3659 research outputs found
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Decentralisation and urban primary health services: a case study of Delhi’s Mohalla Clinics
Get PDFThe Indian political party Aam Aadmi, which assumed power in the city-state of Delhi in 2015, introduced Mohalla Clinics (i.e. neighbourhood clinics) to provide free primary health services for all, as a response to the rising inaccessibility of primary healthcare facilities for the urban poor. These clinics were to be governed through Mohalla Sabhas (i.e. neighbourhood committees), which are instruments of participatory governance within the neighbourhood. The research compares promises and practice for Mohalla Clinics, especially focusing on governance and the politics surrounding it. The authors find that in their current form Mohalla Clinics are limited to providing primary curative healthcare and have shown limited success, although Mohalla Clinic users do save time and expenditure on primary healthcare, and the clinics have led to a more comprehensive form of primary healthcare than in the past. However, Mohalla Clinics are governed in a top-down fashion by the Government of the National Capital Territory-Delhi, and not by urban local bodies or the envisaged neighbourhood committees. As a result, they face problems that may inhibit their functioning in the long term
When public spending goes local: agricultural expenditure at a key stage in Ghana’s decentralisation reform
Get PDFThis paper provides a qualitative analysis that highlights the implications on agricultural services of a key stage in decentralisation reforms in Ghana. We assess the status of agricultural expenditure decentralisation and draw out the likely implications for agricultural service delivery and national strategies. The study finds that agricultural officers at all levels (national, regional and district) had concerns about the implementation of the new decentralisation reform. These included budget cuts and delays in releases that coincided with the reform period; the transfer of staff from the civil service to the local government service; and a sense that agriculture may receive less attention when allocation of government resources becomes the preserve of assemblies and district chief executives, rather than the central agricultural ministry. The structural changes also meant that agricultural local government staff now needed to learn to ‘market’ the value of their public services to local government leadership, in order to protect resources for agriculture. The decentralisation reform also necessitated new public expenditure reporting practices to ensure a clear overview of sectoral spending across government tiers
Centring knowledge democracy within policy-making for sustainability and resilience: A discussion of the Kenyan drylands
Get PDFCulture, environment and, therefore, knowledge of socioeconomic constructs are intricately interwoven. Over the past decade or two, pastoralists without formal education in Kenyan drylands have increasingly found themselves on the receiving end of community empowerment trainings that lean towards human–wildlife conflict and environmental conservation. Why would research entities set aside mega budgets to teach the pastoralist about human–wildlife conflict? A pastoralist who has long roamed drylands with his livestock grazing alongside elephants and lions, and whose major life transition ceremonies, celebrations, songs, riddles, proverbs, sayings, poetry and jokes fundamentally feature wildlife. What makes these trainings in ‘imparting knowledge’ superior to the ‘indigenous knowledge’ already in the custody of the Borana or the Turkana or the Rendile?
This article explores the relevance of community-based knowledges in addressing sustainable development and climate resilience, as articulated by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The specific setting for this discussion is the Kenyan drylands, which are central to the achievement of the SDG agenda given that they constitute 84 percent of Kenya’s total land surface. They also host up to 75 percent of Kenya’s wildlife population, account for more than 80 percent of the country’s eco-tourism interests and support about 9.9 million Kenyans, or approximately 34 percent of the Kenyan population.
Today, the drylands are impoverished, deficient for both humans and nature. Their vulnerability to disasters is amplified, while their resilience to shocks is greatly weakened, a situation made worse by climate change. To understand the importance of community-based knowledges within policy making for sustainability and resilience, this article examines in detail epistemological, social, historical, political and environmental factors converging on the Kenyan drylands, as well as the opportunity to address this complexity that the SDGs represent
Guest Editorial: Knowledge democracy for a transforming world
Get PDFThe past five decades have seen enormous, worldwide growth in, and appreciation of, knowledge democracy – the discourse which we have found best contains the various theoretical approaches, values and practices within which participatory research exists. This Introduction outlines our understanding of knowledge democracy, which can be expressed by a number of principles: (1) Recognition of a multiplicity of epistemologies and ways of knowing; (2) Openness to assembling, representing and sharing knowledge in multiple forms (including traditional academic formats and all manner of social and arts-based approaches); (3) Recognition that knowledge emerging from the daily lives of excluded persons is an essential tool for social movements and other transformational strategies; and the (4) Requirement to carefully balance the need to protect the ownership of communities’ knowledge with the need to share knowledge in a free and open access manner. We are pleased to present five articles from around the world that broaden and deepen our understanding of knowledge democracy – from a theoretical perspective, a practice perspective, an ontological perspective, and an action or political perspective
Exploring anti-corruption capabilities of e-procurement in construction project delivery in Nigeria
