Search results for: agriculture policy

Authors: Vano Benidze, Ioseb Berikashvili

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Since 2003, Georgia has implemented many successful reforms, however, economic growth, poverty alleviation and unemployment reduction are still major challenges facing country’s economy. This is due to the fact that most reforms during the past 2 decades were mainly geared toward improving the institutional environment, while economy’s sectoral composition and industrial policy were largely ignored. Each individual sector plays its own specific role in the functioning of the whole economy that cannot be accomplished by any other sector. However, given the unavoidable reality that one sector uses intermediate inputs from other industries to produce its output and sells part of its output to other sectors, the importance of sectors should consider these sectoral interdependencies as well. Simply put, not all industries are equally useful for economic growth and development. In this context, the aim of this paper is to identify the key economic sectors of the Georgian economy. Leontief input-output analysis has been used in deriving backward and forwards linkages for all sectors in the Georgian economy for 2020 and 2021. Sectors with both high backward and forward linkages have been identified as key sectors of the economy. The results obtained are beneficial for the success of the economic and industrial policy of Georgia. If targeted properly by thoughtful policy intervention, key sectors identified in this paper will have a high potential of spreading growth impulses throughout the economy and will possibly generate higher economic growth.

Keywords: structural change, key sectors, development strategies, input-output analysis

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Authors: Mouldi Djelassi, Jamel Boukhatem

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Background: A relation has been established between Islamic banks' activities and interest rates. The aim of this study was to explore the impact of interest rates on the deposits and loans held by Islamic and conventional banks in Saudi Arabia. Methods: A time series data was performed over the period 2008Q1-2020Q2 on eight conventional banks and four Islamic banks. The impacts of interest rate shocks on deposits and loans were identified through panel vector autoregressive models. Results: Impulse response function analysis showed that increasing interest rates reduce loans and conventional deposits. For Islamic banks, deposits are more affected by interest rates than lending. Variance decomposition analysis revealed that deposits contribute to 61% of the Islamic financing variation and only 25% of the conventional loans. Conclusion: Interest rates impacted Islamic banks especially through deposits, which is inconsistent with the theoretical framework. Islamic deposits played an important role in Islamic financing variation and may provide to be a channel for the transmission of the monetary policy in a dual banking system. Monetary policy in Saudi Arabia works in part through “credits” (conventional bank credits) as well as through “money” (conventional and Islamic bank deposits).

Keywords: Islamic banking, interest rates, monetary policy transmission, panel VAR

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Authors: Humayun Murshed

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There is growing importance of ‘social enterprise’ among the researchers and policy makers around the globe. Such enterprises have been viewed as alternative means for addressing the concerns relating to financing of corporate enterprises and social empowerment. This, some cases, has led to relatively unrealistic and higher level of expectations among policy makers and the members of the society at large. There is a general perception among different social actors that these enterprises provide universal and magic solution towards employment generation, and thus resulting in eradicating poverty, and ensuring equitable distribution of income and wealth. However, in many cases, these enterprises find a challenging journey in terms of prevailing market structure, socio-political environment, and unrealistic perception and expectations of social participants. This paper is focused on reviewing case studies based on empirical research and information from secondary sources and geared to looking at the challenges that social enterprises face. The research will draw the experience primarily from the developing countries’ perspective by adopting case study methodology. A tentative action plan will be suggested for further review by the policy makers and researchers in this growing arena of discipline. This research will attempt to highlight the myths and realities surrounding the operation of social enterprises.

Keywords: social enterprises, social empowerment, economic development, financing need

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Authors: Maryam Azish

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Russia, as an emerging global player in recent years, has projected a special place in the Middle East. Despite all the challenges it has faced over the years, it has always considered its presence in various fields with a strategy that has defined its maneuvering power as a level of competition and even confrontation with the United States. Therefore, its current approach is considered important as an influential actor in the Middle East. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, when the Russians withdrew completely from the Middle East, the American scene remained almost unrivaled by the Americans. With the start of the US-led war in Iraq and Afghanistan and the subsequent developments that led to the US military and political defeat, a new chapter in regional security was created in which ISIL and Taliban terrorism went along with the Arab Spring to destabilize the Middle East. Because of this, the Americans took every opportunity to strengthen their military presence. Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan have always been the three areas where terrorism was shaped, and the countries of the region have each reacted to this evil phenomenon accordingly. The West dealt with this phenomenon on a case-by-case basis in the general circumstances that created the fluid situation in the Arab countries and the region. Russian President Vladimir Putin accused the US of falling asleep in the face of ISIS and terrorism in Syria. In fact, this was an opportunity for the Russians to revive their presence in Syria. This article suggests that utilizing the recognition policy along with the constructivism theory will offer a better knowledge of Russia’s endeavors to endorse its international position. Accordingly, Russia’s distinctiveness and its ambitions for a situation of great power have played a vital role in shaping national interests and, subsequently, in foreign policy, in Putin's era in particular. The focal claim of the paper is that scrutinize Russia’s foreign policy with realistic methods cannot be attained. Consequently, with an aim to fill the prevailing vacuum, this study exploits the politics of acknowledgment in the context of constructivism to examine Russia’s foreign policy in the Middle East. The results of this paper show that the key aim of Russian foreign policy discourse, accompanied by increasing power and wealth, is to recognize and reinstate the position of great power in the universal system. The Syrian crisis has created an opportunity for Russia to unite its position in the developing global and regional order after ages of dynamic and prevalent existence in the Middle East as well as contradicting US unilateralism. In the meantime, the writer thinks that the question of identifying Russia’s position in the global system by the West has played a foremost role in serving its national interests.

Keywords: constructivism, foreign Policy, middle East, Russia, regionalism

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Authors: Soni T. L.

