Strategic analysis and knowledge support systems for rural development strategies in Sub-Saharan Africa

"While greater growth in agriculture and the broader rural sector is crucial for ameliorating Africa's high levels of poverty and malnutrition, developing strategies to achieve these objectives is hindered by a number of factors, including the broad array of interventions needed, the lack of accurate data, and dearth of trained local policy analysts. As such, this paper proposes a Strategic Analysis Knowledge Support System (SAKSS) in which data, tools, and knowledge are compiled, analyzed, and disseminated for the purposes of identifying a set of priority investment and policy options to promote agricultural growth and rural development. These analyses can in turn help inform the broader process of designing, implementing, and monitoring and evaluating a country's rural development strategy. In order to be an influential and sustainable part of this process and become a genuine "knowledge system," SAKSS will need to be established with an awareness of each country s development priorities and unique political, social, and economic context. By institutionalizing SAKSS through a network structure that includes government ministries, research institutions, universities, regional organizations, non-governmental organizations, and donors, SAKSS can become not only more relevant and legitimate for its intended end-users but also help strengthen local analytical capacity to inform the policy debate on future development strategies and outcomes." Authors' AbstractAgricultural growth ,Strategic analysis ,Development policies Africa, Sub-Saharan ,

Building capacities for evidence and outcome-based food policy planning and implementation

The Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) is an Africawide framework for revitalizing agriculture and rural development in order to accelerate economic growth and progress toward poverty reduction and food and nutrition security. This study reviews CAADP and its strategic objectives, key players, implementation modalities, and approach to ensuring evidence and outcome-based policy planning and implementation. The study also lays out CAADP’s common analytical framework at the country level and shares economic modeling results from member countries of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in which analysis was conducted to examine agricultural growth and investment options for meeting CAADP growth and expenditure targets and the Millennium Development Goal target of halving poverty. Finally, the paper discusses CAADP’s review and dialogue mechanisms and knowledge support systems that have been put in place to facilitate benchmarking, mutual learning, and capacity strengthening that will improve agricultural policy, program design, and implementation.CAADP, ECOWAS, growth options, MDG 1, Poverty reduction, public expenditure,

Considerations for a design and operations knowledge support system for Space Station Freedom

Engineering and operations of modern engineered systems depend critically upon detailed design and operations knowledge that is accurate and authoritative. A design and operations knowledge support system (DOKSS) is a modern computer-based information system providing knowledge about the creation, evolution, and growth of an engineered system. The purpose of a DOKSS is to provide convenient and effective access to this multifaceted information. The complexity of Space Station Freedom's (SSF's) systems, elements, interfaces, and organizations makes convenient access to design knowledge especially important, when compared to simpler systems. The life cycle length, being 30 or more years, adds a new dimension to space operations, maintenance, and evolution. Provided here is a review and discussion of design knowledge support systems to be delivered and operated as a critical part of the engineered system. A concept of a DOKSS for Space Station Freedom (SSF) is presented. This is followed by a detailed discussion of a DOKSS for the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center and Work Package-2 portions of SSF

Designing Tailorable Technologies

This paper provides principles for designing tailorable technologies. Tailorable technologies are technologies that are modified by end users in the context of their use and are around us as desktop operating systems, web portals, and mobile telephones. While tailorable technologies provide end users with limitless ways to modify the technology, as designers and researchers we have little understanding of how tailorable technologies are initially designed to support that end-user modification. In this paper, we argue that tailorable technologies are a unique technology type in the same light as group support systems and emergent knowledge support systems. This unique technology type is becoming common and we are forced to reevaluate existing design theory, methods of analysis, and streams of literature. In this paper we present design principles of Gordon Pask, Christopher Alexander, Greg Gargarian, and Kim Madsen to strengthen inquiry into tailorable technologies. We then apply the principles to designing tailorable technologies in order for their design to become more coherent and tractable. We conclude that designers need to build reflective and active design environments and gradients of interactive capabilities in order for technology to be readily modified in the context of its use

