Women's Economic Empowerment: Issues Paper

This paper was prepared by the DAC Network on Gender Equality (GENDERNET), as an input to the DAC Network on Poverty Reduction's Task Team on Empowerment. It reviews why WEE matters, where donor money is going, specific challenges, suggestions for improving donor practice, and working in partnership for women's economic empowerment

Broadband : towards a national plan for Scotland

The development of national broadband plans has been used by many countries to join up different areas of governmental and regulatory activities and to set ambitious targets for ubiquitous access to and use of the latest fixed and wireless networks and services. For Scotland this requires working within EU and UK legislative frameworks, which have also provided the bulk of the finance for interventions. It also requires an understanding of the significant weaknesses of urban broadband adoption compared to other UK and EU nations and of its e-commerce supply and demand. While resources are being targeted at rural and remote areas, more are needed to close the social digital divide, which is unavoidable if the stated ambition of being world class is to be achieved

Pervasiveness and efficacy in regulatory governance – neo-liberalism as ideology and practice in European telecommunications reorganisation

Telecommunications provides one of the most well-developed examples of the growth of neo-liberalism. The sector is interesting since the contrast between its pre neoliberal and post neo-liberal characteristics is particularly stark. This paper explores the impacts of neo-liberalism in European telecommunications, placing particular focus on the EU institutional context. It considers the conseqences of neo-liberalism as ideology, on the one hand, and practice, on the other. It finds that, ideologically, neoliberalism has become deeply pervasive in European telecommunications and for its advocates can be regarded as a highly successful project spanning almost 30 years. In terms of practice, the paper argues that the pursuit of neo-liberalism has been less successful. In particular, competition has proven complex and difficult to create and there are concerns over the ability of the neo-liberal model to provide sufficient investment to deliver new Next Generation Networks. However, these deficiencies tend to be under-played due to the ideological and rhetorical success of the neo-liberal project in telecommunications.

Healthy Universities: Concept, Model and Framework for Applying the Healthy Settings Approach within Higher Education in England

As part of a Department of Health funded project, the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) – working with Manchester Metropolitan University – was commissioned by the Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH), to: - articulate a model for Healthy Universities whereby the healthy settings approach is applied within the higher education sector - produce recommendations for the development and operationalisation of a National Healthy Universities Framework for England - to ensure effective co-ordination of initiatives and propose next steps for progressing the Healthy Universities agenda. In fulfilment of these objectives, this report provides a background to Healthy Universities, outlines the project implementation process, presents a model, discusses the key dimensions for consideration in formulating a framework, and makes recommendations for taking things forward

Effects of post disaster infrastructure reconstruction on disaster management cycle and challenges confronted: The case of Indian Ocean tsunami in Sri Lanka

There has been an increase in the number of natural disasters over the past few years. Sri Lanka was particularly hard hit by the Indian Ocean tsunami of 26 December 2004, which caused devastating effects on the economy, in terms of huge human and economic losses, and washed away most of its basic infrastructure that served the poorer communities while significantly setting back the development efforts of the country. The developing countries are less able to face the impacts of disasters and so it is imperative to develop the infrastructure for the poorer nations in order to quip them to manage disasters. Without being able to provide the basic infrastructure, the plight of these affected people have been further compounded. Post-disaster reconstruction has a key relevancy to development discourse and disaster management cycle; particularly infrastructure reconstruction should be envisaged from development perspectives. However infrastructure reconstruction projects are sandwiched between the short-term necessity to act promptly and the long-term requirement of sustainable development. In this context this paper aims to discover the necessity of rebuilding infrastructure for a successful disaster management cycle and some key challenges for post-tsunami long-term infrastructure reconstruction in Sri Lanka. A comprehensive literature review was carried out regarding these issues. Results confirm that infrastructure can both reduce the losses resulting from natural disasters and facilitate easy post-disaster recovery and thus more investment in infrastructure reconstruction is needed. Currently disaster management teams in Sri Lanka faces some key challenges in reconstructing the affected infrastructure; most aggravating is the unfamiliarity of the event, poor institutional capacity, and current security problems in the north and east of the country. Sri Lanka has to learn much from other settings and there is a strong need to develop the capacity

APFIC/FAO Regional Consultative Workshop: Securing sustainable small-scale fisheries: Bringing together responsible fisheries and social development, Windsor Suites Hotel, Bangkok, Thailand 68 October 2010

In the Global Overview, we attempt to view reefs in terms of the poor who are dependent on reefs for their livelihoods, how the reefs benefit the poor, how changes in the reef have impacted the lives of the poor and how the poor have responded and coped with these changes. It also considers wider responses to reef issues and how these interventions have impacted on the lives of the poor