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Sustainable environmental stress is a major concern which needs immediate attention. This paper is an attempt to present participatory action research for sustainable agriculture. Being first and best culture, agriculture protects and improves the natural environment, the social and economic conditions of people, and safeguards the health and welfare of all groups. During course of time agriculture turned to agribusiness, then the values are not safeguarded. Moreover, in today’s busy life many are not taking efforts to take part in agriculture production. Then children are not getting the opportunity to understand agriculture and farming practices. So student initiatives are vital to make them aware. Here the programmes structured by the researcher come under the auspicious of National Service Scheme, a student-centered educational programme, organized by Ministry of Youth Affairs, Government of India. The twin objectives of the study are to examine the role of student initiatives for sustainable agriculture and the role of participatory action research in student initiatives. SWOT analysis is made to study strengths, weaknesses, threats and opportunities. The Methodology adopted is Participatory Action Research. The method is participatory in a sense there is collaboration through participation. The method is action, there is lab land experiences which is real. The method is research that there is documented lessons and creation of new knowledge. Plan of action cover measures adopted and strategies taken i.e., bhavana – kalpana – yojana – sadhana. Through the team effort, the team was successful in converting more than 10 hectares of barren land into cultivable land within and outside the campus. Team efforts of students saved a huge amount of labour cost and produced a huge quantity of organic output and the team was also successful in creating 1000 rain pits in the premises of College for rainwater harvesting. The findings include conveyance of the Message: Food Production is superior to Food donation. Moreover, the study fostered good work ethic and social responsibility among students. Students undertake innovative programmes underlying social and environmental issues and participants got increased opportunities to interact with local and less privileged and acquired increased awareness about real-life experiences which make them confident to interact with people and it resulted in the strengthening of social capital- cooperation, team spirit, social commitment among students. Participants promoted sustainable domestic efforts and ultimately environmental protection is ensured. Finally, there is recognition to the team, institution and the researcher at the university level, state level and at the national level. The learned lessons are, if the approach is good, the response is good and success generates success. Participatory action research is empowering experience for practitioners, focusing the combined time, energy and creativity of a committed group we should lead so many programmes which makes the institution centre of excellence. Authorities should take necessary steps for the Inclusion of community development activities in the curriculum. Action research is problem, client and action centered. So, we must adapt and adopt, coordinates and correlates measures which preserve and conserve the environment.

Keywords: participatory action research, student initiatives, sustainable development, sustainability

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Authors: Fernanda Conforto de Oliveira

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The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has a central role in global financial governance as the world’s leading crisis lender. Its practice of conditional lending – conditioning loans on the implementation of economic policy adjustments – is the primary lever by which the institution interacts with and influences the policy choices of member countries and has been a key topic of interest to scholars and public opinion. However, empirical evidence about the economic and (geo)political determinants of IMF lending behavior remains inconclusive, and no model that explains IMF policies has been identified. This research moves beyond panel analysis to focus on financial negotiations for the first IMF programs in Argentina and Brazil in the early post-war period. It seeks to understand why negotiations achieved distinct objectives: Argentinean officials cooperated and complied with IMF policies, whereas their Brazilian counterparts hesitated. Using qualitative and automated text analysis, this paper analyses the hypothesis about whether a differential IMF treatment could help to explain these distinct outcomes. This paper contributes to historical studies on IMF-Latin America relations and the broader literature in international policy economy about IMF policies.

Keywords: international monetary fund, international history, financial history, Latin American economic history, natural language processing, sentiment analysis

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Authors: Sara Khan Mohammadi

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The world is facing a major challenge of feeding a growing population while ensuring the sustainability of food systems. The United Nations estimates that the global population will reach 9.7 billion by 2050, which means that food production needs to increase by 70% to meet the demand. However, this increase in food production should not come at the cost of environmental degradation, loss of biodiversity, and climate change. Therefore, there is a need for sustainable food systems that can provide healthy and nutritious food while minimizing their impact on the environment. Nutrition and Food Engineering: Nutrition and food engineering play a crucial role in promoting sustainable food system. Nutrition is concerned with the study of nutrients in foods, their absorption, metabolism, and their effects on health. Food engineering involves the application of engineering principles to design, develop, and optimize food processing operations. Together, nutrition and food engineering can help to create sustainable food systems by: 1. Developing Nutritious Foods: Nutritionists and food engineers can work together to develop foods that are rich in nutrients such as vitamins, minerals, fiber, and protein. These foods can be designed to meet the nutritional needs of different populations while minimizing waste. 2. Reducing Food Waste: Food waste is a major problem globally as it contributes to greenhouse gas emissions and wastes resources such as water and land. Nutritionists and food engineers can work together to develop technologies that reduce waste during processing, storage, transportation, and consumption. 3. Improving Food Safety: Unsafe foods can cause illnesses such as diarrhea, cholera, typhoid fever among others which are major public health concerns globally. Nutritionists and food engineers can work together to develop technologies that improve the safety of foods from farm to fork. 4. Enhancing Sustainability: Sustainable agriculture practices such as conservation agriculture can help reduce soil erosion while improving soil fertility. Nutritionists and food engineers can work together to develop technologies that promote sustainable agriculture practices.

