Further participatory adaptation is required for community leaders to champion conservation agriculture in Africa

There is a recognized need for the participation of local communities in designing and implementing agricultural interventions for the sustainable intensification in smallholder systems. This study examines the perspectives of local community leaders towards the widely promoted, but not widely adopted, practice of Conservation Agriculture (CA) in African smallholder systems. Perceptions from 47 community leaders (both from traditional local authorities and farmer organizations) across six African countries are documented regarding how CA matches the wants, needs and capabilities of farmers in their communities. While community leaders generally perceived CA as potentially beneficial, they also indicated that CA is not currently perceived as feasible within their communities and hence has limited relevance. Three key themes were identified that limit both CA use and sustainable intensification more generally: [1] a perceived reluctance of farmers to engage with the community platform as part of a higher input, market-oriented production system; [2] informational constraints due to non-functional exchange mechanisms; and [3] a lack of local adaptation of CA underscored by the persistence of top-down, linear research and extension approaches. Through greater understanding of local perspectives, a clearer picture emerges of the need for greater participatory engagement and local adaptation if sustainable intensification of African smallholder agricultural systems is to be achieved.     

Evaluating Political Risk Forecasting Models: What Works?

Definitions of “political risk” abound, including with “assessments” or “analysis,” but even though ratings are widely used by investors, few understand either the theory behind particular instruments or what the ratings say about their potential investment. The assessment of political risk works backward from losses to foreign investors (not domestic) that could have been insured or protected, to a determination of how high the risk is, what the cost of the likely loss might be, the type of insurance coverage that might be necessary, and then to what an investor should be willing to pay to protect against that risk. A wide range of potential losses and potential causes of those losses is covered by the many political risk assessment firms and indices that are available to potential investors. BERI, the PRS Group, ICRG, the Eurasia Group, PERC (Hong Kong), and many others provide an array of ratings that investors can employ in making their choices. Few of these focus on the critical element of forecasting. Insurance doesn't relate to circumstances of the moment but rather those of the future. What will they be? Just a few of the risk assessments (PRS, BERI, ICRG) deal explicitly with the future, as good as that might be. Few also deal with the matter of risks to particular industries, companies, regions of a country, or external circumstances (what are the country's neighbors up to?). This article offers some suggestions on improving the political risk assessment business. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

THE IMPACT OF FUNDHOLDING ON PRIMARY HEALTH CARE: ACCOUNTS FROM SCOTTISH GPS

At the inception of the internal market in health care GP fundholding was seen rather as a 'sidesho' to the main reforms. But as the reforms have worked through, GP fundholding has emerged as pivotal to the purchaserlprovider agenda and the changes now associated with GP fundholding will be major issues in directing future health care policy initiatives. Drawing on empirical data from three Scottish regions, this paper argues that fundholding is now significant because GPs perceive benefits for primary health care. The paper uses the data collected from the case studies in the regions to assess these gains on two levels: the 'micro' impact of fundholding on primary health care processes and the 'macro' issues raised for health care policy by involving GPs more closely in resource management. Some GPs wish to use resource management as a vehicle for enhancing equity within the NHS, others are more concerned to manage resources so as to expand their practices into sites which combine primary, secondary and community health care, still others envisage developing the market to include monetary rewards for 'efficient' practices.     

Some Lessons for Regulation from Recent Bank Crises

Recent bank crises in developed and developing countries have underlined the question of a good “regulatory regime,” which is a wider concept than the set of prudential principles and business rules established by external regulatory agencies. The role of external regulation in fostering a safe and sound banking system is limited. The incentive's structure for private banks and the efficiency of monitoring and supervision have to play a great role. Liberalization of markets can have bad effects in the transitional period, but advantages can be enormous after the system starts to work correctly. The main lesson of recent bank crises is that there needs to be more effective surveillance of financial institutions both by supervisory authorities and by markets. Effective regulation (internal and external) and supervision of banks and financial institutions have the potential to give a major contribution to the stability and robustness of financial system.     

Tracking Resource Use in a Welfare Organization: Needs, Costs and Co-production

Public sector welfare organizations are situated at the sharp end of resource allocations in society and must cope in an environment where demand frequently far exceeds supply. In consequence, the resource problem of meeting the need for social welfare is never fully resolvable and evaluations of the ways in which scarce resources are used within the public sector are of critical importance for public policy. This paper draws on an empirical study of a welfare service for homeless young people in order to illustrate, first, the cost implications of two different approaches to service delivery (one more superficial – termed 'people-processing'; one more in depth – termed, 'people-changing') and, second, how the characteristics of the clients served (in particular, their ability to fully engage with the service termed –'co-production') can have a marked impact on the cost of the services delivered to them.