Get PDFThe use of electronic (e-) procurement to support the execution of supply chain management activities in the different industrial sectors is permeating all regions of the world. However, in countries in sub-Saharan Africa where there is a significant level of corruption and unethical practices in the procurement process, there is a need for a better understanding of how e-Procurement can help to check the incidence of corrupt and unethical practices in construction project delivery. This study relied on a cross-sectional survey of 759 respondents, including architects, builders, engineers, estate/facilities managers, contractors, construction/project managers, quantity surveyors, supply chain managers and others to identify and analyse the anti-corruption capabilities of e-Procurement in construction project delivery in Nigeria. The results of the descriptive statistics, relative importance index and principal components analysis identified 18 anti-corruption capabilities in e-Procurement in construction project delivery with the three most important ones being the capability of e-Procurement to ensure good inventory management/record keeping; accountability by providing audit services trail and minimise direct human contacts during bidding. The key underlying dimensions of these capabilities include the advantage of e-Procurement over the traditional paper-based method; transparent bidding process and increase in competition in construction project delivery process. The findings of this study have implications, especially, on the use of e-Procurement to curb corruption in construction procurement activities
Alison Atkinson-Phillips, Survivor Memorials: Remembering Trauma and Loss in Contemporary Australia
Get PDFMigration-led Regeneration: : On how cities become more unequal with mixed population flows
Get PDFIt is timely to reopen the discussion on inequalities in connection with migration-related processes. Our special issue might be a first step in shedding more light on this issue which had all but vanished at the discourse level but that has not ceased to exist. It presents an international and interdisciplinary selection of scholars that are concerned with questions of urban transformation, diversity and inequality
Regeneration of Sub-Saharan Africa’s open market places: a case for Guileless stakeholder participation
Get PDFSub-Saharan Africa’s urban culture makes open marketplaces an essential part of life in their cities. What goes on in these markets undoubtedly opens them up to threats of adversity, tragedy, and other significant sources of stress. How can these open marketplaces be regenerated into resiliently sustainable places? From a case study of the regeneration redevelopment of the largest open-air market in West Africa i.e. Kumasi Central Market, the need for stakeholder participation in the entire regeneration process is emphasised. The determination of the most important stakeholders during the regeneration of the market is followed by a comparison of the regeneration process regeneration with the literature on urban regeneration, sustainable development, participation, and project management. Lessons learned, and the concerns raised by major stakeholders in the process creates certain project management approaches essential for achieving resilient urban regeneration. Identification of all important stakeholders by the consideration of their attributes of power, legitimacy and urgency and distrustfully engaging all stakeholders is vital to the success of any urban regeneration project
Examining the impact of students’ attendance, sketching, visualization, and tutors experience on students’ performance: a case of building structures course in construction management
Get PDFThe aim of this paper is to examine students’ performance in a computation-based course by evaluating the effects of key factors including sketching, visualization resources provided to them during the lectures, their attendance and tutors’ experience. A systematic review was conducted including 192 articles published during January 2010 to December 2019. Further, a case study has been conducted in which 633 students from non-engineering backgrounds were taught a core course of construction over three-yearly sessions from 2017 to 2019. The performance has been assessed through two quizzes of 10% weight each, assignment of 40% weight and a final exam with 30% weight in 2017-18 and 40% weight in 2019 were utilized with an attendance criterion of below 75% as low attendance. The statistical result highlights that a clear difference of 14% overall marks exist between the students with less than 75% attendance and the ones with 75% and above in 2017 and a 10% gap in 2018. Students with high marks in sketching secured higher overall marks as compared to others highlighting that the sketching skill is useful to construction students. The findings contribute to the body of education knowledge by evaluating key influential factors and provide a useful benchmark to other educators in the field. 
Barriers to reusing and recycling office fit-out: an exploratory analysis of demolition processes and product features
Get PDFWithin the highly waste-generative context of Australia, waste from demolition of office fit-out significantly contributes to unsustainable landfilling. The extant literature is, however, slim on scrutiny of the situation. Therefore, this study aims to uncover office fit-out demolition processes and product features that drive high ratio of landfilling fit-out elements. The research used ten case projects and fourteen interviews to document visible and latent parameters of office fit-out waste. Waste-stream mapping and decision-tree techniques, in conjunction with basic descriptive statistics, were used to model and visualize the extent and drivers of unsustainable fit-out demolition. Further, an exemplar product features analysis was conducted to validate the identified drivers. The findings show that 78% of fit-out waste from the studied cases is landfilled. This high rate is attributed to both latent and visible factors. The main latent factor is high lease price of premium or high-quality offices which favours expeditious demolition with low consideration for reuse and recycling. Key technically visible barriers are volumetric furniture, heterogeneous fit-out assemblies, and insufficient critical mass. To move away from landfilling, production of office fit-out should be transformed for sustainable material adequacy, product re-configurability and de-constructability, and easy handling in the use phase
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