Intermediary perceptions of investment readiness in the social investment market

The ‘social investment market’ (SIM) in the UK is a growth area due to the governments’ focus upon building up the supply-side element of the market over the last decade, often through the direct financing of ‘social and investment finance intermediaries’ (SIFIs). However, this ignores problems that can occur on the demand-side of the SIM, such as a lack of ‘investment readiness’ (IR) amongst social enterprises (SEs) seeking investment. Indeed, whilst there is now a significant body of policy-based and practitioner research exploring the SIM, there remains a paucity of empirical academic research. The research reported in this paper sought to explore SIFI perceptions of what constituted IR in the SIM. Semi-structured interviews were held with the fund managers (or relevant personnel) at 15 SIFIs in order to explore what they believed constituted IR and how they assessed this. The results indicate that the conception of IR in the SIM is similar to that held in mainstream financial markets. The results are discussed in relation to the prior literature and theories of the SIM

The data chase : what's out there on trade costs and nontariff barriers ?

Trade costs and nontariff barriers are at the forefront of discussions on competitiveness and expanding trade opportunities for developing countries. This paper provides a summary overview of data and indicators relevant to these issues and has been informed by work underway at the World Bank on trade facilitation over the past several years to catalogue data sets and indicators. Although there has been progress in expanding data sets and developing policy-relevant indicators on trade costs and barriers, much more is needed. In order to assess progress toward achieving the Millennium Development Goals, evaluating the impact of development projects, and whether meeting Aid for Trade goals will be met, for example, a dedicated and expansive new effort to collect and assess data is needed. This paper attempts to highlight gaps in data on trade costs and provides insight into the type of new data that might be developed in the future.Transport Economics Policy&Planning,Economic Theory&Research,Trade Law,Free Trade,Trade Policy

Developing the framework for multi-criteria assessment of smart local energy systems

In response to the climate emergency, energy landscapes are rapidly shifting to cleaner, decentralised smart local energy systems (SLESs). SLES will facilitate connection of transport, heat and power through flexible energy supply, demand and storage options supported by digital technology. SLESs are expected to contribute to tackling the energy trilemma (cost, security and sustainability), but there is also scope for them to offer many co-benefits aligned with the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These benefits may drive for ongoing political and financial investment in SLES; therefore, there’s a need to indicate how a SLES is performing over time relative to each of them. Currently, there is no standardised approach to evaluate SLES and most of the existing techno-socio-economic tools have limited scope to assess the complex multiple performance indices, scenarios and stakeholders. The Innovate UK-funded EnergyREV research consortium is developing a multi-criteria assessment tool (MCA) for SLES. This paper describes the first step in this process – developing a simplified and standardised framework for assessing the performance of the system and the realization of benefits. It explores existing protocols and stakeholder opinion to identify 50 potential factors that are important in monitoring the system performance. These are clustered into 10 key themes to create a taxonomy for SLES performance that are aligned with relevant UN SDGs to track wider co-benefits. The resulting MCA tool will be instrumental to project stakeholders in providing evidence to support performance claims and identifying potential benefits beyond targeted key performance indicators

A conceptual multidimensional model for assessing smart sustainable cities

The concept of Smart Sustainable Cities (SSC) is gaining increasing attention by the countries around the globe, particularly in response to potential future environmental challenges and increased proportion of populations living in cities. Several countries claim to have implemented or in the process of implementing SSCs, and there are many models that can be used to measure how 'smart' the initiatives and cities are. This paper critically evaluates the main models to measure city smartness and identifies deficiencies, namely that they are not sensitive to the needs, resources, priorities and wider context for individual cities. The paper suggests a multidimensional methodological model that assists in evaluating the smartness level of a city while being sensitive to its context. It provides further contribution by combining sustainable and smart attributes of a cit

Assessing safety net readiness in response to food price volatility

In 2008, when food prices rose precipitously to record highs, international attention and local policy in many countries focused on safety nets as part of the response. Now that food prices are high again, the issue of appropriate responses is again on the policy agenda. This note sets out a framework for making quick, qualitative assessments of how well countries'safety nets prepare them for a rapid policy response to rising food prices should the situation warrant. The framework is applied using data from spring 2011, presenting a snap?shot analysis of what is a dynamically changing situation. Based on this data safety net readiness is assessed in 13 vulnerable countries based on the following criteria: the presence of safety net programs, program coverage, administrative capacity, and to a lesser degree, targeting effectiveness. It is argued that these criteria will remain the same throughout time, even if the sample countries affected will be expected to vary. Based on thisanalysis the note highlights that though a number of countries are more prepared than they were in 2008, there is still a significant medium term agenda on safety net preparedness in the face of crisis. In this context, strategic lessons from the 2008 food crisis response are presented to better understand the response options and challenges facing governments and policy makers. The note concludes by calling for continued investment and scale up of safety nets to mitigate poverty impacts and help prevent long term setbacks in nutrition and poverty.Food&Beverage Industry,Safety Nets and Transfers,Emerging Markets,Rural Poverty Reduction,Regional Economic Development

Analysing climate action plans of selected UK cities for their SDG alignment

In UK, the Climate change Act of 2008 has placed a binding target of reducing the net carbon emission in 2050 by at least 80% compared to the 1990 baseline. With a high share of urban population, the contribution of cities and urban areas towards climate change mitigation and adaptation becomes crucial. UK being a signatory to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) in 2016, there is a new emphasis on the sustainability of cities as well. In this paper, a preliminary analysis of climate action initiatives of three UK cities (Bristol, Leicester and Milton Keynes) and their alignment with the SDG is presented. We used a text mining approach to analyse the climate action plans and then use this to map the alignment with the SDGs. We find that climate action plans have not focused on the sustainable development goals or the SDGs and their focus remains limited mainly to mitigation activities through promotion of renewable energies at homes and in buildings and actions on transport. However, climate action plans could influence a significant number of SDGs and an integrated approach could be beneficial for the cities and their residents

Governing autonomous vehicles: emerging responses for safety, liability, privacy, cybersecurity, and industry risks

The benefits of autonomous vehicles (AVs) are widely acknowledged, but there are concerns about the extent of these benefits and AV risks and unintended consequences. In this article, we first examine AVs and different categories of the technological risks associated with them. We then explore strategies that can be adopted to address these risks, and explore emerging responses by governments for addressing AV risks. Our analyses reveal that, thus far, governments have in most instances avoided stringent measures in order to promote AV developments and the majority of responses are non-binding and focus on creating councils or working groups to better explore AV implications. The US has been active in introducing legislations to address issues related to privacy and cybersecurity. The UK and Germany, in particular, have enacted laws to address liability issues, other countries mostly acknowledge these issues, but have yet to implement specific strategies. To address privacy and cybersecurity risks strategies ranging from introduction or amendment of non-AV specific legislation to creating working groups have been adopted. Much less attention has been paid to issues such as environmental and employment risks, although a few governments have begun programmes to retrain workers who might be negatively affected.Comment: Transport Reviews, 201