Water for Life

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Madeline Baer
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Citizen Participation ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Water Policy ◽  
State Capacity ◽  
National Level ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Political Will ◽  
Water And Sanitation ◽  
The Right

Chapter 5 provides a case study of the human rights-based approach to water policy through an analysis of the Bolivian government’s attempts to implement the human right to water and sanitation. It explores these efforts at the local and national level, through changes to investments, institutions, and policies. The analysis reveals that while Bolivia meets the minimum standard for the human right to water and sanitation in some urban areas, access to quality water is low in poor and marginalized communities. While the Bolivian government expresses a strong political will for a human rights approach and is increasing state capacity to fulfill rights, the broader criteria for the right to water and sanitation, including citizen participation and democratic decision-making, remain largely unfulfilled. This case suggests political will and state capacity might be necessary but are not sufficient to fulfill the human right to water and sanitation broadly defined.

State e-Government Portals in Malaysia

2013 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 19-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aria Asadi Eskandar ◽  
Murali Raman
Keyword(s):  
Citizen Participation ◽  
State Government ◽  
National Level ◽  
State Level ◽  
Security And Privacy ◽  
Review Of Literature ◽  
Web Portal ◽  
Government Service ◽  
The Past ◽  
Government Websites

Most of the international e-Government benchmarking studies have focused on national government websites such as portal of ministries at the national level. This paper examines the level of sophistication of e-Government websites for different states in Malaysia, as opposed to a national level assessment, both in terms of the breadth and depth of e-Government service offering. This paper adds to the existing body of knowledge in relation to e-Government web portal assessment in two ways. First, studies pertaining to e-Government in Malaysia focus mainly on implementation issues at the Federal/National level– The authors examined State level implementation of e-Government services. Secondly, they used a predetermined instrument to assess the sophistication level of State government web portals, by consolidating different measurement items from our review of literature over the past ten years. The authors analyzed the website for a total of thirteen states in Malaysia, in relation to six different dimension measures of e-Government service offerings, as prescribed by literature. These six dimension measures are the extent of transparency, interactivity, usability and accessibility of the portal, citizen participation, security and privacy, and maturity level of services. A content analysis of the web portal was done, using a predetermined instrument developed based on our review of literature on this topic, in the past ten years. Their findings suggest that different State Governments in Malaysia demonstrate different levels of maturity in relation to the six dimensions measured.

scholarly journals Neoliberal hegemony and the territorial re-configuration of public space in Mexico City.

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carla Alexandra Filipe Narciso
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Mexico City ◽  
Citizen Participation ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
National Level ◽  
Ecological Modernization ◽  
Class Differences ◽  
Political Discourses ◽  
America Latina ◽  
Policies And Programs

Sustainability, ecological modernization, citizen participation, public space and rights are concepts that have acquired great importance in international political discourses and that have figured in indicators, guidelines, programs and policies, at national level, giving rise to a urban planning from administrative units or “zoning”, which instead of showing the different structures, forms and functions of cities as a whole, what has generated is a fragmentation of urban space. In a certain way, the implosion of these themes shows the success of capitalism in a period of neoliberal hegemony, since it becomes a smokescreen to hide the class differences superimposed on global discourses of modernization and development, as well as the transformation of natural resources in products, the capitalization of nature and the transformation of politics into management. The text seeks to reflect on the territorial configuration of public space in the light of emerging urban policies and programs in a neoliberal geopolitical context based on two axes of analysis: in the first analyze the neoliberal imposition models on how to construct public space and in the second will analyze the institutional bases, programs and policies of intervention highlighting their objectives, limitations and contradictions that help to understand the material and immaterial forms that the public space adopts at different scales in Mexico City through of the socio-territorial relations that are constructed in a process of mutual reciprocity. References Brenner, N.; Peck, J.; Theodore, N. (2009).Urbanismo neoliberal: La ciudad y el imperio de los mercados. SUR Corporación de Estudios Sociales y Educación, Temas sociales, n.66. Capel, H. (2002). La morfología de las ciudades. I. Sociedad, cultura y paisaje urbano (Ediciones del Serbal, Barcelona). Harvey, D. (2007) Espacios del capital. Hacia una geografía crítica (Akal, Madrid). Narciso, C.; Ramírez, B. (2016). Discursos, política y poder: el espacio público en cuestión. Territorios 35, Bogotá, pp.37-57. Pradilla, E. (2009) Los territorios del neoliberalismo en América Latina (Universidad Autónoma de México/Miguel Ángel Porrúa, México).

