EXPECTATIONS AND CAPACITY OF PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT IN NGOs IN THE DEVELOPMENT CONTEXT

There are many obstacles to promoting learning as an outcome of performance measurement in non‐governmental organizations (NGO) social service providers, especially in less developed countries. Building upon a conceptualization of accountability as a multifaceted set of relationships through which funders, or principals, and non‐profit providers, or agents, jointly shape organizational learning, and performance, this study expands our understanding of how accountability mechanisms affect learning within service providers. This paper explores the role that funders play in shaping performance measurement, or monitoring, practices within NGOs serving disadvantaged children in developing countries. We examined the experience of service providers in Egypt and Colombia to assess how the barriers to use of performance data and learning may be addressed. We conducted interviews using the same protocols with program managers in six non‐profit providers in each country that provide services to children, and we also interviewed major donors in the arena of children's services in the USA. We probed the NGO managers' experiences with performance measurement to identify obstacles and potential solutions to improve the use of the data to promote learning. Our findings support previous research about the potential for upward accountability mechanisms to influence internal learning. We suggest that funders should be held accountable for how the incentives and disincentives they provide to grantees affect their internal learning about how to improve their services. This notion of ‘reverse accountability’ means that funders need to be strategic and intentional when they design reporting mechanisms that affect the learning behaviours within their grantees. In line with our call for reverse accountability, we offer a model demonstrating our notion of the two‐way flow of accountability and we offer recommendations to help improve the performance reporting environment for NGOs who are addressing complex problems with less than adequate capacity. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The adult worker model family,gender equality and care: the search for new policy principles and the possibilities and problems of a capabilities approach

There is evidence that policy-makers in most Western welfare states are moving towards a new set of assumptions about the contributions that men and women make to families, based on an adult worker model. This paper first examines this shift in policy assumptions at the EU level and goes on to argue that there are real limits to the pursuit of a full adult worker model based on the commodification of care. In respect of gender equality, this in turn raises the issue of the terms and conditions on which such a shift in policy assumptions are made, particularly about the valuing and sharing of the unpaid work of care. The final part of the paper examines the possibilities offered by the capabilities approach of addressing these issues.     

Parents as teachers project

SUMMARY

Individuals with interests in children and families, as well as in critically examining interventions and service systems may consider opportunities for evaluation research in Child Welfare. As the field increasingly adopts multi-level preventative interventions, positions may offer opportunities for motivated individuals with skills in articulating and examining phenomena at individual, family, community and organizational levels. The paper follows one pathway from graduate school to a position within an organizational context manifesting many of the major themes in contemporary community psychology, including capacity building and empowerment, community development and multi-level prevention interventions, consumer involvement and the stimulating role of program evaluation. The purposeful collection of practical experience is suggested as an important balance to rigorous academic preparation and creative exploration of different professional roles.     

Policy Alternatives in Adaptive Communities: Simulating the Environmental Justice Consequences of Hazardous Site Remediation Strategies

Many governments have implemented environmental justice mandates requiring agencies to consider the implications of cleanup decisions for poor and/or minority populations. To the extent that this mandate alters decisions, it usually does so by considering the composition of a community in the present without adjusting for potential demographic changes that may occur over time. However, communities change and these changes are likely to affect how well an agency meets its environmental justice mandate over the long term. In this research, an agent‐based model is introduced to simulate how alternative environmental remediation scenarios may affect environmental justice outcomes in a dynamic residential environment with two demographic classes with preferences for living in proximity to neighbors similar to themselves. Under these circumstances, there is unlikely to be one best strategy to achieve both environmental improvement and environmental equity, and a focus on valuable land is the least effective over the long run.     

农村群体性事件治理路径的外部环境研究——基于AGIL模型

农村群体性事件的有效治理,与农民群体的自觉、政府治理机制的完善、法律法规的健全与落实以及村民自治组织的支持四个方面构成的外部环境密不可分。现实中村民自治组织权力的虚化,导致农村群体性事件治理机制的外部系统各子系统之间的关系存在裂痕。基于帕森斯"AGIL模型"对农村群体性事件治理路径外部环境的分析,基层政府应树立执政为民的执政理念,为满足农民的需求,建立快捷有效的治理机制。     

基层服务型党组织建设的区域化实践模式——基于苏南探索的案例分析

苏南在基层服务型党组织建设的区域化实践模式探索中,从党建理念、组织形式、活动方式和工作机制上形成了创新优势,并在拓展空间布局、整合党建资源、消除薄弱环节、促进融合提高、共建活动载体、发挥党员作用、完善运行机制、实现整体提升等方面取得了实践成效。但在探索中仍存在制约因素和深层次问题,需进一步优化发展路径。     

Congressional Communication: Content & Consequences,by Daniel Lipinski. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2004. 143 pp. $29.95 paper.

Television interviews with political candidates are pivotal moments in election campaigns. Previous studies in Anglo-American contexts have shown that adversarialism in television interviews can be predicted by the power of the politician and by the status of the interviewer. However, worldwide the structural conditions of the liberal media system are unique. This article studies how the Anglo-American watchdog model of interviews should be adapted to polarized television markets such as Italy, where broadcast organizations are politically, financially, and historically linked to different political blocks. A content analysis of the level of toughness in questions posed to politicians from different parties during the 2006 and 2008 Italian general elections showed that, in line with the watchdog model, journalists are more adversarial toward politicians who are likely to win the elections. Apart from this, interviews in polarized television markets follow a different model: Interviewers with high status are less adversarial, politicians from minor parties face more threatening questions, and partisan bias is more important than role bias. The generalizability of this model is discussed in the light of the polarization of television markets, partisan segregation, and the potential consequences for vote choice and election outcomes.     

混合STR分型分析方法研究进展

混合STR分型的解释及分析一直是国际上法医物证领域研究的热点和难点。随着DNA检验技术的发展,案件中检出的混合STR分型呈现出模板量降低以及混合组分数增加的趋势,其解释变得愈加复杂,传统的人工分析方法已难以满足现实要求。近几年国外基于统计算法模型的自动化软件解析方法渐趋成为混合STR分型分析的主要方法。本文综述了混合STR分型分析方法的相关研究进展,包括人工为主的定性分析方法以及基于统计模型的基因型概率分析方法;讨论了混合STR分型分析方法的未来发展趋势以及人工智能技术的应用前景。