Listening Project

In an effort to better serve Southeast and Coastal Georgia, The Coastal Rivers Water Planning & Policy Center tapped the thoughts of several key stakeholders on water issues in our region.The Center was created in 2001 with a continuing mission to "assist policymakers in the formulation of policy designs to best manage sustainable economic growth and natural resource conservation via water planning, research, education and technical assistance." In order to best accomplish this mission, it is necessary for us to engage stakeholders in our region to determine those issues of critical importance.The Listening Project is designed to identify the perspective of water users throughout the Coastal Rivers Region by listening to the actual concerns and ideas for improvement of those who have a stake in the water future of the region. Using this information, the Center can better meet the research needs of stakeholders in the region.The objective of the first round of listening sessions is to identify issues, and not to take a quantitative measure of any given constituency. Thus, the results of the process do not lend themselves to conclusions that any one constituency has a certain viewpoint, but rather gives an idea for the type of issues that arise when representatives of one particular constituency gather to discuss their hopes and fears around the future of water use in Coastal Georgia region.The balance of this paper is organized in the following way: In Section II we discuss the process used in this first round of five listening sessions. In Section III we report the verbatim ideas of the participants in each of the five sessions. Section IV reports the same verbatim ideas put forward by the participants, but the ideas are organized according to dominant themes emerging from the sessions, where various constituencies' ideas on each theme are easily readable in the same place. Finally, in Section V we offer concluding remarks and describe our plans for Phase II of the project. Working Paper Number 2005-00

Some economic consequences of the transition from civil war to peace

Drawing on evidence from Africa - especially Ethiopia and Uganda - the authors of this volume draw conclusions about economic policy in the aftermath of civil war. A sample of conclusions follows. Civil wars differ from international wars. They are informal, often have no clear beginning and end, weaken rather than strengthen the authority of the state, and leave two unreconciled armies to be demobilized within one territory. Civil wars erode the institutions of civil society, leading to a decline in the stock of social capital, which takes some time to restore. Private investment and government revenue are slow to recover, and military expenditures are not easily reduced. As a result, there is little or no peace dividend in the short run. The period of transition to peace is a particularly suitable time for radical policy reform, despite the high degree of polarization typical in countries engaged in civil war. And speedy reform, far from increasing uncertainty, is likely to reduce it. After a civil war, private agents are fearful both of each other and of the government. This, perhaps even more than physical damage to infrastructure, hinders private-sector-led recovery, as irreversible investment is delayed despite being financeable. The transition to peace is primarily the transition from fear and the defensive responses that became ingrained in wartime. The peace dividend comes as a gradual recovery of confidence induces repatriation of financial and human capital. Such confidence can be boosted by the early sequencing of investment-sensitive policy reforms and by preserving low inflation through direct consumer price index targeting. Lack of confidence can be compensated for by temporary undervaluation of the exchange rate, or however, may prove more difficult to make credibly time-bound. Finally, aid can permit accelerated rehabilitation of the infrastructure (especially transport networks) needed to return to a market economy. Contrary to the studies hypothesis, the authors found that demobilization - at least in Uganda - did not lead to a significant upsurge in insecurity. In the short term, demobilization significantly reduced crime, unless the demobilized lacked access to land. If the demobilized returned to their home areas and were given some assistance, with identifiable exceptions they were able to find income-earning opportunities.Debt Markets,Emerging Markets,Economic Theory&Research,,Investment and Investment Climate

NASA Integrated Systems Research with an Environmental Focus

This slide presentation reviews the Integrated Systems Research Program (ISRP) with a focus on the work being done on reduction of environmental impact from aeronautics. The focus of the ISRP is to Conduct research at an integrated system-level on promising concepts and technologies and explore, assess, or demonstrate the benefits in a relevant environment. The presentation reviews the criteria for an ISRP project, and discusses the Environmentally Responsible Aviation (ERA) project, and the technical challenges

