Sector Capacity Research Articles

Change in Climate and its Impact on Aquaculture Sector

The aquaculture industry continues to see significant production increase, making it the fastest growing food production sector in the world. However, the predicted effects of climate change are not just a possibility for the future; they are a reality that threatens the sector's viability. The study examines the expected effects of climate change on aquaculture production and its consequences for the sector's sustainability. Among the many elements of a changing climate that we have discussed are rising sea levels, rising temperatures, diseases, toxic algal blooms, changes in sea surface salinity, shifting precipitation patterns, unpredictable external input sources, and extreme weather. Overall, we expect that climate change will have both beneficial and negative consequences on the agricultural sector's capacity to maintain production, with the former outweighing the latter. Furthermore, we have provided a variety of adaptation alternatives and indicated a number of information gaps that need further research. It could be essential to implement long-term mitigation strategies while adjusting to anticipated short-term changes in order to maintain sector output. Conversely, the success of the adaption will depend on how adaptable manufacturers are worldwide.

Approaches, enablers and barriers to govern the private sector in health in low- and middle-income countries: a scoping review

IntroductionThe private sector plays a substantial role in delivering and financing healthcare in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Supporting governments to govern the private sector effectively, and so improve outcomes...

Ethiopia's Potato Seed System: Regulatory Challenges, Quality Assurance Issues, and Pathways for Improvement ─ A mini review

Background Ethiopia’s potato seed system is currently hindered by a disjointed regulatory framework, insufficient quality assurance processes, and a lack of collaboration among stakeholders, which collectively impede agricultural productivity and food security. The regulatory environment is characterized by inconsistent seed certification practices and a dependence on informal seed sources, negatively affecting the quality of potato seeds available to farmers. Although potatoes play a crucial role in global food security by providing high yields compared to other staple crops, the sector grapples with significant challenges due to bureaucratic inefficiencies, limited technical expertise, and the widespread presence of counterfeit seeds throughout the value chain. Methods To tackle these challenges, this mini-review outlines potential improvements, stressing the necessity for a unified regulatory framework tailored to the unique issues of vegetatively propagated crops. For this reason, we have used different literature source from web of science, Pubmed, Google Scholar, ResearchGate and other scientific websites. We have documented the most relevant information focusing on potato seed system, regulatory frameworks, quality assurance bottlenecks and pathways for improvement across the seed value chain. Results our paper highlights key recommendations that includes enhancing training for regulatory staff, investing in research for disease-resistant varieties, and bolstering public-private partnerships to encourage innovation and resource sharing. Furthermore, improving traceability in the seed supply chain is essential for maintaining seed quality and integrity. Conclusions This review calls for a comprehensive strategy that fosters stakeholder engagement and promotes sustainable practices to rejuvenate Ethiopia’s potato seed system, thereby supporting the livelihoods of millions of smallholder farmers and strengthening national food security through integrated seed sector development and capacity improvement of the seed regulatory body as well as smallholder farmers.

Climate Resilience in Nigerian Construction: A Systematic Review of Strategies and Outcomes

Climate resilience in the construction sector is critical for ensuring the durability and sustainability of infrastructure amidst the increasing impacts of climate change. This study systematically reviews climate resilience strategies in the Nigerian construction sector, evaluating their effectiveness and outcomes. A comprehensive literature search yielded 50 peer-reviewed journal articles, conference papers, and official reports, focusing on design innovations, material selection, policy frameworks, and case studies across Nigeria's diverse climatic zones. Key findings indicate that strategies such as flood barriers, green roofs, and sustainable materials are effective in mitigating climate risks, although challenges such as financial constraints, regulatory gaps, and lack of awareness persist. The study highlights the importance of community involvement, government support, and technological innovation in successfully implementing resilience measures. Comparative analysis with global best practices underscores the need for integrated approaches tailored to Nigeria's unique context. The study concludes with recommendations for future research, emphasizing the need for longitudinal studies, cross-regional comparisons, and the integration of traditional knowledge. Policy implications include the development of comprehensive regulatory frameworks and public-private partnerships to enhance the sector's adaptive capacity. This research provides valuable insights and practical recommendations for enhancing climate resilience in Nigeria's construction industry, contributing to broader goals of sustainable development and climate adaptation.

