. The result shows that the metaphorical use of Indonesian cooking terms come from two types, the first is the level of cooking with words mentah (raw/ undercooked), and matang (fully cooked) to describe a progress of a plan or policy draft, and the second type is process of cooking by using godok (to boil) and gore ng (to fry) but with a different target domain. The result also shows that the use of godog (to boil) as metaphor refer to a plan or a program that are being prepared and being discussed and implies a positive association, whereas the metaphorical use of menggoreng (to fry) tends to be more negative as it refers to an exaggerated ( political) issue.

STUDI PENDAHULUAN: KONSTRUKSI KEBIJAKAN PENGELOLAAN SAMPAH DI KOTA PEKANBARU 2012-2014

Problematika sampah merupakan pekerjaan rumah bagi pemerintah dan masyarakat untuk menyelesaikannya. Kota-kota besar di Indonesia seperti Kota Pekanbaru juga mengalami permasalahan yang sama terkait pengendalian sampah. Berdasarkan data statistik menunjukkan bahwa ada lonjakan penduduk di Kota Pekanbaru sejumlah 1.100.000 jiwa per tahun 2014 yang menyebabkan volume timbulan sampah mencapai sebesar 2.750 m3 dengan asumsi setiap orang menghasilkan sampah 2,5 liter/ hari. Apabila dibandingkan dengan jumlah sampah yang yang diangkut di tempat pembuangan akhir (TPA) Muara Fajar saat ini mencapai 1.667 m3 atau 450 Ton per hari maka capaian cakupan pelayanan pengangkutan sampah kota Pekanbaru adalah 40,91%. Penelitian ini mengidentifikasi rancangan kebijakan pemerintah untuk menyelesaikan permasalahan sampah di Kota Pekanbaru. Penelitian ini menggunakan pendekatan penelitian kualitatif dan teknik triangulasi sehingga mendapat gambaran mengenai rancangan kebijakan yang dibuat oleh Pemerintah Kota Pekanbaru dalam menanggulangi permasalahan sampah ini. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa bentuk rencana kebijakan yang dilakukan oleh pemerintah Kota Pekanbaru disusun melalui skema kebijakan rencana aksi daerah sampah (KRADS) Kota Pekanbaru dengan mengoptimalisasikan fungsi kelembagaan yang bertanggung jawab dalam pengelolaan sampah, menguatkan fungsi regulasi, dan membenahi teknis operasional pengelolaan sampah.

The strategic corporate social responsibility (CSR) quandary: an instructional case

Learning outcomes Recognize the interest groups of the business as stakeholders and shareholders. Understand the role of strategic corporate social responsibility (CSR) in attaining competitive advantage for the firm. Apply the techniques of financial statement analysis such as common-sized financial statements and ratio analysis. Analyze the overall financial position of the company such as its liquidity, solvency and profitability position. Evaluate the appropriateness of various CSR activities given the size of the company, its business model and financial position. Create a suitable CSR policy draft incorporating the critical elements of a CSR policy that enables the firm to operationalize it and fulfill the disclosure norms. Case overview/synopsis The management of Ball Industry Limited (BIL) had overlooked the mandatory requirement of CSR policy formulation. The company had not yet spent anything on CSR since the regulation had come into force. The company’s financial position was not healthy. Still, it fell under the regulatory clause as a borderline case and must spend 2% of its average three years’ profit on CSR activities. The company had previously ignored the requirement of formally drafting a CSR policy and deciding about the actions it might want to carry out. Now that the regulator had started sending show-cause notices to several companies who had not yet begun CSR, BIL was under immense time pressure to draft its CSR policy and initiate the relevant CSR activities. Emily, the chief operating officer of BIL, was assigned the task of preparing the blueprint of the CSR policy of the company and made it available for discussion in the upcoming meeting. The task at hand was to formulate a sound CSR policy under the constrained financial state considering its strategic planning, including the SWOT analysis, competitive environment and the overall general market and economic conditions. She submitted that rather than a vanilla CSR activity, strategic CSR would support the firm to differentiate itself from competitors. She was struggling to formulate a CSR strategy that could achieve both economic and social goals. Complexity academic level The case will be most suitable for use in undergraduate and graduate courses. Supplementary materials Teaching notes are available for educators only. Subject code CSS 1: Accounting and finance.

Policy on Rapid Network Deployment

The government of South Africa has issued a draft policy to accelerate network deployment. The legal basis is to be the Electronic Communications Act (ECA), but the policy intrudes into areas of property ownership and the powers of municipalities. Consequently, there would be no legal basis for the regulations it is asking the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) to draw up. Moreover, the government is proposing to strip property owners of their rights under section 25 of the Constitution by allowing network operators to construct towers, install masts, lay underground cables and string aerial cables. The powers of municipalities are to be taken away, again in violation of the Constitution, by constraining their charges for wayleaves to administrative costs. The likely outcome is not to accelerate network deployment, but to cause delays while this is fought out in the courts.