Does microbicide use in consumer products promote antimicrobial resistance? A critical review and recommendations for a cohesive approach to risk assessment

The increasing use of microbicides in consumer products is raising concerns related to enhanced microbicide resistance in bacteria and potential cross resistance to antibiotics. The recently published documents on this topic from the European Commission have spawned much interest to better understand the true extent of the putative links for the benefit of the manufacturers, regulators, and consumers alike. This white paper is based on a 2-day workshop (SEAC-Unilever, Bedford, United Kingdom; June 2012) in the fields of microbicide usage and resistance. It identifies gaps in our knowledge and also makes specific recommendations for harmonization of key terms and refinement/standardization of methods for testing microbicide resistance to better assess the impact and possible links with cross resistance to antibiotics. It also calls for a better cohesion in research in this field. Such information is crucial to developing any risk assessment framework on microbicide use notably in consumer products. The article also identifies key research questions where there are inadequate data, which, if addressed, could promote improved knowledge and understanding to assess any related risks for consumer and environmental safety

Exports and firm-level efficiency in African manufacturing.

In this paper, we use firm-level panel data for the manufacturing sector in four African countries to estimate the effect of exporting on efficiency. Measures of firm-level efficiency using stochastic production frontier models are constructed for the period 1992 to 1995. We find that there are large efficiency gains from exporting both in terms of levels and growth, and contrary to China, the gains are largest for the new entrants to exporting. We control for unobserved heterogeneity using a dynamic model with correlated random effects. Results are robust and consistently, we find evidence of a learning-by-exporting effect as well as self-selection of the most efficient firms into exporting. The effect of exporting on efficiency appears to be larger in this African sample than in comparable studies of other regions which is consistent with the smaller size of domestic markets2000

A search for starlight reflected from HD 75289b

We have used a Doppler tomographic analysis to conduct a deep search for the starlight reflected from the planetary companion to HD 75289. In four nights on VLT(UT2)/UVES in 2003 January, we obtained 684 high-resolution echelle spectra with a total integration time of 26 h. We establish an upper limit on the geometric albedo of the planet p < 0.12 (to the 99.9 per cent significance level) at the most probable orbital inclination i≃ 60°, assuming a grey albedo, a Venus-like phase function and a planetary radius Rp= 1.6 RJup. We are able to rule out some combinations of the predicted planetary radius and atmospheric albedo models with high, reflective cloud deck

The rise of novel antimicrobials

The need for solutions to combat new and existing infections has never been so topical. The current SARS-CoV-2 pandemic and the rise in antimicrobial resistance in previously treatable microbial diseases are two examples requiring antimicrobial solutions for systemic or topical treatment or as preventative measures, including empowering improved infection control measures. At the same time, the sustainability of ingredients, formulation excipients and the drive to use more natural ingredients in products have led to increased research outputs on natural products or novel compounds, and to a reflection on formulations and how these can improve the efficacy of antimicrobials

Aid Allocation of the Emerging Central and Eastern European Donors

The paper examines the main characteristics of the (re)emerging foreign aid policies of the Visegrád countries (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia), concentrating on the allocation of their aid resources. We adopt an econometric approach, similar to the ones used in the literature for analyzing the aid allocation of the OECD DAC donors. Using this approach, we examine the various factors that influence aid allocation of the Visegrád countries, using data for the years between 2001 and 2008. Our most important conclusion is that the amount of aid a partner county gets from the four emerging donors is not influenced by the level of poverty or the previous performance (measured by the level of economic growth or the quality of institutions) of the recipients. The main determining factor seems to be geographic proximity, as countries in the Western-Balkans and the Post-Soviet region receive much more aid from the Visegrád countries than other recipients. Historical ties (pre-1989 development relations) and international obligations in the case of Afghanistan and Iraq are also found to be significant explanatory factors. This allocation is in line with the foreign political and economic interests of these new donors. While there are clear similarities between the four donors, the paper also identifies some individual country characteristics