Public leadership meta-skills in the 2020s

IMPACT Looking at public leadership from a meta-skills point of view is a new way to make visible what matters in public leadership in the 2020s. The significance of this topic lies in the contribution it makes to understanding and improving public leadership in the age of prevailing public policy complexities and austerity. This article explains why investing in leadership meta-skills is not only crucial for employees and organizations but also directly impacts the public sector's capacity for renewal, the quality of public policy and the ability of the public sector to deliver good services to citizens. The article provides directly applicable results for public leaders regardless of administrative branch; the findings can be applied anywhere where public value is created. The four categories of leadership actions and practices presented in this article help the public sector to succeed in the transition towards people-centred, cross-sectoral and future-driven policy outcomes.

Assessing economic investment required to scale up bariatric surgery capacity in England: a health economic modelling analysis

ObjectivesTo quantify the economic investment required to increase bariatric surgery (BaS) capacity in National Health Service (NHS) England considering the growing obesity prevalence and low provision of BaS in England...

Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus and Cardiometabolic Prospects: A Rapid Narrative Review.

Cardiometabolic syndrome (CMS), type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), and cardiovascular diseases are among the major altruists to the international liability of disease. The lifestyle and dietary changes attributable to economic growth have resulted in an epidemiological transition towards non-communicable diseases (NCDs) as the leading causes of death. Low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) bear a more substantial disease burden due to limited healthcare sector capacities to address the rapidly growing number of chronic disease patients. The purpose of this narrative review paper was to explore the interrelationships between CMS, T2DM, and cardiovascular impairments in the context of NCDs, as well as major preventative and control interventions. The role of insulin resistance, hyperglycemia, and dyslipidemia in the pathogenesis of T2DM and the development of severe cardiovascular impairments was highlighted. This paper elaborated on the pivotal role of lifestyle modifications, such as healthy diets and physical activity, as cornerstones of addressing the epidemics of metabolic diseases. Foods high in calories, refined sugar, red meat, and processed and ready-to-eat meals were associated with an amplified risk of CMS and T2DM. In contrast, diets based on fruits, legumes, vegetables, and whole grain, home-cooked foods demonstrated protective effects against metabolic diseases. Additionally, the role of a psychological and behavioral approach in addressing metabolic diseases was highlighted, especially regarding its impact on patient empowerment and the patient-centered approach to preventative and therapeutic interventions.

Mapping bureaucratic overload: Dynamics and drivers in media coverage across three European countries

AbstractBureaucratic overburdening has emerged as an important theme in public policy and administration research. The concept signifies a state where public administrators are overwhelmed with more tasks and responsibilities than they can effectively handle. Researchers attribute this phenomenon to several key factors, such as an increasing assault on the public sector, a growing volume of policies to enforce, and “external” shocks. These studies converge on the perception that the public sector's capacity to effectively implement policies and to address societal problems is progressively diminishing. However, there is a clear knowledge gap regarding the breadth, dynamics, and pervasiveness of this issue, as existing research often narrows its focus on the implementation of specific policies or policy sectors. This paper addresses this research gap by mapping the frequency of bureaucratic overload reports in newspaper articles from Italy, Ireland, and Germany, spanning two decades from 2003 to 2022. In the second step, we describe the drivers of overload that we coded in a random sample of articles. Our research reveals that the overburdening of public administration is indeed an escalating problem resulting from an “explosive” cocktail of external and internal challenges that simultaneously affect public authorities.