scholarly journals Federal management of the Argentine coastal zone

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
José R. Dadon ◽  
Nadia Boscarol ◽  
Alejandro J.A. Monti ◽  
Mónica C. García ◽  
Eleonora Verón ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Coastal Zone ◽  
Citizen Participation ◽  
Coastal Management ◽  
Marine Protected Area ◽  
National Level ◽  
Financial Resources ◽  
Interjurisdictional Competition ◽  
Commercial Code ◽  
Patagonian Coast ◽  
Low Incidence

The Argentine Coastal Zone is a fluvio-maritime continuum of great climatic and biogeographic diversity that extends from the northern end of the Río de la Plata basin to the southern extreme of the Patagonian coast. This paper analyzes the changes related to coastal management in the period 2009-2019 in public policies, regulations, competencies, responsibilities, institutions, instruments, training, capacity building, financial resources, scientific knowledge, environmental information and education, and citizen participation. Among the most significant advances are the determination of the limits of the continental shelf, the more precise regulation in the reformed Civil and Commercial Code, the formulation of a Federal Coastal Management Strategy and several sectoral strategies, the creation of the first marine protected area, the increase of the postgraduate courses related to coastal management, and the expansion of the environmental contents to all levels of the education system. On the other hand, it is worth noting the scarcity of financial resources for institutional strengthening, the low incidence of citizen participation and the persistence of interjurisdictional competition conflicts. It is concluded that the sectoral model of coastal management has consolidated, with a tendency to migrate from a centralized management at the national level to a federal system with greater decision capacity for the provinces.

Understanding government discourses on social media: Lessons from the use of YouTube at local level1

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Osiris S. González-Galván
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Citizen Participation ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Local Level ◽  
National Level ◽  
The Past ◽  
Communication Processes ◽  
The World ◽  
Digital Methods ◽  
Use Of Social Media

Local Governments around the world have taken advantage of social media during the past ten years to improve transparency and to provide public services. Challenges related to information management and citizen participation have emerged, namely at the local level where the diffusion of social media has been slower compared to initiatives launched at the national level. This paper analyzes how the use of social media can reflect a change in the discursive exchanges established between local governments in Canada and Mexico and citizens. To achieve this goal, the use of YouTube by the municipalities of Quebec and Morelia was examined by using digital methods and content analysis. The author proposes the emergence of new conditions between government and users, which are changing the discourse, identity, and communication purposes of the municipalities. However, the development of more dialogic communication processes supported by social media is still a promise, at least on YouTube.

scholarly journals Participatory Dark Sky Quality Monitoring from Italy: Interactions Between Awareness Raising and Research

2016 ◽  
Vol 18 ◽  
pp. 40-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Giacomelli ◽  
Luciano Massetti ◽  
Francesco Sabatini ◽  
Elena Maggi
Keyword(s):  
Citizen Participation ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
National Level ◽  
Marine Ecology ◽  
Environmental Data ◽  
Light Pollution ◽  
Research Perspective ◽  
Academic System ◽  
Awareness Raising