The Effect of Labor Exploitation on Children’s Psychological Wellbeing in Woldia Town Primary Schools: Implication for Intervention

The main objective of the study aimed at assessing the effect of child exploitation on children psychological well-being Woldia town seven primary schools. Qualitative and quantitative are employed. That is, descriptive survey used to the study. The study used questionnaire and interview as data gathering instruments. Hence, data gathered through questionnaire from students and teachers that are selected through comprehensive sampling. The data analyzed through percentage and one-sample t-test. Then, the finding of the study revealed that the major labor activities in which children are engaged in Woldia town include shoe shining, selling lottery tickets, selling food/drinks/ kollo, and assisting taxi drivers (woyala). Most of the child labor exploitation in the study came from regions to look for job, due to conflicts at home, early marriage and divorce, Poverty, death of one or both parents, child trafficking, high repetition rates, drop out from school and lack of awareness about the consequence of being engaged in labor exploitation are key factors that push children to be involved in different work. The major problems that have been faced by children engaged in labor exploitation include among others: frustration, low self-esteem, self-perception, learning participation, attitude of the community and intimacy on parents. Lobbying and advocacy for the drafting and enactment of laws and policies for the prevention of child labor. Keywords: Child exploitation; Consequence; Psychological well-being; Intervetion; primary schools DOI: 10.7176/RHSS/10-15-02 Publication date: August 31 st 2020

Differential risk effect of inside debt, CEO compensation diversification, and firm investment

The main purposes of this paper are to study (1) a differential effect of inside debts on components of the firm risk, and (2) how it relates to the diversification of CEOs’ portfolios to reduce exposures to the firm risk. We find that compensating CEOs with inside debts (e.g., pensions and other deferred compensation plans) leads to reductions in firms’ systematic risk and idiosyncratic risk, but to disproportionate degrees. CEOs with larger inside debts draft and implement policies, which lead to a significantly larger reduction in the idiosyncratic firm risk and investment. We then show that the differential effect is the result of an asymmetry in CEOs’ perceived benefits of diversifying exposures to individual firm risk components. We further show that granting excessive debt-based pay may divert executives from firm specific but productive activities (e.g., R&D investments), therefore may compromise the long-run corporate success.

SunSmart Accreditation and Use of a Professional Policy Drafting Service: Both Positively and Independently Associated with High Sun Protective Hat Scores Derived from Primary School Policies.

Background The head and neck are exposed to the highest solar ultraviolet radiation levels and experience a disproportionate skin cancer burden. Sun protective hats can provide an effective barrier. Since early life exposure contributes to skin cancer risk, the World Health Organisation recommends prevention programmes in schools. The New Zealand SunSmart Schools programme is one example. Two criteria concern wearing hat outdoors: students are required to wear a hat providing protection for the face, neck, and ears; if a suitable hat is not worn, students must play in shaded areas. Objectives To investigate two internationally relevant interventions as plausible statistical predictors of hat policy strength: (1) skin cancer primary prevention programme membership, (2) use of a professional policy drafting service. Methods Of 1,242 (62%) eligible schools participating in a 2017 national survey, 1,137 reported a sun protection policy and 842 were available for categorising and allocating protective scores (0–3). Results In multinomial (polytomous) logistic regression models of cross-sectional association, adjusted for school characteristics, SunSmart accredited schools and those utilising a policy drafting service were independently significantly more likely than their counterparts to obtain the most protective compared to the least protective hat score (respectively, RRR 6.48: 95% CI 3.66, 11.47; 7.47: 3.67, and 15.20). For the dichotomous shade measure, similar associations were found using adjusted logistic regression (OR 3.28: 95% CI 2.11, 5.09; 2.70: 1.54, 4.74). Conclusions Our findings provide support for two plausible interventions that could potentially be implemented beneficially in primary schools via established infrastructure in any jurisdiction, internationally.

A Study on the Awareness on New Education Policy (2019) among the Secondary School Teachers in Madurai District

National Education Policy (2019) draft released from the Government of India, and they gave two months for teachers, teacher educators, principals, and policymakers to submit their perception. The researchers want to find awareness on National Education Policy (2019) among secondary school teachers in Madurai District. In his study, he finds that mainly the awareness level is below average. He finds the awareness according to the variable Gender, Location, Type of Institution, years of service, and type of family.