On representation of energy storage in electricity planning models

This paper considers the representation of energy storage in electricity sector capacity planning models. The incorporation of storage in long-term systems models of this type is increasingly relevant as the costs of storage technologies, particularly batteries, and of complementary variable renewable technologies decline. To value energy storage technologies appropriately in optimization models, a representation of linkages between time periods is required, breaking classical temporal aggregation strategies that greatly improve computation time. Our paper reviews approaches to address the problem of compressing chronology for large-scale electricity planning models and provides a generalized conceptual model, conditions for lossless aggregation, and key principles to evaluate aggregation methods. We propose a novel approach, which we call the “expected value” method, to maintain key economic characteristics of energy storage, variable renewables, dispatchable generation, and other power system resources at a relatively low computational cost and conduct numerical experiments to compare its accuracy and computational performance with other temporal aggregation methods.

The influence of private sector consultants on public management reforms: taking stock

IMPACT This article will help policy-makers and managers understand the roles private sector management consultants have played in public management reforms, what kinds of problems their involvement in public management reforms can entail and how to address these shortcomings. Although management consultants can provide useful expertise in planning and implementing public management reforms, their advice does not always consider public sector needs. Furthermore, the growing use of consultant services can hollow out public sector capacities. The authors highlight different rhetorical devices that consultants have used to increase their influence on public sector clients. Practitioners need to be aware of such techniques when making decisions about involving consultants in public management reforms. The authors also discuss how public managers can improve the commissioning of management consultants in order to address potential shortcomings and enhance the transfer of useful knowledge from consultants.

Multi-step carbon emissions forecasting model for industrial process based on a new strategy and machine learning methods

The rising industrial sector capacity increases carbon emissions, necessitating a low-carbon transformation for global sustainability. Accurate multi-step forecasting of industrial carbon emissions is crucial for optimizing production, reducing energy consumption, improving efficiency, and achieving decarbonization. However, current forecasting faces challenges like model uncertainty and low accuracy with multi forecasting steps. To address these issues, this study proposed a multi-step carbon emissions forecasting model for industrial processes. Firstly, a new multi-step forecasting strategy framework was proposed. Secondly, SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP) and lagged autocorrelation analysis were used to extract key features affecting industrial carbon emissions. On this basis, the grey model, autoregressive moving average (ARMA) model, and least squares support vector machine (LSSVM) method were used to build forecasting models separately. The weights of the three models were solved using the induced ordered weighted average operator and the Monte Carlo search tree (MCST) method. The final forecasting results were obtained by using the weighted summation method. The data collected from the real industry were used to validate the proposed model. The results showed that the proposed model could accurately forecast industrial carbon emissions within 12 steps and its MAPE is less than 10%. The proposed multi-step industrial carbon emissions forecasting model can provide data support for industrial energy saving, carbon reduction, and green and sustainable development.

A proposal to recognize investment in breastfeeding as a carbon offset.

Policy-makers need to rethink the connections between the economy and health. The World Health Organization Council on the Economics of Health for All has called for human and planetary health and well-being to be moved to the core of decision-making to build economies for health. Doing so involves valuing and measuring what matters, more and better health financing, innovation for the common good and rebuilding public sector capacity. We build on this thinking to argue that breastfeeding should be recognized in food and well-being statistics, while investments in breastfeeding should be considered a carbon offset in global financing arrangements for sustainable food, health and economic systems. Breastfeeding women nourish half the world's infants and young children with immense quantities of a highly valuable milk. This care work is not counted in gross domestic product or national food balance sheets, and yet ever-increasing commercial milk formula sales are counted. Achieving global nutrition targets for breastfeeding would realize far greater reductions in greenhouse gas emissions than decarbonizing commercial milk formula manufacturing. New metrics and financing mechanisms are needed to achieve the health, sustainability and equity gains from more optimal infant and young child feeding. Properly valuing crucial care and environmental resources in global and national measurement systems would redirect international financial resources away from expanding carbon-emitting activities, and towards what really matters, that is, health for all. Doing so should start with considering breastfeeding as the highest quality, local, sustainable first-food system for generations to come.

