Supply-driven Approach Research Articles

An assessment of the carbon emissions of China's ICT system from the demand and supply perspectives

An assessment of the carbon emissions of China's ICT system from the demand and supply perspectives

Land-neutral negative emissions through biochar-based fertilization—assessing global potentials under varied management and pyrolysis conditions

Climate stabilization is crucial for restabilizing the Earth system but should not undermine biosphere integrity, a second pillar of Earth system functioning. This is of particular concern if it is to be achieved through biomass-based negative emission (NE) technologies that compete for land with food production and ecosystem protection. We assess the NE contribution of land- and calorie-neutral pyrogenic carbon capture and storage (LCN-PyCCS) facilitated by biochar-based fertilization, which sequesters carbon and reduces land demand by increasing crop yields. Applying the global biosphere model LPJmL with an enhanced representation of fast-growing species for PyCCS feedstock production, we calculated a land-neutral global NE potential of 0.20–1.10 GtCO2 year−1 assuming 74% of the biochar carbon remaining in the soil after 100 years (for + 10% yield increase; no potential for + 5%; 0.61–1.88 GtCO2 year−1 for + 15%). The potential is primarily driven by the achievable yield increase and the management intensity of the biomass producing systems. NE production is estimated to be enhanced by + 200–270% if management intensity increases from a marginal to a moderate level. Furthermore, our results show sensitivity to process-specific biochar yields and carbon contents, producing a difference of + 40–75% between conservative assumptions and an optimized setting. Despite these challenges for making world-wide assumptions on LCN-PyCCS systems in modeling, our findings point to discrepancies between the large NE volumes calculated in demand-driven and economically optimized mitigation scenarios and the potentials from analyses focusing on supply-driven approaches that meet environmental and socioeconomic preconditions as delivered by LCN-PyCCS.

Implementing value-based healthcare using a digital health exchange platform to improve pregnancy and childbirth outcomes in urban and rural Kenya.

Maternal and neonatal mortality rates in many low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are still far above the targets of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 3. Value-based healthcare (VBHC) has the potential to outperform traditional supply-driven approaches in changing this dismal situation, and significantly improve maternal, neonatal and child health (MNCH) outcomes. We developed a theory of change and used a cohort-based implementation approach to create short and long learning cycles along which different components of the VBHC framework were introduced and evaluated in Kenya. At the core of the approach was a value-based care bundle for maternity care, with predefined cost and quality of care using WHO guidelines and adjusted to the risk profile of the pregnancy. The care bundle was implemented using a digital exchange platform that connects pregnant women, clinics and payers. The platform manages financial transactions, enables bi-directional communication with pregnant women via SMS, collects data from clinics and shares enriched information via dashboards with payers and clinics. While the evaluation of health outcomes is ongoing, first results show improved adherence to evidence-based care pathways at a predictable cost per enrolled person. This community case study shows that implementation of the VBHC framework in an LMIC setting is possible for MNCH. The incremental, cohort-based approach enabled iterative learning processes. This can support the restructuring of health systems in low resource settings from an output-driven model to a value based financing-driven model.

APPLYING MULTIDIMENSIONAL CANONICAL PARTITIONING (MCP) APPROACH TO DESIGN URBAN DECISION-SUPPORT SYSTEM

The design of decision-support systems remains a challenge because no method has yet been approved, although several approaches have been proposed. Multidimensional Canonical Partitioning (MCP) is a supply-driven approach to design decision-support systems, previously proposed. In this approach, decision systems are designed from Entity/Relationship (E/R) schema. The schema provided as input is reduced to a flat relation, if it is not already the case, by using universal relations assumption. The design approach uses two main algorithms. The first is a greedy type heuristic algorithm, and the second a matching algorithm. The approach has six steps. In this paper, we implement algorithms used in the design approach. We then propose a graphical interface as a tool for implementing the approach. The tool, called PaCaM, is intended to be used by decision-support systems designers. We after all apply the design approach on urban transactional systems.

