Sector Programs Research Articles

Systemic Sustainable Development in the Transport Service Sector

The concept of sustainability and sustainable development, especially systemic sustainable development, still raises controversy in literature. The article makes an attempt to re-examine these concepts from a systems perspective, seeking foundations and applications in the selected sector. It is becoming increasingly clear that sustainability and sustainable development are aimed at integrated economic, social, cultural, political, and ecological factors. This causes a need for a constructive approach to the issue, taking into account all the actors, areas and dimensions involved in the pursuit of systemic sustainable development. As a result, both local and global dimensions and the way they interact must be explored in a multifaceted manner in order to offer a perspective more effective and useful than other analytical approaches, as the systems view is a way of thinking in terms of connectedness, relationships, and context. The article aims to review selected publications and studies so as to form the general idea of systemic sustainable development and define the systemic development of sustainable transport, including in particular the perspective of the actors of the sector, transport providers (passenger, urban), and transport development program, implemented both by local governments and on the European scale. An attempt was made to identify elements of the systemic sustainable development model, setting it in the reality of the following subcategories: “Society”, “Economy”, and “Environment” in sectoral terms. It is supposed that systemic sustainable development is a conglomerate of public administration entities, companies operating in the sector, individual and corporate customers, acting in certain conditions for economic, social, and environmental well-being, and a number of their initiatives of major or minor significance, grouped in six sub-areas, undertaken to achieve systemic value in the examined sector, with a positive or negative business/economic, social, and environmental impact.

О бюджетном инвестировании центральных районных больниц региона в условиях цифровизации экономики

The work is devoted to the study of sources and mechanisms of financing investment activities of health care institutions in the region at the municipal level. It is established that out of the three state-controlled sources of financing, only the Federal budget and the budget of the subject of the Federation are allocated for investment purposes as part of the implementation of the region's sectoral state health program. The results of the reorganization of Central district hospitals conducted in 2019 are studied. in Kaluga region. Significant amounts of allocated funds and a lot of "pain points" for investment create a problem of their effective distribution between inter-district and district Central hospitals. The methodical approach to its solution based on the evaluation of the ratio of supply and demand for health services in each municipality in the study, the proposals of the Central district hospitals according to the volume and quality of medical services and demand for them with the position of the current and future needs of the population in the conditions of formation and use of regional information and consultancy platforms of the Unified state information system of health (USISH).

Spatial determinants of foreign direct investment in Iraq - an analytical study for the period 1995-2018

The topic of attracting foreign investment in general and foreign direct investment in particular has gained special importance, as it is one of the main pillars on which countries depend to finance and develop their development programs in various economic sectors. Also, foreign direct investment is an effective means of transferring modern technology and its creation and development. Modern methods and methods of production contribute to high rates of economic growth.
 Therefore, the determinants of foreign direct investment in Iraq have been chosen as a subject for research, to identify the nature of FDI flows and to measure and analyze the relationship between a number of economic variables and between foreign direct investment in Iraq for the period 1995 - 2018, as we have found a positive and statistically significant relationship between some economic variables And between foreign direct investment, and the presence of an inverse and statistically significant relationship between a number of other economic variables and foreign direct investment.

Can Empowerment be Enhanced by Putting Cash in the Hands of Poor Women? Learning from Pakistan’s BISP Program

The Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) is the large-scale public sector program in Pakistan that targets the poor women by providing unconditional cash transfers. In this paper, we have analyzed the impact of BISP’s cash transfers on women’s empowerment after two, five, and eight years of intervention. Women’s empowerment is defined by four dimensions including women’s mobility, decision-making, political voice, and spousal violence. The impact is measured by using a fuzzy regression discontinuity design for cross-sectional data and a difference-in-difference approach for panel data. The results reveal that after two years of intervention, there was no significant impact on women’s empowerment; however, after 5 and 8 years, there was a substantial impact, especially on women’s mobility, their involvement in decision-making, and voting behavior. The biometric payment also helped women to go outside home and control on cash herself. Despite the positive impact on women’s mobility and political voice, a mild impact is found on women’s bargaining power and gender norms i.e., involving women in decision-making by their husbands and violence against women.

