86,791 research outputs found
New Models of Technology Assessment for Development
This report explores the role that ânew modelsâ of
technology assessment can play in improving the lives of
poor and vulnerable populations in the developing world.
The ânew modelsâ addressed here combine citizen and
decision-maker participation with technical expertise. They
are virtual and networked rather than being based in a
single office of technology assessment (as was the case in
the United States in the 1970s-90s). They are flexible
enough to address issues across disciplines and are
increasingly transnational or global in their reach and
scope. The report argues that these new models of
technology assessment can make a vital contribution to
informing policies and strategies around innovation,
particularly in developing regions. They are most beneficial
if they enable the broadening out of inputs to technology
assessment, and the opening up of political debate around
possible directions of technological change and their
interactions with social and environmental systems.
Beyond the process of technology assessment itself, the
report argues that governance systems within which these
processes are embedded play an important role in
determining the impact and effectiveness of technology
assessment. Finally, the report argues for training and
capacity-building in technology assessment
methodologies in developing countries, and support for
internationally co-ordinated technology assessment
efforts to address global and regional development
challenges
Participatory GIS in Mapping Ecosystem Services: Two Case Studies from High-Biodiversity Regions in Italy and Peru
Assessing ecosystem services (ES) and mapping their values are of paramount importance. Here we present two case studies where the participatory mapping of social values of landscape ecosystem services is used in territories with high levels of cultural and biological diversity (Adamello Brenta Natural Park in Italy and the Alto Mayo basin in the Western Amazon, Peru). A mixed-method approach combining social geography fieldwork (participatory mapping) and desk work (GIS analyses) is adopted to improve ES mapping by including multiple actors and to increase awareness. Mapping ecosystem services is not just a technical task; it also highlights social implications of the cartographic process, a key issue in human geography. By taking into account the controversial and multiple roles of maps, and by involving actors in attributing values and mapping their spatial relations to landscape and ES, it is possible to enrich technical knowledge with local knowledge
Q-Squared in Policy: The Use of Qualitative and Quantitative Methods of Poverty Analysis in Decision-Making
This introductory essay for the journal Symposium presents an overview of issues related to âQ-Squared in Policy: the use of qualitative and quantitative methods of poverty analysis in decision-makingâ. We focus on issues raised on the supply side of data use, relating, inter alia to the informational content and policy usefulness of different types of data and analysis. These issues are grouped under the headings of: outcomes vs. processes, unpacking processes and thick and thin. We begin however, with a brief discussion of one aspect of the demand side, namely the politics of data use, given its centrality to the issues at hand.poverty, methods, mixed method research, policy process, methodological pluralism, impact assessment, International Relations/Trade, Political Economy,
Program your city: Designing an urban integrated open data API
Cities accumulate and distribute vast sets of digital information. Many decision-making and planning processes in councils, local governments and organisations are based on both real-time and historical data. Until recently, only a small, carefully selected subset of this information has been released to the public â usually for specific purposes (e.g. train timetables, release of planning application through websites to name just a few). This situation is however changing rapidly. Regulatory frameworks, such as the Freedom of Information Legislation in the US, the UK, the European Union and many other countries guarantee public access to data held by the state. One of the results of this legislation and changing attitudes towards open data has been the widespread release of public information as part of recent Government 2.0 initiatives. This includes the creation of public data catalogues such as data.gov.au (U.S.), data.gov.uk (U.K.), data.gov.au (Australia) at federal government levels, and datasf.org (San Francisco) and data.london.gov.uk (London) at municipal levels. The release of this data has opened up the possibility of a wide range of future applications and services which are now the subject of intensified research efforts. Previous research endeavours have explored the creation of specialised tools to aid decision-making by urban citizens, councils and other stakeholders (Calabrese, Kloeckl & Ratti, 2008; Paulos, Honicky & Hooker, 2009). While these initiatives represent an important step towards open data, they too often result in mere collections of data repositories. Proprietary database formats and the lack of an open application programming interface (API) limit the full potential achievable by allowing these data sets to be cross-queried. Our research, presented in this paper, looks beyond the pure release of data. It is concerned with three essential questions: First, how can data from different sources be integrated into a consistent framework and made accessible? Second, how can ordinary citizens be supported in easily composing data from different sources in order to address their specific problems? Third, what are interfaces that make it easy for citizens to interact with data in an urban environment? How can data be accessed and collected
