Trafficking in Persons: U.S. Policy and Issues for Congress

[Excerpt] This report focuses on international and domestic human trafficking and U.S. policy responses, with particular emphasis on the TVPA and its subsequent reauthorizations. The report begins with a description of key TIP-related definitions and an overview of the human trafficking problem. It follows with an overview of major foreign policy responses to international human trafficking. The report then focuses on responses to trafficking into and within the United States, examining relief for trafficking victims in the United States and discussing U.S. law enforcement efforts to combat domestic trafficking. The report concludes with an overview of current anti-trafficking legislation and an analysis of policy issues

Border Security: Understanding Threats at U.S. Borders

[Excerpt] The United States confronts a wide array of threats at U.S. borders, ranging from terrorists who may have weapons of mass destruction, to transnational criminals smuggling drugs or counterfeit goods, to unauthorized migrants intending to live and work in the United States. Given this diversity of threats, how may Congress and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) set border security priorities and allocate scarce enforcement resources? In general, DHS’s answer to this question is organized around risk management, a process that involves risk assessment and the allocation of resources based on a cost-benefit analysis. This report focuses on the first part of this process by identifying border threats and describing a framework for understanding risks at U.S. borders. DHS employs models to classify threats as relatively high- or low-risk for certain planning and budgeting exercises and to implement certain border security programs. Members of Congress may wish to use similar models to evaluate the costs and benefits of potential border security policies and to allocate border enforcement resources. This report discusses some of the issues involved in modeling border-related threats

Private Sector Investment and Sustainable Development: The Current and Potential Role of Institutional Investors, Companies, Banks and Foundations in Sustainable Development

This paper seeks to provide the Financing for Development process with a perspective on the role institutional investors, companies, and foundations can play in the design and implementation of a financing strategy for global sustainability. This will help bridge the terminology and investment approaches of institutional investors, companies, foundations, and governments. The paper highlights ongoing efforts among private investors to increase the impact of their investments. It concludes with a set of key actions facing investors, companies and foundations in their transition towards investment practices that contribute to sustainable development

Review of the Learning Alliance for Adaptation in Smallholder Agriculture

The Learning Alliance for Adaptation in Smallholder Agriculture is a knowledge platform which leverages the strengths, opportunities and diverse audiences of the International Fund for Agriculture (IFAD) and the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS). The objective of the Learning Alliance is to produce and disseminate evidence for informed policy and implementation of climate-smart agriculture (CSA) interventions by capturing, analyzing and communicating lessons emerging from the IFAD supported global Adaptation in Smallholder Agriculture Programme (ASAP). The Learning Alliance strives to enable agricultural development policy-makers and practitioners make science-based decisions in the context of climate change. The underlying assumption of the Learning Alliance is that the “provision of demand-driven research outputs to policy-makers and practitioners is a key mechanism for improving the effectiveness of adaptation actions among ultimate beneficiaries, in this case smallholder farmers”. The review aims to identify areas for improvement to achieve the planned outcomes of the Learning Alliance more effectively. It provides recommendations to inform a further phase, based on the experience of those closely involved in the knowledge production and implementation of the Alliance

Lower Mekong Portfolio: Interim Evaluation

This report summarizes a portfolio evaluation of the MacArthur Foundation's conservation investments in the Lower Mekong region since 2011. It is explicitly a portfolio-level evaluation, focusing on common themes rather than individual grants. The evaluation involved understanding the portfolio context through reviewing relevant documents and speaking with donor partners; gathering data from MacArthur grantees; calibrating initial evaluation findings through consultations with independent regional experts and donor partner grantees; improving future evaluation ability by cooperating with NatureServe to improve the Lower Mekong Dashboard; and presenting results in this evaluation report and to MacArthur directly

The Place of Risk Management in Financial Institutions

The purpose of this paper is to address two issues. It defines the appropriate role played by institutions in the financial sector and focuses on the role of risk management in firms that use their own balance sheets to provide financial products. A key objective is to explain when risks are better transferred to the purchaser of the assets issued or created by the financial institution and when the risks of these financial products are best absorbed by the firm itself. However, once these risks are absorbed, they must be efficiently managed. So, a second part of the current analysis develops a framework for efficient and effective risk management for those risks which the firm chooses to manage within its balance sheet. The goal of this activity is to achieve the highest value added from the risk management undertaken.

Resilient livelihoods and food security in coastal aquatic agricultural systems: Investing in transformational change

Aquatic agricultural systems (AAS) are diverse production and livelihood systems where families cultivate a range of crops, raise livestock, farm or catch fish, gather fruits and other tree crops, and harness natural resources such as timber, reeds, and wildlife. Aquatic agricultural systems occur along freshwater floodplains, coastal deltas, and inshore marine waters, and are characterized by dependence on seasonal changes in productivity, driven by seasonal variation in rainfall, river flow, and/or coastal and marine processes. Despite this natural productivity, the farming, fishing, and herding communities who live in these systems are among the poorest and most vulnerable in their countries and regions. This report provides an overview of the scale and scope of development challenges in coastal aquatic agricultural systems, their significance for poor and vulnerable communities, and the opportunities for partnership and investment that support efforts of these communities to secure resilient livelihoods in the face of multiple risks

Auditing IT Governance

Effective IT governance helps ensure that IT supports business goals, optimizes business investment in IT, and appropriately manages IT-related risks and opportunities. Organizations that realize the IT is no longer a support process and embeds value and risks need a structured approach for better managing Information Technology, enable its capability to deliver added value enterprise wide and for setting up a risk management program to address new risks arising for usage of IT in business processes. In order to assess if IT Governance is in line with industry practices, IT Auditors need a good understanding of processes and applicable standards, particular audit work programs and experience in assessing potential problem indicators.IT Governance, Audit, ISACA, CGEIT, Val IT, Value Governance, Portfolio Management, Investment Management

A Socio-technical Analysis of Interdependent Infrastructures among the Built Environment, Energy, and Transportation Systems at the Navy Yard and the Philadelphia Metropolitan Region, USA

This paper reports on a research initiative that explores the interdependencies of the system of systems — the built environment, energy, and transportation — related to the redevelopment of The Navy Yard in Philadelphia and the Philadelphia Metropolitan Region. The overarching goal of the project is a clearer understanding of the dynamics of multi-scale interactions and interdependencies of systems of sociotechnical systems that will be useful to system practitioners. The understanding and the subsequent planning and design of sociotechnical systems are “wicked” problems and one characteristic is there is no definitive formulation. One of the main findings or lessons learned of the work reported for the understanding of interdependencies of infrastructure is the identification of what are the problems or challenges because for wicked problems “[t]he formulation of the problem is the problem!” We find that systems practitioners have an overarching concern of a fragmented regional policy and decision making process. Four main themes of 1. Vulnerability of aging infrastructure, 2. Integration of emerging technology into existing infrastructure, 3. Lifestyle and value changes, and 4. Financial innovations were identified as challenges. Continuing research work explores three possible infrastructure projects for further study as well as the development of a high-level systems of systems model. The principle outcome is the initiation of a planning process so that the system practitioners will learn to better understand the connections among related sociotechnical systems and the constellation of problems they face not within their immediate scope of responsibility yet influences the operations of their systems