Monitoring and evaluation lessons from the design and implementation evaluation of the ‘You Only Live Once’ social behaviour change programme for adolescents: A partnership between the United States Agency for International Development, Department of Social Development, South African National AIDS Council, Pact SA and Mott MacDonald

Background: Conducting evaluations in South Africa has become a common government practice because of the rise in demand for evidence-based policymaking. However, evaluation is often seen as an exercise to be undertaken at the end of a programme – summative – instead of playing a distinct role at all stages of the programme cycle – formative and process evaluation. Subsequently, programmes are often designed without the help of monitoring and evaluation (M&E) specialists to ensure robust and testable theories of change (TOCs) and implementation modalities, or monitoring systems that assess performance to enable adaptive management. Objectives: This article presents findings from a case study regarding what the public sector can learn from formative evaluation to improve public sector programmes. Method: The case study focuses on implementing and utilising the results of a formative evaluation of the ‘You Only Live Once’ (YOLO) programme to highlight frequently experienced limitations and potential solutions to utilise M&E as a form of effective programme management in the public service. It is aimed at the public sector to provide evidence that other forms of evaluation and monitoring systems are critical to enable effective public programming. Results: Key lessons learnt include the significance of developing a clear and comprehensive M&E system at the programme planning and design stage, embedding the culture of M&E in programme implementation, evaluating potential modalities of implementation, rather than simply assuming modality robustness, and capacitation of implementation agencies to internalise and implement M&E requirements. Conclusion: These lessons present the critical role of formative evaluation in ensuring that big-budget public sector programmes are designed and implemented effectively.

Using online data visualization and analysis to facilitate public involvement in management of catch share programs

This case study examines the experience of the interdisciplinary Measuring the Effects of Catch Shares (MECS) project, a five-year demonstration project designed to explore the opportunities and constraints for third-party acquisition, organization, and communication of government fisheries statistics in order to track the ecological, economic, social, and governance outcomes of catch share programs. Catch share programs, whereby fishery managers allocate to private entities percentages of the total amount of fish that can be caught in a year, have been used to manage some US fisheries since the 1990s. Given the high financial stakes of commercial fisheries and the wide-ranging impacts ascribed to these programs, they are among the most controversial and contentious tools of contemporary fisheries management. The goal of the MECS project was to create an interactive, web-based platform for conveying a set of neutral, scientific indicators based on the best available fisheries data that could be used by fishing industry participants, fishery managers, and other interested parties to supplement and inform their own understanding of catch share program effects. The MECS project focused on the effects of two US catch share programs: the Northeast Multispecies Sector Program implemented in 2010 in the Northeast groundfish fishery and the Shorebased IFQ Program implemented in 2011 in the West Coast groundfish trawl fishery. The MECS project encountered data access challenges but ultimately succeeded in developing a website that has been received by members of the private and public sector alike as a useful tool that brings together and communicates disparate information that is not otherwise readily accessible.

State regulation of economic relations between Kazakhstan and China on the agrofood market

A comprehensive economic pragmatism as the main goal of the new economic policy course of Kazakhstan that is based on the principles of profitability, return on investment and competitiveness, also includes aspects of the need to create a new industry along with the development of traditional basic industries, to increase their export potential, where Chinese investment plays a significant role. An institutional reform includes the abolition of sectoral programs with integration of certain sectoral programs into governmental programs, as well as in strategic plans of state bodies. Consequently, it is necessary to create an industrial-sectoral and administrative symbiosis for the effective development of the industry and assessment of its prospects, taking into account the protection and promotion of national economic interests within the framework of international cooperation. The evaluation of state management in the agrarian, sphere within the framework of the development of Kazakh-Chinese cooperation, based on the study of the PRC's approaches in the formation of special economic zones and domestic practice of improving the economy of agrarian sector under the conditions of the “third modernization” and “fourth industrial revolution”, will lead to an expansion of exports of agricultural products, transit potential of Kazakhstan, infrastructural development and optimization of industry administration. In addition, taking into account the strategic importance of the country's transport potential, it will allow developing adjacent economy sectors.

