scholarly journals A comparative study of small-scale fishery supply chains’ vulnerability and resilience to COVID-19

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hannah R. Bassett ◽  
Sonia Sharan ◽  
Sharon K. Suri ◽  
Sahir Advani ◽  
Christopher Giordano

AbstractThe COVID-19 pandemic and response has significantly disrupted fishery supply chains, creating shortages of essential foods and constraining livelihoods globally. Small-scale fisheries (SSFs) are responding to the pandemic in a variety of ways. Together, disruptions from and responses to COVID-19 illuminate existing vulnerabilities in the fish distribution paradigm and possible means of reducing system and actor sensitivity and exposure and increasing adaptive capacity. Integrating concepts from literature on supply chain disruptions, social-ecological systems, human wellbeing, vulnerability, and SSFs, we synthesize preliminary lessons from six case studies from Indonesia, the Philippines, Peru, Canada, and the United States. The SSF supply chains examined employ different distribution strategies and operate in different geographic, political, social, economic, and cultural contexts. Specifically, we ask (a) how resilient have different SSF supply chains been to COVID-19 impacts; (b) what do these initial outcomes indicate about the role of distribution strategies in determining the vulnerability of SSF supply chains to macroeconomic shocks; and (c) what key factors have shaped this vulnerability? Based on our findings, systemic changes that may reduce SSF vulnerability to future macroeconomic shocks include: diversification of distribution strategies, livelihoods, and products; development of local and domestic markets and distribution channels; reduced reliance on international markets; establishment of effective communication channels; and preparation for providing aid to directly assist supply chains and support consumer purchasing power.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hannah R Bassett ◽  
Sonia Sharan ◽  
Sharon K Suri ◽  
Sahir Advani ◽  
Christopher Giordano

The COVID-19 pandemic and response has significantly disrupted fishery supply chains, creating shortages of essential foods and constraining livelihoods globally. Small-scale fisheries (SSFs) are responding to the pandemic in a variety of ways. Together, disruptions from and responses to COVID-19 illuminate existing vulnerabilities in the fish distribution paradigm and possible means of reducing system and actor sensitivity and exposure and increasing adaptive capacity. Integrating concepts from literature on supply chain disruptions, social-ecological systems, human wellbeing, vulnerability, and SSFs, we synthesize preliminary lessons from six case studies from Indonesia, the Philippines, Peru, Canada, and the United States. The SSF supply chains examined employ different distribution strategies and operate in different geographic, political, social, economic, and cultural contexts. Specifically, we ask: a) how resilient have different SSF supply chains been to COVID-19 impacts; b) what do these initial outcomes indicate about the role of distribution strategies in determining the vulnerability of SSF supply chains to macroeconomic shocks; and c) what key factors have shaped this vulnerability? Based on our findings, systemic changes that may reduce SSF vulnerability to future macroeconomic shocks include diversification of distribution strategies, livelihoods, and products, development of local and domestic markets and distribution channels, reduced reliance on international markets, establishment of effective communication channels, and preparation for providing aid to directly assist supply chains and support consumer purchasing power.


2011 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kanika Metre

As the number of mobile phone subscriptions has rapidly expanded in developing countries, so too has the use of mobile phones to facilitate small-scale financial transactions around the world. Microfinance experts have recognized these mobile banking services as a means for expanding access to financial services among poor and low-income populations. Innovations over the past few years have proven that mobile network operators and banks can cooperate to create successful business models for mobile banking services. Recognizing this success, this paper further explores the ways in which private sector, public sector, and non-profit sector actors can and should collaborate to meet the financial service needs of the poor through innovations in mobile banking. Case studies from Kenya, the Philippines, the United States, Haiti, and India provide relevant lessons on how these collaborations have succeeded or failed in the past.


2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Lauren K. D’Souza ◽  
William L. Ascher ◽  
Tanja Srebotnjak