Keywords: sustainable food, developing food, reducing food waste, food safety

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Authors: Yufeng Wu, Yifan Gu, Bin Li, Wei Wang

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Resource recycling process contains a subsystem with interactions of three dimensions including coupling allocation of primary and secondary resources, responsibility coordination of stakeholders in forward and reverse supply chains, and trans-boundary transfer of hidden resource and environmental responsibilities between regions. Overlap or lack of responsibilities is easy to appear at the intersection of the three management dimensions. It is urgent to make an overall design of the policy system for recycling resources. From theoretical perspective, this paper analyzes the unique external differences of resource and environment in various dimensions and explores the reason why the effects of trans-dimensional policies are strongly correlated. Taking the example of the copper resources contained in the waste electrical and electronic equipment, this paper constructs reduction effect accounting model of resources recycling and set four trans-dimensional policy scenarios including resources tax and environmental tax reform of the raw and secondary resources, application of extended producer responsibility system, promotion of clean development mechanism, and strict entry barriers of imported wastes. In these ways, the paper simulates the impact effect of resources recycling process on resource deduction and emission reduction of waste water and gas, and constructs trans-dimensional policy mix scenario through integrating dominant strategy. The results show that combined application of various dimensional policies can achieve incentive compatibility and the trans-dimensional policy mix scenario can reach a better effect. Compared with baseline scenario, this scenario will increase 91.06% copper resources reduction effect and improve emission reduction of waste water and gas by eight times from 2010 to 2030. This paper further analyzes the development orientation of policies in various dimension. In resource dimension, the combined application of compulsory, market and authentication methods should be promoted to improve the use ratio of secondary resources. In supply chain dimension, resource value, residual functional value and potential information value contained in waste products should be fully excavated to construct a circular business system. In regional dimension, it should give full play to the comparative advantages of manufacturing power to improve China’s voice in resource recycling in the world.

Keywords: resource recycling, trans-dimension, policy design, incentive compatibility, life cycle

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Authors: Fawad Ali, Muhammad Ateeq, Ikhtiar Khan

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Ground water, a major source of drinking water supply in Peshawar has been severely contaminated by leather tanning industry. Effluents from the tanneries contain high concentration of chromium besides several other chemical species. Release of untreated effluents from the tanning industry has severely damaged surface and ground water, agriculture soil as well as vegetables and crops. Chromium is a well-known carcinogenic and mutagenic agent. Once in the human food chain, it causes multiple problems to the exposed population including various types of cancer, skin dermatitis, and DNA damage. In order to assess the extent of chromium and other heavy metals contamination, water samples were analyzed for heavy metals using Graphite Furnace Atomic Absorption Spectrometer (GFAAS, Analyst 700, Perkin Elmer). Total concentration of chromium was above the permissible limit (0.048 mg/l) in 85% of the groundwater (drinking water) samples. The concentration of cobalt, manganese, cadmium, nickel, lead, zinc and iron was also determined in the ground water, surface water, agriculture soil, and vegetables samples from the affected area.

Keywords: heavy metals, soil, groundwater, tannery effluents, food chain

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Authors: Mohamed Trigui, Fatma Masmoudi, Imen Zouari

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Massive utilizations of chemical fertilizer and chemical pesticides in agriculture sector to improve the farming productivity have created increasing environmental damages. Then, agriculture must become sustainable, focusing on production systems that respect the environment and help to reduce climate change. Isolation and microbial identification of new bacterial strains from naturally saline habitats and compost extracts could be a prominent way in pest management and crop production under saline conditions. In this study, potential mechanisms involved in plant growth promotion and suppressive activity against fungal diseases of a compost extract produced from poultry manure/olive husk compost and halotolerant and halophilic bacterial strains under saline stress were investigated. On the basis of the antimicrobial tests, different strains isolated from Sfax solar saltern (Tunisia) and from compost extracts were selected and tested for their plant growth promoting traits, such as siderophores production, nitrogen fixation, phosphate solubilization and the production of extracellular hydrolytic enzymes (protease and lipase) under in-vitro conditions. Among 450 isolated bacterial strains, 16 isolates showed potent antifungal activity against the tested plant pathogenic fungi. Their identification based on 16S rRNA gene sequence revealed they belonged to different species. Some of these strains were also characterized for their plant growth promoting capacities. Obtained results showed the ability of four strains belonging to Bacillus genesis to ameliorate germination rate and root elongation compared to the untreated positive controls. Combinatorial capacity of halotolerant bacteria with antimicrobial activity and plant growth promoting traits could be promising sources of interesting bioactive substances under saline stress.

Keywords: abiotic stress, biofertilizer, biotic stress, compost extract, halobacteria, plant growth promoting (PGP), soil fertility

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Authors: Mario Gómez, Won Ho Kim, Ángel Licona, José Carlos Rodríguez

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This article analyzes innovation activity in Mexico and South Korea. It develops an econometric model to test for structural breaks in the number of patent applications filed by residents and nonresidents in these countries during the period of 1965 to 2012. These changes may suggest that firms’ innovative capabilities have changed because of implementing different science, technology and innovation (STI) policies in Mexico and South Korea. Two important features characterize this research from others already developed by these authors. First, the theoretical research framework in this research is the debate between the assimilation view of growth and the accumulation view of growth. This characteristic suggests that trade liberalization should be accompanied by an adequate STI policy to boost competitiveness among indigenous firms. Second, the analysis in this research stresses the importance of key actors (e.g. governments) to successfully develop innovation capabilities among indigenous firms. Therefore, the question conducting this research is how STI policies in Mexico and South Korea contributed to develop firms’ innovation capabilities in these countries during last decades? The results from this research suggests that STI policy in South Korea was more suitable to boost innovation firms to compete in markets. Data to develop this research was released by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).