Bridging the Digital Divide: What Has Not Worked But What Just Might

America has spent billions trying to close the Digital Divide, but adoption disparities along many dimensions persist. The COVID pandemic has rekindled the strong interest in broadband adoption, with many in Congress now proposing to spend billions more to shrink the adoption gap. In this POLICY PAPER, we first offer an economic analysis of how best to spend broadband subsidies. As might be expected, the analysis prescribes that money should be spent where it is most effective (per dollar) at increasing adoption. Second, we offer an empirical analysis of past broadband adoption programs by quantifying the effect of several programs established by the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act of 2009. Applying a Difference-in-Differences model to Census data on adoption, we find no positive effect on home broadband adoption from programs funded by the Broadband Technology Opportunity Program (“BTOP”). Third, we discuss the potential benefits of direct subscriber subsidies considering the successful private sector programs offering low-cost broadband plans to low-income and other qualifying households. Direct subsidies to end-users will increase adoption, but surveys and empirical evidence prescribe sober expectations on their effectiveness at achieving universal adoption. Subsidizing broadband infrastructure deployment in unserved areas is a direct approach to increase broadband adoption, but even so the costs in some regions may outweigh the benefits.

A Review of Leadership and Capacity Gaps in Nutrition-Sensitive Agricultural Policies and Strategies for Selected Countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia

Agriculture policies and strategies designed, purposefully, to address malnutrition are considered nutrition-sensitive and are a critical component of global efforts to address malnutrition in all its forms. However, limited evidence exists on extent and how nutrition is being integrated into agriculture sector policies, strategies, and programs. A review was conducted to address 2 questions: How nutrition-sensitive are agriculture policies, plans, and investments in selected Sub-Saharan African (SSA) and Asian countries? and Which capacity and leadership gaps limit scale up of nutrition-sensitive agriculture policy and programs? The review of existing policies was conducted for 11 selected focus countries (9 in SSA and 2 from Asia) of the CGIAR (Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research) Collaborative Research Programme on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health led by the IFPRI (International Food Policy Research Institute). The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)'s 10-point key recommendations for designing nutrition-sensitive agricultural interventions was used as an analytical framework. Additionally, a rapid systematic review of published peer-reviewed and grey literature was carried out to identify capacity gaps based on the United Nations Development Program's capacity assessment framework. We found that there is nutrition sensitivity of the policies and strategies but to varying degrees. There is limited capacity for optimum implementation of these policies, programs, and strategies. For most of the countries, there is capacity to articulate what needs to happen, but there are important capacity limitations to translate the given policy/program instruments into effective action. The gaps identified constitute important evidence to inform capacity strengthening of nutrition-sensitive actions for desired nutrition and health outcomes in Africa and Asia.

COVID-19 and race: Protecting data or saving lives?

This article uses the COVID-19 pandemic to demonstrate how our understanding of ethnic inequalities could be improved by greater use of algorithms that infer ethnic heritage from people’s names. It starts from two inter-connected propositions: the effectiveness of many public sector programs is hampered by inadequate information on how differently different ethnic groups behave, and anxiety over how to discuss matters to do with race inhibits proper evaluation of methodologies which would address this problem. This article highlights four mindsets which could benefit from challenge: the officially sanctioned categories by which ethnic data are tabulated are too crude to capture the subtler differences which are required for effective communications; while self-identification should continue to drive one-to-one communications, it should not preclude the use of more appropriate methods of recording ethnic heritage when analyzing data for population groups; public servants often fail to recognize the limitations of directional measures such as the Index of Multiple Deprivation as against “natural” classifications such as Mosaic and Acorn; and in their quest for predictive accuracy statisticians often overlook the benefit of the variables they use being “actionable,” defining population groups that are easy to reach whether geographically or using one-to-one communications.

