Search results for: livelihood capital

Authors: Nguyen Xuan Thuy

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The provisions on life imprisonment in the legal system enable to differentiate criminal liability and individualize the penalties for particularly serious crimes. This punishment acts as an intermediary between the determined imprisonment of a maximum of 20 years and the capital punishment, enabling the penalty system to maintain its internal unity. However, the practice of applying the punishment has been posing many problems that need to be studied in order to come up with solutions to improve the provisions related to the penalty and its effectiveness in the fight against crimes. The article summarizes the law on life imprisonment sentence in the current criminal law to highlight its characteristics and role in Vietnam's Penal Code. It also suggests some solutions to improve the law and its effectiveness in preventing and combating crimes.

Keywords: life imprisonment, Vietnam, law, penalty, provisions

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Authors: Navarat Sachayansrisakul, Nattawat Ponnara

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Human beings are driving forces for any unit of societies, whether it would be in a family, communities, industries or even organizations. However, as our humanity progresses, the reliance has shifted from human to machineries and technologies. One main challenge when dealing with more than one person is conflict often resulted. If the conflict is properly managed, then economic development also follows. In order to achieve positive outcome of conflict, it is believed that the management comes from within individual entrepreneurs. As such, this is a unique study as it looks into the spiritual side of humans as business people and applies to the business environment with the focus on moral and ethical framework in order for sustainable development. This study aims to provide a model of how to positively manage conflict without compromising the ethical and moral standards of the businesses. Sustainability in this study is achieved through the Buddhists’ aim for liberation in which it works on the balanced approach to solving conflict. Buddhists’ livelihood is established on simplicity and non-violence while contributing not to only one’s self but those around them such as the stake holders of the businesses and the communities. According to Buddhist principles and some findings, a model called ‘The Bestination Conflict Management’ was developed. Bestination model offers an alternative approach for entrepreneurs to achieve sustainability along with intrinsic and extrinsic rewards that benefit the well-beings of the owners, the stakeholders and the communities involved. This research study identifies ‘Conflict Management’ model as having goodwill and wisdom as a base, then moral motivation as the next level up to have a disciplines in order to keep a unit well cooperated.

Keywords: sustainable, entrepreneurs, Buddhist, moral, ethics, conflict

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Authors: Mohamed Ahmed M. Azab

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The shortage of fresh water is a major problem in several areas of the world such as arid regions and coastal zones in several countries of Arabian Gulf. Fortunately, arid regions are exposed to high levels of solar irradiation most the year, which makes the utilization of solar energy a promising solution to such problem with zero harmful emission (Green System). The main objective of this work is to conduct a feasibility study of utilizing small autonomous water desalination units powered by photovoltaic modules as a green renewable energy resource to be employed in different isolated zones as a source of drinking water for some scattered societies where the installation of huge desalination stations are discarded owing to the unavailability of electric grid. Yanbu City is chosen as a case study where the Renewable Energy Center exists and equipped with all sensors to assess the availability of solar energy all over the year. The study included two types of available water: the first type is brackish well water and the second type is seawater of coastal regions. In the case of well water, two versions of desalination units are involved in the study: the first version is based on day operation only. While the second version takes into consideration night operation also, which requires energy storage system as batteries to provide the necessary electric power at night. According to the feasibility study results, it is found that utilization of small autonomous desalinations unit is applicable and economically accepted in the case of brackish well water. While in the case of seawater the capital costs are extremely high and the cost of desalinated water will not be economically feasible unless governmental subsidies are provided. In addition, the study indicated that, for the same water production, the utilization of energy storage version (day-night) adds additional capital cost for batteries, and extra running cost for their replacement, which makes the unit price not only incompetent with day-only unit but also with conventional units powered by diesel generator (fossil fuel) owing to the low prices of fuel in the kingdom. However, the cost analysis shows that the price of the produced water per cubic meter of day-night unit is similar to that produced from the day-only unit provided that the day-night unit operates theoretically for a longer period of 50%.

Keywords: solar energy, water desalination, reverse osmosis, arid regions

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Authors: Nana Yaw Ofori Gyasi

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Under the Common Law, there was a procedure called pleading the belly which allowed a woman who had reached the advanced stage of pregnancy to receive a reprieve of her death sentence until after she had put to bed. The plea was replaced with a legislation, which provides that a pregnant woman would automatically have her death sentence commuted to life imprisonment with hard labour. This Common Law principle has been continued and enacted into law by the various countries where the Common Law is practiced. This paper takes a look at what it terms as Pregnancy Legislations in some selected Common Law countries such as United States of America, Canada, England and Wales, Ghana and India to examine the scope, procedure and effect of such legislations. The paper adopts a comparative study approach to ascertain the country with the widest scope, non-complicated procedure and far-reaching effects of the Pregnancy Legislations. It is observed that some legislations make provision for the conversion of death penalty to life imprisonment for capital offences and also prescribe non-custodial sentence for non-capital offences. There are other legislations that merely suspend the death penalty while the convict is found to be pregnant. In terms of the procedure, some of the legislations make the issue of pregnancy a question of fact to be determined by a jury and in other legislations, the trial judge makes that determination after the judge is satisfied on the question of the convict being pregnant. The effects of the Pregnancy Legislation are observed to be varying. Women who give birth in prison are highly at risk of having stillbirth. Most of the prisons do not have adequate facilities to support expectant and lactating mothers while in prison. It has also been observed that with the number of female prisoners increasing over the years, custodial sentence for convicted pregnant women has a wider societal effect. The paper identifies certain gaps left in some of the legislations which relate to the procedure to be followed after custodial sentence is suspended for a convicted pregnant woman. The time the accused person got pregnant- whether before her arrest or during trial- and the effect of the timing of the pregnancy are gaps left in some of the legislations. The paper argues that such gaps should be filled by the legislator to prevent accused persons taking undue advantage of the Pregnancy Legislations. It is further argued that if convicted pregnant women will have to spend time in prison at all for very heinous crimes, the prison facilities should be improved so that expectant and lactating mothers can comfortably care for their babies and themselves to prevent dire health consequences for such mothers and the society at a whole.