Keywords: innovation, Mexico, South Korea, science, technology and innovation policy

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Authors: Medina Muñoz Lina Rocio

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The purpose of this paper is to examine the debates related to the harmonization of intellectual property rights on plant material, the corporate governance of the seed market in Colombia and the political economy of seeds defended by indigenous communities. In recent years, the commodification of seeds through genetic engineering and political intellectual property, codified as a result of the implementation of the Free Trade Agreement with the United States, has come into conflict with the traditional production of seeds carried out by small farmers and indigenous populations. Agricultural and food practices. In order to understand the ontological dimension of conflicts over seeds, it is necessary to analyze the conceptions that indigenous communities have about good, which they consider a common element of their social organization and define them as sentient beings. Therefore, through a multiple approach, in which the intellectual property policy, the ecological aspects of seed production and the political ontology of indigenous communities are interwoven, I intend to present the discussions held by the actors involved and present the strategies of small producers to protect their interests. It demonstrates that communities have begun to organize social movements to protect such interests and have questioned the philosophy of GM corporate agriculture as a pro-life movement. Finally, it is argued that the conservation of 'traditional' seeds of the communities is an effective strategy to support their struggles for territory, identity, food sovereignty and self-determination.

Keywords: intellectual property rights, intellectual property, traditional knowledge, food safety

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Authors: Sahara Piang Brahim

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This paper looks at the current state of water governance in the Philippines. It is mainly descriptive and relies on an analysis of secondary data gathered during the author’s fieldwork as well as those found in available scholarly literature, legal and government policy documents, reports and publicly available information on the official websites of government agencies and departments. This paper finds that despite the Philippines having relatively abundant water resources due to its topographical characteristics, it is facing a number of water-related problems, including the availability of water supply in light of growing water demand, increasing population and urbanization as well as climate change. Another key finding is that the sheer number of agencies, which have overlapping legal mandates and functions in relation to water governance and management, make coordination, planning and data collection difficult especially since they are neither vertically nor horizontally integrated. These findings have obvious implications for water policy and governance in the country. This study also finds that 'predict and control' characterizes the government’s approach to water resources management and allocation. This paper argues that taking such an approach and the existing institutional context into account is quite relevant not only in terms of making sense of how decision-making and policymaking take place but also when contemplating the kinds of alternative governance arrangements that could address water-related issues and challenges and that might work 'best' in the Philippines.

Keywords: Philippines, water governance, water issues, water policy

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Authors: Arbolino Roberta, Boffardi Raffaele

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Achieving the highest effectiveness for the National Plans for Recovery and Resilience (NPRR) while strengthening the objectives of cohesion and reduction of intra-EU unbalances is only possible by means of strategic, coordinated, and coherent policy planning. Therefore, the present research aims at assessing and quantifying the potential impact of NPRRs across the twenty-seven European Member States in terms of economic convergence, considering disaggregated data on industrial, construction, and service sectors. The first step of the research involves a performance analysis of the main macroeconomic indicators describing the trends of twenty-seven EU economies before the pandemic outbreak. Subsequently, in order to define the potential effect of the resources allocated, we perform an impact analysis of previous similar EU investment policies, estimating national-level sectoral elasticity associated with the expenditure of the 2007-2013 and 2014-2020 Cohesion programmes funds. These coefficients are then exploited to construct adjustment scenarios. Finally, convergence analysis is performed on the data used for constructing scenarios in order to understand whether the expenditure of funds might be useful to foster economic convergence besides driving recovery. The results of our analysis show that the allocation of resources largely mirrors the aims of the policy framework underlying the NPRR, thus reporting the largest investments in both those sectors most affected by the economic shock (services) and those considered fundamental for the digital and green transition. Notwithstanding an overall positive effect, large differences exist among European countries, while no convergence process seems to be activated or fostered by these interventions.

Keywords: NPRR, policy evaluation, cohesion policy, scenario Nalsysi

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Authors: Jonghyuk Yoon, Hyoungwoon Song

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Recently, there are lots of increasing interest in a smart farming that represents application of modern Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) into agriculture since it provides a methodology to optimize production efficiencies by managing growing conditions of crops automatically. In order to obtain high performance and stability for smart greenhouse, it is important to identify the effect of various working parameters such as capacity of ventilation fan, vent opening area and etc. In the present study, a 3-dimensional CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) simulation for single-span greenhouse was conducted using the commercial program, Ansys CFX 18.0. The numerical simulation for single-span greenhouse was implemented to figure out the internal thermal and flow characteristics. In order to numerically model solar radiation that spread over a wide range of wavelengths, the multiband model that discretizes the spectrum into finite bands of wavelength based on Wien’s law is applied to the simulation. In addition, absorption coefficient of vinyl varied with the wavelength bands is also applied based on Beer-Lambert Law. To validate the numerical method applied herein, the numerical results of the temperature at specific monitoring points were compared with the experimental data. The average error rates (12.2~14.2%) between them was shown and numerical results of temperature distribution are in good agreement with the experimental data. The results of the present study can be useful information for the design of various greenhouses. This work was supported by Korea Institute of Planning and Evaluation for Technology in Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (IPET) through Advanced Production Technology Development Program, funded by Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (MAFRA)(315093-03).

Keywords: single-span greenhouse, CFD (computational fluid dynamics), solar radiation, multiband model, absorption coefficient

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Authors: Huidan Niu

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Existing research has focused extensively on teachers’ professional experience in education reforms. However, there is a lack of research on the role and influence of teacher unions in education policy. This study aimed to examine how teacher unions frame teacher professionalisation and professionalism discourses. Critical education policy scholarship study was adopted. This study positioned teacher professionalisation and professionalism discourses within their socio-political contexts to explore how the meanings of teacher professionalisation and professionalism are constructed, as well as how teacher unions, as collective actors, shape these discourses. This study examined the development of professionalisation and professionalism discourses in the two main teacher unions in Aotearoa, New Zealand, the New Zealand Educational Institute, TeRiuRoa (NZEI), and the New Zealand Post-Primary Teachers’ Association, TeWehengarua (PPTA). The data were collected from documents and archival material, as well as elite interviews. Twenty-four union leaders, including national presidents, secretaries, executives, and senior union officials, participated in the study. The data analysis followed a grounded theory method: from codes to themes. The findings of the study suggest that the teacher unions, as teachers’ collective (powerful) voices, appeared to highlight tension and confrontation between the teaching profession and governments with respect to the meanings of teacher professionalisation and professionalism.