Native American reservations are among the most economically disadvantaged regions in the United States; lacking access to economic and educational opportunities that are exacerbated by “energy insecurity” due to insufficient connectivity to the electric grid and power outages. Local renewable energy sources such as wind, solar, and biomass offer energy alternatives but their implementation encounters barriers such as lack of financing, infrastructure, and expertise, as well as divergent attitudes among tribal leaders. Biomass, in particular, could be a source of stable base-load power that is abundant and scalable in many rural communities. This case study examines the feasibility of a biomass energy plant on the Cocopah reservation in southwestern Arizona. It considers feedstock availability, cost and energy content, technology options, nameplate capacity, discount and interest rates, construction, operation and maintenance (O&M) costs, and alternative investment options. This study finds that at current electricity prices and based on typical costs for fuel, O&M over 30 years, none of the tested scenarios is presently cost-effective on a net present value (NPV) basis when compared with an alternative investment yielding annual returns of 3% or higher. The technology most likely to be economically viable and suitable for remote, rural contexts—a combustion stoker—resulted in a levelized costs of energy (LCOE) ranging from US$0.056 to 0.147/kWh. The most favorable scenario is a combustion stoker with an estimated NPV of US$4,791,243. The NPV of the corresponding alternative investment is US$7,123,380. However, if the tribes were able to secure a zero-interest loan to finance the plant’s installation cost, the project would be on par with the alternative investment. Even if this were the case, the scenario still relies on some of the most optimistic assumptions for the biomass-to-power plant and excludes abatement costs for air emissions. The study thus concludes that at present small-scale, biomass-to-energy projects require a mix of favorable market and local conditions as well as appropriate policy support to make biomass energy projects a cost-competitive source of stable, alternative energy for remote rural tribal communities that can provide greater tribal sovereignty and economic opportunities.


2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 78-90
Author(s):  
Theresa McCulla

In 1965, Frederick (Fritz) Maytag III began a decades-long revitalization of Anchor Brewing Company in San Francisco, California. This was an unexpected venture from an unlikely brewer; for generations, Maytag's family had run the Maytag Washing Machine Company in Iowa and he had no training in brewing. Yet Maytag's career at Anchor initiated a phenomenal wave of growth in the American brewing industry that came to be known as the microbrewing—now “craft beer”—revolution. To understand Maytag's path, this article draws on original oral histories and artifacts that Maytag donated to the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History via the American Brewing History Initiative, a project to document the history of brewing in the United States. The objects and reflections that Maytag shared with the museum revealed a surprising link between the birth of microbrewing and the strategies and culture of mass manufacturing. Even if the hallmarks of microbrewing—a small-scale, artisan approach to making beer—began as a backlash against the mass-produced system of large breweries, they relied on Maytag's early, intimate connections to the assembly-line world of the Maytag Company and the alchemy of intellectual curiosity, socioeconomic privilege, and risk tolerance with which his history equipped him.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gremil Alessandro Naz

<p>This paper examines the changes in Filipino immigrants’ perceptions about themselves and of Americans before and after coming to the United States. Filipinos have a general perception of themselves as an ethnic group. They also have perceptions about Americans whose media products regularly reach the Philippines. Eleven Filipinos who have permanently migrated to the US were interviewed about their perceptions of Filipinos and Americans. Before coming to the US, they saw themselves as hardworking, family-oriented, poor, shy, corrupt, proud, adaptable, fatalistic, humble, adventurous, persevering, gossipmonger, and happy. They described Americans as rich, arrogant, educated, workaholic, proud, powerful, spoiled, helpful, boastful, materialistic, individualistic, talented, domineering, friendly, accommodating, helpful, clean, and kind. Most of the respondents changed their perceptions of Filipinos and of Americans after coming to the US. They now view Filipinos as having acquired American values or “Americanized.” On the other hand, they stopped perceiving Americans as a homogenous group possessing the same values after they got into direct contact with them. The findings validate social perception and appraisal theory, and symbolic interaction theory.</p>


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emma L Bradshaw ◽  
Cody R. DeHaan ◽  
Philip Parker ◽  
Randall Curren ◽  
Jasper Duineveld ◽  
...  

We integrate Rawls’ (1971/2009, 1993, 2001) concept of primary goods with self-determination theory (SDT; Ryan &amp; Deci, 2017), to examine the link between people’s perceptions of primary goods (i.e., views of society as just and fair), basic psychological need satisfaction, and well-being. In Study 1 (N=762, countries = Australia, the United States, South Africa, India, and the Philippines) and Study 2 (N=1479, groups = ethnic minority, sexual minority, political group, religious group), we used partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) to assess associations between perceptions of primary goods and wellness, and the intermediary role of basic psychological needs. Perceptions of primary goods linked positively to well-being (average effect size = 0.48), and negatively to ill-being (average effect size = -0.46). These associations were strongly mediated by basic psychological needs (average percentage mediated: 53% Study 1 and 68% Study 2). Results signify the importance of primary goods’ perceptions to wellness.