Keywords: sentence of pregnant women, custodial sentence, , pregnant women, , common law

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Authors: Adepoju A. A., Olapade-Ogunwole F., Ganiyu M. O.

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This study examined women's empowerment in cassava production in southwest Nigeria. The contributions of the five domains namely decision about agricultural production, decision-making power over productive resources, control of the use of income, leadership and time allocation to women disempowerment, profiled the women based on their socio-economics features and determined factors influencing women's disempowerment. Primary data were collected from the women farmers and processors through the use of structured questionnaires. Purposive sampling was used to select the LGAs and villages based on a large number of cassava farmers and processors, while cluster sampling was used to select 360 respondents in the study area. Descriptive statistics such as bar charts and percentages, Women Empowerment in Agriculture (WEAI), and the Logit regression model were used to analyze the data collected. The results revealed that 63.88% of the women were disempowered. Lack of decision-making power over productive resources; 36.47% and leadership skills; 33.26% contributed mostly to the disempowerment of the women. About 85% of the married women were disempowered, while 76.92% of the women who participated in social group activities were more empowered than their disempowered counterparts. The findings showed that women with more years of processing experience have the probability of being disempowered while those who engage in farming as a primary livelihood activity, and participate in social groups among others have the tendency to be empowered. In view of this, it was recommended that women should be encouraged to farm and contribute to social group activities.

Keywords: cassava, production, empowerment, southwest, Nigeria

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Authors: Gechbaia Badri

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In the article, it is studied and realized the perfection issues of service sphere management in Georgia’s reality. As stated above, to transfer the country's economy onto marketing relationships, to form competitive dynamic market is dictated by the time and represents objective necessity. In the last period, the abruptly increasing of changes on science and education caused servicing sphere and producing skills, consumptions based on fields of places and changing role in a structure of the national economy. The main recourse in the new system of the economy became the intellectual capital. The economical progress is significantly determined by developing informational technologies. In the article, it is investigated the service problems of different fields of national economy and are given sentences to settle these problems.

Keywords: service management, service, paradigm, business and management engineering

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Authors: Sarah Niklas, Lynne Chester, Mark Diesendorf

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Geopolitical tensions, climate change and recent movements favouring a transformative shift in institutional power structures have influenced the economics of conventional energy supply for decades. This study takes a multi-dimensional approach to illustrate the potential of renewable energy (RE) technology to provide a pathway to a low-carbon economy driven by ecologically sustainable, independent and socially just energy. This comparative analysis identifies economic, political and social drivers that shaped the adoption of RE policy in two significantly different economies, Germany and Australia, with strong and weak commitments to RE respectively. Two complementary political-economy theories frame the document-based analysis. Régulation Theory, inspired by Marxist ideas and strongly influenced by contemporary economic problems, provides the background to explore the social relationships contributing the adoption of RE within the macro-economy. Varieties of Capitalism theory, a more recently developed micro-economic approach, examines the nature of state-firm relationships. Together these approaches provide a comprehensive lens of analysis. Germany’s energy policy transformed substantially over the second half of the last century. The development is characterised by the coordination of societal, environmental and industrial demands throughout the advancement of capitalist regimes. In the Fordist regime, mass production based on coal drove Germany’s astounding economic recovery during the post-war period. Economic depression and the instability of institutional arrangements necessitated the impulsive seeking of national security and energy independence. During the postwar Flexi-Fordist period, quality-based production, innovation and technology-based competition schemes, particularly with regard to political power structures in and across Europe, favoured the adoption of RE. Innovation, knowledge and education were institutionalized, leading to the legislation of environmental concerns. Lastly the establishment of government-industry-based coordinative programs supported the phase out of nuclear power and the increased adoption of RE during the last decade. Australia’s energy policy is shaped by the country’s richness in mineral resources. Energy policy largely served coal mining, historically and currently one of the most capital-intense industry. Assisted by the macro-economic dimensions of institutional arrangements, social and financial capital is orientated towards the export-led and strongly demand-oriented economy. Here energy policy serves the maintenance of capital accumulation in the mining sector and the emerging Asian economies. The adoption of supportive renewable energy policy would challenge the distinct role of the mining industry within the (neo)-liberal market economy. The state’s protective role of the mining sector has resulted in weak commitment to RE policy and investment uncertainty in the energy sector. Recent developments, driven by strong public support for RE, emphasize the sense of community in urban and rural areas and the emergence of a bottom-up approach to adopt renewables. Thus, political economy frameworks on both the macro-economic (Regulation Theory) and micro-economic (Varieties of Capitalism theory) scales can together explain the strong commitment to RE in Germany vis-à-vis the weak commitment in Australia.

