Adopting International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) in Africa: benefits, prospects and challenges

This paper presents the findings of an empirical study on the benefits, prospects and challenges of adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) in some African countries. A questionnaire was administered to gather data from respondents made up of users and preparers of accounting information using the Twitter social network. The objective was to find out the perception of users and preparers about what the benefits, prospects and challenges of IFRS adoption are in African countries. The results of the study indicate that IFRS adoption in Africa will have the potential to be beneficial to a wide range of stakeholders. The benefits notwithstanding, there are however, a number of challenges to be faced in the process of adoption of the new standard including the ethical environment in Africa. The study recommends among others that a rigorous IFRS capacity building programme should be embarked upon by all regulatory bodies, firms and training institutions in order to provide the needed manpower for IFRS implementation, monitoring and compliance

Earning Legitimacy: Participation, Intellectual Property and Informed Consent

A booklet linking politics and practice aimed at museum practitioners and researchers working with museum

Folksonomy: the New Way to Serendipity

Folksonomy expands the collaborative process by allowing contributors to index content. It rests on three powerful properties: the absence of a prior taxonomy, multi-indexation and the absence of thesaurus. It concerns a more exploratory search than an entry in a search engine. Its original relationship-based structure (the three-way relationship between users, content and tags) means that folksonomy allows various modalities of curious explorations: a cultural exploration and a social exploration. The paper has two goals. Firstly, it tries to draw a general picture of the various folksonomy websites. Secundly, since labelling lacks any standardisation, folksonomies are often under threat of invasion by noise. This paper consequently tries to explore the different possible ways of regulating the self-generated indexation process.taxonomy; indexation; innovation and user-created content

High Noon at the EU corral. An economic plan for Europe, September 2011

The 2007+ credit crunch and economic crisis put European governments in severe debt, with talk about a Greek partial default. It also put the European banks into a zombie condition, while under Basel III the capital requirement rises from 8% to 10.5% (which requirement does not cover public debt since that is considered reliable). Fiscal measures concern tax structures and that Germany and Holland eliminate their surplusses on the external account. A monetary measure is that the European Central Bank as lender of last resort helps to prevent a crisis of confidence. The ECB can create capital and neutralise this by higher reserve requirements. Two reasonable measures are: (1) EUR 400 billion of European Recovery Capital (ERC) will reduce Greek and Italian debt to 100% of their GDP (using 2010 data). Greece and Italy on their part can have a wealth tax or create 40 year leases (implictly at 10 billion per year excluding interest) like Hong Kong once was for investment areas under foreign law (think of Magna Graecia). (2) EUR 400 billion can be injected in eurozone equity (and not eurozone bonds) in banks to allow the increase from the 8% to the 10.5% target. This equity can be managed by newly created independent ERC Investment Banks (ERBs), where the shares are allocated to eurozone member states in proportion to their GDP. This partial nationalisation would reduce eurozone national debts by 4.3% of GDP.Economic stability; monetary policy; monetary crisis; credit crunch; zombie banks; euro; European Central Bank; fiscal policy; tax; external balance

The Institutions of Federalism: Toward an Analytical Framework

Mature federations have relatively transparent delineations of authority among levels of government; subnational governments enjoy considerable autonomy in their expenditure, revenue, and debt policies. In other countries, problems of soft budget constraints, bailouts, and fiscal and financial instability demonstrate the difficulties of institutional design in a federation. This paper outlines an analytical framework within which interjurisdictional spillovers may create incentives for higher-level governments to intervene in the control and financing of lower-level governments (bailouts). This framework helps to identify directions for theoretical and empirical research that can illuminate important features of observed institutions and guide policy analysis.federalism, bailouts, soft budget constraint, externalities

Using virtual worlds as collaborative environments for innovation and design: lessons learned and observations from case studies in architectural projects

In this paper we discuss observations and lessons learned in conducting architectural design projects in virtual worlds. By integrating a community of users in virtual worlds into a collaborative architectural design process, organisations can tap the community's creativity and intelligence through immersive technology. The paper provides an overview of the latest advances of information and communication technologies in immersive virtual environments and discusses some of the observations and lessons learned which should be taken into account in developing collaboration models for such activities. Here we propose four modes of collaboration, based on the choices for degree of openness and governance structure, which are illustrated by four case studies

