Sri Lanka Legislative Drafting Workshops

This archive contains supporting documentation for a Legislative Drafting Workshop in Sri Lanka which was carried out from July 15-31, 1998 and a course at Boston University in the Fall of 1998 for Sri Lankan representatives to attend the "1998 Boston University Program for Legislative Drafting for Democratic Social Change". The objective of the workshop was to train a number of government officials draft bills and research reports to implement Sri Lanka's 1987 Constitutional Amendment devolving greater powers to the provinces(Land Alienation, Securities Market, Private Hospitals Statute, Insurance Bill, Insurance Law, Child Abuse Statute, Intellectual Property Law)

An Independent Review of USGS Circular 1370: An Evaluation of the Science Needs to Inform Decisions on Outer Continental Shelf Energy Development in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas, Alaska

Reviews the U.S. Geological Survey's findings and recommendations on Alaska's Arctic Ocean, including geology, ecology and subsistence, effect of climate change on, and impact of oil spills. Makes recommendations for data management and other issues

Appendix I: Drafting legislation for development: lessons from a Chinese project

A discussion on the different theoretical issues regarding development legislation that divide economists and lawyers

Empirical Investigation on Agile Methods Usage: Issues Identified from Early Adopters in Malaysia

Agile Methods are a set of software practices that can help to produce products faster and at the same time deliver what customers want. Despite the benefits that Agile methods can deliver, however, we found few studies from the Southeast Asia region, particularly Malaysia. As a result, less empirical evidence can be obtained in the country making its implementation harder. To use a new method, experience from other practitioners is critical, which describes what is important, what is possible and what is not possible concerning Agile. We conducted a qualitative study to understand the issues faced by early adopters in Malaysia where Agile methods are still relatively new. The initial study involves 13 participants including project managers, CEOs, founders and software developers from seven organisations. Our study has shown that social and human aspects are important when using Agile methods. While technical aspects have always been considered to exist in software development, we found these factors to be less important when using Agile methods. The results obtained can serve as guidelines to practitioners in the country and the neighbouring regions

Evaluating Development Co-operation: Summary of Key Norms and Standards

This is a best practice that offers guidance in developing norms and standards for evaluation in an effort to improve humanitarian aid programs and policy. The approach offers a core set of principles, along with five evaluation criteria: relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, impact, sustainability, and a framework for peer reviews and assessment

Stakeholders’ views on improving the organic certification system: Results from an EU level workshop

The FP7 CERTCOST project has the overall objective to give recommendations to the public authorities and private actors in the whole organic certification chain on how to improve the organic food certification systems in terms of efficiency, transparency and cost effectiveness. According to the project description (the Description of Work, or DoW) this will be done based on a scientific economic in depth analysis of the certification systems from the farmer to the consumer in 5 EU countries (the Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom), plus Switzerland and the candidate country, Turkey. To safeguard that the CERTCOST objectives, work plan and methodology is in line with the expectations of key stakeholders from all levels of the certification chain the DoW foresaw a Stakeholder workshop to be organised in the beginning of the project. The current report documents the main points of the discussions and recommendation given by the stakeholders at this CERTCOST Stakeholder workshop, which took place on November, 13-15, 2008 in Izmir, Turkey, 2.5 months after the project had started. A total of 20 stakeholders were invited, of whom 16 could participate in the workshop. The participant profile included both users and providers of the certification system at different levels such as representatives of farmers’ organizations certification/control bodies, government authorities, EU Commission, processors/ traders, private experts/consultants. Together with the representatives of the partner institutions in the CERTCOST project, the total number of workshop participants was 35 representing 12 European countries. Given the diverse backgrounds of the workshop participants, a working group approach (World Café approach) was applied in order to give the participants the opportunity to reflect their experiences and ideas on the implementation of the project in a synergetic, comfortable and free environment. After a brief presentation of the project, outlining the tasks of the work packages and describing the proposed links between the project and the stakeholders by the project coordinator, the stakeholders were divided into four groups according to their level in the organic certification chain, as farmers, processors/traders, certification bodies and consumers. Two working group sessions were carried out around the questions provided to the stakeholders before the workshop through electronic mails. The questions had been compiled based on input from the managers of the four work packages which were relevant to the workshop discussion. After the first working group session, a plenary discussion session for clustering of the output given by the working groups, their validation and assessment was carried out. In the second session of the working groups, it was rather aimed to harmonize the understanding between the diversified opinions mentioned in Session 1. The working group approach concluded in a final plenary discussion. On the second day, the CERTCOST work package managers presented how the discussions, comments and inputs of the working group sessions could impact on their working plans. In the final session the stakeholders were addressed directly for providing further ideas both on the project and on future collaboration options. The workshop was strongly focused on the identification of key characteristics of cost factors along the supply chain in relation to their impact on the quality of the given service. However a broad range of related subjects were discussed. The Stakeholder workshop put forward that, the ‘cost’ was among the most important topics relating to the certification system performance. The focus of the project aiming at cost effectiveness and not cost minimization was confirmed by the stakeholders. All of the stakeholders present in the workshop demonstrated elevated levels of interest on several outputs of the project. The workshop revealed very positive expectations among the stakeholders towards the risk based approach to be followed in the CERTCOST project. The detailed picture of the organic certification sector obtained through the workshop will constitute an important input to the CERTCOST project and the workshop is considered to be a successful first step in the project-stakeholder interaction. The Stakeholder workshop provided important insight into the many discussion subjects of the organic certification systems in the EU and worldwide, among others the following should be mentioned. Farmers expect to have, clear rules, fair implementation, and high skilled guidance in the inspection and certification process, and underline the need for training of farmers and certifiers and for better communication between all parties in the certification chain. Processors point out the need for a good relationship with the inspectors and certifiers as well as the fact that there existed different schemes in different countries regarding the inspection process and the related cost structure. They also highlighted the difficulty of managing the relations with increasing number of different standards and different certification bodies. It is agreed that consumers expect something they can trust and they can easily recognize, a label, a logo, a certifier, a brand, a farmer or the word ‘organic’; at local, regional, national, or EU-level. It is also concluded that whether, why and how much some consumers might be willing to pay more for particular logos was unknown and was needed to be investigated. Authorities/certification bodies stress that the issue of knowledge and education is extremely important and that there are complex legislations, no common standards, and differences within and between countries. They underline that there are different catalogues in different countries to deal with irregularities which should be harmonized. They emphasize that a clear definition of certification should be made covering its objectives, principles and tools. While on some of the issues there has been a highlighted consensus among the groups, on some others contrasting ideas became evident. Among those subjects of absolute agreement were the importance of and the need for a more clear understanding of the certification system, its components and rules by all the parties involved. Education and elevated levels of necessary skills from farmer to inspector and to consumer; increased transparency and information exchange, well defined relationships between parties were considered to be an indispensable basis for a well functioning and more efficient certification system. The inspection concept came into prominence, with a discussion on policing vs. development approaches. While an efficient and comparable control system was judged to be crucial, promising private governmental formulations were agreed to be based on country conditions. Complexity of the legislation and lack of transparency were the remarkable barriers to a more efficient control system. The EU logo and the new EU Regulation for organic certification were also discussed among stakeholders. It was suggested that the EU logo might have the potential to boost demand in the ‘less developed’ organic markets, but more promotion then currently planned would be needed. It was agreed that most consumers do not look for logos of particular standards but for the word ‘organic’ and/or an organic logo they are familiar with. This might be different for ‘committed’ organic consumers in more mature markets. Overall, it was agreed that ‘trust’ is the most crucial aspect of organic certification regarding the consumer side. The issue of multiple certification and standards appeared to be a factor deserving more attention in the certification world. Harmonization in certification of the same characteristic of a product was deemed necessary. On the other hand, exchange of experiences and cooperation with markets like ‘Fair Trade’ was agreed to be potentially beneficial