Keywords: political economy, regulation theory, renewable energy, social relationships, energy transitions

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Authors: Srikanth Bade

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This paper discusses how the usage of social media has altered certain discourses and communicated with the political institutions for major actions in Indian scenario. The advent of new technology in the form of social media has engrossed the general public to discuss in the open forum. How they promulgated their ideas into action is captured in this study. Moreover, these discourses happening in the social media is analyzed from certain philosophical traditions by adopting a framework. Hence, this paper analyses the role of social media in political communication and change the political discourse. Also, this paper tries to address the issue that whether the deliberation made through social media had indeed communicated the issue of political matters to the decision making authorities.

Keywords: collective action and social capital, political communication, political discourse, social media

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Authors: Freddy Houndekindo

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A study was carried out to evaluate the flood risk in the district of Malanville located along the Niger River. The knowledge produce by this study is useful in the implementation of adaptation and/or mitigation measures to alleviate the impact of the flooding on the populations, the economy and the environment. Over the course of the study, the lack of data in the area of interest has been one of the main challenges encountered. Therefore, in the analysis of the flood hazard different sources of remotely sensed data were used. Moreover, the flood hazard was analysed by applying a 1D hydraulic model: HEC-RAS. After setting up the model for the study area, the different flood scenarios considered were simulated and mapped using ArcGIS and the HEC-GEORAS extension. The result of the simulation gave information about the inundated areas and the water depths at each location. From the analysis of the flood hazard, it was found that between 47% and 50% of the total area of the district of Malanville would be flooded in the different flood scenarios considered, and the water depth varies between 1 and 7 m. The townships of Malanville most at risk of flooding are Momkassa and Galiel, located in a high-risk and very high-risk zone, respectively. Furthermore, the assessment of the flood risk showed that the most vulnerable sector to the inundations is the agricultural sector. Indeed, the cultivated floodplains were the most affected areas by the floodwater in every flood scenarios. Knowing that a high proportion of the population of the district relies on their farmlands in these floodplains for their livelihood, the floods pose a challenge not only to the food security in the area but also to its development.

Keywords: flood risk management, Niger, remote sensing, vulnerability

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Authors: Sibnath Sarkar

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Developing countries are facing many Social problems. In India, too there are several such problems. The problem of street children is one of them. No country or city anywhere in the world today is without the presence of street children, but the problem is most acute in developing countries. Thousands of street children can be seen in our populous cities like Mumbai, Kolkata, Delhi, and Chennai. Most of them are in the age group of 5-15 years. The number of street children is increasing gradually. Poverty, unemployment, rapid urbanization, rural-urban migrations are the root causes of street children. Being deprive from many of their, they have escaped to the street as a safe place for living. Street children always related with the urban spaces in the developing world and it represents a sad outcome of the rapid urbanization process. After coming to the streets, these children have to cope with the new situation every day. They also adopt or develop many complex survival strategies and a variety of different informal or even illegal activities in public space and form supportive social networks in order to survive in street life. Street children use the different suitable urban spaces as their earning, living, entertaining spot. Therefore, the livelihoods of young people on the street should analyze in relation to the spaces they use, as well as their age and length of stay on the streets. This paper tries to explore the livelihood strategies and copping situation of street children in Sealdah station area. One hundred seventy-five street living children are included in the study living in and around the railway station.

Keywords: strategies, street children, survive, urban-space

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Authors: Akachi Odoemene

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Climate change and land grabbing are tightly interconnected in ways that are both diverse and complex. They have impacted each other in significant ways too. Both phenomena are not only a political reality, but have diverse dire implications, especially for food and livelihood security of vulnerable populations in developing economies. The critical nexus and interactions of climate change and land grabbing remain one of the challenges of sustainable development in modern times. The nuanced understanding of the nexus, importance and implications of climate change and land grabbing are the primary focus of this chapter. It begins with conceptual clarifications, particularly arguing that the absence of some important principles of engagement underline and define a land grab. It also analyses and notes a good number of contemporary land deals as 'one-sided', in which wealthy entities connive with local elites to exploit and disposes rural poor populations. The paper not only examines both global and local factors that drive land grabbing and, in some cases, their connections with the incidence of climate change, but also explores their crucial links with such sector as agriculture. It is argued and exhibited in the paper why certain societies are susceptible to the incidence of climate change and land grabbing, while the overall consequences of these phenomena on the affected societies are further interrogated. The paper concludes that the lack of political will by global political leaders to effectively combat and resolve critical issues associated with both climate change and land grabbing remains a daunting challenge. It notes that these phenomena – climate change and land grabbing – if not abated, will certainly become another set of global tragic episodes to be regretted in the future.