Recent Developments in Fisheries Science and Their Prospects for Improving Fisheries Contributions to Food Security

Marine reserves, areas permanently closed to all fishing, are frequently proposed as a tool for managing fisheries. Fishery benefits claimed for reserves include increases in spawning stock size, animal body size, and reproductive output of exploited species. Reserves are predicted to augment catches through export of offspring to fishing grounds, and spillover of juveniles and adults from reserves to fisheries. Protection of stocks and development of extended age structures of populations in reserves are argued to offer insurance against environmental variability and management failure. Models also suggest reserves will reduce year-to-year variability in catches, and offer greater simplicity of management and enforcement. Reserves are predicted to lead to habitat recovery from fishing disturbance which can also enhance benefits to fisheries. Extensive field research confirms many of these predictions. Reserves worldwide have led to increases in abundance, body size, biomass and reproductive output of exploited species. Such measures often increase many times over, sometimes by an order of magnitude or more. Population build up is usually rapid with effects detectable within 2-3 years of protection. Increases are often sustained over extended periods, particularly for longer-lived species and for measures of habitat recovery. Reserves have benefitted species from a wide taxonomic spectrum that covers most economically important taxa, including many species of fish, crustaceans, mollusks and echinoderms. Encouraged by these results, many countries and states have embarked upon initiatives to establish networks of marine reserves. However, reserves remain highly controversial among fishers and fishing industry bodies who argue that fishery benefits remain unproven. In the last three years there has been rapid growth in the number of cases where fisheries have been shown to benefit from reserves. In this report, we critically analyze this body of evidence, drawing upon studies of reserves and fishery closures. Fishery managers have long used fishery closures, areas temporarily closed to fishing for one or more species or to specific fishing gears. They are employed to help rebuild depleted stocks, reduce gear conflicts, protect vulnerable life stages of exploited species or protect sensitive habitats from damaging gears. Such areas can tell us much about the potential effects of marine reserves. Fishery benefits from reserves and fishery closures typically develop quickly, in most cases within five years of their creation. Perhaps the most persuasive evidence of fishery effects of reserves comes from changing fishing patterns. In most places where well-respected reserves or fishery closures exist, fishers tend to move their fishing activities closer to their boundaries. Fishing-the-line, as it is called, allows fishers to benefit from spillover of animals from reserves to fishing grounds. There are now well-documented cases of spillover from more than a dozen countries and including a wide range of species. It is more technically demanding to prove fishery enhancement through export of offspring on ocean currents. Existing reserves are generally small, making it hard to detect increased recruitment to fisheries at a regional scale. However, there are now several cases in which export of eggs and larvae have been confirmed, including dramatic enhancement of scallop fisheries in Georges Bank and clam fisheries in Fiji. Small reserves have worked well and repeatedly produce local benefits. However, regional fisheries enhancement will require more extensive networks of reserves. Some of the most convincing success stories come from places in which between 10 and 35% of fishing grounds have been protected. In several cases there is evidence that yields with reserves have risen to higher levels than prior to protection, despite a reduction in the area of fishing grounds. In other cases, smaller reserves have stabilized catches from intensively exploited fisheries or slowed existing rates of decline. We describe experiences that prove that success of marine reserves is not contingent on habitat type, geographical location, the kind of fishery involved, or the technological sophistication of management. Reserve benefits are not restricted to habitats like coral reefs, or to artisanal fisheries, as some critics claim. Fishery benefits have been demonstrated from reserves established in tropical, warm- and cold-temperate waters, and in many habitats, including coral reefs, rocky reefs, kelp forests, seagrass beds, mangroves, estuaries, soft sediments, continental shelves and deep sea. Reserves and fishery closures have worked well for a wide range of fisheries, spanning recreational fisheries, artisanal fisheries like those of coral reefs, through small-scale nearshore fisheries for species like lobsters, up to industrial-scale fisheries for animals like flatfish and scallops. They have worked across a similarly broad spectrum of management sophistication, from self-policing by committed fishers, through warden patrols to satellite monitoring of distant fishing activities. We now have strong evidence that with the support of local communities, marine reserves offer a highly effective management tool. However, reserves will only rarely be adequate as a stand-alone management approach, although we describe cases where they have worked in the absence of other measures. They will be most effective when implemented as part of a package of limits on fishing effort and protect exploited species and their habitats