Supporting direct support professionals in enabling people with intellectual disabilities to engage in meaningful activities: protocol for the Meaningful Activities 4 All (MA4A) study based on the human-centred design process

IntroductionMeaningful activities (MA) have a positive impact on identity, well-being, participation and inclusion. Although people with intellectual disabilities (PID) depend on their direct support professionals (DSPs) to engage in MA,...

Understanding the capacity of key actors and their role in the seed potato systems: The case of Eritrea

Understanding the combined effects of the biophysical, socioeconomic, and institutional components of a seed system can help to improve the effectiveness of seed system interventions. This study examined whether and how institutional factors are contributing to the inadequate supply of quality seed potato in Eritrea and identified where and how bottlenecks within the seed systems might improve the efficacy of seed potato interventions. The research methodology included semi-structured interviews with seed potato system actors, focus group discussions with farmers and local experts, a review of seed potato intervention program reports, farm visit reports, and other literature. The study identified some structural system failures that block the effective functioning of the seed potato intervention. The study recommendations include (i) investment in climate-smart technologies (such as water harvesting structures and new varieties) as well as for electricity supply in the high grades seed production center (ii) shifting the traditional supply-driven approach to a demand driven approach for greater participation of the actors in the seed potato intervention (iii) strengthening the human skill of the actors for greater interaction and collaboration between the different government actors and (iv) developing local strategies to encourage decentralized service provision systems. In the longer term, consideration should be given to greater private sector participation in sourcing and supply of seed and other inputs, even as a pilot-scale activity.

Elevating Social and Behavior Change as an Essential Component of Family Planning Programs.

The global family planning community has made significant progress towards enabling 120 million more women and girls to use contraceptives by 2020, though we enter the decade ahead with a long road yet to travel. While investment in strong health systems and supply chains is still needed, the supply‐driven approach dominant in family planning fails to address the individual, relational, and social barriers faced by women and couples in achieving their reproductive intentions and desired family size. Overcoming these barriers will require a better understanding of behavioral drivers and the social environment in which family planning decisions are made, and an increased investment in the proven, yet underutilized, approach of social and behavior change (SBC). We make the case that a more intentional focus on the science of human behavior in family planning can help advance the achievement of global, regional, and national goals while also calling for strategic and sustained investment that reflects the critical importance and proven impact of SBC approaches.

Accounting for Inter-Annual and Seasonal Variability in Assessment of Water Supply Stress: Perspectives from a humid region in the USA

Stresses on water systems can be quantitatively assessed through indices that account for water demand relative to water availability, e.g., the Water Supply Stress Index (WaSSI). However, as a result of adopting deterministic supply-driven approaches, limited attention is paid to the potential impacts of climatic variability on quantifying water stresses. The current study aimed to account for the impacts of inter-annual and intra-annual variability in the WaSSI stress index and to provide insights into potential opportunities for better water management practices. The results from our analysis indicate that looking only at average stresses can substantially mask the important impacts of climate variability. Louisiana, as a typical example of humid regions in the USA, is subjected to high levels of stresses (WaSSI exceeds 1.0) with higher inter-annual variability in watersheds where thermoelectric power plants exist and extensive water is used for cooling process. In addition, intra-annual variability in some watersheds shows periodicity in terms of seasonal stress distributions due to variability in surface water supply and water demand. Our analysis indicated that the stress variability grows as the median WaSSI increases but up to a certain threshold level and then the variability decreases for very high stress levels. For the annual and monthly scales, the peak variability, quantified as the width of the 2.5–97.5 stress percentiles, reached 68% for a median annual WaSSI of 1.00 and 100% for a median monthly WaSSI of 1.15, respectively. Various decisions related to water use and management can be driven by such variability, at both annual and intra-annual scales. Hence, these results have important implications for applied water resource studies aiming to formulate water management policies and improve water system sustainability under climate variability.