Research on light pollution and its effects developed in Italy through a peculiar path. After originating seminal work in the late Nineties, above all the first world atlas of night sky brightness, the academic system apparently did not leverage this asset to a wider set of studies. In parallel, some activities which are prerequisites to research and analysis, such as measurement campaigns or development of calibration tests, were initiated in a “grassroots mode” by other sectors of society, such as non-governmental associations. One of the relevant example of this process is the BuioMetria Partecipativa project which was started in 2008 in Italy with the aim of encouraging non-professionals to collect data on light pollution as a strategy for environmental awareness raising. The BMP project conjugates this component with a scientific approach, allowing the collection of valuable quantitative environmental data, using a low-cost device, called Sky Quality Meter (SQM), provided to citizens. The measurements are loaded to a database on the project web site, and are published in a variety of formats. In 2011 the system was extended to collect data from fixed SQM stations for continuous monitoring, with the development of automated data harvesting procedures and leading to complement the citizen science measures with more high-quality time series of light pollution data. At the national level, the project obtained considerable recognition, in terms of citizen participation and media coverage. Most interestingly from a research perspective, the project acted as a trigger to initiate light pollution studies by Italian experts, namely in the areas of biometeorology and marine ecology. The article will review the process which led the authors to escalate their operations from awareness raising to research, and will provide an overview of the models and of the first tests conducted in the context of our research studies.

E-Governance Projects for E-Inclusion in India

2013 ◽  
pp. 341-367 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harekrishna Misra
Keyword(s):  
Citizen Participation ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
National Level ◽  
Scale Up ◽  
Capital Investments ◽  
International Agencies ◽  
Governance Systems ◽  
Governance Strategies ◽  
Multi Agent ◽  
Almost All

Globally, e-governance systems have evolved towards wider acceptance. Almost all the countries have embraced e-governance as part of their long term policy. Contemporary e-governance systems argue in favour of convergence with scale up strategies. These strategies include convergence among the business sector, government and the civil society in the country and aim to connect with international agencies for better networking. E-inclusion has also been an integral part of the national e-governance strategies to spur citizen participation. In case of European Union (EU), e-governance, e-inclusion and such convergence have become very important because of the member-driven common interests and benefits. In the case of developing countries, similar efforts are being made to incubate and rollout converged services to citizens in rural and semi-urban areas with e-inclusion imperatives. Notwithstanding these varied approaches, there are pitfalls in translating the strategies into actions at the national level. Implementation of strategies at the national level calls for appropriate architectural analyses. This is because e-governance efforts need huge capital investments, require longer life development cycles and involve multi-agent service orientation to address the barriers of e-inclusion. In this chapter, e-governance architectural issues are discussed with three cases drawn from Indian scenarios through a conceptual framework. This framework aims to examine the possibilities of architectural convergence for national level e-governance services with e-inclusion as an important attribute.

scholarly journals Citizen Participation in Low-Carbon Energy Systems: Energy Communities and Its Impact on the Electricity Demand on Neighborhood and National Level

Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 305
Author(s):  
Sebastian Zwickl-Bernhard ◽  
Hans Auer
Keyword(s):  
Citizen Participation ◽  
Research Question ◽  
National Level ◽  
Energy Systems ◽  
Electricity Demand ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Local Energy ◽  
Low Carbon ◽  
Residential Sector ◽  
Low Carbon Energy

In this work, the main research question is how a high penetration of energy communities (ECs) affects the national electricity demand in the residential sector. Thus, the existing building stock of three European regions/countries, namely, the Iberian Peninsula, Norway, and Austria, is analyzed and represented by four different model energy communities based on characteristic settlement patterns. A tailor-made, open-source model optimizes the utilization of the local energy technology portfolio, especially small-scale batteries and photovoltaic systems within the ECs. Finally, the results on the national level are achieved by upscaling from the neighborhood level. The findings of different 2030 scenarios (building upon narrative storylines), which consider various socio-economic and techno-economic determinants of possible future energy system development, identify a variety of modification potentials of the electricity demand as a result of EC penetration. The insights achieved in this work highlight the important contributions of ECs to low-carbon energy systems. Future work may focus on the provision of future local energy services, such as increasing cooling demand and/or high shares of electric vehicles, further enhancement of the upscaling to the national level (i.e., considering the distribution network capacities), and further diversification of EC composition beyond the residential sector.

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