Keywords: climate change, land grabbing, global governance, developing economies

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Authors: Ali Alshamrani

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This article aims to give a comprehensive and critical review of sukuk issuance in Saudi Arabia, and the extent to which the issuance of sukuk in Saudi Arabia is consistent with Shariah requirements. The article is divided into two sections. Accordingly, the first section of this article begins with an examination of sukuk in general, and includes the concept of sukuk, the basic principles of sukuk, common types of sukuk, and a critical analysis of the most important differences between sukuk and conventional bonds. The second section gives a critical analysis of how sukuk work in Saudi Arabia, offering the regulatory framework of the issuance of sukuk in the KSA, and the legal challenges from Shariah point of view, and provide recommendations to overcome these challenges.

Keywords: sukuk issuance, Shariah, Saudi Arabia, capital market authority

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Authors: Pramit Garg, Vikas Kumar

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In December 2015, all the members of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) unanimously adopted the historic Paris Agreement. As per the convention, 197 countries have followed the guidelines of the agreement and have agreed to reduce the use of fossil fuels and also reduce the carbon emission to reach net carbon neutrality by 2050 and reduce the global temperature by 2°C by the year 2100. Globally, transport accounts for 23% of the energy-related CO2 that feeds global warming. Decarbonization of the transport sector is an essential step towards achieving India’s nationally determined contributions and net zero emissions by 2050. Metro rail systems are playing a vital role in the decarbonization of the transport sector as they create metro cities for the “21st-century world” that could ensure “mobility, connectivity, productivity, safety and sustainability” for the populace. Metro rail was introduced in Delhi in 2002 to decarbonize Delhi-National Capital Region and to provide a sustainable mode of public transportation. Metro Rail Projects significantly contribute to pollution reduction and are thus a prerequisite for sustainable development. The Delhi Metro is the 1ˢᵗ metro system in the world to earn carbon credits from Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects registered under United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. A good Metro Project with reasonable network coverage attracts a modal shift from various private modes and hence fewer vehicles on the road, thus restraining the pollution at the source. The absence of Greenhouse Gas emissions from the vehicle of modal shift passengers and lower emissions due to decongested roads contribute to the reduction in Green House Gas emissions and hence overall reduction in atmospheric pollution. The reduction in emission during the horizon year 2002 to 2019 has been estimated using emission standards and deterioration factor(s) for different categories of vehicles. Presently, our results indicate that the Delhi Metro system has reduced approximately 17.3% of motorized trips by road resulting in an emission reduction significantly. Overall, Delhi Metro, with an immediate catchment area of 17% of the National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCTD), is helping today to reduce 387 tonnes of emissions per day and 141.2 ktonnes of emissions yearly. The findings indicate that the Metro rail system is driving cities towards a more livable environment.

Keywords: Delhi metro, GHG emission, sustainable public transport, urban transport

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Authors: Hany Mustafa, Mahmoud Roushdi, Khaled Kheireldin

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Rainfall variability is an important feature of semi-arid climates. Climate change is very likely to increase the frequency, magnitude, and variability of extreme weather events such as droughts, floods, and storms. The Blue Nile Basin is facing extreme climate change-related events such as floods and droughts and its possible impacts on ecosystem, livelihood, agriculture, livestock, and biodiversity are expected. Rainfall variability is a threat to food production in the Blue Nile Basin countries. This study investigates the long-term variations and trends of seasonal and annual precipitation over the Blue Nile Basin for 102-year period (1901-2002). Six statistical trend analysis of precipitation was performed with nonparametric Mann-Kendall test and Sen's slope estimator. On the other hands, four statistical absolute homogeneity tests: Standard Normal Homogeneity Test, Buishand Range test, Pettitt test and the Von Neumann ratio test were applied to test the homogeneity of the rainfall data, using XLSTAT software, which results of p-valueless than alpha=0.05, were significant. The percentages of significant trends obtained for each parameter in the different seasons are presented. The study recommends adaptation strategies to be streamlined to relevant policies, enhancing local farmers’ adaptive capacity for facing future climate change effects.

Keywords: Blue Nile basin, climate change, Mann-Kendall test, trend analysis

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Authors: Basanta Raj Adhikari

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Large and small scale earthquakes are frequent in the Nepal, Himalaya, and many co-seismic landslides are resulted out of it. Recently, Gorkha earthquake-2015 has triggered many co-seismic landslides destroying many lives and properties. People have displaced their original places due to having many cracks and unstable ground. Therefore, Nepal has been adopting a pronged development strategy to address the earthquake issues through reconstruction and rehabilitation policy, plans and budgets. Landslides are major threat for the mountain livelihood, and it is very important to investigate and mitigate to improve human wellbeing factoring in considerations of economic growth, environmental safety, and sustainable development. Community based landslide investigation was carried with the involvement of the local community in the Sindhupalchowk District of Central Nepal. Landslide training and field orientation were the major methodological approach of this study. Combination of indigenous and modern scientific knowledge has created unique working environment which enhanced the local capacity and trained people for replication. Local topography of the landslide was created with the help of Total Station and bill of quantity was derived based on it. River training works, plantation of trees and grasses, support structures, surface and sub-surface drainage management are the recommended mitigative measures. This is a very unique example of how academia and local community can work together for sustainable development by reducing disaster risk at the local level with very low-cost technology.

