Pathways to Accountability II

This report summarises the results of the 2009-2010 review process on the One World Trust Global Accountability Framework and the piloting of the draft framework during 2011, and presents the full One World Trust Pathways to Accountability II indicator framework. Our work in this field work is motivated by a concern about the persisting weakness and insufficient effectiveness of global organisations from all sectors in responding to the challenge of delivering global public goods to citizens and communities, the very people whom they claim to serve and benefit, and who are most often dependent on them

Pathways to Coastal Resiliency: the Adaptive Gradients Framework

Current and future climate-related coastal impacts such as catastrophic and repetitive flooding, hurricane intensity, and sea level rise necessitate a new approach to developing and managing coastal infrastructure. Traditional “hard” or “grey” engineering solutions are proving both expensive and inflexible in the face of a rapidly changing coastal environment. Hybrid solutions that incorporate natural, nature-based, structural, and non-structural features may better achieve a broad set of goals such as ecological enhancement, long-term adaptation, and social benefits, but broad consideration and uptake of these approaches has been slow. One barrier to the widespread implementation of hybrid solutions is the lack of a relatively quick but holistic evaluation framework that places these broader environmental and societal goals on equal footing with the more traditional goal of exposure reduction. To respond to this need, the Adaptive Gradients Framework was developed and pilot-tested as a qualitative, flexible, and collaborative process guide for organizations to understand, evaluate, and potentially select more diverse kinds of infrastructural responses. These responses would ideally include natural, nature-based, and regulatory/cultural approaches, as well as hybrid designs combining multiple approaches. It enables rapid expert review of project designs based on eight metrics called “gradients”, which include exposure reduction, cost efficiency, institutional capacity, ecological enhancement, adaptation over time, greenhouse gas reduction, participatory process, and social benefits. The framework was conceptualized and developed in three phases: relevant factors and barriers were collected from practitioners and experts by survey; these factors were ranked by importance and used to develop the initial framework; several case studies were iteratively evaluated using this technique; and the framework was finalized for implementation. The article presents the framework and a pilot test of its application, along with resources that would enable wider application of the framework by practitioners and theorists

A systematic review of success factors in the community management of rural water supplies over the past 30 years

Community management is the accepted management model for rural water supplies in many low and middleincome countries. However, endemic problems in the sustainability and scalability of this model are leading many to conclude we have reached the limits of an approach that is too reliant on voluntarism and informality. Accepting this criticism but recognising that many cases of success have been reported over the past 30 years, this study systematically reviews and analyses the development pattern of 174 successful community management case studies. The synthesis confirms the premise that for community management to be sustained at scale, community institutions need a ‘plus’ that includes long-term external support, with the majority of high performing cases involving financial support, technical advice and managerial advice. Internal community characteristics were also found to be influential in terms of success, including collective initiative, strong leadership and institutional transparency. Through a meta-analysis of success in different regions, the paper also indicates an important finding on the direct relationship between success and the prevailing socio-economic wealth in a society. This holds implications for policy and programme design with a need to consider how broad structural conditions may dictate the relative success of different forms of community management

Bridging the Innovation Divide: An Agenda for Disseminating Technology Innovations within the Nonprofit Sector

Examines technology practices -- such as neighborhood information systems, electronic advocacy, Internet-based micro enterprise support, and digital inclusion initiatives -- that strengthen the capacity of nonprofits and community organizations

Evaluation of the National Parks Sustainable Development Fund

The Sustainable Development Fund (SDF) is a new pilot funding stream for English National Park Authorities and the Broads Authority (henceforth collectively NPAs or ‘Parks’), launched in July 2002 by the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). The aim is to provide a flexible and non-bureaucratic means of funding projects that “aid the achievement of National Park purposes by encouraging individuals, community groups and businesses to cooperate together to develop practical sustainable solutions to the management of their activities”. SDF is a novel and unique funding stream intended to support original and innovative projects. Although the funding is relatively small (some £2.6m or £325,000 per park over the 18 months to this report) the aim is ambitious; with a minimum of preconceptions or formalities, to “develop and test new ways of achieving a more sustainable way of living in the countryside”. In each Park, small SDF Panels, serviced by, but at arms length from, the NPA have been established to oversee delivery of the Fund, to foster innovative projects and to monitor their outcomes at Park level. The SDF Prospectus declares that monitoring and evaluation are to involve a “very light touch regime”.. Auditing of individual projects by the SDF panel is to be achieved mainly by maintaining close contact with the projects as they develop. Whilst responsibility may be delegated, panel members are encouraged to take a personal interest in projects. Each NPA is required to submit to the Minister of State for Rural Affairs (and to copy to the Countryside Agency) an annual report. This should summarise the performance of the fund against performance indicators which are to be developed by NPAs themselves in the light of experience of the fund. First Annual Reports must be submitted to the Minister of State for Rural Affairs (and copied to the Countryside Agency) at the end of March 2004 NPAs are encouraged to learn from the experience of delivering the Fund and to promote the results to a wider rural audience. In addition to this Park level monitoring, the Countryside Agency (CA) on behalf of Defra has commissioned the Centre for European Protected Area Research (CEPAR) to conduct an evaluation of how SDF has performed against its key objectives after the first eighteen months of its operation, to aid decisions about the future of the scheme from April 2005

The Craft of Incentive Prize Design: Lessons from the Public Sector

In the last five years, incentive prizes have transformed from an exotic open innovation tool to a proven innovation strategy for the public, private and philanthropic sectors. This report offers practical lessons for public sector leaders and their counterparts in the philanthropic and private sectors to help understand what types of outcomes incentive prizes help to achieve, what design elements prize designers use to create these challenges and how to make smart design choices to achieve a particular outcome. It synthesizes insights from expert interviews and analysis of more than 400 prize

Small cities for a small country: Sustaining the cultural renaissance?

Copyright @ 2006 RoutledgeThis chapter explores the implications for smaller cities of adopting culture-led regeneration strategies. It is suggested that there is a divergence between cultural planning for long term sustainable urban cultural renaissance and culture-led makeovers which rely on externally orientated projects devised to draw in new visitors, residents and enterprises. Drawing on evidence from Sheffield, an industrial city in South Yorkshire, northern England, it is suggested that small cities by thinking big, have been seduced into entering a culture-led city competition in which the stakes are high and the prospects of success limited