Keywords: critical education policy scholarship, governments, teacher professionalisation, teacher professionalism, teacher unions

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Authors: Tewele Gerlase Haile

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Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. The global development landscape underwent a transformative shift in 2015 as the international community pivoted from the MDGs to the more ambitious and comprehensive SDGs. The NDGs were a set of eight international development goals established by the United Nations in 2000, with the aim of improving the lives of people around the world by 2015. SDGs are a continuation of the MDGs. Unlike on the other development goals, progress on eradication of extreme hunger and poverty (MDG 1) has been slow at a continental level. The implementation of the MDGs was uneven: some countries have already achieved many of them, while the others have not started any of them yet. With its Poverty Reduction Strategic Papers (PRSPs), Ethiopia has been given special attention to the first MDG since 1993. The Ethiopian government was actively engaged in anti-poverty political campaign leaving other agendas as secondary issues. Poverty in Ethiopia progressively reduced over the years; it was 44.2% in 2000, 38.7% in 2007, 29.6 % in 2011, and it is projected to further reduce to 16.7% by the end of 2020. The long-term impact of war on the sustainability and effectiveness of SDG-related initiatives in post-conflict regions, particularly in how local governance and community resilience are affected. This could involve exploring how war interrupts progress, which specific SDGs are most vulnerable, and what strategies might mitigate these impacts. Reviewing a transitional period enables policy makers to align global or national development goals into local development goals with an uninterrupted policy continuity. The existing literature on development economics often neglects the importance of reviewing the transitional period of consecutive global development goals in a local or regional perspective. Reviewing a transitional period enables policy makers to align global or national development goals into local development goals with an uninterrupted policy continuity. Using a Policy Coherence for Development (PCD) approach as analytical tool, this paper is intended to retrospectively review what happened to the local economy of Tigrai Regional State during the transitional period from MDGs (2000-2015) to SDGs (2015-2030). Taking a retrospective facts and observations into account, policy discontinuity is witnessed in Tigrai following the dissolution of the EPRDF that followed with a terrible war that claimed about a million human lives and worth of over a hundred Billion US dollars economic costs. The unhealthy political reform caused not only a terrible war but also breaks the promising SDGs. Unlike other regional states, Tigrai left unprivileged to translate the ambitious SDGs into its local development policies.

Keywords: local development, political reform, war, MDGs, SDGs, Ethiopia, tigrai

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Authors: Vephkhvia Grigalashvili

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The defense of Georgia is every citizen’s duty. The present article reviews the principles and standards of gender policy in the Georgian national defense sector. In addition, it looks at mechanisms for ensuring gender equality, going through the relevant Georgian legislation. Furthermore, this work aims to conduct a comparative analysis of defense models of Georgia, Finland, and the Baltic States in order to identify core institutional challenges. The study produced the following findings:(a) The national defense planning is based on the Total Defense approach, which implies a wide involvement of the country`s population in state defense. (b) This political act does not specify gender equality aspects of the Total Defense strategy; (c) According to the Constitution of Georgia, irrespective of gender factors, every citizen of Georgia is legally obliged to participate in state security activities. However, the state has an authority (power of choice) to decide which gender group (male or/and female citizen) must fulfill above mentioned their constitutional commitment. For instance, completion of compulsory military and reserve military services is a male citizen’s duty, whereas professional military service is equally accessible to both genders. The study concludes that effective implementation of the Total Defense concept largely depends on how Georgia uses its capabilities and human resources. Based on the statistical fact that more than 50% of the country’s population are women, Georgia has to elaborate on relevant institutional mechanisms for implementation of gender equality in the national defense organization. In this regard, it would be advisable: (i) to give the legal opportunity to women to serve in compulsory military service, and (ii) to develop labor reserve service as a part of the anti-crisis management system of Georgia.

Keywords: gender in defense organisation, gender mechanisms, gender in defense policy, gender policy

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Authors: Sanjida Ahmed Sinthia

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Bangladesh is one of the poorest countries in the world. There are several reasons for this insufficiency and uncontrolled population growth is one of the prime reasons. Others include low economic progress, imbalanced resource management, unemployment and underemployment, urban migration and natural catastrophes etc. As a result, the rate of urban poor is increasing inevitably in every sphere of urban cities in Bangladesh and Dhaka is the most affected one. Besides there is scarcity of urban land, housing, urban infrastructure and amenities which create pressure on urban cities and mostly encroach the open space, wetlands that causes environmental degradation. Government has no or limited control over these due to poor government policy and management, political pressure and lack of resource management. Unfortunately, over centralization and bureaucracy creates unnecessary delay and interruptions in any government initiations. There is also no coordination between government and private sector developer to solve the problem of urban Poor. To understand the problem of these huge populations this paper analyzes one of the single largest slum areas in Dhaka, Korail Slum. The study focuses on socio demographic analysis, morphological pattern and role of different actors responsible for the improvements of the area and recommended some possible steps for determining the potential outcomes.