Professional Opportunities for the Cost & Management Accountants in National Educational Policy (Draft), 2019

Professional Opportunities for the Cost & Management Accountants in National Educational Policy (Draft), 2019

If You Build It, Will They Come? Exploring Narratives That Shape the Internet in Nepal

Nepali information and communication technology (ICT) policies, informed by dominant international discourses on internet and ICT for development, have attributed a ‘self-evident’ positive impact to economic growth. Such a conception is inconclusive and hides the underlying socioeconomic inequalities and the barriers they oppose to universal connectivity ambitions. The self-evident discourse overlooks the importance of adjacent infrastructures like electricity, critical for efficient functioning of a ‘digital society’. History has shown Nepal’s eagerness to buy the irrational exuberance of the dot-com era. It also shows policy targets were not based on local evidence and experiences. While the question about when the next bubble will emerge and burst is debatable, the techno-deterministic arguments need to be checked in light of evidence. We offer insights from import trajectories since the drafting of the first IT policy. The proliferation of mobile phones is explored in light of data consumption (i.e., usage) and access during the deadly earthquake in 2015. The evidence clearly highlights the mismatch between connectivity ambitions and socioeconomic realities in a stratified information society. We contend that the self-evident visions of connectivity need to be checked empirically. We call for internet and ICT policies that have a nuanced conceptualisation of access and its gradation.

Meet the critics: Analyzing the EU Commission's Regulatory Scrutiny Board through quantitative text analysis

AbstractAs part of the “better regulation” agenda, the European Commission created a semi‐independent institution, the Regulatory Scrutiny Board, to monitor the preparation of policy proposals. The position of this Board is potentially wide‐ranging. A proposal that is not given the green light by it cannot proceed in the Commission's internal decisionmaking process. But so far, the Board has only received scant scholarly attention. We provide a comprehensive analysis of the impact of the Regulatory Scrutiny Board on the Commission's policy preparation. Using machine learning techniques and quantitative text analysis, we study 673 Board opinions and compare almost 100 draft and final policy proposals. Our findings show that the Board is an active watchdog that is taken seriously by the Commission's departments. A full understanding of policy preparation in the EU therefore requires more scholarly attention to the Regulatory Scrutiny Board.

Time for NIH to lead on data sharing.

A draft policy is generally supportive but should start mandating data sharing

Sustainability indices for energy utilization using a multi-criteria decision model

BackgroundEnergy and water availability are considered vital for a country’s development. An exhaustive review of literature has been undertaken on indicators for sustainable energy development. In addition to energy and water, the resources of the country namely land availability, human capital, and nation’s wealth were also found to be vital for sustainable energy development of any country. These resources have to be optimally used for sustainable energy development which is measured in terms of technical, economic, social, environmental, and institutional indices.MethodsIn this research, a multi-criteria decision model was used to measure sustainable energy development efficiency. The natural resource of the country was considered as the input criteria, while the indices were used as the output criteria. This research is unique in finding if the country’s resources are being utilized in an efficient manner for sustainable development using the multi-criteria fuzzy-analytical hierarchical processing—data envelopment analysis model.ResultsFrom the fuzzy analytical hierarchical processing, it was found that experts were of the opinion that water availability and energy reserves were the most important parameters among the input resources, while environmental and social indices were opined to be the most important parameters among the output indices. Data envelopment analysis model was carried out using assurance region Charnes, Cooper, and Rhodes output-oriented method. The results revealed that Togo was the most efficient country with maximum sustainable energy development efficiency. Sensitivity analysis was also carried out to find which among the resources were sensitive with respect to energy sustainability for a specific country.ConclusionThe analysis can help countries to benchmark themselves against the country lying in the efficient frontier and draft policies to improve their energy sustainability indices. Similar analysis and comparison can be done for other countries, since this research analysis was carried out only for 48 developing countries.

Promoting Sustainable Development in Rural Communities: The Role of the University of Botswana

Universities are better placed through their community engagement mandates to provide solutions for sustainable community livelihoods. The paper uses the case of the Community Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) strategy, regarded as both a conservation and rural development strategy in Botswana to demonstrate how a structured community engagement agenda can enable the University of Botswana to play a more impactful role in the successful implementation of nationally upheld development initiatives such as the CBNRM. Systems theory is applied to demonstrate the need for a university engagement strategy, working model, guide to CBNRM sustainable development activities and a framework for the maintenance of sustainable engagement partnerships. Literature review showed uncoordinated research activity in support of the CBNRM by different departments and institutes of the UB. While content analysis of the CBNRM draft policy objectives showed the UB being more impactful by focusing its community engagement on two modes: “sustainability partnerships” and “research committed to sustainability”.

Conceptual framework for scholarly communication guidance by the academic library: The case of Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology

This article seeks to give academic librarians insight and guidelines into the provision of an effective scholarly communication guidance to doctoral students. The findings of the study showed that doctoral students had not received much training and guidance on research and scholarly communication practices from their supervisors and academic librarians. The study adopted a case study research design with Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) as the research site and sequential explanatory mixed method approach. A proposed scholarly communication guidance model to be used by the academic library is presented. The model proposes that scholarly communication guidance should be offered to doctoral students immediately they enrol for their programmes, throughout their research process, and finally when the research is completed since they are expected to conduct original research. The model will guide the drafting of policies and the academic library in developing tailor-made channels and contents for scholarly communication guidance to doctoral students. The study has contributed to the body of knowledge on scholarly communication guidance by the academic library to doctoral students as previous studies recorded in the literature pertains mostly to faculty and not to students – particularly doctoral students.