Keywords: community, earthquake, landslides, Nepal

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Authors: Saira Mehnaz, Ali Jafar Abedi, Shazia Farooq Fazli, Sakeena Mushfiq, Zulfia Khan, M. Athar Ansari

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Introduction: Public health spending is a necessity in an underdeveloped country like India. The people are already suffering from poverty and that clubbed with out of pocket expenditure leads them to a very catastrophic situation, reducing the overall access to healthcare. Objectives: This study was designed to determine the usual source of medical care opted, the illness pattern, the expenditure incurred on illness and its source of procurement by the study population. It also intended to assess this expenditure as a determinant of access to health care. Methodology: Cities like Aligarh, which are classified as B grade cities in India are thought to be ripe sites for getting livelihood and hence are almost half filled with migrants living in urban slums. A cross sectional study was done to study the newer slum pockets. 3409 households with a population of 16,978 were studied with the help of pretested questionnaire; SPSS 20 was used for statistical analysis. Results and Conclusions: In our study, we found that almost all the households suffered from catastrophic health expenditure. The study population, which was already vulnerable owing to their low socio-economic and migrant status was further being forced with into poverty and indebtedness on account of expenditure on illness. This lead to a significant decrease in access to health. National health financing systems should be designed to protect households from financial catastrophe, by reducing out-of-pocket spending.

Keywords: access to healthcare, catastrophic health expenditure, new urban slums, out of pocket expenditure

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Authors: Mukhtiar Singh, Sumeet Nagar

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Vehicle routing problem (VRP) is a combinatorial optimization and nonlinear programming problem aiming to optimize decisions regarding given set of routes for a fleet of vehicles in order to provide cost-effective and efficient delivery of both services and goods to the intended customers. This paper proposes the application of integrated particle swarm optimization (PSO) and genetic optimization algorithm (GA) to address the Vehicle routing problem in sugarcane industry in India. Suger industry is very prominent agro-based industry in India due to its impacts on rural livelihood and estimated to be employing around 5 lakhs workers directly in sugar mills. Due to various inadequacies, inefficiencies and inappropriateness associated with the current vehicle routing model it costs huge money loss to the industry which needs to be addressed in proper context. The proposed algorithm utilizes the crossover operation that originally appears in genetic algorithm (GA) to improve its flexibility and manipulation more readily and avoid being trapped in local optimum, and simultaneously for improving the convergence speed of the algorithm, level set theory is also added to it. We employ the hybrid approach to an example of VRP and compare its result with those generated by PSO, GA, and parallel PSO algorithms. The experimental comparison results indicate that the performance of hybrid algorithm is superior to others, and it will become an effective approach for solving discrete combinatory problems.

Keywords: fuzzy logic, genetic algorithm, particle swarm optimization, vehicle routing problem

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Authors: Daiva Skuciene

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The Baltic States turned to free market and capitalism after independency. The new socioeconomic system, democracy and priorities about the welfare of citizens formed. The researches show that Baltic states choose the neoliberal development. Related to this neoliberal path, a few questions arouse: how do people evaluate the results of such policy and socioeconomic development? What are their priorities? And what are the values of the Baltic societies that support neoliberal policy? The purpose of this research – to analyze the socioeconomic context and the priorities and the values of the Baltics societies related to neoliberal regime. The main objectives are: firstly, to analyze the neoliberal socioeconomic features and results; secondly, to analyze people opinions and priorities about the results of neoliberal development; thirdly, to analyze the values of the Baltic societies related to the neoliberal policy. For the implementation of the purpose and objectives, the comparative analyses among European countries are used. The neoliberal regime was defined through two indicators: the taxes on capital income and expenditures on social protection. The socioeconomic outcomes of neoliberal welfare regime are defined through the Gini inequality and at risk of the poverty rate. For this analysis, the data of 2002-2013 of Eurostat were used. For the analyses of opinion about inequality and preferences on society, people want to live in, the preferences for distribution between capital and wages in enterprise data of Eurobarometer in 2010-2014 and the data of representative survey in the Baltic States in 2016 were used. The justice variable was selected as a variable reflecting the evaluation of socioeconomic context and analyzed using data of Eurobarometer 2006-2015. For the analyses of values were selected: solidarity, equality, and individual responsibility. The solidarity, equality was analyzed using data of Eurobarometer 2006-2015. The value “individual responsibility” was examined by opinions about reasons of inequality and poverty. The survey of population in the Baltic States in 2016 and data of Eurobarometer were used for this aim. The data are ranged in descending order for understanding the position of opinion of people in the Baltic States among European countries. The dynamics of indicators is also provided to examine stability of values. The main findings of the research are that people in the Baltics are dissatisfied with the results of the neoliberal socioeconomic development, they have priorities for equality and justice, but they have internalized the main neoliberal narrative- individual responsibility. The impact of socioeconomic context on values is huge, resulting in a change in quite stable opinions and values during the period of the financial crisis.