Facing Diversity In Early Childhood Education: Teachers’ Perceptions, Beliefs, And Teaching Practices Of Anti-Bias Education In Korea

The changing composition of early childhood classrooms challenges teachers to be more responsive to the diverse needs of all children. This study explores the challenges and successes early childhood teachers experience with facing diversity in their classrooms. The purpose of this qualitative interview study was to investigate kindergarten teachers’ perceptions, beliefs, and teaching practices concerning anti-bias education in Seoul, South Korea. There were two groups of in-service kindergarten teachers, four teachers in each group, who participated in one-on-one interviews with structured and open-ended questions. The teachers in one group had more experience with teaching in diverse classroom settings than the teachers in the other group. The results of the study show that teachers’ perceptions and beliefs concerning anti-bias education were influenced by their teaching experiences and their anti-bias teacher education experiences. Teachers from both groups used similar teaching practices of anti-bias curriculum and the challenges they faced mostly came from lack of knowledge, support systems, and time. These findings suggest that policy makers should consider providing effective support systems for teachers, such as translation services, and more resources should be developed to provide effective teacher education programs for teachers who teach in culturally diverse classroom settings and culturally dominant classroom settings

Assessing the value dimensions of outsourced maintenance services

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to investigate the diverse nature of tangible and intangible value dimensions that contribute to customers' perception of value from outsourced maintenance services. Design/methodology/approach - A multiple case study approach has been adopted. Repertory grid, an in-depth structured interviewing technique, has been used in order to draw out the respondents' hidden constructs in evaluating outsourced maintenance services. Data have been collected from four customer organizations of outsourced maintenance services, and a total of 33 interviews have been undertaken. Findings - The paper has identified a range of tangible and intangible value dimensions that are of importance in maintenance outsourcing decision making. The most important value dimensions for maintenance outsourcing were found to be specialist knowledge, accessibility (of the service provider), relational dynamic, range of products and services, delivery, pricing and locality. Although the paper has identified the most important value dimensions the paper also emphasizes the need to take into account the full range of value dimensions in order to understand the whole value pattern in an organization. Practical implications - The results will be of use for maintenance service providers to help them to improve value-adding capacity of maintenance services. The results can also be applied by customers to help them assess the value they receive from outsourced maintenance services. Originality/value - A different perspective on maintenance outsourcing value is provided. The value patterns in different organizations and the viewpoints of respondents in different organizational roles are described. The dynamic nature of these tangible or intangible values over time and their interrelationships has also been explored

Fundamental Study of Corrective Abrasive Machining Technology

The presentation give an overview on the research activities undertaken in the AMTG, CPT in the University of Huddersfield

Shape exploration in design : formalising and supporting a transformational process

The process of sketching can support the sort of transformational thinking that is seen as essential for the interpretation and reinterpretation of ideas in innovative design. Such transformational thinking, however, is not yet well supported by computer-aided design systems. In this paper, outcomes of experimental investigations into the mechanics of sketching are described, in particular those employed by practising architects and industrial designers as they responded to a series of conceptual design tasks,. Analyses of the experimental data suggest that the interactions of designers with their sketches can be formalised according to a finite number of generalised shape rules. A set of shape rules, formalising the reinterpretation and transformations of shapes, e.g. through deformation or restructuring, are presented. These rules are suggestive of the manipulations that need to be afforded in computational tools intended to support designers in design exploration. Accordingly, the results of the experimental investigations informed the development of a prototype shape synthesis system, and a discussion is presented in which the future requirements of such systems are explored