Factors influencing fever care-seeking for children under five years of age in The Gambia: a secondary analysis of 2019–20 DHS data

BackgroundMalaria contributes to excess child mortality in The Gambia. Children under five are at risk of severe malaria and death if not treated promptly and appropriately. It is crucial that a child with fever receive appropriate care from a trained provider. The aim was to identify influences on child fever care-seeking in The Gambia to inform malaria control strategies.MethodsThis cross-sectional analysis of The Gambia 2019–20 Demographic and Health Survey used logistic regression analysis to identify associations between source of care for a child with fever (public or private healthcare provider, other, or no treatment) and mother, child, and household characteristics.ResultsOnly 52.0% of mothers sought care from a trained healthcare provider for a child with fever—45.1% from a public facility and 7.0% from the private sector. 35.2% of mothers did not seek treatment. Mothers in urban households were 2.67 times as likely (aOR, 95% CI 1.504–4.736) as mothers in rural households to seek care from an informal source (e.g., pharmacy) versus not seeking treatment, and 0.29 times as likely (aOR, 95% CI 0.165–0.515) as mothers in rural households to seek care from a public provider versus informal source. Mothers in wealthier households were 2.30 times as likely (aOR, 95% CI 1.274–4.164) as mothers in poorer households to seek care from an informal source versus no treatment and half as likely as mothers in poorer households to seek care from a public provider versus informal source (aOR 0.53, 95% CI 0.291–0.959).ConclusionsMaintaining The Gambia’s malaria control achievements will require the active engagement and oversight of private pharmacies along with continued integrated community case management to reach mothers who do not seek care for a child with fever, and remove challenges to seeking appropriate care from trained providers. Whether influenced by convenience, costs, perceived urgency, or other factors, given the likelihood of urban mothers and mothers in wealthier households to seek care from private pharmacies, it will be necessary to incorporate private pharmacies into malaria control strategies while building public sector capacity and workforce, and initiating more effective attitude and behavioural change among mothers and households.

Transition and adaptation: An analysis of how professional fishermen change their practices

The succession of crises in the French professional fishing sector raises the question of the sector's capacity to adapt to changes in its global environment, and of the possibilities for fishermen to change their practices. Through interviews with fishermen and representatives, 5 ideal types of individual transitions were described, as well as two examples of changes in the fisheries management system. Some changes can be characterised as adaptations following a shock, rather than real voluntary and planned transitions. Voluntary individual transitions do exist, however, initiated by a variable trigger factor, but they require a high degree of introspection about personal and professional expectations. These examples of transitions are made possible by the rare synchronisation of external events and various characteristics of the project owners and remain overall a niche phenomenon in the current situation. There is little scope for transition in the sector, mainly because of the difficulty of accessing production rights and the rigidity of management systems. To help the sector evolve and adapt to a changing macro-environment (organisational, environmental, societal, energy, etc.), transition levers can be mobilised at organisational, political, financial, technical, social and societal levels. The age structure of ships and people will probably be the mainstay of a major reconfiguration of the sector in the short term.

New development: Is it time for New Public Service Bargain?

IMPACT Governments should realize that public sector organizations are no longer the employer of choice. Public sector organizations face the challenge of attracting, recruiting and retaining skilled, competent and talented personnel. The public sector now competes with other sectors in a digital economy often offering better remuneration and working conditions. Decades of neoliberal public sector reforms and austerity measures have eroded the extent to which public sector organizations are attractive as a potential employer. The article suggests the idea of a New Public Service Bargain between politicians and civil and public servants as a more effective and sustainable approach to building public sector capacity to deliver services.

Sustainability, the Athens Marathon and Greece’s sport event sector: lessons of resilience, social innovation and the urban commons

Increasingly, a confluence of challenging global forces have precipitated sport sector change. While responses vary, a discernible trend has been the growing extents to which sport organisations and events have transcended typical participatory, performance and/or spectator focused logistics and embraced social responsibility acts that embed sport more deeply into communities. These manoeuvres have also become fundamental to organisation and sector capacity building and sustainability. Accordingly, this paper examines the example set by the Athens Marathon, Greece’s leading sport sector entity, towards sustainable event development through its strengthened volunteer and civil society practices and stakeholder relationships. Drawing data from key Athens Marathon informants and building upon conceptual models of sustainability that emphasise the interplay of resilience, social innovation and an urban commons, we demonstrate how the Athens Marathon affords a useful exemplar of how key organisational events may inform sustainability and sector strengthening.

