Public-private Sector Partnerships Research Articles

Animals, Poor People and Food Insecurity: Opportunities for Improved Livelihoods through Efficient Natural Resource Management

Poverty is a rural dilemma and continues to be a persistent multidimensional problem. It is associated with poor farmers, small farm systems, the landless, resource endowments, the socioeconomic environment and externalities. Over 75% of the poor live and work in rural areas, trapped in a poverty–adaptation–fragile lives–little hope–low life expectancy complex, with an enduring hope for self-reliance and a more comfortable life tomorrow. Since agricultural growth is central to improved livelihoods, strategies that focus on promoting such growth are critical: improved efficiency in natural resource management (NRM), of which animals are a part, can directly contribute to productivity enhancement and reduced poverty. It is estimated that approximately 678 million of the rural poor keep animals, within which the largest ownership of animals is seen in mixed crop–animal systems. The role and contribution of animals is discussed with reference to household benefits — current, medium-term and long-term savings, increased productivity of mixed farm systems, sustainability of agricultural systems and the environment, and enhancement of social stability. While large ruminants (buffalo and cattle) are very valuable for agriculture and farm security, milk and beef, ploughing and dung production, small animals (goats, sheep, chickens, pigs and ducks) are particularly important for nutritional and household security. The link between gender and animals is emphasized, especially the implications of the very strong relationship between women and children and small animals. This paper describes in detail characteristics of poor farmers and small farm systems. It discusses opportunities for NRM, and presents examples of data from different categories of animals and the extent of their contribution to total farm income, which in Asia ranges from 7–69%. It is concluded that improved animal production systems can increasingly make a significant contribution to improved human welfare, rural growth and reduced poverty. To achieve this, however, much more investment in agricultural research and development is necessary that can target less-favoured rainfed areas, coupled with participatory and interdisciplinary approaches, effective public–private sector partnerships, and commitment to purpose.

A framework for an industry supported destination marketing information system

This article provides guidelines for the establishment of a comprehensive state/provincial destination marketing information system (DMIS). More specifically, it describes the process by which the tourism industry in Alberta, Canada developed a framework for the acquisition of timely research and intelligence to maintain and enhance its competitiveness as a travel destination. In keeping with a government mandate for greater public–private sector partnership, consideration was given to two equally important, but functionally distinct end users: (1) Travel Alberta, the province's destination marketing organization, which uses information to guide strategic marketing priorities and create cooperative marketing opportunities for industry, and (2) local tourism operators, who demand information to improve their marketing decisions in service of individual business objectives. The needs of these key audience groups were identified and addressed using a comprehensive three-step approach: (1) Interviews were conducted with key industry players to identify research and intelligence needs, (2) information sources were sought to respond to the identified needs, and (3) solutions were identified to deliver high-quality information at an affordable cost. The end result of this process is a framework that can serve as a useful model for other jurisdictions seeking to develop a DMIS. While the Alberta framework will require ongoing evaluation to ensure its validity and accuracy, it possesses an important quality frequently lacking in this type of endeavor: the broad-based endorsement of tourism operators.

Preventing polio from becoming a reemerging disease.

Vol. 7, No. 3 Supplement, June 2001 Emerging Infectious Diseases 549 The global effort to eradicate polio has become the largest public health initiative in history and is spearheaded by the World Health Organization, Rotary International, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and UNICEF (United Nations Children’s Fund). During 1999, extraordinary progress continued, with the number of polio-endemic countries declining to 30 from 50 in 1998. Of the three poliovirus types, poliovirus type 2 has reached the verge of extinction, with the only known remaining foci existing in northern India. Polio incidence declined to the lowest levels ever in 1999, although the number of reported cases (7,012) increased slightly due to improvements in surveillance and polio outbreaks in Angola and Iraq. Existing challenges in the initiative include maintaining effective activities, gaining access to children in conflict-affected countries, and sustaining political and financial support until certification is achieved in 2005. Maintaining sufficient supplies of oral polio vaccine emerged as an additional challenge during 1999, resulting from marked acceleration of immunization activities. The public-private sector partnership supporting the initiative expanded in 1999 to include the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Ted Turner’s United Nations Foundation, the World Bank, Aventis Pasteur, and De Beers.

