From a ‘success’ story to a highly indebted poor country: Ghana and neoliberal reforms

Drawing on the experience of Ghana, which the World Bank itself proclaimed as an African success story in the early 1990s, this paper sheds important light on why neoliberal policies have had limited success in Africa and what strategies are likely to be necessary to foster growth and industrialisation in Ghana and elsewhere in Africa. In 2001, a few short years after being proclaimed as an economic miracle, Ghana joined the growing ranks of highly indebted poor countries (HIPC) – an especially humbling development for this once proud nation. Why did Ghana's economy collapse after recovering so well? Ghana's experience highlights both the promise and limitation of neoliberal reforms.     

绿色建筑的兴起及其内涵的延伸

绿色建筑理念的提出及其实践为化解传统建筑对环境产生的消极影响提供了理想出路。促进绿色建筑的开发和推广,要从理念上重新审视绿色建筑的内涵,实现从绿色建筑向绿色社区的转型。尽管在实现转型过程中将不可避免地会面临一些法律、经济和社会层面的障碍,但通过实施强制性及激励性的法律及政策措施可以克服这些障碍,实现真正意义上的资源节约型和地理位置便利型的绿色建筑。     

Community‐Based Organizations and Institutional Work in the Remote Rural West

The institutional landscape for public land management in the U.S. West underwent a seismic shift in the 1990s as the long‐dominant resource extraction paradigm was replaced by the ecosystem management paradigm. Here we analyze the efforts of community‐based organizations (CBOs), entities that emerged in some locations across the West to help their respective communities navigate the transition from resource extraction to environmental stewardship. Despite their formal status as civil society actors, in practice CBOs came to fill various institutional gaps by taking on roles traditionally assigned to both the state and the private sector. We use a case study approach to examine how the Hayfork, California–based Watershed Research and Training Center engages in institutional work within a setting that is at once both open and constrained, as the rural community within which it operates lacks strong state‐ or industry‐led development trajectories while remaining constrained by the legacies of past institutions.     

Windows of opportunity: Lead poisoning prevention,housing affordability,and energy conservation

Abstract

We used housing demolition and window replacement rates to forecast prevalence trends for childhood lead poisoning and lead paint hazards from 1990 to 2010 for the President's Task Force on Environmental Health Risks and Safety Risks to Children. The mid‐point of that forecast has now been validated by national blood lead data and the 1998–2000 National Survey of Lead and Allergens in Housing.

The validation of the task force model and new analysis of these survey data indicate that window replacement explains a large part of the substantial reduction in lead poisoning that occurred from 1990 to 2000. A public‐private effort to increase window replacement rates could help eliminate childhood lead poisoning by 2010. This effort would also improve home energy efficiency and affordability, in addition to reducing air pollution from power plants, and a broader initiative could reduce other housing‐related health risks as well.     

黄蓝国家战略背景下东营转变经济发展方式的思考

东营市是建设黄河三角洲高效生态经济区的中心城市和开发建设主战场,是建设山东半岛蓝色经济区的重要前沿城市,加快经济发展方式转变,对于推进黄蓝国家战略的实施,“两个率先”的实现意义重大。加快转变经济发展方式的主攻方向是推动经济结构战略性调整,突破口是促进节能减排,中心环节是实施创新驱动战略,根本保障是加快体制机制建设。     

Developing Countries and the Implementation of CITES: The Mexican Experience

A key issue for the success of international conventions regulating biodiversity conservation is to understand the different philosophical positions of each party for initially acceding to that convention, and for the measures each party takes to implement that convention. This paper documents policies for wildlife trade regulation in Mexico from the early 1980s to the early 2000s, with emphasis on the process of CITES implementation. Mexico was slow to adopt environmental policies, but when Mexico did recognize wider environmental concerns, the prospect of acceding to CITES was not considered because of existing bans on all wildlife trade in native species. However, Mexico could not control the illegal trade of wild species during the 1980s. Mexico acceded to CITES in 1991 mainly in response to international pressure and to bilateral pressure while seeking to join a free trade agreement. The step of joining CITES was taken without clear analysis about the consequences of being a party to the Convention. Between 1992 and 1996, Mexico had no clear policy about its role within CITES. The period from 1997 to 2001 witnessed an improved legal and administrative structure and a greater internal coordination between the institutions involved with CITES. Mexico has now improved its policy toward international wildlife trade.