Development of a Health Impact Assessment Implementation Model: Enhancing Intersectoral Approaches in Tackling Health Inequalities- A Mixed Methods Study Protocol

Public health research presents compelling evidence that health is socially determined. To address structural inequalities and inequities in health, public policies require intersectoral development and implementation. Health Impact Assessment (HIA) is an established approach for analysing potentially detrimental health impacts of policies, programmes, and projects, as well as potentially positive impacts and opportunities. National public health policy, Healthy Ireland (2013–2025), endorses an intersectoral whole-of-system approach to ensure that health is a central part of all relevant policy areas. HIA is endorsed in this policy as one way to drive this agenda. Synergising with this policy commitment for HIA, the all-island Institute of Public Health Ireland produced revised HIA guidance in 2021. Two HIAs will be carried out as part of this project, including one at a local policy level, addressing the Cork City Development Plan (2022–2028), and the second HIA at a national policy level, addressing the Irish Government’s Climate Action Plan (2024). The updated HIA guidance will be used in the conduct of these HIAs. This research project involves a co-creation of a Health Impact Assessment Implementation Model by employing an action research approach with implementation science frameworks to the conduct of the two HIAs. Therefore, the process of doing the HIAs will form the basis for the research study. In order to enhance meaningful community involvement in HIA in Ireland, the project will co-create a Community Engagement Toolkit for HIA. This Model will strengthen researcher, policy actor, practitioner, community, and voluntary sector capacity to collaboratively develop and implement intersectoral and equitable policy responses to major population health issues.

Reforming Digital Trade Rules at the WTO: Clarifying E-Commerce Regulation Policy Space for Economic Inclusion

Purpose: The purpose is to critically analyze the challenges and opportunities associated with reforming digital trade rules at the WTO, in order to explore the implications of ambiguous language and propose new principles and interpretative guidance to refine the rules.
 Methodology: The methodology involves analysis of ambiguous language in existing WTO agreements and proposed e-commerce rules, examination of influence on domestic digital sector capacity, case studies of digital industrial policies and technology regulations, and a proposal for new principles and interpretative guidance.
 Findings: The key findings are that ambiguity allows powerful tech giants to contest policies, impacts nurturing of domestic digital sector capacity, and burdens emerging markets. Case studies illustrate tensions around policy space for inclusive innovation.
 Unique contribution to theory, policy and practice: The unique contributions are the proposal of new principles to refine digital trade rules, development of interpretative guidance to affirm regulatory autonomy rights, and comparison with past WTO pharmaceutical patent waivers debate to emphasize need for adaptive and inclusive regulatory frameworks. Recommendations focus on promoting economic inclusion, innovation, competitiveness, and collaborative approaches in the digital era.

Co-design and evaluation of a youth-informed organisational tool to enhance trauma-informed practices in the UK public sector: a study protocol

IntroductionA trauma-informed approach (TIA) means working with awareness that people’s histories of trauma may shape the way they engage with services, organisations or institutions. Young people with adverse childhood experiences...

Exploratory analysis of the enforcement actions of the foreign corrupt practices act of the United States

The purpose of this research is to analyze corporate bribery in international business through a case study, in particular, a series of enforcement actions carried out in compliance with the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of the United States between 2011 and 2022. For this purpose, an exploratory research approach was followed, focused on answering the following questions: What motivates the offering of bribes around obtaining and maintaining business in international business? What relevant distinctions can be made to better understand this phenomenon? Based on the results of the case studies, a series of categories are proposed, the analysis of which may help to promote the private sector's capacity to prevent this illicit activity by facilitating the identification of risky activities or processes and possible mechanisms for their control.