Failure is an option:an innovative engineering curriculum

PurposeAdvancements and innovation in engineering design are based on learning from previous failures but students are encouraged to ‘succeed’ first time and hence can avoid learning from failure in practice. The purpose of the study was to design and evaluate a curriculum to help engineering design students to learn from failure.Design/Methodology/ApproachA new curriculum design provided a case study for evaluating the effects of incorporating learning from failure within a civil engineering course. An analysis of the changes in course output was undertaken in relation to graduate destination data covering 2006 to 2016 and student satisfaction from 2012 to 2017 and a number of challenges and solutions for curriculum designers were identified.FindingsThe design and delivery of an innovative curriculum, within typical constraints, can provide opportunities for students to develop resilience to failure as an integral part of their learning in order to think creatively and develop novel engineering solutions. The key issues identified were: the selection of appropriate teaching methods, creating an environment for exploratory learning, group and team assessments with competitive elements where practicable, and providing students with many different pedagogical approaches to produce a quality learning experience.OriginalityThis case study demonstrates how to design and implement an innovative curriculum that can produce positive benefits of learning from failure. This model can be applied to other disciplines such as building surveying and construction management. This approach underpins the development of skills necessary in the educational experience to develop as a professional building pathologist

Socio-economic impacts of alternative GIN control practices. Project deliverable 11 (WP4)

This report is a deliverable (WP4) from the EU-funded PrOPara project. The PrOPara project aspires to i) assess existing knowledge from research, development and benchmarking studies on alternatives to parasite control on organic ruminant farms, ii) collecting novel data on disease prevalence, risk assessment analysis and parasite control measures, through monitoring (farm surveys and stakeholder participation studies), iii) performing cost-benefit analysis on alternative parasite control measures and iv) developing and delivering technical innovation to facilitate implementation of sustainable parasite control strategies. A combined approach of modelling and focus groups for feedback was employed to assess the economic impacts of alternative GIN control strategies in South West France and North East Scotland. This two step method allowed results from the survey and farm modelling to be used during workshops, which also addressed social factors explaining the uptake and acceptance of GIN practices to control parasites. An existing excel based farm model was adapted in order to estimate the economic impacts of a range of alternative GIN practices. The model was adapted using data from a typical farm for organic goat system in France (Occitanie and Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Regions) and two organic sheep systems (lowland and upland) in Scotland. A structured workshop approach was utilised to address both the social and economic factors related to adoption of alternative GIN practices by farmers. To this purpose, we adapted the Structured Decision Making (SDM) approach commonly used for decisions taking (Gregory and Keeney 1994, Conroy, Barker et al. 2008, Ogden and Innes 2009, Gregory 2012, Johnson, Eaton et al. 2015, Fatorić and Seekamp 2017). Overall, the modelling and farmer feedback showed that control of GIN needs to be farm specific, to suit the individual characteristics of both the farm but also the beliefs of the farmer. The extension of withdrawal periods combined with resistance issues in France have led to the adoption of TST by some farmers, but others are less convinced of its efficiency. The farmers in Scotland seem to have adopted multiple strategies such as use of arable land and mixed grazing to keep GIN levels from severely affecting their profits. However, the diversity of opinions and calls by the French farmers in particular for more trials, shows there is still further work to understand this problem and develop more effective, sustainable solutions

Moving Ahead Amid Fiscal Challenges: A Look at Medicaid Spending, Coverage and Policy Trends

Examines fiscal year 2011 trends in state efforts to control Medicaid spending, reform payment and delivery systems, and prepare for healthcare reform implementation, as well as projections in spending and enrollment growth for fiscal year 2012