Political economy,poverty, and polycentrism in the Global Environment Facility’s Least Developed Countries Fund (LDCF) for Climate Change Adaptation

Climate change adaptation refers to altering infrastructure, institutions or ecosystems to respond to the impacts of climate change. Least developed countries often lack the requisite capacity to implement adaptation projects. The Global Environment Facility’s Least Developed Countries Fund (LDCF) is a scheme where industrialised countries have disbursed $934.5 million in voluntary contributions to support 213 adaptation projects across 51 least developed countries. But how effective are its efforts—and what sort of challenges have arisen as it implements projects? To provide some answers, this article documents the presence of four “political economy” attributes of adaptation projects—processes we have termed enclosure, exclusion, encroachment and entrenchment—cutting across economic, political, ecological and social dimensions. Based on extensive field research, we find the four processes at work simultaneously in our case studies of five LDCF projects being implemented in Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, the Maldives and Vanuatu. The article concludes with a discussion of the broader implications of the political economy of adaptation for analysts, program managers and climate researchers at large. In sum, the politics of adaptation must be taken into account so that projects can maximise their efficacy and avoid marginalising those most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.     

Automated Texture Recognition of Quartz Sand Grains for Forensic Applications*

Quartz sand surface texture analysis has been automated for the first time for forensic application. The derived Basic Image Features (BIFs) provide computer-generated texture recognition from preexisting data sets. The technique was applied to two distinct classification problems; first, the ability of the system to discriminate between (quartz) sand grains with upturned plate features (indicative of eolian, global sand sea environments) and grains that do not exhibit these features. A success rate of grain classification of 98.8% was achieved. Second, to test the ability of the computer recognition system to identify specific energy levels of formation of the upturned plate surface texture features. Such recognition ability has to date been beyond manual geological interpretation. The discrimination performance was enhanced to an exact classification success rate of 81%. The enhanced potential for routine forensic investigation of the provenance of common quartz sand is indicated.     

RISK AND PROTECTIVE FACTORS FOR SECONDARY GIRLS OF INCARCERATED PARENTS

In a review of the literature on child gender and gender‐specific effects for children of incarcerated parents, the present paper examines what we do and do not know about gender‐specific protective and risk factors for children of incarcerated parents. The nuanced effects of parental separation based on child gender are offered, drawn from secondary level girls in an all‐female support group operated at a secondary school in Little Rock, Arkansas for the past six years. Other programs are examined that evidence gender‐specific effects for boys and girls in those programs. A few basic statistical indices suggest that the gender of an adolescent separated from his or her incarcerated parents has differential impacts to be better studied and possibly considered in service programming. The results may enhance the outcomes for the girls, and perhaps the boys.     

Contested landscapes: the global political economy of climate-smart agriculture

Analysing key initiatives in the area of climate-smart agriculture and the politics which surround them, this paper identifies the dominant discourses shaping the debate through a discussion of discursive sites of power and by mapping the emerging ‘regime complex’ of institutional power that operates at the interface of the climate and agrifood system. This is connected to forms of material power that derive from control over production, finance and technology in the neoliberal food regime by transnational capital. Such an analysis has important implications for which solutions are promoted as part of climate-smart agriculture and which actors are likely to benefit from the flows of technology, finance and institutional support that are mobilised in the struggle to define a viable global agrifood system in a warming world.     

The global political economy of climate change,agriculture and food systems

The food and agriculture sector is both a major contributor to climate change and especially vulnerable to its worst impacts. This means that much is at stake in what is a complex set of contested political dynamics as new governance agendas are rolled out. On one hand, there is a strong push for ‘climate-smart agriculture’ (CSA) and related initiatives in the area of marine resources such as the idea of the blue economy, as an attempt to bring a range of viewpoints together to address the interrelationship between these ecological and economic systems. On the other hand, critics see these strategies as promotion of more of the same kinds of policies that created stress in the climate–food system in the first place. To unpack these issues, this special forum brings together a collection of papers that highlight three overlapping themes that lie at the centre of these debates, yet which have not been fully acknowledged by those implementing CSA initiatives: the role of power and interests in shaping governance approaches to climate and food systems; the ways in which existing approaches, primarily those promoting open markets and technology, are reinforced in governance initiatives; and the sidelining of questions of inequality.     

Corporate accountability to the poor? Assessing the effectiveness of community-based strategies

This paper investigates how, why, and when community-based strategies are effective in promoting corporate accountability (CA) to the poor. It argues that mainstream approaches to corporate social responsibility (CSR) underestimate the importance of power in the relationship between corporations and the communities in which they invest, which limits their applicability to many developing-country contexts in particular. In addressing this neglect, the article draws on literature on power, accountability, and citizen participation in order to analyse cases where communities have attempted to hold corporations to account for their social and environmental responsibilities. The paper argues that more attention should be paid to a number of state-, corporation-, and community-related factors, which are found to be key to the effectiveness of strategies aimed at enhancing CA to the poor.     

Human Resources Wasted in Government? - Who's counting?

U.S. taxpayers spend over $80 billion a year to meet theFederalcivilian payroll. Yet there are signs that a significant part of this investment is being wasted. For example, about $2 billion of the total is spent to pay employess who are on sick leave and, in a recent year, over 18 percent of the workforce left government service. While controls are placed on many government assests to guard against waste, similar concern is not directed at the waste of human resources. There are many questions we can’t answer, such as what it costs when workers file grievances and EEO complaints, what it costs for excessive use of leave, and whether supposed cost saving steps (e.g. cutting training funds) really save money in the long run.Pressure to improve government’s productivity, cut the deifcit, and improve quality ofservice to taxpayers makes better control of our human resources Terry Newell is chief of the Special programs Branch, Horace Mann learning Center, U.S. Department of Education. This article was written by him in his private capacity. No official support or endorsement by the U.S. Department of Education is intended or should be inferred investment essential. There are at least two broad strategies we can use. First, we can analyze human resource costs across and within agencies to see where there are opportunities for savings. For example, analysis of sick leave using available data suggests that some agencies use considerably less sick leave than others and that there may be a pattern to such use. Attempts to reduce sick leave use seem possible and offer the prospect of substantial savings. Second, we can analyze human resource policy options to determine the full cost implications of decisions before they are made. When done, we may find that some policy options promise short run savings but will be more costly than alternatives over the long haul.Use of human resource cost analysis, while rudimentary at present, will increase in the future because it is necessary to contain costs and because the technology is available to allow government-wide data analysis.