Keywords: neoliberal, inequality and poverty, solidarity, individual responsibility

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Authors: Yassine Jadi, Lin Jie

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In order to serve the society in an electronic manner, many developing countries have launched tremendous e-government projects. The strategies of development and implementation e-government system have reached different levels, and to ensure consistency of development, the governments need to evaluate e-government performance. The United nation has design e-government development ranking index (EGDI) that rely on three indexes, Online service index (OSI), Telecommunication Infrastructure index (TII), and human capital index( HCI) which are not reflecting the interaction between a government and their citizens. Based on data envelopment analyses (DEA) technique, we are using E-participating index (EPI) as an output of government effort to evaluate the performance of e-government system. Therefore, the ranking index can be achieved in efficiency manner.

Keywords: e-government, DEA, efficiency measurement, EGDI

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Authors: Lady Salvador Purganan, Jojo M. Villamin, Noel L. Lansang

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Tourism is a multifaceted but interdependent industry. This industry is composed of four major players, the public sector, the private sector, the local community, and the tourists. Each player has a vital role in the success of delivering high-quality tourism products and activities. There are various manifestations of positive economic outcomes that benefit the local community. Pro-poor tourism development approach has a great potential to serve as an avenue for capacity building leading to economic independence since natural attractions and cultural resources are assets that can be capitalized on, especially by the poor, because it is more accessible to them compared to financial resources. In the National Tourism Development Plan 2016-2022, specific mechanisms are not reflected to combat and lower poverty incidence through tourism. The researcher used the multidimensional poverty theory and sustainable tourism theory to formulate indicators in the research instrument and social exchange theory. The expected output of the study is to unlock opportunities, specifically in Brgy. Sta. Lucia, Guimba, Nueva Ecija, by crafting policies taking into utmost consideration local community involvement and participation in the process of tourism development which is essential in attaining inclusive growth and sustainability. This study will apply the sequential explanatory design mixed-method approach.

Keywords: pro-poor tourism, poverty alleviation, livelihood opportunities, tourism development plan

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Authors: Lawrence Ngalim

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The paucity of entrepreneurial finance in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) can plausibly be tied to her comparatively less-developed capital markets, which potentially hurts entrepreneurial activities. The high rate of informality in SSA worsens information asymmetry, which restricts the supply of funds in a heavily bank-led environment. In this paper, we ask whether the adoption of recent technological improvements in delivering financial services, such as crowdfunding, assists the financially excluded within Africa. Secondly, we investigate the individual determinants of crowdfunding, such as income, level of education, demographics, culture/trust, and the effects of crowdfunding on households’ usage of formal financial services. The paper discusses the long-term policy implications of this particular type of fintech in achieving financial inclusion within the regional bloc and its advantage for Africa-Agenda-2063.

Keywords: fintech, banks, entrepreneurship, regional integration

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Authors: Yves Alain Ach, Sandra Rmadi Said

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An extensive review of literature in relation to brands has shown that little research has focused on the nature and determinants of the information disclosed by companies with respect to the brands they own and use. The objective of this paper is to address this issue. More specifically, the aim is to characterize the nature of the information disclosed by companies in terms of estimating the value of brands and to identify the determinants of that information according to the company’s characteristics most frequently tested by previous studies on the disclosure of information on intangible capital, by studying the practices of a sample of 37 French companies. Our findings suggest that companies prefer to communicate accounting, economic and strategic information in relation to their brands instead of providing financial information. The analysis of the determinants of the information disclosed on brands leads to the conclusion that the groups which operate internationally and have chosen a category 1 auditing firm to communicate more information to investors in their annual report. Our study points out that the sector is not an explanatory variable for voluntary brand disclosure, unlike previous studies on intangible capital. Our study is distinguished by the study of an element that has been little studied in the financial literature, namely the determinants of brand-related information. With regard to the effect of size on brand-related information disclosure, our research does not confirm this link. Many authors point out that large companies tend to publish more voluntary information in order to respond to stakeholder pressure. Our study also establishes that the relationship between brand information supply and performance is insignificant. This relationship is already controversial by previous research, and it shows that higher profitability motivates managers to provide more information, as this strengthens investor confidence and may increase managers' compensation. Our main contribution focuses on the nature of the inherent characteristics of the companies that disclose the most information about brands. Our results show the absence of a link between size and industry on the one hand and the supply of brand information on the other, contrary to previous research. Our analysis highlights three types of information disclosed about brands: accounting, economics and strategy. We, therefore, question the reasons that may lead companies to voluntarily communicate mainly accounting, economic and strategic information in relation to our study from one year to the next and not to communicate detailed information that would allow them to reconstitute the financial value of their brands. Our results can be useful for companies and investors. Our results highlight, to our surprise, the lack of financial information that would allow investors to understand a better valuation of brands. We believe that additional information is needed to improve the quality of accounting and financial information related to brands. The additional information provided in the special report that we recommend could be called a "report on intangible assets”.

