The open government partnership: what are the challenges and opportunities for New Zealand?

In November 2013 New Zealand signed up to the Open Government Partnership (OGP), which was established in 2011 and comprises 63 nations. The OGP operates as a partnership on two levels: nationally, as a partnership between governments and civil society organisations to effect reforms in various areas; and internationally between nations sharing ideas and good practice and collaborating in areas of transparency, integrity and public safety.&nbsp

Reflections and outlook for the New Zealand ETS: must uncertain times mean uncertain measures?

This article discusses the development and performance of New Zealand\u27s emissions trading scheme since the report of the Emissions Trading Scheme Review Panel in 2011. Introduction The New Zealand emissions trading scheme (ETS) was introduced by legislation in 2008. The legislated objectives as stated in section 3 of the Climate Change Response Act 2002 are to ‘support and encourage global efforts to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases by (i) assisting New Zealand to meet its international obligations under the [UNFCCC] Convention and the [Kyoto] Protocol; and (ii) reducing New Zealand’s net emissions of those gases to below business-as-usual levels’. Beyond this, the New Zealand government has confirmed three objectives for the ETS: help New Zealand to deliver its ‘fair share’ of international action to reduce emissions, including meeting any international obligations; deliver emission relations in the most cost-effective manner; support efforts to maximise the long-term resilience of the New Zealand economy at least cost. ........ This article discusses the development and performance of the scheme since the report of the Emissions Trading Scheme Review Panel in 2011. In particular, the article presents the results of a survey undertaken by the authors in April 2013 of stakeholders’ perception of the scheme and its performance. The survey was designed and administered by the authors using FluidSurveys software

Third sector accounting and accountability in Australia: anything but a level playing field

This research report seeks to understand why some Australian not-for-profit organisations make voluntary financial disclosures beyond their basic statutory obligations. Introduction This paper surveys previous work on voluntary information disclosures in accounting reports of Australian Not-for-Profit organisations (NFPs). This is new research and is a part of a project to evolve a comprehensive explanation of why Australian NFPs disclose what they do disclose; and to capture and explain patterns of variations between NFPs between what they regard to disclose and the type of information they disclose. To accomplish this, first some background information about the NFP sector are considered. Then, the Australian NFP sector is reviewed. Third, the information needs of some key stakeholders are briefly discussed. Next, the research methodology where a literature survey which looks at not just disclosures to NFPs but to the commercial sector that are plausibly &nbsp

User costs and informal payments for care in the largest maternity hospital in Kathmandu, Nepal

Background: Maternity care costs in Nepal include formal and informal payment. Formal include for example the cost for blood or drugs; Informal payments can be voluntary such as gratitude payments, or bribes which patients are ‘expected’ to pay to get decent care or any care at all. One problem is that these payments are missing from formal accounts and they are not taken into account in health-policy decision-making. The aim of the present study was to estimate out-of-pocket expenses (formal/informal) for delivery care in the largest government maternity hospital in Kathmandu, Nepal and establish factors that affect informal costs. Methods: We used mixed-methods approach. We used questionnaire-based interviews with 234 women who had delivered in this hospital followed by semi-structured in-depth interviews with sub-sample of ten couples. SPSS software was used for analysis and cross tabulations and chi square tests, binary logistic regression were performed. Results: Women occurred various costs during a hospital confinement. The qualitative data suggested that some, but not all had started to save prior to the delivery. There is a significant association between making informal payments and whether or not the birth was planned to be in hospital or whether it was an emergency, p=0.025, ANC visits, p=0.008, woman’s occupation,p=0.025 and husband’s employment, p=0.022. Logistic regression suggested four factors associated with making informal payments, indicating a possible socio-economic link with ability to make informal payments. Conclusions: Although informal payments around birth itself were not substantial, such payments are very common. Better understanding of informal payments is important as the illegal status of unofficial health care payments means that it is difficult to establish the prevalence of this phenomenon. Moreover it forms a part of the private health expenditure rarely included in the national health statistics, they create perverse incentives, potentially reduce motivation for reform and will provide information about economic barriers to care

Modeling the adoption and use of social media by nonprofit organizations

This study examines what drives organizational adoption and use of social media through a model built around four key factors - strategy, capacity, governance, and environment. Using Twitter, Facebook, and other data on 100 large US nonprofit organizations, the model is employed to examine the determinants of three key facets of social media utilization: 1) adoption, 2) frequency of use, and 3) dialogue. We find that organizational strategies, capacities, governance features, and external pressures all play a part in these social media adoption and utilization outcomes. Through its integrated, multi-disciplinary theoretical perspective, this study thus helps foster understanding of which types of organizations are able and willing to adopt and juggle multiple social media accounts, to use those accounts to communicate more frequently with their external publics, and to build relationships with those publics through the sending of dialogic messages.Comment: Seungahn Nah and Gregory D. Saxton. (in press). Modeling the adoption and use of social media by nonprofit organizations. New Media & Society, forthcomin

A business model perspective for ICTs in public engagement

This is the post-print version of the Article. The official published article can be accessed from the link below - Copyright @ 2012 ElsevierPublic institutions, in their efforts to promote meaningful citizen engagement, are increasingly looking at the democratic potential of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). Previous studies suggest that such initiatives seem to be impeded by socio-technical integration barriers such as low sustainability, poor citizen acceptance, coordination difficulties, lack of understanding and failure to assess their impact. Motivated by these shortcomings, the paper develops and applies a business model perspective as an interceding framework for analysis and evaluation. The underlying principle behind this approach is that it is not technology per se which determines success, but rather the way in which the businessmodel of the technological artifact is configured and employed to achieve the strategic goals. The business model perspective is empirically demonstrated with the case of an online petitioning system implemented by a UK local authority. The case illustrates the importance of considering ICTs in public engagement from a holistic view to make them more manageable and assessable

Forecasts of the Scottish economy [October 2013]

The Scottish economy has shown signs of growth through the first half of 2012, exceeding our expectations so far through the year and has grown slightly less than the UK economy as a whole in this period. In part, this appears due to higher than expected contribution from household spending growth. While survey indicators suggest firms are optimistic about prospects for the second half of the year, we are uncertain about the extent to which a recovery on the back of households facing slow income growth is sustainable. In particular, the recent evidence on the Scottish housing market suggests that any wealth effect from increasing house asset prices is not being felt across all regions of the UK. Recent Scottish export figures show the importance of a swift and positive resolution of the (on-going at time of writing) future of the Grangemouth chemicals and refinery facility for the Scottish economy