Adapting to Climate Change at the National Level in St. Vincent and the Grenadines

Small island developing states (SIDS) are distinctively more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change than other developing countries. The focus of this paper is the Caribbean region that is described as one of the most vulnerable regions in the world and highly affected by the impacts of climate change. This paper applies a case-study approach and focuses on the island of St. Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG). With limited efforts to understand the adaptation, vulnerabilities, and challenges at the national level in these SIDS, this paper helps to fill this gap and has two main aims. First, it identifies SVG’s main focus on climate change adaptation. Second, it identifies the barriers to climate change adaptation in SVG. To fulfil the aims of this paper, content analysis, and semi-structured interviews with 32 stakeholders from the public and private sector were applied. This paper finds that SVG is mainly adapting to changes in hurricane, rainfall, drought, and soil and coastal erosion patterns. It also finds that many factors are limiting national-level adaptation. The three main reported barriers are a lack of financial, human resources, and technical capacity. These findings are important for the government of SVG and international donors and agencies. This will help them to identify and fill the gaps in their adaptation actions and prioritising finance. This paper’s findings also highlight the importance of mainstreaming climate change adaptation in sectoral plans and work programs and improving SVG’s access to international climate change adaptation funding.

Managing Risks in Lower-Income Economy Supply Chains: Evidence from Agricultural Firms in Senegal

Problem definition: How risks are distributed across firms in a supply chain is a major management and public policy concern. Little is documented, however, about how such risks are distributed across firms in lower-income countries, especially the small firms that serve poor, rural households. Relevance: Supply chain risk drives what and how much firms are willing to source, stock, and sell, affecting what is available to customers. Documenting these risks, then, is necessary for policymakers and program managers to design interventions that spread risk in ways favoring firms that serve poor, rural households. Methods: Our research strategy is descriptive and empirical. We report findings from a census of known firms that constitute the irrigation equipment supply chain in Senegal. These firms do business in 35 cities in Senegal’s irrigated areas. In the census, we pose open-ended interview questions about perceived risks. Results: We find that contractual and quality risks are the most cited. Such risks are more prevalent in firms in the supply chain that are downstream and located in small cites. We also find that firms mainly use reactive strategies, instead of proactive strategies, to manage risks. We document that the downstream firms that do use proactive risk-management strategies set higher inventory targets and hold more inventory than firms that only use reactive strategies. Managerial implications: Based on the observation that risk differentially burdens downstream firms and those in small cities, we recommend how policy interventions should be targeted and designed to support these firms in the supply chain. Our recommendations are generalizable for the improvement of supply chains on which public and voluntary sector programs rely, allowing them to benefit the poor.

Integrating Psychosocial Support for Children in the Education Sector in Zambia: Lessons from the Programme Implementation Process.

Literature suggests that psychosocial support programmes can improve wellbeing and mental health among learners. There is however limited documentation on methodologies and factors that shape integration of such programmes within the education sector. This qualitative study aimed to contribute towards addressing this knowledge gap by analysing the implementation process of the Mainstreaming of Psychosocial Support in the Education Sector programme in Zambia. The study showed that the programme contributed to improved school culture and learning involvement. This transformation led to reduction in school dropout, as well as improved students' wellbeing and performance. These positive results motivated Zambia and other countries to integrate psychosocial support into the education systems. Community engagement, outreach activities, group forums and partnerships were the key programme methodologies that facilitated the integration process. However, limited stakeholder involvement in developing the monitoring process complicated the integration process in the initial stages. In conclusion, effectively facilitating programme integration requires ensuring that the programme is credible, inclusive and has clear implementation guidelines.

