Project Management For Developing Countries: Back to Basics

This article has been on ways by which developing countries can go back to the basics of project management as a means for developmental goals. Project management has proven to be an effective and flexible management approach, which has the potential of being of great value to developing countries. There is a need for a stronger emphasis on project implementation as a training mechanism for developing indigenous skills. Improved planning, administrative and technical capacity must be defined as project outputs. The need for highly trained development administrators, especially those with project management skills, is a recurring theme of international assistance evaluation reports. Developing countries require two types of trained project administrators: those who can plan and coordinate the entire project cycle as an integrated process and those who can manage the project as an organizational entity once it is selected and approved (Rondinelli, 1976)

How Informative Are Fraud and Non-Fraud Firms\u27 Earnings?

This study evaluates how informative the earnings of fraud firms are compared to peer non-fraud firms by assessing informativeness in the context of persistence, analysts’ forecast errors, and stock returns. There are differences in how informative the earnings of fraud firms are to analysts’ forecasts and returns in the pre-fraud period, but not in the fraud period. In the post- fraud period, there is no difference in how informative fraud firms’ earnings are to analysts’ earnings forecasts. Furthermore, fraud firm’s earnings are not differentially associated with excess returns post-fraud. When earnings are decomposed into accruals and cash flows, fraud firms’ accruals are more persistent pre-fraud and less so post- fraud while cash flows are not differentially persistent conditional on fraud. The study presents insights that can help practitioners, auditors, regulators, and researchers identify fraud candidates

Livelihoods and poverty reduction in coastal communities in the Western Region of Ghana: analysis of livelihoods baseline data of the ICFG Program

This report is the result of the livelihoods baseline survey as part of the USAID-funded Integrated Coastal and Fisheries Governance (ICFG) Program for the Western Region of Ghana (Hen Mpoano). The survey aims to provide a baseline for interventions to be implemented as part of the Hen Mpoano project by: 1) Establishing a baseline of the status of livelihoods of households in target communities (assess income levels and sources, seasonality issues, assets, vulnerability); 2) Establishing a simplified nutritional baseline of households in target communities and fish species consumed; 3) Identifying opportunities for livelihood diversification in the target opportunities

Differential Informativeness of Accrual Measures to Analysts’ Forecast Accuracy

This paper evaluates whether analysts incorporate formal measures of earnings quality into their earnings forecasts. It examines whether the accrual ratio and abnormal accruals, measured with the Modified Jones (1991) Model of discretionary accruals, differentially inform analysts’ earnings forecasts. It uses the accuracy of analysts’ forecast as a context in which to evaluate how well analysts incorporate effects of the information contained in accrual ratio and abnormal accruals. The results indicate that the accrual ratio is negatively related to the absolute value of analysts’ forecast errors while the Modified Jones (1991) Model of discretionary accruals have virtually no economic effect on analysts’ forecast error. The insignificant effect of discretionary accruals on analysts’ forecast may be attributed to analysts having already incorporated the information therein in their earnings forecasts, effect of the accrual anomaly having been largely arbitraged away by market participants or both. This paper contributes to the research on analysts’ earnings forecast and earnings quality and helps bridge the gap between practice and theory by demonstrating the differential impact of discretionary accruals (favored by academics) and the accrual ratio (favored by analysts) on analysts’ forecast accuracy. This study informs researchers and policy makers interested in better understanding how analysts affects the financial markets including how they may have learned from previously documented market anomalies such as the accrual anomaly. This is important as ultimately, efficient economy-wide capital allocation decisions are based partly on outputs of analysts’ forecasting processes

The 21st Century way of Dealing with Some Issues Related to Project Teams

This article addresses the issues that comes up as a result of working in a group on project. Assembling a good team is important in any phase of business, but it is especially important when managing a project to make sure that the work can get done on time and on budget. The process of acquiring a project team takes place within the executing processes and is concerned with confirming human resource availability and obtaining the personnel needed to complete project assignments. It is complicated by the fact that individuals with different skill sets will be required at different points throughout the project

