scholarly journals Implementing the nexus at various scales: Local and regional perspectives

Author(s):  
Eefje Aarnoudse ◽  
Jan Leentvaar

AbstractMany issues in the water, energy and agricultural sector are in fact crosscutting issues, which can only be solved by a nexus approach. A nexus approach means that management solutions account for synergies and tradeoffs between the sectors. Critical issues emerging across the three sectors ask for different policies at different governance levels. However, at each level of policy making the impact at local level should be an important point of reference. In line with this, the case of the Aral Sea Basin in Central Asia exemplifies how international energy politics affect local farmers’ access to irrigation water. Moreover, a comparative study of three states in India shows that local differences in the implementation of the nexus approach can lead to different outcomes in terms of groundwater and electricity use for agriculture. These two examples underline that to implement a nexus approach; the local perspective should not be overlooked, even when policies are designed at higher governance levels.

2018 ◽  
Vol 51 (5) ◽  
pp. 749-769 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ank Michels ◽  
Harmen Binnema

Although deliberative reforms have been proposed to strengthen democracy, little is known about their impact on politics, public policies, and society. This article develops a framework to systematically assess this impact, differentiating between direct and indirect forms of impact. We apply this framework to two cases of deliberative citizens’ summits in the Netherlands. Our analysis reveals that these summits have a limited direct impact on local politics and policy making, but a relatively strong indirect impact on the local community. The article also discusses some conditions that mediate the impact of the forum.


2020 ◽  
Vol 245 ◽  
pp. 105125 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xuanxuan Wang ◽  
Yaning Chen ◽  
Zhi Li ◽  
Gonghuan Fang ◽  
Fei Wang ◽  
...  

Agriculture ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (12) ◽  
pp. 264 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wojciech Sroka ◽  
Michał Dudek ◽  
Tomasz Wojewodzic ◽  
Karol Król

The increasing importance of large cities (metropolises) poses a range of challenges to the socio-economic functions of the rural and agricultural areas around them. One such challenge is pressure exerted on family-run farms to abandon agricultural activity and on people engaged in such activity to shift to other sectors. This may be a hindrance to successful succession on family farms. The aim of this paper is to present spatial variation in generational changes in farms located around large cities (metropolises) in Poland and to assess the factors affecting the scale of such changes. Special attention was paid to the importance of the location of farms relative to large cities. One innovative feature of the approach presented was to conduct an analysis of generational changes in the agricultural sector at the supra-local level along with an attempt to quantify the impact of large urban centers on that process. The empirical material based on which the conclusions were formulated included official statistics data and information made available by an institution engaged in the implementation of agricultural policy programs financed from European Union (EU) funds, i.e., young farmer payments (Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) pillar I) and measures “Setting up of young farmers” and “Early retirement” (CAP Pillar II). In the executed study, methods of descriptive and multivariate statistics, including regression trees, were used. It was found that socio-economic (exogenous) factors had a significant statistical impact on generational changes in farms. In areas with an attractive labor market and a high level of urbanization, a successful generational shift in farms occurred less often. Nonetheless, generational changes in the agriculture of the analyzed areas were relatively most strongly determined by endogenous factors linked with the economic potential of the farm. Farm characteristics (area of agricultural land and economic size) and the characteristics of managers, including in particular their education, were found to be more important than exogenous factors. In areas where large and economically strong farms dominated and the level of education among farmers was relatively high, generational changes were faster compared to other areas.


2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 143-157 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charbel Chedrawi ◽  
Alain Osta ◽  
Souheir Osta

Purpose Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become an issue in the international banking industry, where each bank must assert its stakeholders, the social fabric and the natural environment. In the same time, legitimacy which has become one of the most critical issues for corporations, can be increased in the eyes of other stakeholders or institutions by structurally or procedurally adjusting to institutional influences. By conforming to three external institutional pressures (normative, mimetic and coercive), identified by DiMaggio and Powell (1983), organizations can build, support and gain legitimacy for their activities in specific institutional environments. Design/methodology/approach Using a qualitative approach, this research highlights the input of neo-institutional theory in the CSR context in top Lebanese banks in Lebanon. Findings This paper aims to analyze the impact of neo-institutionalism and the role of stakeholders in legitimizing CSR practices in the Lebanese banking sector. Practical implications Top Lebanese banks cannot simply comply with institutional pressures to gain their legitimacy, they need to develop their CSR activities targeted toward legitimacy-building at the local level; as for managers they cannot simply adopt managerial perspectives instrumentally to gain societal support, they need to adapt such perspectives and practices to the local needs as expressed by their internal and external stakeholders. Originality/value Managers of top Lebanese banks need to proactively engage in managing institutional pressures by adopting and adapting legitimacy-seeking strategies. This study highlights that top Lebanese banks differ in their CSR orientation because of their ownership structure, number of employees and profitability.


2021 ◽  
Vol 269 ◽  
pp. 01013
Author(s):  
Xiangye Zhang ◽  
Hailong Liu ◽  
Hui Chen

Global change brings great uncertainty to the fragile ecological environment of arid area. In order to understand the driving role of climatic factors and socio-economic activity on changes, the distribution and change of vegetation in the Aral Sea basin were examined using data from remote sensing, population data sets from 2000 to 2015, transfer matrix, and the centre of gravity model. The salient results of the analysis were as follows. (1) Although the index increased slightly in the past 20 years overall, it fluctuated greatly over that time. From 2000 to 2015, the NDVI decreased in approximately 62% of the area; increased in 24%; and remained unchanged in 14%. (2) From 2000 to 2015, the geographic centre of the area under forest land to the northeast, marking the advancement of urbanization upstream. The geographic centre of grassland moved to the west. (3) The overall impact of precipitation on vegetation was greater than that of temperature. Areas showing a strong correlation were mostly concentrated in forest land; the impact of precipitation on grasslands was weak. (4) The distribution of vegetation was adversely affected by the increase in population and in GDP. The present study is of particular significance to the restoration and reconstruction of the Aral Sea basin ecosystem.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Henry Ufomba

Abstract This paper is situated within the growing debate on how the domestic economic policies of developed countries condition that of the developing countries through the mechanism of international trade relations under the auspices of the WTO. Using the framework of the dependency theory I shall examine the economic impact of the EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) on Africa with critical attention on the agricultural sector of the former, drawing empirical evidence from the present situation in Senegal. This answered the overarching question: How does the EU CAP affect the economies of Africa in general and Senegal in particular? The empirical evidence from Senegal’s experience presented in this paper revealed that CAP negatively affects the economic growth of Africa through the suffocation of its agricultural sector as a result of its distortion of the domestic price and the inability of local farmers to produce at a price that can compete equally with the heavily subsidized imported alternatives from the EU.


2004 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 107-127 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans Bruyninckx

The UN Convention to Combat Desertification is a mix of traditional regime elements with a set of innovations. These innovative elements can be interpreted as emanations of policy discourses that have been gaining in importance since the introduction and the fairly broad acceptance of sustainable development and Agenda 21 as guiding conceptual frameworks. In this article I first elaborate on three of those discourses: the participatory, the decentralization and the local knowledge discourses. In a second part, I will look at Burkina Faso as an example of UNCCD policy implementation at the national and the local level (Yatenga region). It will become clear that although changes are visible in policy-making dynamics, major difficulties and obstacles remain. The CCD undeniably has an impact at the national level of policy-making. It has provided support for decentralization, for more participatory processes of policy-making and for the inclusion of local knowledge in the policy process. At the more decentralized level the impact is less clear and more difficult to distinguish.


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