Halving hunger: Meeting the first millennium development goal

"In 2000, the world’s leaders set a target of halving the percentage of hungry people between 1990 and 2015. This rather modest target constitutes part of the first Millennium Development Goal, which also calls for halving the proportion of people living in poverty and achieving full employment. However, the effort to meet the hunger target has swerved off track, and the world is getting farther and farther away from realizing this objective. The goal of halving hunger by 2015 can still be achieved, but business as usual will not be enough. What is needed is “business as unusual”—a smarter, more innovative, better focused, and cost-effective approach to reducing hunger. The five elements of this new approach are as follows: Invest in Two Core Pillars: Agriculture and Social Protection The first step in reducing poverty and hunger in developing countries is to invest in agriculture and rural development. Most of the world’s poor and hungry people live in rural areas in Africa and Asia and depend on agriculture for their livelihoods, but many developing countries continue to underinvest in agriculture. Research in Africa and Asia has shown that investments in agricultural research and extension have large impacts on agricultural productivity and poverty, and investments in rural infrastructure can bring even greater benefits. Scaled-up investments in social protection that focus on nutrition and health are also crucial for improving the lives of the poorest of the poor. Although policymakers increasingly see the importance of social protection spending, there are still few productive safety net programs that are well targeted to the poorest and hungry households and increase production capacity. Bring in New Players New actors in global development—the private sector, philanthropic organizations, and emerging economy donors—have important roles to play in reducing hunger in developing countries. But the opportunities presented by these development partners have not been fully harnessed. Given the right incentives, the private sector, for example, can provide effective and sustainable investment and innovation to help in the fight against hunger. In many countries, however, private companies face a lack of incentives and a poor business operating environment, including poor property rights. Emerging economy donors are now playing an increasing role in providing development assistance, but have not yet been fully integrated into the global food security agenda. Adopt a Country-Led, Bottom-Up Approach Effective, efficient, and sustainable policies that are well adapted to the local context can help countries maximize the local impact of the global agenda and tap external development assistance, which increasingly requires approaches that are country led. Successful reforms will be not only country driven, but also local in nature, with poor people acting as a driving force in the development process. At the same time, some issues—like climate change, trade, and control of disease—must be addressed at the global level. The task for individual countries is then to digest and integrate these global issues in developing their own strategies at the country level. Design Policies Using Evidence and Experiments Pilot projects and policy experiments have the potential to improve policymaking by giving decisionmakers information about what works before policies are implemented across the board. Experimentation can improve the success rate of reforms as successful pilot projects are scaled up and unsuccessful policy options are eliminated. To succeed with this approach, policymakers need to allow impartial monitoring of experiments and rapidly transform the lessons learned into large-scale reforms. These changes can create an environment in which policies are continually tried, tested, adjusted, and tried again before being scaled up. Walk the Walk Decisionmakers at the global, regional, and national levels have made commitments to policies and investments for enhancing food security, but they have often failed to meet those commitments. For example, in 2003, African heads of state pledged that their governments would allocate 10 percent of national public budgets to the agricultural sector by 2008, but data for 2007 show that only a handful of countries had met the 10 percent target. These financial commitments must be supported with strong institutions and governance at the global, regional, and national levels and monitored in a timely and transparent fashion. Scaling Up “Business as Unusual” Some aspects of this “business as unusual” approach have already been successful in a few countries, but they need to be scaled up and extended to new countries to have a real impact on the reduction of global hunger. On a larger scale, the global food governance system itself needs to be reformed to work better. Reforms should include (1) improving existing institutions and creating an umbrella structure for food and agriculture; (2) forming government-to-government systems for decisionmaking on agriculture, food, and nutrition; and (3) explicitly engaging the new players in the global food system—the private sector and civil society—together with national governments in new or reorganized international organizations and agreements. A combination of all three options, with a leading role for emerging economies, is required. Finally, though global and national actors have distinct roles to play, it is important that they work together, combining their efforts to fight poverty and hunger. A stronger system of mutual accountability between the two groups would help keep progress on track." from TextAgricultural development -- Developing countries, Developing countries -- Economic policy, Hunger -- Developing countries, Millennium Development Goals (MDG), Policies, Poverty -- Developing countries, Rural development -- Developing countries, Social protection,