Keywords: demographic analysis, environmental degradation, government policy, housing and land management policy

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Authors: Vahid Bairami Rad

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The intelligentization of agricultural fields can control the temperature, humidity, and variables affecting the growth of agricultural products online and on a mobile phone or computer. Smarting agricultural fields and gardens is one of the best and best ways to optimize agricultural equipment and has a 100 percent direct effect on the growth of plants and agricultural products and farms. Smart farms are the topic that we are going to discuss today, the Internet of Things and artificial intelligence. Agriculture is becoming smarter every day. From large industrial operations to individuals growing organic produce locally, technology is at the forefront of reducing costs, improving results and ensuring optimal delivery to market. A key element to having a smart agriculture is the use of useful data. Modern farmers have more tools to collect intelligent data than in previous years. Data related to soil chemistry also allows people to make informed decisions about fertilizing farmland. Moisture meter sensors and accurate irrigation controllers have made the irrigation processes to be optimized and at the same time reduce the cost of water consumption. Drones can apply pesticides precisely on the desired point. Automated harvesting machines navigate crop fields based on position and capacity sensors. The list goes on. Almost any process related to agriculture can use sensors that collect data to optimize existing processes and make informed decisions. The Internet of Things (IoT) is at the center of this great transformation. Internet of Things hardware has grown and developed rapidly to provide low-cost sensors for people's needs. These sensors are embedded in IoT devices with a battery and can be evaluated over the years and have access to a low-power and cost-effective mobile network. IoT device management platforms have also evolved rapidly and can now be used securely and manage existing devices at scale. IoT cloud services also provide a set of application enablement services that can be easily used by developers and allow them to build application business logic. Focus on yourself. These development processes have created powerful and new applications in the field of Internet of Things, and these programs can be used in various industries such as agriculture and building smart farms. But the question is, what makes today's farms truly smart farms? Let us put this question in another way. When will the technologies associated with smart farms reach the point where the range of intelligence they provide can exceed the intelligence of experienced and professional farmers?

Keywords: food security, IoT automation, wireless communication, hybrid lifestyle, arduino Uno

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Authors: Tacho Rubby Kong

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Community health workers’ performances are known to influence members’ behaviours and practices while translating policies into service delivery. However, little remains known about the extent to which this remains true within interventions aimed at addressing malaria burden in low-resource settings like Cameroon. The objective of this study was to examine the health workers’ performance and their influence on the adoption of strategies to address the malaria burden at a subnational level health system in Cameroon. A qualitative exploratory design was adopted on a purposively selected sample of 18 key informants. The study was conducted in Konye health district among sub-national health systems, managers, health facility in-charges, and frontline community health workers. Data was collected using semi-structured interview guides in a face-to-face interview with respondents. The analysis adopted a thematic approach utilising journals, credible authors, and peer review articles for data management. Participants acknowledged that workplace networks were influential during the implementation of policies to address malaria. The influence exerted was in form of linkage with other services, caution, and advice regarding strict adherence to policy recommendations, perhaps reflective of the level of trust in providers’ ability to adhere to policy provisions. At the district health management level and among non-state actors, support in perceived areas of weak performance in policy implementation was observed. In addition, timely initiation of contact and subsequent referral was another aspect where community health workers exerted influence while translating policies to address the malaria burden. While the level of support from among network peers was observed to influence community health workers’ adoption and implementation of strategies to address the malaria burden, different mechanisms triggered subsequent response and level of adherence to recommended policy aspects. Drawing from the elicited responses, it was infer that community health workers’ performance influence the direction and extent of success in policy implementation to address the malaria burden at the subnational level.

Keywords: subnational, community, malaria, strategy

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Authors: Hamed Homaei, Seyed Reza Hejazi, Iraj Mahdavi

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Return policy (RP) is a strategy for supply chain coordination, whereby the retailer returns the unsold products to the manufacturer or the manufacturer offers a credit on unsold products to the retailer at the end of selling season. Early order commitment (EOC) is another efficient mechanism for channel coordination wherein the retailer commits to purchasing from the manufacturer a fixed order quantity a few periods in advance of the regular delivery lead time. This paper studies the coordination issue of a two-level supply chain with one retailer and one manufacturer through combining two mentioned contracts. The main purpose of this paper is to present an analytical model to show that how the contract which is created by combining RP and EOC can improve supply chain performance. Numerical analyses show that the supply chain coordination through mentioned contract in compare with EOC mechanism, can improve supply chain performance under certain ranges of model parameters. Furthermore, some numerical analyses are done to determine the best buyback price in order to achieve maximum cost saving in the supply chain. Finally, a revenue sharing scheme is presented in order to achieve a win-win condition in the supply chain.

Keywords: supply chain coordination, early order commitment, return policy, revenue sharing

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Authors: Daniel Asiamah Ameyaw

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This research attempts to investigate how lecturer evaluation makes a difference in enhancing higher education teaching and learning processes. The research questions to guide this research work states first as, “What are the perspectives on the difference made by evaluating academic teachers in order to enhance higher education teaching and learning processes?” and second, “What are the implications of the findings for Policy and Practice?” Data for this research was collected mainly through interviewing and partly documents review. Data analysis was conducted under the framework of grounded theory. The findings showed that for individual lecturer level, lecturer evaluation provides a continuous improvement of teaching strategies, and serves as source of data for research on teaching. At the individual student level, it enhances students learning process; serving as source of information for course selection by students; and by making students feel recognised in the educational process. At the institutional level, it noted that lecturer evaluation is useful in personnel and management decision making; it assures stakeholders of quality teaching and learning by setting up standards for lecturers; and it enables institutions to identify skill requirement and needs as a basis for organising workshops. Lecturer evaluation is useful at national level in terms of guaranteeing the competencies of graduates who then provide the needed manpower requirement of the nation. Besides, it mentioned that resource allocation to higher educational institution is based largely on quality of the programmes being run by the institution. The researcher concluded, that the findings have implications for policy and practice, therefore, higher education managers are expected to ensure that policy is implemented as planned by policy-makers so that the objectives can successfully be achieved.