Participatory approach for integrated basin planning with focus on disaster risk reduction : the case of the Limpopo river
This paper defends the idea that a participatory approach is a suitable method for basin planning integrating both water and land aspects. Assertions made are based on scientific literature review and corroborated by field experience and research carried out in the Limpopo River basin, a transboundary river located in southern Africa which is affected by periodical floods. The paper explains how a basin strategic plan can be drafted and disaster risk reduction strategies derived by combining different types of activities using a bottom-up approach, despite an institutional context which operates through traditional top-down mechanisms. In particular, the "Living with Floods" experience in the lower Limpopo River, in Mozambique, is described as a concrete example of a disaster adaptation measure resulting from a participatory planning exercise. In conclusion, the adopted method and obtained results are discussed and recommendations are formulated for potential replication in similar contexts of the developing world
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Engaging with citizens online: Understanding the role of ePetitioning in local government democracy
This article can be accessed from the link below.According to the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act introduced in 2009, UK local authorities are expected to implement âa facility for making petitions in electronic form to the authorityâ. Motivated by this arrangement, this paper reflects on the findings of a case study investigation conducted with the Royal Borough of Kingston (one of the first local authorities to implement such a service since 2004). Lessons learnt from the case suggest that ePetitions reveal increased potential to enhance local government democracy, but are also shaped by challenging open implementation issues which can highly influence the initiativeâs impact. Our conclusions are developed within the general debate about online public participation or eParticipation and particularly examine the implications for policy makers
Rapid Situation Analysis: a hybrid, multi-methods, qualitative, participatory approach to researching tourism development phenomena
This study develops a hybrid, bottom-up approach to field research, namely Rapid
Situation Analysis, and implements it in Ghana. It draws on elements from two existing
participatory methodological approaches: Rapid Rural Appraisal and Participatory
RuralAppraisal. The approachwas developed to suit the particular needs of investigating
corporate social responsibility practices, sustainable development and poverty reduction
through tourism, a fragmented sector which tends to be ambiguous and unstructured and
lack cohesion (unlike, for example, agriculture or primary health care, both of which
are familiar territory for Rapid Rural Appraisal and Participatory Rural Appraisal). The
Rapid Situation Analysis bottom-up approach to data gathering was underpinned by
supporting methods, including participant and direct observation, in-depth interviews,
stakeholder focus groups and informal conversations. Moreover, the multiple methods
were further enriched by the collection of visual data in the form of moving and still
images. These research findings were fed back to the communities at the centre of the
research
Orchestrating Forest Policy in Italy: Mission Impossible?
In the Italian political and economic agenda the forest sector occupies a marginal role. The forest sector in Italy is characterized by a high institutional fragmentation and centralized decision-making processes dominated by Public Forest Administrations. Public participation in forest policy processes has been implemented since the 1990s at national, regional and local levels in several cases. However, today no significant changes have been observed in the overall governance of the forest sector and stakeholders' involvement in Italian forest policy decision-making is still rather limited. The aims of this paper are to describe the state of forest-related participatory processes in Italy at various levels (national, regional and local) and identify which factors and actors hinder or support the establishment and implementation of participatory forest-related processes in the country. The forest-related participatory processes are analyzed adopting a qualitative-based approach and interpreting interactive, complex and non-linear participatory processes through the lens of panarchy theory
Supporting public decision making in policy deliberations: An ontological approach
This is the post-print version of the Paper. The official published version can be accessed from the link below - Copyright @ 2011 SpringerSupporting public decision making in policy deliberations has been a key objective of eParticipation which is an emerging area of eGovernment. EParticipation aims to enhance citizen involvement in public governance activities through the use of information and communication technologies. An innovative approach towards this objective is exploiting the potentials of semantic web technologies centred on conceptual knowledge models in the form of ontologies. Ontologies are generally defined as explicit human and computer shared views on the world of particular domains. In this paper, the potentials and benefits of using ontologies for policy deliberation processes are discussed. Previous work is then extended and synthesised to develop a deliberation ontology. The ontology aims to define the necessary semantics in order to structure and interrelate the stages and various activities of deliberation processes with legal information, participant stakeholders and their associated arguments. The practical implications of the proposed framework are illustrated.This work is funded by the European Commission under the 2006/1 eParticipation call
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