Keywords: brand related information, brand value, information disclosure, determinants

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Authors: Venkata Ramanaiah, Shabina Khanam

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Enormous potential for saving energy is available in coal-based sponge iron plants as these are associated with the high percentage of energy wastage per unit sponge iron production. An energy integration option is proposed, in the present paper, to a coal based sponge iron plant of 100 tonnes per day production capacity, being operated in India using SL/RN (Stelco-Lurgi/Republic Steel-National Lead) process. It consists of the rotary kiln, rotary cooler, dust settling chamber, after burning chamber, evaporating cooler, electrostatic precipitator (ESP), wet scrapper and chimney as important equipment. Principles of process integration are used in the proposed option. It accounts for preheating kiln inlet streams like kiln feed and slinger coal up to 170ᴼC using waste gas exiting ESP. Further, kiln outlet stream is cooled from 1020ᴼC to 110ᴼC using kiln air. The working areas in the plant where energy is being lost and can be conserved are identified. Detailed material and energy balances are carried out around the sponge iron plant, and a modified model is developed, to find coal requirement of proposed option, based on hot utility, heat of reactions, kiln feed and air preheating, radiation losses, dolomite decomposition, the heat required to vaporize the coal volatiles, etc. As coal is used as utility and process stream, an iterative approach is used in solution methodology to compute coal consumption. Further, water consumption, operating cost, capital investment, waste gas generation, profit, and payback period of the modification are computed. Along with these, operational aspects of the proposed design are also discussed. To recover and integrate waste heat available in the plant, three gas-solid heat exchangers and four insulated ducts with one FD fan for each are installed additionally. Thus, the proposed option requires total capital investment of $0.84 million. Preheating of kiln feed, slinger coal and kiln air streams reduce coal consumption by 24.63% which in turn reduces waste gas generation by 25.2% in comparison to the existing process. Moreover, 96% reduction in water is also observed, which is the added advantage of the modification. Consequently, total profit is found as $2.06 million/year with payback period of 4.97 months only. The energy efficient factor (EEF), which is the % of the maximum energy that can be saved through design, is found to be 56.7%. Results of the proposed option are also compared with literature and found in good agreement.

Keywords: coal consumption, energy conservation, process integration, sponge iron plant

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Authors: Fabrício José Piacente, Vanessa de Cillos Silva, Thiago Luiz Mello Melato

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The construction industry has been demonstrating increased growth and importance in Brazil’s national economic development. This study aims to evaluate the financial performance of the leading companies in the construction sector in Brazil in the period from 2009 to 2012. An analysis is made of the capital structure, liquidity, and profitability of the six largest companies in the construction sector in Brazil: Brookfield, Cyrela, Gafisa, MRV, PDG and Rossi. The results are then compared with standard industry ratios. It was found that among the companies analyzed, MRV and Cyrela showed the best relative performance in the period under consideration.

Keywords: accounting ratios, construction, financial performance, Brazil

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Authors: Sidiqat A. Aderinoye-Abdulwahab, Lateef L. Adefalu, Jubril O. Animashaun

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Pastoralists in Nigeria are situated in dry regions - where water and pasture for livestock are particularly scarce, as well as areas with poor availability of social amenities and infrastructure. This study therefore explored how extension service could be used to reduce the exposure of nomads to effects of seasonality, climate change, and the poor environmental conditions. The study was carried out in Northern guinea Savannah region of Nigeria because pastoralists have settled there in large numbers due to desertification and low rainfall in the arid regions. A multi-stage sampling procedure was used to arrive at the selection of two states (Kwara and Nassarawa) in the region. A total of 63 respondents were randomly chosen using simple random sampling. Focus group discussions and questionnaire were used to gather information while the data was analysed using content analysis. The facilities required by the sampled households are milking machine, cheese making machine, and preservatives to increase the shelf life of cheese. Whilst, the extension service required are demonstration on cheese making, training and seminars on animal husbandry. Additionally, livestock of pastoralists often encroach on farmers’ plots which usually result in pastoralist-farmer conflicts. The study thus recommends diversification of economic activity from livestock to non-livestock related activities as well as creation of grazing routes to reduce pastoralist/farmer conflict.

Keywords: arid region, coping strategies, livestock, livelihood

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Authors: Phusit Phukamchanoad, Bua Srikos

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Research aimed to study the characteristics of a community in the social, economical and cultural context. This research used interviews and surveys members in Patthana Soi Ranongklang community, Dusit District, Bangkok. The results are as follows: In terms of overall conditions and characteristics, Patthana Soi Ranongklang community is located on the property of Treasury Department. 50 years ago the location of this community consisted of paddy fields with limited convenience in terms of transportation. Rama V Road was only a small narrow road with only three-wheelers and no buses. The majority of community members moved in from Makkhawan Rangsan Bridge. Thus, most community members were either workers or government officials as they were not the owners of the land. Therefore, there were no primary occupations within this 7 acres of the community. The development of the community started in 1981. At present, the community is continuously being developed and modernization is rapidly flowing in. One of the reasons was because main roads were amended, especially Rama V Road that allows more convenient transportation, leading to heightened citizens’ convenience. In terms of the economy and society, the research found out that the development and expansion of Rama V Road cause a change in the conditions of the area and buildings. Some building were improved and changed along the time, as well as the development of new facilities that cause the community members to continually become more materialistic. Jobs within the community started to appear, and areas were improved to allow for new building and housing businesses. The trend of jobs become more in variety, in terms of both jobs at home, such as workers, merchandizing, and small own businesses, and jobs outside the community, which became much more convenient as car drivers are used to the narrow roads inside the community. The location of the community next to Rama V Road also allows helo from government agencies to reach the community with ease. Moreover, the welfare of the community was well taken care of by the community committee. In terms of education, the research found that there are two schools: Wat Pracharabuedham School and Wat Noi Noppakun School, that are providing education within the community. The majority of the community received Bachelor degrees. In areas of culture, the research found that the culture, traditions, and beliefs of people in the community were mainly transferred from the old community, especially beliefs in Buddhism as the majority are Bhuddists. The main reason is because the old community was situated near Wat Makut Kasattriyaram. Therefore, the community members have always had Buddhist temples as the center of the community. In later years, more citizens moved in and bring along culture, traditions, and beliefs with them. The community members also took part in building a Dharma hall named Wat Duang Jai 72 Years Ranong Klang. Traditions that community members adhere to since the establishment of the community are the New Year merit making and Songkran Tradition.

