Informing the future of capacity building: lessons from an NGO partnership

Despite a recent surge in popularity, critical gaps remain in effectively building the capacity of organisations through global development projects. Two non-governmental organisations, FHI 360 and Conservation Through Public Health (CTPH), established a partnership focused on strengthening CTPH's organisational capacity to conduct high quality monitoring and evaluation and to effectively advocate for integrated population, health, and environment work. To help inform the design and implementation of future capacity building programmes, the partners describe their lessons learnt as illustrated through the five key capacity building steps: stakeholder engagement and partnership formation; capacity needs assessment; capacity plan design; plan implementation; and evaluation.     

Community Capacity Building as a Strategy of Family Violence Prevention in a Problem-Stricken Community: a Theoretical Formulation

This article examines problems confronting the families in a multi-problem community in Hong Kong, from an ecological perspective, and the features and limitations of the existing approach taken by the Government to combat the family violence problem in that community. It suggests the use of the community capacity building model as a strategy of family violence prevention, discusses the rationale, and explores the parameters of the community capacity building model that can be used to fight the family violence problem.     

Targeting the suburban urbanites: Marketing central‐city housing

Abstract

This article explores target marketing as a means to identify which middle‐income suburbanites may relocate to central cities. The most targetable populations reside near central cities and lead urban lifestyles. We term such people “suburban urbanites.” Geodemography, a method combining population and location, is used to classify suburban urbanites using data from Claritas Inc., a target marketer. Claritas divides the nation's neighborhoods into lifestyle clusters by linking population density to demographic and consumptive patterns.

A case study of metropolitan Washington, DC, illustrates how target marketing works. We find that more than half the region's middle‐class, Claritas‐defined urbanites live outside the District of Columbia. Thus, a large market of potential city dwellers lives in Washington's suburbs. Target marketing enhances the statistical approaches traditionally used in policy making and may help cities understand and develop their comparative advantages.     

Restoring community through traditional neighborhood design: A case study of Diggs town public housing

Abstract

This article examines how traditional neighborhood design (TND) can restore a sense of community to distressed neighborhoods. Traditional neighborhoods, such as those found in many cities and inner suburbs, provide their residents numerous opportunities and venues for social interaction. We apply the principles of TND to the redesign of a public housing project. We call our approach an “architecture of engagement.”

Using a case study of Diggs Town, a public housing project in Norfolk, VA, we explore how the application of TND principles transformed a socially alienated and distressed neighborhood into a socially integrated and functional one. We find that TND techniques improve the quality of life by facilitating the social exchanges that create social capital.     

行政区划改革滞后于区域发展的现象研究——以浙江省温州市为例

行政区划改革滞后于区域发展的现象,就是一个地区的行政区划格局已经对区域经济与城镇化发展起了制约作用,而又长期得不到改革的现象.温州是我国经济改革走在前列的地区,但其行政区划改革却是相当滞后的,所以其行政区划格局就应当不断加以调整和创新,尤其应注重扩大市区规模、完善各县市城区的街道体制、赋予部分中心城镇"准建制市"地位和撤并欠发达的小规模乡镇.     

Race and Women’s Imprisonment: Poverty, African American Presence, and Social Welfare

Female imprisonment rates have increased proportionately more than male imprisonment rates over recent decades. There are substantial race differences in women’s rates, as is the case for men. Yet, there has been little quantitative research on the correlates of women’s imprisonment using data over time, or on potential race differences in those correlates. The present research analyzes data on black and nonblack female imprisonment rates in the 50 states for the period 1981–2003. The analyses are guided substantively by existing research on race, social threat and criminal punishment, and theory and research on the penal-welfare hypothesis. The study uses bivariate-response multilevel modeling to simultaneously examine the factors associated with black and nonblack women’s imprisonment rates. The results show that black female imprisonment rates increase when the concentration of African Americans in metropolitan areas and poverty rates grow, whereas nonblack female imprisonment rates are unaffected by poverty rates and actually decrease when African American populations become more concentrated in metro areas. Both black and nonblack women’s imprisonment rates increase when welfare spending declines. The results are consistent with social threat perspectives and the penal-welfare hypotheses.     

血痕特异性mRNA标记研究

血痕是案发现场尤其是命案中比较常见的生物物证,而血痕的正确组织来源推断是当前鉴定工作中急需解决的问题。随着法医物证学的不断发展,以mRNA(messenger RNA)为基础的体液斑迹组织来源鉴定技术作为一种不同于传统血痕免疫学检测的新型方法,已经越加显示其独特的优越性。在该技术的基础上,实现共同提取生物物证的RNA与DNA的目标,建立体液斑迹鉴定与DNA分型兼容的方法,有利于现场重建,提高生物物证的证据效力,完善证据链。本研究建立了一个包括血痕总RNA提取、逆转录、荧光特异引物扩增、遗传分析仪电泳检测分析等步骤的血痕来源推断技术平台。实验共采集制备了40份的中国人群(女性)外周血、16份月经血样本,筛选了5个外周血标记:HBA、HBB、GYPA、SPTB、ALAS2,2个月经血标记:MMP7、MMP11,构建了一个囊括外周血、月经血特异标记的荧光复合扩增体系。结果显示mRNA技术为基础的鉴定血痕来源的方法是可行的,并且建立了血痕RNA检验的遗传分析仪结果判读方法。     

一种必要转化：从一般行政理念到具体法律制度——以湿地保护与合理利用为参照

改进政府管理需要法律制度的保障,而且,一般行政理念只有转化为具体法律制度,被具体法律条文所承载,才能对行政机关及其工作人员的行为产生刚性约束力.本文针对政府湿地管理行为,从研究问题的角度拟定了湿地保护专门立法的一些条款,内容包括管理规划、行政协调、行政协助、信息共享、人员管理、绩效评估、决策失误责任追究等.本文的目的是引起立法者的共鸣,促进一般行政理念到具体法律制度的转化.     

基于公务员监督的混合战略博弈分析

以委托—代理理论和信息经济学中的监督模型为基础,通过对政府和公务员二者在完全信息静态博弈下的混合战略分析可见,租金的高低、政府监督的成本和对寻租的公务员惩罚的力度是影响公务员寻租的三个主要因素。我们应通过健全社会舆论与群众监督机制,提高公务员的道德水平,加大对公务员寻租行为的法制惩罚力度,加大对寻租者的物质惩罚力度,健全社会主义市场经济体制,消除租源等措施来防止公务员寻租。