Kadaster Knowledge Graph: Beyond the Fifth Star of Open Data

After more than a decade, the supply-driven approach to publishing public (open) data has resulted in an ever-growing number of data silos. Hundreds of thousands of datasets have been catalogued and can be accessed at data portals at different administrative levels. However, usually, users do not think in terms of datasets when they search for information. Instead, they are interested in information that is most likely scattered across several datasets. In the world of proprietary in-company data, organizations invest heavily in connecting data in knowledge graphs and/or store data in data lakes with the intention of having an integrated view of the data for analysis. With the rise of machine learning, it is a common belief that governments can improve their services, for example, by allowing citizens to get answers related to government information from virtual assistants like Alexa or Siri. To provide high-quality answers, these systems need to be fed with knowledge graphs. In this paper, we share our experience of constructing and using the first open government knowledge graph in the Netherlands. Based on the developed demonstrators, we elaborate on the value of having such a graph and demonstrate its use in the context of improved data browsing, multicriteria analysis for urban planning, and the development of location-aware chat bots.

Triggering Green Transformation of the Private Sector Through Central Bank-led Initiatives: The Role of Bangladesh Bank in Mainstreaming Green Finance in Bangladesh

A number of guidelines and circulars issued by Bangladesh Bank directing the banks and financial institutions under its jurisdiction to factor in environmental concerns while making financial and in-house operational decisions have created tremendous awareness about the concept of green banking in the banking community of Bangladesh. Actual disbursement of green finance, which till date remains undefined in the lexicon of the central bank, however, has been inadequate. 93% of the 2,370,392.45 million taka disbursed as green finance between 2013 and 2017 has been loaned under the category of Indirect Green Finance; which essentially is amount loaned to any project having an Effluent Treatment Plant (ETP) or similar system. How much of this amount loaned as Indirect Green Finance is actually used to operate ETPs, a key priority for curbing water pollution in Bangladesh, is not traced. This paper offers a strategy for aiding Bangladesh Bank shift from a supply-driven approach of disbursing green finance to a demand-driven one. Towards this end, a new functional conceptualisation of green finance is suggested. The functional conceptualisation that we offer in this paper includes: i. a definition that guides practical application, ii. a new way of categorisation that creates room for acknowledging the fact that demand for green finance by different segments of the private sector (private businesses and household level consumers) in their different roles has different roots, and iii. identification of the drivers motivating expenditure on green solutions by private businesses and consumers and thus creating private sector’s demand for green funds.

INSTITUTIONAL DEVELOPMENT OF IRRIGATION MANAGEMENT BASED ON THE LOCAL WISDOM IN INDONESIA

During 1980-1997, the management of water resources was done with a supply-driven approach. This approach results in the expensive maintenance of water resources and the disregarded resources utilization of environmental sustainability. Since 1998, The Government of Indonesia began to reform institutional irrigation with the financing supported by the World Bank. However, the institutional reforms of the irrigation have not yet reflected the exact changes as expected. Therefore, it is necessary to study the process of strengthening the institutional management of irrigation based on the local wisdom through the inventory of history series of irrigation management policy and empowerment of capacity building and institutional program of irrigation management. This paper presents an effort to develop the institutional irrigation management by exploring the local wisdom in the community. It can be used as a guide for future sustainable management of irrigation. Keywords: agriculture, Subak, Ulu-ulu, water resources, farmers’ unionJEL Classification: B30, Q15, Q25

Making Demand Response a Reality in Europe: Policy, Regulations, and Deployment Status

Power systems are undergoing massive operational and technological changes amid increasing demand for environmental sustainability and energy efficiency. The traditional supply-driven approach, relying on large-scale generation plants, which dominated old utilities is reconsidered to incorporate the increased penetration of variable renewable energy sources, and distributed generation and storage. Demand response is an important instrument for improving energy efficiency, since it increases consumers' engagement and provides a mechanism to reduce or shift consumption, resulting in energy savings. Regulators and policy makers in several European countries are taking substantial measures to encourage market uptake of demand response as a means to mitigate the limitations of the existing grid and boost the transition to a low carbon economy. This goes hand in hand with the deployment of services by stakeholders who aggregate consumption flexibility and offer it to grid operators or to the electricity market. Several large-scale pilot projects explore the feasibility of demand response in residential and small commercial customers. This article provides an overview of the current regulatory and policy framework in Europe, and summarizes the state of play of commercial and pilot demand response deployments in various European countries. Also, it highlights some key research objectives associated with demand response.