Keywords: academic quality, higher education, lecturer evaluation, teaching and learning processes

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Authors: M. Joris, O. Agirdag

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For over two decades, calls for citizenship education (CE) have been rising to the top of educational policy agendas in Europe. The main motive for the current treatment of CE as a key topic is a sense of crisis: social and political threats that go beyond the reach of nations and require action at the international and European level. On the one hand, this context has triggered abundant attention to the promotion of citizenship through education. On the other hand, the ubiquity of citizenship and education in policy language is paired with a self-evident manner of using the concepts: the more we call for citizenship in and through education, the less the concepts seem to be made explicit or be defined. Research and reflection on the normativity of the concepts of citizenship and CE in Europe are scarce. Departing from the idea that policies are always normative, this study, therefore, investigates the normativity of the current concepts of citizenship and education, in ’key’ European CE policy texts. The study consists of a content analysis of these texts, based on a normative framework developed around the different dimensions of citizenship as status, identity, virtues and agency. The framework also describes the purposes of education and its learning processes, content and practices, based on the assumption that good education always includes, next to qualification and socialisation, a purpose of emancipation: of helping young people become autonomous and independent subjects. The analysis shows how contemporary European citizenship is conceptualised around the dimension of competences. This focus on competences is also visible in the normative framing of education and its relationship to citizenship in the texts: CE should help young people learn how to become good citizens by acquiring a toolkit of competences, consisting of knowledge, skills, values and attitudes that can be predetermined, measured and evaluated. This ideal of citizenship-as-competence entails a focus on the educational purposes of socialisation and qualification. Current policy texts thus seem to leave out the educational purpose of emancipating young people, allowing them to take on citizenship as something to which they can determine their own relation and position. It is, however, this purpose of CE that seems increasingly important in our current context. Young people are stepping out of school and onto the streets by the thousands in Belgium and throughout Europe, protesting for more and better environmental policies. They are making use of existing modes of citizenship, exactly to indicate to policymakers how these are falling short and are claiming their right and entitlement to a future that established practices of politics are putting at risk. The importance of citizenship education might then lie, now more than ever, not in the fact that it would prepare young people for competent citizenship, but in offering them a possibility, an emancipatory experience of being able to do something new. It seems that this is what we might want to expect from the school if we want it to educate our truly future citizens.

Keywords: citizenship education, normativity, policy, purposes of education

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Authors: Vincent Jones

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The North African country of Libya is in crisis and is currently a humanitarian disaster. The current American ‘hands off’ foreign policy appear to have contributed to this crisis. The research upon which this paper is based focused on a qualitative analysis of migration to Libya and its history with slavery, current conditions that have contributed to the re-emergence of slavery, an analysis of available resources in the effected region, and an analysis of legal remedies pursuant to international law. In addition, a qualitative analysis of American foreign policy from the Reagan Administration through the current Trump administration has been a focus of analysis. The major findings of this research are: (1) Since the removal of Muammar Gadhafi, a move that the United States played a major role in achieving, the nation of Libya has been in free fall and the rule of law has all but disappeared. As a major port stop for refugees and migrants fleeing atrocities in sub-Saharan African states, Libya has become the gate way to European ports of asylum. The problem is these migrant refugees are unwanted, caught between rival and often ineffective governments, profiteers, and inaction from the international community. (2) The outlook for these refugees is bleak: the ineffective government of Libya is ill-equipped to handle the large influx, European refugee destination states like Italy and Greece are already overburdened by the Syrian refugee crisis and are reluctant to accept more refugees, leaving the powerful and armed Libyan militia in control of a situation that is ripe for exploitation. (3) The combined intervention of the international community, led by a newly committed and engaged American foreign policy. In conclusion, a new American foreign policy approach along with the active engagement of the United Nations, EU, and the African Union can effectively resolve this humanitarian crisis.

Keywords: slavery, Libya, migrants, slave auction

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Authors: Godfrey Omulo, Regina Birner, Karlheinz Koller, Thomas Daum

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Conservation agriculture (CA) as a climate-resilient and sustainable practice have been carried out for over three decades in Zambia. However, its continued promotion and adoption has been predominantly on a small-scale basis. Despite the plethora of scholarship pointing to the positive benefits of CA in regard to enhanced yield, profitability, carbon sequestration and minimal environmental degradation, these have not stimulated commensurate agricultural extensification desired for Zambia. The objective of this study was to investigate the potential differences between mechanized conventional and conservation tillage practices on operation time, fuel consumption, labor costs, soil moisture retention, soil temperature and crop yield. An on-farm mechanized conservation agriculture (MCA) experiment arranged in a randomized complete block design with four replications was used. The research was conducted on a 15 ha of sandy loam rainfed land: soybeans on 7ha with plot dimensions of 24 m by 210 m and maize on 8ha with plot dimensions of 24 m by 250 m. The three tillage treatments were: residue burning followed by disc harrowing, ripping tillage and no-till. The crops were rotated in two subsequent seasons. All operations were done using a 60hp 2-wheel tractor, a disc harrow, a two-tine ripper and a two-row planter. Soil measurements and the agro-economic factors were recorded for two farming seasons. The season results showed that the yield of maize and soybeans under no-till and ripping tillage practices were not significantly different from the conventional burning and discing. But, there was a significant difference in soil moisture content between no-till (25.31SFU±2.77) and disced (11.91SFU±0.59) plots at depths from 10-60 cm. Soil temperature in no-till plots (24.59°C±0.91) was significantly lower compared to the disced plots (26.20°C±1.75) at the depths 15 cm and 45 cm. For maize, there was a significant difference in operation time between disc-harrowed (3.68hr/ha±1.27) and no-till (1.85hr/ha±0.04) plots, and a significant difference in cost of labor between disc-harrowed (45.45$/ha±19.56) and no-till (21.76$/ha) plots. There was no significant difference in fuel consumption between ripping and disc-harrowing and direct seeding. For soybeans, there was a significant difference in operation time between no-tillage (1.96hr/ha±0.31) and ripping (3.34hr/ha±0.53) and disc harrowing (3.30hr/ha±0.16). Further, fuel consumption and labor on no-till plots were significantly different from both the ripped and disc-harrowed plots. The high seed emergence percentage on maize disc-harrowed plot (93.75%±5.87) was not significantly different from ripping and no-till plots. Again, the high seed emergence percentage for the soybean ripped plot (93.75%±13.03) had no significant difference with discing and ripping. The results show that it is economically sound and timesaving to practice MCA and get viable yields compared to conventional farming. This research fills the gap on the potential of MCA in the context of Zambia and its profitability in incentivizing policymakers to invest in appropriate and sustainable machinery and implements for extensive agricultural production.