Insurance as Cornerstone for Public-Private Sector Partnerships

Society faces large challenges as to how we will deal with the increasing losses from natural, technological, and environmental hazards. Residents in hazard-prone areas are reluctant to protect themselves before the event occurs. The insurance and reinsurance industry is concerned that it cannot provide protection against these catastrophic risks without exposing itself to the danger of insolvency or significant loss of surplus. This paper explores the importance of insurance coupled with other policy instruments, such as regulations and standards, and interested parties (e.g., banks and financial institutions) to encourage loss reduction measures and provide financial protection against these hazards. New advances in information technology and risk assessment coupled with the emergence of new financial instruments for covering large losses provide the ingredients for rethinking the way society deals with catastrophic risks. To encourage investment in cost-effective loss reduction measures there is a need...

PRIVATISING WATER: BoTT AND HYDROPOLITICS IN THE NEW SOUTH AFRICA

ABSTRACT Access to water and sanitation services remains highly correlated to wealth and race in post-apartheid South Africa, with rural communities the most disadvantaged. The delivery of basic services such as water and electricity to communities denied these services under apartheid is one of the core platforms of the ANC government. Private sector participation in the water and sanitation sector has been proposed as one means of fulfilling the government's commitment to deliver water and sanitation services particularly to the rural poor. Public-private sector partnerships in rural water supply were initiated in four provinces in July 1997, when the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry awarded Build-operate-Train and Transfer (BoTT) management contracts to four specially created private sector consortia. The operation of BoTT is being developed as the preferred agency of water and sanitation services delivery in South Africa and is an unusual form of public-private partnership. In this paper, BoTT projects are evaluated on the basis of cost effectiveness and sustainability in the province of KwaZulu-Natal. The BoTT projects are found to be more expensive than other forms of delivery and, it is argued, tend to undermine the role of rural local government in delivery.

Community Participation in Tourism Planning and Development in the Historic City of York, England

This paper examines two potentially contradictory trends in tourism planning in cities; the emphasis on partnership and public participation. Public–private sector partnerships are part of the post-Fordist planning orthodoxy in the UK and involve a coalition of local and non-local agents and particularly elite groups. These partnerships are often one step removed from urban government and raise issues about accountability and local democracy. The tourism literature on community tourism development and community involvement is underdeveloped in the context of urban tourism. Nonetheless, evidence suggests that local urban social movements can be influential in the development process and that planners and developers need to embrace these interests if sustainable tourism products are to be developed. The considerable growth in cultural and heritage tourism and recreational shopping has created tensions within tourist historic cities, which may be amenable to resolution through public participation. In York, heightened civic awareness of the role of tourism in the local economy and the intensification of competition for investment/consumption, demands a re-evaluation of its tourism strategy. These participatory policies are far removed from the more radical models of public participation but may be all that is achievable in a competitive climate dominated by entrepreneurial city management.

Cuckoos in the nest

Will the new public-private sector partnerships prove as benign as the government claims? Are the objectives of private finance and the egalitarian principles of the NHS really compatible? We investigate.

Growing To Meet the Challenges: Emerging Roles for Transportation Management Associations

Widely varying in organizational form and function, transportation management associations (TMAs) offer the flexibility—and increasingly, the expertise—to assist local residents and businesses with emergency transportation problems (e.g., caused by a transit strike). With departments of transportation and metropolitan planning organizations, TMAs can plan for long-term and regionwide transportation needs. The public-private sector partnerships embodied by many TMAs provide several potential benefits, including a ready organizational structure for a closer dialogue between government agencies and transportation users; familiarity with local needs and problems, a knowledge of technical issues; and a broad base of human, financial, and technical resources with which to devise and implement solutions to transportation needs and problems. TMAs have come a long way from being merely employee organizations oriented to trip reduction. Today, TMAs engage in everything from public education, to working with local economic development organizations on enhancing a region’s attractiveness and competitiveness, to running local transportation systems. In the 21st century, the geographic information system and intelligent transportation system capabilities many TMAs already possess will enable them to take on greater roles in improving the transportation networks in their regions and in integrating transportation planning with land-use and economic-development planning. Typical and innovative activities currently undertaken by TMAs are described and some of the valuable roles TMAs can play in the future are discussed.