Towards Habitat III: Confronting the disjuncture between global policy and local practice on Africa's ‘challenge of slums’

Abstract The ‘challenge of slums’ is a global challenge, but particularly acute in Sub-Saharan Africa where in 2001 71.9% of the urban population lived in slums. This article reviews the housing programmes of a selected number of African countries (Angola, Namibia, Ethiopia and South Africa) to argue that while until recently African shelter policies at least in name continued to be mostly in line with international enabling and participatory approaches to dealing with the challenge of slums, in practice mass scaled supply-driven approaches to housing provision are on the rise. The article situates this practice historically and seeks to provide insight into some of the perceptions and factors that have underpinned and enabled its emergence. While noting a number of shortcomings of this supply-driven approach, it concludes that with Habitat III on the horizon it is important to confront the disjuncture between global policy and local practice in African cities.

CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR INCREASING COMPETITIVENESS OF VEGETABLE PRODUCTION IN CAMBODIA

With 77% of the population living in rural areas, the development of agriculture is critical in reducing poverty in Cambodia. The growing demand for better quality vegetables offers farming families good opportunities to increase incomes and reduce their dependency on rice. Despite considerable progress in recent years, business opportunities are being lost as a result of a predominantly supply-driven approach and the slow rate of technology adoption within the sector. To strengthen the competitiveness of the Cambodian vegetable industry and to deliver elements of economic and environmental sustainability, there is an urgent need for the sector to embrace a market-driven approach. Strengthening trust and the dialogue between supply chain actors facilitates the coordination needed to act upon market signals. Using examples from a cooperation project between GIZ and East West Seed, this paper discusses the need for improved access to information and appropriate technology, and the significance this has in reducing risk and improving the incomes of smallholder farmers. The provision of embedded services and the pull of market forces are recommended as practical alternatives to the subsidies and market interference which presently plagues the sector. Fostering private sector initiatives which drive productivity, improve quality and increase the incomes of rural communities are presented as a viable and sustainable way for government and development agencies to complement traditional approaches to extension.

ESTIMATING THE ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES OF A PORT SHUTDOWN: THE SPECIAL ROLE OF RESILIENCE

This paper develops a methodology for the estimation of the total economic consequences of a seaport disruption, factoring in the major types of resilience. The foundation of the methodology is a combination of demand-driven and supply-driven input–output analyses. Resilience is included through a series of ad hoc adjustments based on various formal models and expert judgment. Moreover, we have designed the methodology in a manner that overcomes the major shortcomings of the supply-driven approach. We apply the methodology to a 90-day disruption at the twin seaports of Beaumont and Port Arthur, Texas, which is a major port area that includes a petrochemical manufacturing complex. We find that regional gross output could decline by as much as $13 billion at the port region level, but that resilience can reduce these impacts by nearly 70%.

Opportunities, challenges and way forward for the charcoal briquette industry in Sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract Charcoal briquettes are solid fuel made from carbonized biomass, or densified biomass that is subsequently carbonized. In spite of clear advantages of charcoal briquettes that include price, burn time, environmental sustainability and potential for product standardization, their uptake as a substitute for wood charcoal in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) remains very limited. By analyzing the experiences of pioneer charcoal briquette producers in Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, and Tanzania, we identify factors limiting the growth of the industry in the region and make recommendations for how to address these challenges. Our analysis shows that widespread adoption of charcoal briquettes is unlikely to have a significant effect on demand for wood charcoal within SSA, as has been the case in many Asian countries. To date, the availability of charcoal briquettes has displaced only small volumes of charcoal demand and has increased the energy options for limited consumer groups within niche markets. Limiting factors for the industry include prevailing low prices of wood charcoal, punitive legal and fiscal requirements for briquette producers, and supply-driven (versus market-led) approaches to industry development. Policy, technical and marketing interventions are proposed to address these barriers and stimulate more widespread production and use of charcoal briquettes in the region. Our recommendations include marketing studies to better understand consumer preferences in fuel and stove attributes, better enforcement of existing forestry and charcoal regulations, reduced regulatory hurdles for registering new briquette businesses, targeted tax exemptions, and expansion of consumption to new industrial and other consumers.

