Key Success Factors and Barriers for Small Businesses: Comparative Analysis

AbstractThis paper analyses the current situation of small businesses, their outlook and their problems in Europe and in Russia. The number of small businesses opened, legislative system, number of self-employed without employees, influence of bureaucratic system on small business's life, unemployment and corruption are considered in this study. The object of this paper is understanding what can modify the life of small companies. Thus the analysis of every factor is useful to understand how the economy could change, what is correct and what resolutions make the life of small businesses better. The analysis is made using data from Eurostat, Rosstat, and Fedstat (an OECD institutional website), studying how values of indicators have changed during recent years. The results clearly show that the development of small companies is correlated with the development of good institutions, a sane community and trust and optimism in economy and small business sector

Buenas prácticas para el diseño e implementación de sistemas nacionales de monitoreo para la adaptación al cambio climático

6 ilustraciones, 13 tablas, 76 página

300 years of hydrological records and societal responses to droughts and floods on the Pacific coast of Central America

The management of hydrological extremes and impacts on society is inadequately understood because of the combination of short-term hydrological records, an equally short-term assessment of societal responses and the complex multi-directional relationships between the two over longer timescales. Rainfall seasonality and inter-annual variability on the Pacific coast of Central America is high due to the passage of the Inter Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) and the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO). Here we reconstruct hydrological variability and demonstrate the potential for assessing societal impacts by drawing on documentary sources from the cities of Santiago de Guatemala (now Antigua Guatemala) and Guatemala de la Asunción (now Guatemala City) over the period from 1640 to 1945. City and municipal council meetings provide a rich source of information dating back to the beginning of Spanish colonisation in the 16th century. We use almost continuous sources from 1640 AD onwards, including > 190 volumes of Actas de Cabildo and Actas Municipales (minutes of meetings of the city and municipal councils) held by the Archivo Histórico de la Municipalidad de Antigua Guatemala (AHMAG) and the Archivo General de Centro América (AGCA) in Guatemala City. For this 305-year period (with the exception of a total of 11 years during which the books were either missing or damaged), information relating to Catholic rogation ceremonies and reports of flooding events and crop shortages were used to classify the annual rainy season (May to October) on a five-point scale from very wet to very dry. In total, 12 years of very wet conditions, 25 years of wetter than usual conditions, 34 years of drier conditions and 21 years of very dry conditions were recorded. An extended drier period from the 1640s to the 1740s was identified and two shorter periods (the 1820s and the 1840s) were dominated by dry conditions. Wetter conditions dominated the 1760s–1810s and possibly record more persistent La Niña conditions that are typically associated with higher precipitation over the Pacific coast of Central America. The 1640s–1740s dry period coincides with the Little Ice Age and the associated southward displacement of the ITCZ

Coupling of pollination services and coffee suitability under climate change

Climate change will cause geographic range shifts for pollinators and major crops, with global implications for food security and rural livelihoods. However, little is known about the potential for coupled impacts of climate change on pollinators and crops. Coffee production exemplifies this issue, because large losses in areas suitable for coffee production have been projected due to climate change and because coffee production is dependent on bee pollination. We modeled the potential distributions of coffee and coffee pollinators under current and future climates in Latin America to understand whether future coffee-suitable areas will also be suitable for pollinators. Our results suggest that coffee-suitable areas will be reduced 73–88% by 2050 across warming scenarios, a decline 46–76% greater than estimated by global assessments. Mean bee richness will decline 8–18% within future coffee-suitable areas, but all are predicted to contain at least 5 bee species, and 46–59% of future coffee-suitable areas will contain 10 or more species. In our models, coffee suitability and bee richness each increase (i.e., positive coupling) in 10–22% of future coffee-suitable areas. Diminished coffee suitability and bee richness (i.e., negative coupling), however, occur in 34–51% of other areas. Finally, in 31–33% of the future coffee distribution areas, bee richness decreases and coffee suitability increases. Assessing coupled effects of climate change on crop suitability and pollination can help target appropriate management practices, including forest conservation, shade adjustment, crop rotation, or status quo, in different regions

Climate-Smart Agriculture in Grenada

The climate-smart agriculture (CSA) concept reflects an ambition to improve the integration of agriculture development and climate responsiveness. It aims to achieve food security and broader development goals under a changing climate and increasing food demand. CSA initiatives sustainably increase productivity, enhance resilience, and reduce/remove greenhouse gases (GHGs), and require planning to address tradeoffs and synergies between these three pillars: productivity, adaptation, and mitigation [1]. The priorities of different countries and stakeholders are reflected to achieve more efficient, effective, and equitable food systems that address challenges in environmental, social, and economic dimensions across productive landscapes. While the concept is new, and still evolving, many of the practices that make up CSA already exist worldwide and are used by farmers to cope with various production risks. Mainstreaming CSA requires critical stocktaking of ongoing and promising practices for the future, and of institutional and financial enablers for CSA adoption. This country profile provides a snapshot of a developing baseline created to initiate discussion, both within countries and globally, about entry points for investing in CSA at scale