Building Effective Anticorruption Regimes: A Public-Private Sector Partnership

Building Effective Anticorruption Regimes: A Public-Private Sector Partnership

A Bureau‐Political Model of Local Networks and Public/Private Partnerships: Responses to Crisis and Change

The aim in this paper is to describe the bureau‐political model and suggest where it might be applied in further research. The focus is upon the diverse and often seemingly chaotic public organizational and policy responses to urban crises and policy change. The research covers the factors that shape local level organizational structures and policy especially in public/private sector partnerships (PPPs). The bureau‐political model presented here derives from research originally published in this journal (Jacobs, 1993). The 1993 paper dealt with policy responses to urban riots in the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States (US). Cases presented elsewhere (Jacobs, 1986; 1988; 1989; 1992) also inform the present research.

The private sector and local economic development in South Africa

The objective in this paper is to analyse private sector involvement in LED in South Africa. Four key spheres of private sector involvement in LED are identified and discussed: (1) as participator and occasional initiator of local development processes, (2) as major partner in the development activities of public-private sector partnerships, (3) as lead role player in certain direct initiatives for reviving South Africa's inner cities, and (4) as promoter and facilitator of local small business development. It is argued that the concept of local dependence could be usefully applied to interpret private sector involvement in LED in South Africa.

Tourism marketing organizations in industrial cities: Organizations, objectives and urban governance

The types and mix of organizations involved in city marketing for tourism are examined in five old industrial cities in Britain (Birmingham, Bradford, Manchester, Sheffield and Stoke-on-Trent). Two trends in the tourism marketing organizations in these cities are identified and evaluated, namely the increasing use of public-private sector partnerships in the form of visitor and conference bureaux and a recent trend towards corporate city marketing. The objectives behind the tourism marketing activities by the five cities were found to be very similar, although some differences were evident. The potential consequences of establishing a public-private sector visitor and conference bureau are considered for two key aspects of urban governance: for the coordination of urban policy and management, and for local democracy.

Partnership in Urban Regeneration in the UK: The Sheffield Central Area Study

During the later 1980s, support for public-private sector partnerships came to the fore in British urban policy. This paper explores one particular manifestation of partnership in an English provincial city, the Sheffield Central Area Study, within the context of growth coalition and regime theories. Analysis of agendas adopted by partners and questions of power, suggests that existing theories do not satisfactorily account for experience within partnerships. In particular, in the British context, conceptualisations of partnership need to embrace questions such as the relatively strong position of local government and its professionalised bureaucracy, and the commensurately weaker status of the business community in general and landowners in particular.

Enterprise agencies in London — A public private sector partnership?

Enterprise agencies in London — A public private sector partnership?

Driver information systems — A North American perspective

Driver information systems (DIS) are considered in North America as a major category of Intelligent Vehicle-Highway Systems (IVHS), which offers to improve the efficiency and safety of driving by means of an amalgamation of information technology with vehicle and highway technologies. Traditionally North America has basic strengths in a number of information technologies that are relevant to DIS. Due to a hiatus in federal funding in the early 1980s, DIS development in North America during the past decade has emphasized autonomous systems on the vehicles until recently. The current acceleration of IVHS development in the United States has resulted from a number of converging forces and has provided the impetus for developing advanced driver information systems (ADIS) that integrates the vehicle and the highway. Large-scale demonstration and implementation of ADIS will hinge on the major legislations in the near future, and on the successful development of public-private sector partnerships in IVHS.

The future of public-private sector partnerships for the provision of human services: problem and possibilities.

This article examines the responses of states, localities, and the private sector to recent attempts by the federal government to realign domestic responsibilities for the provision of human services. In exploring this issue, the author conducted a study of agencies assisting the developmentally disabled in Greater Richmond, Virginia. The author finds that the nation is experiencing a fundamental paradigm shift--a reconceptualization of structure, goals, and responsibilities--with respect to social welfare, with new public-private sector partnerships emerging to meet human needs.

State Level Management and Productivity Improvement: A Public-Private Sector Partnership Approach

State Level Management and Productivity Improvement: A Public-Private Sector Partnership Approach