Assessment on the Approaches Used for Water and Sanitation Programs in Southern Ethiopia

Water supply and sanitation systems using the supply-driven approach have not met the demands of consumers. Systems are also facing problems of underuse, poor maintenance and inadequate cost recovery. This study reports about approaches used by water and sanitation program implementers in Shebedino District, a rural area in Ethiopia. A community-based study was conducted using in-depth interviews, focus group discussions and a structured questionnaire. A total of 635 households were studied. The supplier-induced approach was found to be the main approach used by program implementers. The involvement of beneficiary communities at different stages of the projects was limited. Water and sanitation services were subsidized by implementing agencies but households were dissatisfied with the outcomes. More than 88 % of respondents stated that they did not have any relevant skills or expertise to enable them to maintain the facilities. Logistic regression analysis results showed that approaches used by sanitation program implementers were statistically associated with sex of household heads (2.144, AOR 95 % Cl: 1.520–3.025), family size (1.554, AOR 95 % CI: 1.100–2.196), subsidy (1.699, AOR 95 % CI: 0.390–0.921) and occupation (15.196, AOR 95 % CI: 1.946–118.660). However, no statistical significant association was found among age, sex, marital status, income, family size, education and occupation and approaches used by water program implementers. Generally, the unsatisfactory results of the supplier-induced approach (80.8 % for water and 33.1 % for sanitation facilities) point out the need for program implementers to give more attention to the demands and preferences of users.

The human dimension of modular care provision: Opportunities for personalization and customization

Various behavioral issues are at stake in the health care sector, for example, the current strong plea for more demand-based care provision as opposed to traditional supply-driven approaches. Healthcare organizations are increasingly in need of systems and approaches that allow them to be more responsive to the needs and desires of their clients. To cope with heterogeneous and multiple demands, the application of modularity is increasingly proposed in care and services. In this paper the purpose is to study how interpersonal behavior responsive to client needs and values can be accommodated in modular care provision. Drawing on relevant literature from various service-related disciplines, we develop insight into how customization and personalization are simultaneously practiced by means of case research in the context of long-term care for elder people. Our empirics indicate that in care for elder people, personalization complements customization in adapting supply to demand. Customization is used to better match the needs of an individual customer in terms of the content of the service. Personalization is also used for this purpose, however, by adapting the way in which the service is provided. Moreover, the practice of personalization effectuates customization over time. The paper shows the importance of human behavior in the application of modularity in long term care for elder people. Approaching the issue of adaptation through the lens of modularity offers care providers insight into how customization and personalization are related. These insights can be used for the design of care delivery systems that enable comprehensive adaptation of supply to heterogeneous customer demands over time.

Analysis for Different Level of Service in Rural Water Supply: A case Study of Mothala Village, Kutch District, Gujarat

As per the norms of funding, in the rural water supply (RWS) programs of developing countries the choice of Level of Service (LOS) is incorporated at the stage of planning itself by the Consumers. However, in most of the cases the Consumers accept these programs with just the basic LOS in order to minimize their share of contribution. Hence, such schemes can effectively be termed as the scheme planned and designed with the philosophy of supply driven approach (SDA). In such situation it can be mention that the “some for all, rather than more for some” policy leads to “minimum unsatisfactory virtually free service to all”. Thus planners should rather strive for basic service to all and higher LOS to those who are willing to pay for more. Cost of RWS for different LOS for Village, starting from basic service to higher service level.

FROM PASSIVE RECIPIENT TO EMPOWERED CLIENT? THE CHANGING ROLE OF WATER CONSUMERS

The traditional paradigm promoting government responsibility for providing water services has, in practice, translated into a strongly supply-driven approach. With the onset of neo-liberalism and i ...