Ecosystem services and hydroelectricity in Central America: modelling service flows with fuzzy logic and expert knowledge

Because ecosystem services are generally not produced and used in the same place, their assessment should consider the flows of services from ecosystems to users. These flows depend on the characteristics and spatial distribution of ecosystems and users, the spatial relationships between them, and the presence of filters or barriers between ecosystems and users. The objective of this paper is to map the ecosystem services provided to the Costa Rican and Nicaraguan hydroelectric sectors, which are crucial sectors for national sustainable development and depend directly on hydrological ecosystem services. The paper presents an approach for modelling the flows of multiple services from diverse ecosystems to diverse users through different kinds of filters in a landscape. The approach uses expert knowledge and fuzzy numbers to handle uncertainties. The analyses for Costa Rica and Nicaragua show how the approach helps identify priority areas for the conservation and restoration of forests for the services they provide to the hydroelectric sector. As such, it is a useful tool for defining spatially targeted policies for the conservation of ecosystem services and for involving the users of ecosystem services in ecosystem management. (Résumé d'auteur

Priority areas for payment for environmental services (PES) in Costa Rica

Tesis (M. Sc) -- CATIE, Turrialba (Costa Rica), 2005Se desarroll? una metodolog?a para dar prioridades a las ?reas en Costa Rica para recibir Pago por Servicios Ambientales (PSA). El estudio se sustenta en la Ley Forestal de Costa Rica de 1996, que dictamina los servicios ambientales que se deben compensar, las actividades de uso del suelo que aseguran su provisi?n as? como el mecanismo financiero para la sostenibilidad del pago. Las actividades elegibles en este esquema para recibir PSA son conservaci?n de bosque, plantaciones forestales y sistemas agroforestales. Se recomienda en trabajos futuros evaluar la robustez de la metodolog?a as? como la autocorrelaci?n de las variables biof?sicas utilizadas. A methodology was developed to give priorities to areas in Costa Rica to receive Payment for Environmental Services (PES). The study is framed on the 1996 Forest Law of Costa Rica that dictates the services that are to be compensated, the land use activities that ensure them and a financial mechanism to make the payment sustainable. The eligible activities under the scheme are forest conservation, forest plantations and agroforestry systeMON. Further work has to be developed in order to test the methodology robustness as well as autocorrelation among the biophysical variables used

Cambio clim?tico: balance h?drico y carbono

CATIE. Centro Agron?mico Tropical de Investigaci?n y Ense?anz

Ecosystem migration under climate change scenarios: the role of biological corridors in Costa Rica

6 ilustraciones, p?ginas 44-53El cambio clim?tico causar? un cambio en la distribuci?n de los ecosistemas y las especies. Estudios biogeogr?ficos que predicen cambios en la distribuci?n de las zonas de vida permiten evaluar los impactos potenciales del cambio clim?tico sobre los ecosistemas. Sin embargo, los estudios de vulnerabilidad deben ir asociados con estimaciones de la capacidad adaptativa de los ecosistemas. La migraci?n de especies es una respuesta potencial por parte de los ecosistemas frente al cambio clim?tico. La capacidad de migraci?n depende de las caracter?sticas de las especies y del nivel de fragmentaci?n de los paisajes a trav?s de los cuales tendr?n que dispersarse. La implementaci?n de corredores biol?gicos entre ?reas protegidas puede facilitar la adaptaci?n de estas ?reas al cambio clim?tico. El objetivo de este art?culo es evaluar si la configuraci?n actual de los corredores biol?gicos facilita la adaptaci?n de ?reas protegidas mediante migraci?n bajo escenarios de cambio clim?tico en Costa Rica. Se desarroll? un modelo de simulaci?n espacial de tipo ?aut?mata celular?. El modelo usa la clasificaci?n de zonas de vida de Holdridge para caracterizar los ecosistemas y aplica un modelo conceptual de evoluci?n y migraci?n de especies. Los resultados muestran que las ?reas protegidas m?s expuestas y sensibles al cambio clim?tico se encuentran en las monta?as altas y las zonas secas de Costa Rica y que los corredores juegan un papel importante para facilitar la migraci?n de especies entre ?reas protegidas bajo escenarios de cambio clim?tico. Los corredores son particularmente importantes para las ?reas protegidas peque?as, aisladas y en zonas monta?osas o secas. En un pa?s con relieve marcado como Costa Rica, los corredores altitudinales son muy relevantes para facilitar la migraci?n de especies. El modelo es ?til para priorizar acciones de adaptaci?n al cambio clim?tico y puede servir para apoyar los esfuerzos regionales de implementaci?n del Corredor Biol?gico Mesoamericano (CBM), demostrando el rol de los corredores para la adaptaci?n de los ecosistemas al cambio clim?tico