The Task of a Project Manager in Building Individual and Project Team Capability in Modern Day Project Work

From the point of view of an organization, projects act as a means for consolidating the experience and expertise of the organizational members effectively, create learning environment, encourage team-spirit and help to achieve organizational objectives. This article is about the task of a Project Manager in building Individual and project team capability in modern day project work

Household Water Coping Behaviour and Costs in the Volta Basin of Ghana

Ghana is abundant in water resources but frequently experiences seasonal and periodic water scarcities. Households therefore adopt coping strategies and various activities to ensure continuous flow of adequate safe water at the household level. These strategies involve opportunity costs and some amount of financial outlay. Using revealed preference data for 20 randomly selected rural communities in the Volta basin of Ghana this paper employs the coping costs approach to derive the costs of coping with water insecurity. Explicit costs in the form of investments in water storage facilities and costs of water treatment are estimated. Implicit costs (opportunity cost of time) associated with water collection, which varies by season and ecological zone, is valued using the average basic hourly wage of rural women engaged in agriculture. The results of the study show that costs of coping with water insecurity are higher in the dry season and for forest ecology households. The often-stated claim that rural households cannot and should not pay for the full cost of water delivery is not supported by this study. The paper concludes that rural consumers are paying at least as much as their urban consumers for unimproved water. Hence, this paper is of the view that rural consumers have the ability to pay for improved water but may not be willing to do so probably due to their perceptions and attitudes concerning the public good nature and benefits of improved water supply.Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Ghana coastal fisheries governance dialogue: Presentations, discussions and outcomes from a stakeholder forum on issues for reforming governance of Ghana’s coastal fisheries

This meeting, the second national Fisheries Governance Dialogue, aimed to help stakeholders in the fisheries sector generate a shared understanding of critical lessons and pathways for fisheries co-management success in Ghana. This was a direct response to the call from both fisheries communities and the government of Ghana for a radical change from the way fisheries resources are currently being managed. The meeting was attended by 60 men and women from stakeholder organizations and communities, and commenced with presentations on co-management experiences from local, regional and international participants. This was followed by panel discussions to extract lessons that specifically related to successfully implementing co-management in Ghana’s fisheries. Finally, breakout groups addressed in greater detail some issues of importance to fisheries governance reform in Ghana. While fisheries co-management is not a new concept in Ghana, participants heard that previous attempts to initiate these systems proved unsustainable. A number of lessons were drawn from these past experiences

Has Imported Rice Crowded-out Domestic Rice Production in Ghana? What has Been the Role of Policy?

Commercial rice imports have accounted for approximately 61%, food aid in rice accounted for about 2%, and domestic rice accounted for some 37% per annum of rice consumption in Ghana over the four years between 2000 and 2003. Compared to the 1990s, these figures show a gradual decline in the share of local rice production in the total quantities of rice consumed in the country. On the other hand, the proportion of food aid in rice consumed has remained relatively constant over the period, while the proportion of commercial imports has increased steadily. Using the Engel-Granger residual-based co-integration test, a market integration analysis was explored for imported rice and domestic rice which compared a central market for imported rice and five key rice producing centres in Ghana. In addition, the various policies that affected rice during the period were analysed. The results of the co-integration analysis suggest that there is no spatial market integration between the central market price of imported rice and prices in the local markets. This implies that the prices of imported rice in these local markets do not share common properties or behaviour with prevailing price trends in the central market, suggesting that markets for imported rice in Ghana are segmented, and domestic policies have generally not favoured local rice productionGhana, market integration Policy, Rice, Production, Agricultural and Food Policy, Community/Rural/Urban Development, Crop Production/Industries, Environmental Economics and Policy, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Food Security and Poverty, Institutional and Behavioral Economics, International Relations/Trade, Marketing, Production Economics, Productivity Analysis, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,