Keywords: climate-smart agriculture, labor cost, mechanized conservation agriculture, soil moisture, Zambia

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Authors: Hazem Abd El Megeed, Mohamed El-Refaay, Norhan Magdi Osman

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Spectrum scarcity is a challenging obstacle in wireless communications systems. It hinders the introduction of innovative wireless services and technologies that require larger bandwidth comparing to legacy technologies. In addition, the current worldwide allocation of radio spectrum bands is already congested and can not afford additional squeezing or optimization to accommodate new wireless technologies. This challenge is a result of accumulative contributions from different factors that will be discussed later in this paper. One of these factors is the radio spectrum allocation policy governed by national regulatory authorities nowadays. The framework for this policy allocates specified portion of radio spectrum to a particular wireless service provider on exclusive utilization basis. This allocation is executed according to technical specification determined by the standard bodies of each Radio Access Technology (RAT). Dynamic access of spectrum is a framework for flexible utilization of radio spectrum resources. In this framework there is no exclusive allocation of radio spectrum and even the public safety agencies can share their spectrum bands according to a governing policy and service level agreements. In this paper, we explore different methods for accessing the spectrum dynamically and its associated implementation challenges.

Keywords: licensed shared access, cognitive radio, spectrum sharing, spectrum congestion, dynamic spectrum access, spectrum database, spectrum trading, reconfigurable radio systems, opportunistic spectrum allocation (OSA)

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Authors: Rakiya Abba

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This paper investigates the effect of the money supply, exchange and interest rate on economic growth in Nigeria through the application of Augmented Dickey-Fuller technique in testing the unit root property of the series and Granger causality test of causation between GDP, money supply, the exchange, and interest rate. The results of unit root suggest that all the variables in the model are stationary at 1, 5 and 10 percent level of significance, and the results of Causality suggest that money supply and exchange granger cause IR, the result further reveals two – way causation existed between M2 and EXR while IR granger cause GDP the null hypothesis is rejected and GDP does not granger cause IR as indicated by their probability values of 0.4805 and confirmed by F-statistics values of 0.75483. The results revealed that M2 and EXR do not granger causes GDP, the null hypothesis is accepted at 75percent 18percent respectively as indicated by their probability values of 0.7472 and 0.1830 respectively; also, GDP does not granger cause M2 and EXR. The Johansen cointegration result indicates that despite GDP does not granger cause M2, IR, and EXR, but there existed 1 cointegrating equation, implying the existence of long-run relationship between GDP, M2 IR, and EXR. A major policy implication of this result is that economic growth is function of and money supply and exchange rate, effective monetary policies should direct on manipulating instruments and importance should be placed on justification for adopting a particular policy be rationalized in order to increase growth in economy

Keywords: economic growth, money supply, interest rate, exchange rate, causality

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Authors: Chandni Laddha

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Tourism was earlier considered as an activity performed by people only for the purpose of entertainment. However, the present era demand for adding something more to the concept of tourism. Nowadays, people are more protected towards environment, so this paper focuses on the significance of ecotourism for the attainment of sustainable development. Ecotourism is a way of sustainable growth of tourist spots maintaining their natural and actual status quo. The ecotourism in India becomes all the more important because India is famous on world map. Ecotourism believe that there should be sustainable equation between tourist and tourist place. Various aspects related to environmental tourism will be highlighted in this paper. Government efforts for the promotion of ecotourism will be discussed by explaining the tourism policy of India, some acts, rules etc. will also be discussed. The study comes up with some strategies to be adopted and which will lead in promoting the concept of ecotourism for an ecologically sustainable environment.

Keywords: tourism, eco-tourism, sustainable development, tourism policy, sustainable environment

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Authors: Shu Tao

Abstract:

Based on a global fuel consumption data product (PKU-FUEL-2007) compiled recently and a series of databases for emission factors of various sources, global emission inventories of a number of greenhouse gases and air pollutants, including CO2, CO, SO2, NOx, primary particulate matter (total, PM 10, and PM 2.5), black carbon, organic carbon, mercury, volatile organic carbons, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, from combustion sources have been developed. The inventories feather high spatial and sectorial resolutions. The spatial resolution of the inventories are 0.1 by 0.1 degree, based on a sub-national disaggregation approach to reduce spatial bias due to uneven distribution of per person fuel consumption within countries. The finely resolved inventories provide critical information for chemical transport modeling and exposure modeling. Emissions from more than 60 sources in energy, industry, agriculture, residential, transportation, and wildfire sectors were quantified in this study. With the detailed sectorial information, the inventories become an important tool for policy makers. For residential sector, a set of models were developed to simulate temporal variation of fuel consumption, consequently pollutant emissions. The models can be used to characterize seasonal as well as inter-annual variations in the emissions in history and to predict future changes. The models can even be used to quantify net change of fuel consumption and pollutant emissions due to climate change. The inventories has been used for model ambient air quality, population exposure, and even health effects. A few examples of the applications are discussed.

Keywords: air pollutants, combustion, emission inventory, sectorial information

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