Gaps and opportunities in nitrogen pollution policies around the world

Nitrogen pollution is an important environmental issue gaining traction in policy circles. However, there is little understanding of current nitrogen policies around the world: whether they account for nitrogen’s unique ability to exacerbate multiple environmental impacts or balance nitrogen’s dual role as an essential agricultural input and major pollutant. Here we assemble and analyse the first database of nitrogen policies generated by national and regional legislatures and government agencies, a collection of 2,726 policies across 186 countries derived from the ECOLEX database. The database covers all major environmental sinks (such as air, water and climate), economic sectors (including agriculture, wastewater and industry) and policy instruments (from market mechanisms to regulatory standards). We find that sink-centred policies are focused predominantly on water, mirroring the distribution of nitrogen’s global environmental and human health costs. However, policy integration across sinks is severely lacking, which heightens the risk of substituting one form of nitrogen pollution for another. Moreover, two-thirds of agricultural policies (ranging from broad sectoral programmes to nitrogen-specific measures) incentivize nitrogen use or manage its commerce, demonstrating the primacy of food production over environmental concerns. A new database of over 2,700 policies on nitrogen around the world highlights the predominance of policies incentivizing its use or managing trade, and the need for integration to avoid shifting pollution from one sink to another.

New Norms — Old Modus. Tensions from Socialist Planning Surviving the Regime Change in Hungary

Post-socialist transformation is a widespread phenomenon with numerous variations. Even if the study is restricted to Eastern European countries, their recent developments vary depending on their distinct socio-economic contexts and historic path dependencies.
 In constructing new planning systems, these countries did not have a single model to follow. What they shared, however, is that the emerging market system demanded new regulatory forms of planning that were alien to the socialist planning tradition, in which the plan operated more as a horizontal structure synthesizing a range of sectoral public investment programs [Tsenkova, 2011]. Whereas the phenomena of post-socialist urbanization are elaborately reviewed and debated in the discourses on urban geography, economy and governance, the literature on urban planning in these cities is very limited. The first generation of studies on the era’s planning challenges, lacking sufficient empirical material, offered generalized accounts of the links between land reforms, the alienation of real estate, and the development of planning institutions [Andrusz, Harloe, Szelényi, 1996; Bertaud, Renaud, 1997; Hamilton, Andrews, Pichler-Milanović, 2005; Tsenkova, Nedovic-Budic, 2006; Stanilov, 2007]. In response, this paper presents an empirically deep single case study of the urban planning regime’s transformation in Budapest between 1990 and 2010. It introduces the substantial time shifts between the reforms in different domains and the resulting tensions. Whereas economic reforms had already targeted the decentralization of the planning under socialism in the 1960s, the spatial planning system‘s persistence remained apparent even in the years following the regime change. With the rapid and excessive post-socialist decentralization of authority, political competences concerning urban planning were delegated to lower levels. In contrast, its modus operandi long remained largely unchanged, not properly adapted to the transformation of the economic and political systems. The hypothesis is that there exists a nexus between the persistence of socialist planning and the laissez-faire type of post-socialist urban development by means of the internal tensions within the urban planning system and its resulting dysfunctionality under the new market conditions.
 The methodology for this study draws on content analysis of policy documents and secondary sources of analytical information pertinent to the urban planning regime in Budapest during the time period under investigation, supplemented by personal interviews with major stakeholders.

Towards Sustainable River Management of the Dutch Rhine River

Two thousand years of human interventions has heavily modified the Dutch Rhine river. Situated in a densely populated and developed delta, the river and its infrastructure fulfil important societal functions: safety against flooding, inland waterways, nature, freshwater supply, and agriculture. Programs to improve individual functions increasingly lead to conflicts with other functions and therefore call for an integrated approach. This paper reviews the history of the Dutch Rhine and documents the sectoral improvement programs in recent decades, explaining adverse effects such as the large-scale bed degradation at rates of up to 4 cm per year. The lessons from the past are used to propose avenues for future integrated and sustainable river training and river management, arguing that mitigating adverse effects while maintaining societal functions requires a combination of recurrent sediment management measures and extensive structural measures that may change the layout of the river system.

