Community outcome processes as a forum for community governance

Research for this report is part of a project on evaluating the quality of planning and governance under the Local Government Act 2002 (LGA). This is the first of two complementary reports aiming to develop and test a methodology for evaluating the LGA community outcomes processes and the related monitoring and reporting frameworks and apply it to selected councils. This report focuses on interrogation of community outcome processes facilitated by local authorities as a forum for community governance. Out of this study we have developed a generic framework for deliberative engagement

Fishery Policies and their Impact on the New Zealand Maori

The introduction of innovative fishery policies in New Zealand has recently attracted international attention. The introduction of an ITQ system was premised on the notion of Crown ownership of fishery resources. Conflict has accompanied these policies as Maori people have challenged the government over ownership of fishery resources and declaimed the skewed impact of the fishery policies. This paper examines the source of these problems focussing particularly on the Treaty of Waitangi negotiated in 1840 between the Crown and heads of Maori tribes. The Treaty guaranteed to Maori the full, exclusive and undisturbed possession of their fisheries and other properties, guarantees which were until recently ignored. The Crown has subsequently ceded some authority over and ownership of fishery resources to Maori.New Zealand fisheries policies, Treaty of Waitangi, resource ownership, distributional impact, Maori unemployment rate, Environmental Economics and Policy, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Planning and governance under the LGA: Lessons from the RMA experience.

The purpose of this report is to identify ways in which experiences gained from the RMA as a devolved and co-operative planning mandate can enable local and central government and other stakeholders to more effectively implement the LGA. The report is based on findings from the FRST-funded research programme on Planning under Co-operative Mandates (PUCM). We argue in this report that the experiences gained from the RMA can inform effective implementation of the LGA in three important respects: Preparation and implementation of LTCCPs; The community consultation process for formulating community outcomes; and Māori participation in planning and governance

Edible Oil Deficit and Its Impact on Food Expenditure in Pakistan

This study is an attempt to analyze the impact of Edible Oil Deficit on Food Expenditure in Pakistan for the period 1971-2008. Edible oil deficit is one of the major concerns for the policy makers in Pakistan. Despite of having agriculture based economy; Pakistan is unable to fulfil her domestic demand of edible oil by local production. This situation forces the government to import edible oil and oil seeds from other countries. This import not only increases our balance of payment deficit but also it negatively affects the ability to finance the external debt repayments. Autoregressive Distributed Lag model has been used to analyse the long run relationship amongst the variables. Other important determinants of food expenditure along with edible oil deficit were also used to check for their collective long run impact. It was found that long run negative relationship exists between edible oil deficit and food expenditure and hence the result derives the policy implication that there is a need to boost up the efforts in the agriculture sector to steadily increase the local production of oil seeds in the country. The relationship between the per capita GDP and food expenditure is found to be positive and significant with elasticity of 0.261 suggesting that 1 percent increase in per capita GDP will cause food expenditure to increase by 0.26 percent. The relationship between food subsidy and food expenditure is found to be insignificant suggesting that due to improper targeting and consumer’s perception about quality and accessibility of subsidized food, Government’s food support programs are not effective.Edible Oil; Production; Imports; Trade Deficit; Balance of Payments; International Trade; Oilseed Crops; Agriculture; Pakistan; Edible oil deficit; demand function; food; inflation; food inflation; household expenditure.

The SNS-Based E-Learning Model to Provide Smart Solution for E-Learning

We are in the era of social networking sites that gives platform to billions of individuals for offering and conveying to each other's. These social sites additionally give a worldwide platform to students and educators to satisfy their learning or instructing necessities. The incorporation of social networking sites (SNS) and online tools with e-learning, getting high fame, extraordinarily in instructive space. Learners are more comfortable with these SNS, they feel pleasure to join, participate and collaborate with peers or teachers in these sites. The smart integration of social sites and online tools with conventional e-learning platform could revolutionize the current e-learning model. Various e-learning issues including learner’s participation, association, motivation and engagement can be mitigated by this integration. Number of SNS and online tools have great components for learning, teaching or training however their balanced use and incorporation with e-learning model is as yet an exploration challenge. In this paper, we present a model that utilizes social networking sites and tools effectively with e-learning platform.  The basic idea of this model is to make e-learning simple and more compelling by using normal, easy to understand and generally free social sites and online tools. This paper also highlights some open research issues and challenges that might be faced SNS-based e-learning model. The idea, knowledge and open research issues that talk about in this paper may create another heading of research in the space of innovation bolstered learning