Keywords: social capital, culture, Patthana Soi Ranongklang community, way of life

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Authors: Aparna Radhakrishnan, Jancy Gupta, R. Dileepkumar

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This paper aims at assessing the Socio Economic Vulnerability (SEV) of dairy farmers to Climate Variability and Change (CVC) in 3 states of Western Ghat region in India. For this purpose, a composite SEV index has been developed on the basis of functional relationships amongst sensitivity, exposure and adaptive capacity using 30 indicators related to dairy farming underlying the principles of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and Fussel framework for nomenclature of vulnerable situation. Household level data were collected through Participatory Rural Appraisal and personal interviews of 540 dairy farmers of nine taluks, three each from a district selected from Kerala, Karnataka and Maharashtra, complemented by thirty years of gridded weather data. The data were normalized and then combined into three indices for sensitivity, exposure and adaptive capacity, which were then averaged with weights given using principal component analysis, to obtain the overall SEV index. Results indicated that the taluks of Western Ghats are vulnerable to CVC. The dairy farmers of Pulpally taluka were most vulnerable having the SEV score +1.24 and 42.66% farmers under high-level vulnerability category. Even though the taluks are geographically closer, there is wide variation in SEV components. Policies for incentivizing the ‘climate risk adaptation’ costs for small and marginal farmers and livelihood infrastructure for mitigating risks and promoting grass root level innovations are necessary to sustain dairy farming of the region.

Keywords: climate change, dairy, vulnerability, livelihoods, adaptation strategies

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Authors: N. E. F. Jaddil, S. Silang, J. H. Chong

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Semenggoh Wildlife Centre (SWC) begins its journey as an important orangutan rehabilitation centre in Sarawak. Strategically located about 25 km from Kuching, the capital city of Malaysian Sarawak in Borneo Island. This paper sought to access the progression of Semenggoh Wildlife Centre from a rehabilitation into one of the top ecotourism destination in Kuching. The existing semi-wild orangutans (attraction)-ecotourism interaction in city landscape setting is evaluated. With the ever-increasing demand of ecotourism activity in SWC, this study is intended to explore and understand the current status of ecotourism activity in SWC by analysing visitors, and economic statistic, issues and challenges and strategically propose way-forward to enhance the sustainability of ecotourism in SWC.

Keywords: ecotourism, orangutan, Semenggoh, urban wildlife park

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Authors: Mahfoud Djebbar

Abstract:

The past two decades or so have witnessed phenomenal growth of the Islamic financial services industry. The whole industry has been thriving at about 15 percent per annum. This development entails the Islamic financial engineering, IFE, to some kind of crossroads, lagging behind its conventional counterpart. Therefore, IFE, and particularly traded products development, and in order to achieve its goals, two approaches are available, i.e., replicating engineering and innovative engineering. We also try to emphasis the innovative strategy since it guards the Islamic identity of different financial products and processes, and thereby, improves the creativity in the Islamic financial industry. The attempt also centers on sukukization (Islamic securitization), innovation, liquidity management, and risk management and hedging in the Islamic financial system. Finally, the challenges facing IFE are also addressed.

Keywords: islamic financial engineering, hedging and risk management, innovation, securitization, money market instruments, islamic capital markets

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Authors: Ernest Yeboah Acheampong, Malek Bouhaouala, Michel Raspaud

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Studies on African sport workers’ migration have given less attention to examining the extent to which the individual (sports workers) contributes to a socio-economic development of their domestic communities. The decision to support or not to support can also have a debilitating effect on the domestic communities. This article therefore, analyses the choices of action of these actors with an exact focus on footballers to the domestic community. This exploratory survey focuses on 13 UEFA countries leagues of footballers from 43 African countries, including seventeen interviews and four autobiographies of the players. Max Weber theory of individual subjectivity can underpin their decisions making processes to either offer assistance or not to their locales. This study revealed some players closed relationships, particularly those raised in the typical locales as they often provide support via projects like building hospitals, schools, sporting facilities, health centres, and scholarship schemes among others. While others shown commitment and readiness to offer assistance, touch livelihood, and promote social development based on their lived experiences abroad. With many lamenting against lack of support from local and national authorities as disincentive to do more yet committed to the cause of the society. This article can conclude that football athletes logics of action depend on the individual values and conceptions from evidence of their socio-economic projects, as well as social embeddedness in the locality

Keywords: choices of action, domestic development, footballers, transnational migration

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