A COMPARISON OF FINANCIAL CONDITIONS OF THE CITIES OF BRANCH AND NORTH BRANCH, MINNESOTA FOR YEARS 1986-1991

The objective of this brief background paper is to compare selected financial indicators for the cities of Branch and North Branch for the years 1986-1991. For an additional reference point in the comparison, we compared the two cities to the average of Greater Minnesota cities their size (fewer than 2,500 people).Community/Rural/Urban Development,

AN OVERVIEW OF FACTORS AFFECTING THE SIZE OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT

This paper reviews many factors affecting the size of local government. These factors include: current demographic trends and changes in alternative service delivery arrangements, theoretical schools of thought, evidence on economies of size, whether current local governments are managed efficiently, and legal and political factors.Public Economics,

Better Health than Health Care: moving up, down and out

SUMMARY Promoting health is still widely equated with merely building up the health care system. Health services in Idcs, based on originally imported models, continue above all to benefit the elites, although the PHC approach emphasises equity. This article discusses three mechanisms, widely encouraged in theory but much less put into practice, which could help overcome such distortions: community participation, decentralisation and intersectoral collaboration. RESUMEN Preferible salud que atención de salud. Impulsar la participación comunitaria, la descentralización y la colaboración intersectorial La promoción de salud aún es ampliamente considerada como equivalente de la creación de un sistema de atención de salud. Los servicios de salud en los países en desarrollo, continúan privilegiando a las elites, pese a que el enfoque de la atención primaria de salud enfatiza la igualdad. Este artículo examina tres mecanismos — en teoría muy estimulados, pero escasamente puestos en práctica — que podrían contribuir a superar tales distorsiones: participación de la comunidad, descentralización y colaboración intersectorial. RESUMES Mieux vaut avoir la santé que se soigner La promotion de la santé n'est pas seulement une question de renforcer le système des soins médicaux. Les services médicaux dans les pays en voie de développement, basés sur des modèles d'origine importée, continuent, au dessus de tous, à faire bénéficier les élites, bien que l'assistance médicale primaire insiste sur l'équité. Cet article traite de trois mécanismes, largement encouragés en théorie, mais beaucoup moins essayés en pratique, qui pourraient aider à surmonter de telles distortions, à savoir — participation communautaire; décentralisation; collaboration intersectorale

Evaluating a community-led project for improving fathers’ and children’s wellbeing in England

Although under-researched and under-theorised compared to other settings, there is potential for the family setting to be harnessed to support the development of healthy children and societies and to reduce health inequalities. Within this setting, the role of fathers as health facilitators has yet to be fully understood and considered within health promotion. This paper draws on a two year evaluation of a community embedded intervention for fathers and children in an area of multiple deprivation in North West England. The evaluation integrated a variety of qualitative methods within a participatory evaluation framework to help understand the development and impact of a programme of work co-created by a social enterprise and fathers from within the community. Findings suggest that allowing fathers to define their own concerns, discover solutions to these and design locally appropriate ways to share these solutions can result in significant change for them, their children and the wider community. Key to this process is the provision of alternative spaces where fathers feel safe to share the substantial difficulties they are experiencing. This improved their confidence and had a positive impact on their relationships with their children and with significant others around them. However, this process required patience, and a commitment to trusting that communities of men can co-create their own solutions and generate sustainable success. We suggest that commissioning of services delivered ‘to’ people could be replaced, or supplemented, by commissioning appropriate organisations to work with communities to co-create solutions to needs they themselves have recognised

Can international health programmes be sustained after the end of international funding? The case of eye care interventions in Ghana

There is general agreement amongst major international policy makers that sustainability is a key component of health interventions in developing countries. However, there is little evidence on the factors enabling or constraining sustainability. Diffusion of innovation theory can help explain how the continuation of activities is related to the attributes of innovations. Innovations are characterised by five attributes: (i) relative advantage; (ii) compatibility; (iii) complexity; (iv) triability; and (v) observability. An eye care programme was selected as a case study. The programme was implemented in the Brong Ahafo region of Ghana and had been funded over a ten-year period by an international organisation

Reimagining Development 3.0 for a Changing Planet

This working paper argues we need to reimagine development tactics to fashion Development 3.0, to match what business analysts now call World 3.0, a global system characterized by high turbulence and new threats. It begins by contrasting our former classification of countries spatially into First, Second and Third worlds with a new division of development epochs in sequence since the end of World War II. World 1.0 emphasized industrialization, urbanization, and modernization, lasting from 1945 to 1980. World 2.0 emphasized global trade, and a shift to private actors doing the work of development, from 1980 to the early 2000s. World 3.0 can be seen as superceding globalization by concern with emergent threats. World 1.0 privileged state actions to accelerate “nation building” within former colonies, whereas World 2.0 privileged private capital and free trade as engines for economic growth. Now, following wars, disasters, and the near meltdown of the global financial system in 2007/08, we enter World 3.0 as depicted by Ghemawat and others. We review thirteen major changes not recognized within World 2.0 or its accompanying Development 2.0 regime. The major changes include the rise of homeless capital, the Conservative counter-revolution of the 1980s, the implosion of the USSR, rise of modern China, emergence of BRIC nations, a pan-urban world, rise of identity politics, reemergence of Africa, shift to non-state warfare, growing threat of climate change, MENA nations experience Arab Spring, digital worlds expand, and velocity increases. They suggest coming turbulence and unexpected outcomes, or “mashups” (Ramo). These changes suggest a different emergent system, becoming World 3.0 which has profound differences from how we view our planet’s political economy (World 2.0). If so, the paper outlines implications which suggest the time has come to “take on board” our changed planetary circumstances, and thus begin crafting Development 3.0. “Where the wild things are”, introduces metaphors to change the ‘meta-narratives’ used for viewing World 3.0: “herding elephants,” “taming feral capital”, “swimming with tides” and “avoiding mashups”. They help us realize that long recognized problems (or “elephants”) may show unexpected behaviors to pose new threats within World 3.0. The main argument of the paper then lays out a baker’s dozen changes needed if we hope to fashion more effective ways to promote development for us all. We must “rebalance society” (ala Mintzberg), refashion aid, privilege sustainability, emphasize fair trade, tame feral capital, devise better metrics, include all nations & peoples, seat G-20 not G-8, recognize semi-sovereigns, focus on a pan-urban world, build coalitions in networks, involve women & youth, and rebuild community leadership. All of which assumes we can offset a strong tide towards return to the excesses of World 2.0

What Determines the Formal Versus Relational Nature of Local Government Contracting?

Meeyoung Lamothe is currently an assistant professor at the University of Oklahoma. Her research interests include local alternative service delivery arrangements, social service contracting, and nonprofit management. Her recent publications may be found in the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, International Journal of Public Administration, and American Review of Public Administration.Yeshttps://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/manuscript-submission-guideline

Evaluating the institutional sustainability of an urban water utility: A conceptual framework and research directions

This article was published in the journal, Utilities Policy [© Elsevier]. The definitive version is available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jup.2013.08.001Institutional sustainability (IS) is critical to translating infrastructure investments into actual service delivery. This paper examines IS for urban water utilities, and how its progress could be tracked. Common conceptualisations of IS in extant literature were found inadequate from an evaluation stand point. We conceptualize IS as a capacity rather than a financial issue, and, consistent with a process-based approach, we propose a new evaluation tool e the water utility maturity (WUM) model e which is flexible and considers different levels of IS. The WUM model, which requires further validation/verification, was piloted in two water utilities in South Asia with positive feedback