The Global Agriculture and Food Security Program: An Evaluation of the Public Private Partnership in Malawi

Chronic food security issues in Africa have recently spurred an increase in public–private partnerships (PPPs), as governments across the continent look to stimulate agricultural productivity. Through multiple international channels, PPPs are implementing various programs within the agricultural sector as a means to promote both nutrition and food security. However, there are some constraints that may impede the success of PPP in the near-term such as inadequate legal and regulatory framework for PPPs; lack of technical skills to manage PPP programs and projects; unfavorable investor perception of country risk, small market size, limited infrastructure and limited financial markets. Additionally, the success of agricultural public–private partnerships are yet to be proven and concerns exist among global philanthropic organizations, who are wary of the potential for investments to meet their objective in lieu of returns to investors. This paper will explore one initiative, the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP), specific to its objective “to improve incomes and food and nutrition security in low-income countries by boosting agricultural productivity” (“About GASFP,” n.d.). Following an overview of the organization, the paper will discuss the short-comings and issues related to the implementation of GAFSP’s directive using a single country example, Malawi and will then conclude with a summary recommendation related to the GAFSP program execution. The paper will provide a basis for a reevaluation of GAFSP’s alignment between objectives and implementation

Sustainability in the Curriculum and Teaching of Economics: Transforming Introductory Macroeconomics

Present models of economic growth primarily focus on the role of expenditures as captured in the commonly cited economic indicator, gross domestic product (GDP), where GDP is defined as the sum of final goods and services sold within a country’s natural borders. Noting that a country’s expenditures are referred to as “aggregate expenditures” and that the majority of spending is specific to consumption or consumer spending, especially in the United States where this spending category is nearly two-thirds of annual GDP (other expenditure categories for GDP include investment spending, government spending and foreign spending as proxied by net exports), there exists a significant relationship between consumer expenditures and macroeconomic growth, justifying the standard acceptance of consumption-based expenditures as being a significant driver of economic expansion. Given the consumption and growth relationship, consumption values and behaviors have a significant impact on economic outcomes as well as other parameters including the environment and social and economic equity, where the latter are defined as relating to disparities between groups within a country, as well as across countries. Following a discussion of the impact of consumer-led growth on sustainability parameters: the environment, economic and social equity, this paper provides an explicit linkage between the measure of economic progress in universal use, GDP, and the degradation to common global resources, connecting the endogeneity present between the modeling of economic growth and the values and behaviors that support the outcome of the very same growth. A discussion of the present teaching methods specific to introductory macroeconomics provides the foundation for an innovative, replicable, and grant-funded case study for introducing sustainability. The curriculum variants discussed are not in widespread use and at present, there are no standard textbooks for the instruction of Principles of Macroeconomics that explicitly include sustainability and provide sustainability-based economic parameters for alternative evaluation to standard economic growth as presently and singularly enumerated in GDP. The value-augmenting outcome of the sustainability inclusive curriculum case study is captured in a qualitative assessment of student reaction and absorption of sustainability as a value and behavior catalyst and provided in summary form

Book Review: \u3cem\u3eWomen in Southeast Asian Nationalist Movements: A Biographical Approach\u3c/em\u3e

Review of Women in Southeast Asian Nationalist Movements: A Biographical Approach, Susan Blackburn and Helen Ting, editors. National University of Singapore Press, 2013

Book Review: Valued Daughters, First Generation Career Women

Review of Valued Daughters, First Generation Career Women, by Alice W. Clark. Sage Publishing India. 2016

Governance and sustainable development at higher education institutions

© 2020, Springer Nature B.V. Governance issues, here interpreted as the provisions of adequate policy frameworks characterized by reliability and accountability, coupled with resources to support their implementation, are known to be the basis for the implementation of sustainable development measures. This paper discusses the influence of governance in the ways sustainability is perceived and practiced in a higher education context. Apart from due considerations to the role of governance as the basis for regulation and institutional actions and management decisions, this paper reports on an empirical study undertaken in a sample of higher education institutions. This study entailed an analysis of sustainable development policies, certification, organizational structure, budget, reports, team for sustainability, staff training, and challenges for the integration of sustainability and governance. The results suggest that even though there are different opinions and attitudes on the role of governance, it is regarded as an important component in supporting efforts by higher education institutions to include considerations on sustainable development as part of their strategies