PRIVATE CLOUD STORAGE IN RURAL'S MANAGEMENT AND INFORMATION SYSTEM USING ROADMAP FOR CLOUD COMPUTING ADOPTION (ROCCA)

The draft Management Policy and Rural Information system are all articles with several articles governing all information security. In concerning Business Continuity Management it is written "The information system and security work unit backs up data periodically, to safer backing up data using Cloud computing facilities." Cloud computing has advantages as file management. Private cloud storage is a form of cloud computing that is intended for limited use in certain circles and one of its functions is used for backing up data or file management. On the other hand, there is software that can be used to implement private cloud storage, namely Owncloud. To run the Rural Information Security Policy Draft article on Business Continuity Management and for the provision of data centers, a study was conducted to implement private cloud storage using Owncloud. The method used in this study is the Roadmap for Cloud computing Adoption (ROCCA) with five stages, namely the stages of analysis, design, adoption, migration, and management. The results of this research are private cloud storage using Owncloud as a medium for storing, securing, and sharing files that are flexible and highly scalable that can be accessed via the internet by users.

PRIVATE CLOUD STORAGE IN RURAL'S MANAGEMENT AND INFORMATION SYSTEM USING ROADMAP FOR CLOUD COMPUTING ADOPTION (ROCCA)

The draft Management Policy and Rural Information system are all articles with several articles governing all information security. In concerning Business Continuity Management it is written "The information system and security work unit backs up data periodically, to safer backing up data using Cloud computing facilities." Cloud computing has advantages as file management. Private cloud storage is a form of cloud computing that is intended for limited use in certain circles and one of its functions is used for backing up data or file management. On the other hand, there is software that can be used to implement private cloud storage, namely Owncloud. To run the Rural Information Security Policy Draft article on Business Continuity Management and for the provision of data centers, a study was conducted to implement private cloud storage using Owncloud. The method used in this study is the Roadmap for Cloud computing Adoption (ROCCA) with five stages, namely the stages of analysis, design, adoption, migration, and management. The results of this research are private cloud storage using Owncloud as a medium for storing, securing, and sharing files that are flexible and highly scalable that can be accessed via the internet by users.

Making consultation meaningful: Insights from a case study of the South African mental health policy consultation process.

It is widely recognised that mental health policies should be developed in consultation with those tasked with their implementation and the users affected by them. In the South African legislative context public participation in policymaking is assumed, with little guidance on how to conduct consultation processes, nor how to use consultation inputs in policy decisions. The South African Mental Health Policy Framework and Strategic Plan was adopted in 2013 after an extensive consultation process. Focussing on the 2012 provincial and national consultation summit, this case-study conducted key informant interviews and undertook documentary analysis to explore the process through which consultation inputs were-or were not-transferred to inform this policy. Between 2013 and 2016 seven interviews were conducted, and 11 documents (policy drafts and summit outputs) and transcripts of 23 audio-recorded sessions from the national summit were analysed. Findings revealed that no substantive changes were made to the mental health policy following the consultation summits. There do not seem to have been systematic processes for facilitating and capturing knowledge inputs, or for transferring these inputs between provincial and national levels. There was also no further consultation regarding priorities identified for implementation prior to finalisation of the policy, with participants highlighting concerns about policy implementation at local levels as a result. This represents a lost opportunity for greater involvement of service users in policy development. Together with poor service-user representation, the format of the consultation process limited participant interaction and the possibility for engagement with, or uptake of, more experiential forms of knowledge. Several procedural elements were found to limit the elicitation and transference of consultation contributions for uptake into policy. Recommendations for future policy consultations include adapting the format of participatory processes to enable optimal use of participant knowledge, as well as greater service-user participation.

Citizen Law Making vs. Legal Illiteracy

Law-making should not exclude citizens. The following paper analyses how citizens’ engagement in policymaking fails because of citizens’ illiteracy in law and administration knowledge and provides an updated scenario for building common knowledge through discourse production along policy drafting. In a context of a huge appetite for active participation in the decision-making processes, it is of vital importance to collect people’s views and gain their confidence and support. Creating a constant habit from citizen participation is not only bringing added value in law making, but it is also a guarantee that they will meet the needs of citizens and therefore generate public commitment. Although citizens can contribute with their input, they have limited understanding and control over the data they provide and the results, often remaining detached from the very mission and scope of such involvement.