1993 ◽  
Vol 28 (10) ◽  
pp. 1-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Gaber ◽  
M. Antill ◽  
W. Kimball ◽  
R. Abdel Wahab

The implementation of urban village wastewater treatment plants in developing countries has historically been primarily a function of appropriate technology choice and deciding which of the many needy communities should receive the available funding and priority attention. Usually this process is driven by an outside funding agency who views the planning, design, and construction steps as relatively insignificant milestones in the overall effort required to quickly better a community's sanitary drainage problems. With the exception of very small scale type sanitation projects which have relatively simple replication steps, the development emphasis tends to be on the final treatment plant product with little or no attention specifically focused on community participation and institutionalizing national and local policies and procedures needed for future locally sponsored facilities replication. In contrast to this, the Government of Egypt (GOE) enacted a fresh approach through a Local Development Program with the United States AID program. An overview is presented of the guiding principals of the program which produced the first 24 working wastewater systems including gravity sewers, sewage pumping stations and wastewater treatment plants which were designed and constructed by local entities in Egypt. The wastewater projects cover five different treatment technologies implemented in both delta and desert regions.


Author(s):  
Celine Parreñas Shimizu

Transnational films representing intimacy and inequality disrupt and disgust Western spectators. When wounded bodies within poverty entangle with healthy wealthy bodies in sex, romance and care, fear and hatred combine with desire and fetishism. Works from the Philippines, South Korea, and independents from the United States and France may not be made for the West and may not make use of Hollywood traditions. Rather, they demand recognition for the knowledge they produce beyond our existing frames. They challenge us to go beyond passive consumption, or introspection of ourselves as spectators, for they represent new ways of world-making we cannot unsee, unhear, or unfeel. The spectator is redirected to go beyond the rapture of consuming the other to the rupture that arises from witnessing pain and suffering. Self-displacement is what proximity to intimate inequality in cinema ultimately compels and demands so as to establish an ethical way of relating to others. In undoing the spectator, the voice of the transnational filmmaker emerges. Not only do we need to listen to filmmakers from outside Hollywood who unflinchingly engage the inexpressibility of difference, we need to make room for critics and theorists who prioritize the subjectivities of others. When the demographics of filmmakers and film scholars are not as diverse as its spectators, films narrow our worldviews. To recognize our culpability in the denigration of others unleashes the power of cinema. The unbearability of stories we don’t want to watch and don’t want to feel must be borne.


Author(s):  
William R. Thompson ◽  
Leila Zakhirova

No two system leaders were identical in their claims to being the most innovative states in their respective zones, eras, and periods of leadership. Nonetheless, three general categories emerge: maritime commercial leadership, a pushing of agrarian boundaries, and sustained industrial economic growth. Those that made breakthroughs in the latter category, of course, redefined the modern world. Frontiers were critically important in all four cases of system leadership (China, the Netherlands, Britain, and the United States), but not exactly in the same way. Major improvements in transportation/communication facilitated economic growth by making interactions more feasible and less expensive, although the importance of trade varied considerably. Expanding populations were a hallmark of all four cases, even if the scale of increase varied. Population growth and urbanization forced agriculture to become more efficient and provided labor for nonagricultural pursuits. Urban demands stimulated regional specialization, technological innovation, and energy intensification, expanding the size of domestic markets and contributing to scalar increases in production. Just how large those scalar increases were depended on the interactions among technological innovation, power-driven machinery, and energy transition. Yet no single change led automatically to technological leadership. While lead status was never gained by default, it helped to have few rivals. As more serious rivals emerged, technological leaderships became harder to maintain.


2021 ◽  
pp. 152483992110249
Author(s):  
April M. Ballard ◽  
Alison T. Hoover ◽  
Ana V. Rodriguez ◽  
Bethany A. Caruso

The Dignity Pack Project is a small-scale, crisis-oriented supply chain in Atlanta, Georgia, designed to meet the acute personal hygiene,menstrual health, and sexual health needs of people experiencing homelessness (PEH). It was organized in response to conditions during the COVID-19 pandemic that continue to illuminate and exacerbate the distinct and complex challenges PEH face when trying to meet their basic needs and maintain their health. In addition to being particularly vulnerable to COVID-19 due to underlying conditions, crowding, and shared living spaces, the pandemic makes it harder for PEH to access already scant resources. Specifically, shelters across the United States have experienced outbreaks and, as a result, have reduced capacity or closed completely. Social support organizations have paused or restricted services. Donations and volunteering have decreased due to economic conditions and social distancing requirements. This practice note describes how we integrated feedback from PEH at the outset of the Dignity Pack project—and continue to do so—enabling the development of a pragmatic, humanistic outreach model that responds to the evolving needs of PEH as pandemic conditions and the seasons change. We detail how we established complementary partnerships with local organizations and respond to critical insights provided by PEH. We offer lessons and recommendations driven by the needs and preferences of PEH.


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