Private sector participation in the delivery of municipal services Kitwe

Activities of Local Governments in Zambia are derived from Section 6 of the Local Government Act Chapter 281 of the Laws of Zambia. These activities are many and varied. A local authority may discharge any of the functions within its area. The Act allows local authorities to enter into contract for the discharge of any of its functions. Zambia, like any other government around the world, is in the process of reviewing its obligations to its citizens. A common theme is private sector participation as partners in the provision of services. Rather than maintaining all the functions of providing municipal services, local authorities through the proposed decentralisation policy are expected to delegate responsibilities to private sector participants. In this report a review of the current Kitwe City Council functions has been made with the aim of identifying core and non-core activities. The review revealed that the Kitwe City Council is striving to perform its functions and has accordingly addressed the strategic plan for this purpose. The guiding mission statement is to improve the quality of life of the residents through the development of the sound economic environment and to provide quality social services and infrastructure. The major objectives of the strategic plan include: - making the Council more responsible and effective in meeting the needs of the stake holders; - ensuring quality representation by attracting individuals of good standing to vie for councillorship and; - developing and motivating the human resources. The Council has employed well-qualified human resources in all the departments. However, the current human resource is characterised by low morale and poor motivation arising from lack of resources to implement good management practices

Managing the Import and Use of Healthcare Technology in Sub-Saharan Africa

This Thesis investigates the import and use of healthcare technology into Sub-Saharan Africa. With the increasing range of equipment types present in the health sector, the effective management of technology is of growing importance if health services are to improve in developing countries. Yet this sector has been relatively neglected within the traditional technology transfer, management, and development literature. The activities and players involved in the healthcare technology sector are complex, thus an holistic healthcare technology package system is identified, and theoretically and practically assessed as a modelling framework. This tool is applied to provide detailed analysis in three case study countries over time - Zambia in 1990, Botswana in 1992, and Namibia in 1997, with a documented learning process. The key issue pursued is how to improve the sustainability of healthcare technology. This proves fundamentally to be a management issue, and five overarching key constraints emerge-: * the institutional framework available for delivering healthcare technology management throughout a country, * training personnel and developing a national technical management capacity; * sufficient allocation of financial resources; * technical support availability from the private sector, * the role played by external support agencies. These five issues are studied in detail with support from relevant literature. The research proves that it is necessary to approach the subject from three perspectives. Thus a Thesis framework is used which ensures that healthcare technology is analysed as a Technological Systems issue, an Institutional Organization issue, and a Development issue. The area of overlap between these perspectives is key to finding creative solutions for sustainability. The conclusions show that cross-denominational strategies will be essential between health service providers, the national support environment, donors agencies, the private sector, and the region. All institutions involved need to find ways to become 'learning organizations' in this field

An Evaluation and Development of the Potentials of Photovoltaic Systems for Water Pumping and Electricity Services in Rural Areas of Nigeria

Rural electrification has been a priority for many governmental and international donor organisations. Grid extension and various renewable energy technology (RET) options are recognised as viable means of providing enhanced energy and water services to isolated rural communities, and these have been successfully deployed in many regions across the world. In Nigeria, decentralized energy generation systems based on solar PV systems are often used to meet the low energy demands of rural areas and they have also been widely adopted for water pumping purposes in these places. However, the failure or underperformance of many of these installations is in stark contrast to their theoretical viabilities as asserted in many academic papers; this suggests deep underlying problems. Such failures have discouraged government and policy makers from supporting solar PV and, as an extension, other forms of RE projects as viable options for isolated rural locations, even when grid extensions to these places often remain economically and practically challenging. Hence, whereas a number solar PV projects have been implemented in rural communities in the country, appraisal of their success and failures has moved at a much slower pace. Evidence is needed, not only about the factors that contribute to the deployment of these RE installations, but also on issues that took place after such installations have been completed: if the technology fulfils people’s needs and priorities, if the equipment remained in working order and for how long, and the particular and general decisions and actions that may have contributed to the success or failure of the installations. The aim of this study is therefore two-fold. Firstly, to reveal and understand the fundamental issues and factors that mitigate against the proper deployment, diffusion and performance of solar PV installations in isolated rural locations in Nigeria and, secondly, to develop a framework and set of recommendations that could lead to improved deployment processes and better performance of such installations. In order to understand and address these fundamental issues, a systematic analysis of relevant literatures on renewable energy technologies and technology diffusion is initially undertaken. In addition, multiple methods including site visits, observation and physical evaluation of installations, interviews and discussions with stakeholders and key players, and seven exploratory studies of rural communities are utilised to collect primary data on the performance and effectiveness of solar PV installations. Thirty-Eight indicators across five core sustainability dimensions of Technical, Economical/Financial, Environmental Impact, Social-Ethical Development, and Institutional Development and Government Policies are used to assess and evaluate the study cases, revealing diverse and interconnected pre- and post-installation factors that contribute to both successful and failed installations. A main finding of the study is that involvement of private energy providers in the deployment and running of solar PV installations in rural communities in the country is more effective than the sole use of government agencies or contractors. It was also revealed that a number of factors including weak or absence of post-installation maintenance arrangements, non-existence of local representative authorities, failure to enlighten local residents on limitations of the installation and to train them on basic maintenance practices, weak implementation and low success of government policies, weak institutions and overlapping functions of government agencies impacted negatively on the performance of the installations. In addition, the study provides insights into the interrelationships between the factors; how the presence or absence of some can strengthen or weaken others. Finally, a framework and set of recommendations are generated that could support improved deployment procedures and enhanced performance of solar PV installations in rural communities. Although the study deals with the Nigerian situation, some of the findings can be readily extended to other developing countries with similar challenges in the provision of energy and water services to isolated rural communities.Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND

Developing a new policy framework for the use of combined heat and power technology in small and medium enterprises.

The aim of this research is to develop a new policy framework for the use of Combined Heat & Power systems' (CHP) in Small and Medium Sized Enterprises2 (SMEs). This entailed an assessment of the extent to which the current national policy framework for the use of CHP is effective and from contemporary data obtained from CHP operators, policy makers, designers and regulators, subsequently to develop a new policy framework. The design of the research process combines the strengths of engineering, economic and social policy academic disciplines for an examination of the potential for the use of CHP in SMEs. The research methodology dictated the use of qualitative and quantitative methods for data collection. The analyses of the data collected formed the basis for proposing a new Governance policy framework designed to encourage the use of CHP in the SMEs. The new Governance framework is proposed as an amalgamation of Support Systems set on the macro and micro levels of SME governance. A Governance Support System (GSS) offers SMEs an integrated structure for regional sustainable development, including flexible decision support base. The Business Decision Support System (BDSS) is designed as a simple tool for use by SME managers' considering CHP as part of any proposal involving capacity constraints for heat or electricity in the business. The thesis concludes that proactive adoption of the new Governance framework would allow for easier access of SMEs to CHP systems as well as assisting the Government in meeting its climate change objectives. 1 A CHP system is one that simultaneously produces heat and electricity in a single process. 2 Enterprises that employ less than 250 staff, with an annual turnover no more than 40 million Euros andis less than 25% owned by s large enterprise

Health technology assessment in Sub-Saharan Africa : a cross-national study of Kenya and South Africa

;Bibliography: leaves 365-403.This thesis is concerned with the applications and use of health technology in Sub-Saharan Africa, and particularly in Kenya and South Africa. The focus is on technology planning, deployment, use, management and assessment in the public health sector. The objectives of the study are three-fold: (1) to investigate the problems that arise in the planning, deployment, use, management and assessment of technology in the health services of these countries; (2) to describe how these problems affect the delivery of health services; and (3) to provide suggestions, recommendations and a policy framework to alleviate the problems

An analysis of the adoption of OSS by local public administrations: Evidence from the Emilia-Romagna Region of Italy

The wide diffusion of open source software (OSS) is driving discussion among scholars on a set of issues, including its adoption by public administrations (PA). Previous works only discussed one or a few factors that drive the decision to adopt OSS and did not addressed the potential benefits in terms of e-government that OSS may bring to PA. Our paper attempts to fill these gaps. The analysis is based on the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy and studies the adoption of software (both proprietary and open source) by local PA. The results show there is increased adoption of OSS in several different domains of application, both servers and desktop clients. Among the motivations to adopt OSS, only dependence on software suppliers seems to be important. Its adoption also positively affects the variety and extent of interactivity of local public e-services.open source software; public administration; online public services; empirical research

Training needs in renewable energies for local development

The general goal of the research is to advance in the study of the training needs in the field of RES for rural development, in order to reduce the existing scarcities and to contribute to the development of relevant training actions that improve the effectiveness of the teaching-learning processes. All of these in the framework of the European project IN2RURAL, which aims to promote innovative practices in the RES sector improving the employability of university students in the rural areas of Bacău (Romania), Castellón (Spain) and Heves (Hungary)