Problems of providing transport security of Ukraine: regulatory background

Problems of providing transport security of Ukraine: regulatory background

Evaluation of the constructed device along with the software for digital archiving, sending the data, and supporting the diagnosis of cervical cancer.

e18017 Background: The incidence and mortality of cervical cancer are high in Poland. There are effective methods of the prevention and the early diagnosis, however they require well-trained medical professionals including cytologists. Within this project we built a prototype of a new device together with implemented software to convert the currently used optical microscopes to fully independent scanning systems for cytological samples. The use of the device is intended to improve the effectiveness of cytological screening, and registration of cytological tests’ results. The features of the software include digital backup as well as transmission and telemedicine evaluation. Methods: The software uses the artificial neural network (U-NET architecture) designed to be able to recognize suspicious regions and enhanced CNN neural network (VGG) allowing to determine the type of disorder such as: ASCUS, ASC-H, HIS, AGC, cancer. 7128 liquid based (LBC) and 1700 conventional cytology samples were evaluated by trained cyto-sreeners. Cytological abnormalities like: ASCUS, ASC-H, HIS, AGC, cancer were found in 254 (3.6%) LBC cases and 51 (3.0%) conventional cytology cases. All samples were scanned and archived. Selected samples with diagnosed abnormality were a model to teach the artificial neural networks. Results: Preliminary results obtained with use of U-NET and VGG (CNN networks) so far indicate 90-96% (LBC samples) and 85-95% (conventional cytology) compliance with results obtained using standard methods. Conclusions: Further refinement of neural networks is necessary to reduce the number of false positives and false negatives. A study with a larger sample size is required to evaluate the software. This project is co-financed with European Regional Development Fund within the Priority Axis I, Support for R&D activities for companies, Measure 1.2, Sectoral R&D Programmes, Sectoral Programme: “INNOMED – scientific research and development programme for innovative medicine economy sector”.

Community Participation at the Basic Education Level in Wakatobi Regency

This article aims to provide an overview of community participation in education in Wakatobi District. The aspects explored include: pure enrollment rates at primary education level, literacy rates of people aged 15 years and over, and average length of schooling of residents aged 15 years and over. This study uses a qualitative approach, in which document study becomes the main technique in data collection. The document examined is the archive of the Education and Culture Office, as well as the Wakatobi Regency Central Statistics Agency. Data analysis is carried out through the stages of data collection, data reduction, data presentation, and drawing conclusions. The results showed that: 1) Elementary School Participation Rate (APS) was more than 95 percent and APSSMP was more than 76.15 percent. This shows that the 6-year Compulsory Education supported by school infrastructure development and continued with the 9-year Compulsory Education is an education sector program that is recognized as quite successful. In other words, compulsory learning programs are said to be successful. 2) Literacy rates are seen in the proportion of diploma ownership by sex. Where elementary school level is equal and diploma and above, the proportion of women with a diploma tends to be higher than the male population. While at the level of junior high school and senior high school, the proportion of the male population with a diploma tends to be higher than the female population. 3) during the 2010-2016 period, the average length of schooling in Wakatobi District had increased from 2010 by 6.18 years, in 2016 to 7.70 years.

Information, accountability and perceptions of public sector programme success: A conjoint experiment among bureaucrats in Africa

AbstractMotivationWhether public sector organizations implement programmes successfully is a key concern of development scholars and practitioners across the world. While many studies purport the existence of a link between social accountability and public sector performance, this relationship has been difficult to study empirically.PurposeThis article examines whether bureaucrats expect public sector programmes with information‐sharing mechanisms, including visibility, transparency and collaboration, to be successful in terms of effectiveness and limiting corruption.Approach and MethodsThe article uses a conjoint survey experiment administered to thousands of bureaucrats across three African countries: Ghana, Malawi and Uganda. By asking bureaucrats—those with insider knowledge of government programme operations—about two hypothetical programmes with randomly assigned characteristics, we examine whether bureaucrats associate opportunities for monitoring by citizens and civil society groups with the success of public sector programmes.FindingsAcross diverse country and organizational contexts, bureaucrats consistently attribute high probabilities of success to programmes that are visible to the public, transparent in their implementation, and open to collaboration with civil society. Moreover, the inclusion of any one of these information‐sharing mechanisms can independently increase the perceived likelihood of success. The findings hold across institutional contexts and diverse subgroups of bureaucrats surveyed.Policy ImplicationsTo promote success in the implementation of public sector development programmes, officials should look for ways to increase the visibility of their programmes, set requirements for frequent public updates on programme progress, and build in opportunities for outside groups to collaborate.