PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF THE VEGETABLE TRADING CENTER IN LANTAPAN, BUKIDNON, PHILIPPINES

This paper evaluated the performance of the project: “Farmer Cluster-Managed Bagsakan (trading center) Model in Lantapan, Bukidnon”. It used the CIPP and OECD-DAC evaluation frameworks to make sense of the data. The said project envisioned to operate a farmer-cluster managed bagsakan center. The bagsakan was operationalized and result shows that farmers derived higher profit when they brought their products in the center compared to marketing it to major cities. Other outputs of the project are the trainings conducted but these did not reflect significant contribution to the bagsakan operation. In terms of the relevance of the project, its objective is found valid because it answers to the needs and problems confronting the vegetable farmers. Effectiveness assessment tells that to a little extent the project’s objective was attained given the bagsakan’s operationalization. Sustainability measurement of the project was not realized since the operation only lasted for one year.

Evaluating the Determinants and Sustainability of Public Debt for the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) Countries

This study examines the sustainability and relationship of public debt to selected macroeconomic variables for South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation (SAARC) countries from 1996 to 2017. For the relationship of public debt to macroeconomic variables, we employ a panel Autoregressive Distributed Lagged (ARDL) model. For sustainability measurement of public debt, we used a theoretically derived model based on necessary and sufficient conditions. The panel ARDL results for the long run show that the savinginvestment gap and economic growth negatively while the budget deficit and current account positively explain public debt. The sustainability measurement results based on necessary and sufficient conditions reveal that public debt remains unsustainable for most of the years in the presence of macroeconomic variables. It is recommended that countries in this association should formulate policies that promote saving culture. This saving culture may not only promote investment but also can affect the current account situation of these countries.

Sustainable Urban Transportation Criteria and Measurement—A Systematic Literature Review

Sustainable transportation plays a key role in social participation and climate change. However, no universally accepted set of criteria for tracking the progress of urban sustainable transportation projects currently exists; one reason for this is the absence of a standardized lexicon for sustainability measurement elements. Therefore, this paper conducts a systematic literature review and analysis of sustainable transportation criteria using 21 papers from journals listed in the German rating system JOURQUAL3 (JQ3) and published between 2010 and 2020. The paper thus develops a unified vocabulary for sustainability measurement elements that is structured into a hierarchy. The goal (sustainable transportation) presides over the following three sustainability dimensions: objectives (e.g., minimization of traffic clogging), criteria (e.g., congestion), and indicators (e.g., cost of traffic congestion). Within the hierarchy, the main criteria for urban multimodal sustainable transportation are identified as follows: 13 social, 11 economic, and 9 environmental main criteria are determined. The three main criteria used most in the literature exclusively concern the environment. Future research is recommended to assess the interrelations between the criteria as their assignment to sustainability dimensions is ambiguous in the existing literature. This paper helps mobility managers to make decisions about urban transportation concepts and while overseeing projects.

Sometimes, green is the outcome: climate action in records management and archives in Canada

Purpose The paper aims to respond to three questions: Are Canadian organizations committed to sustainability? Are there any links between sustainability and records management and archives programs? And, to what extent are records managers, archivists and technologists engaged in climate action? The paper also provides background on climate change in the Canadian and global contexts, defines relevant terminology, and presents a literature review that positions sustainability, adaptation and mitigation in relation to records management and archives. Design/methodology/approach The paper is based on qualitative participatory research involving expert interviews in 24 government agencies, universities and businesses located in 10 Canadian cities. Findings The organizations in the study are committed to sustainability and have developed significant programs and activities in support of this aim. Although the records managers, archivists and technologists interviewed are involved in related activities, there is a gap between what they are doing as a matter of course and the wider sustainability efforts of their parent organizations. As resources are tight, sustainability measurement entails more work and there are no real incentives to add sustainability components to programs, the participants are focused on delivering the programs they are hired to do. As a result, there is a sense of serendipity around outcomes that do occur – “sometimes, green is the outcome”. Research limitations/implications This paper presents the results of research conducted at 24 organizations in 10 Canadian cities, a small but meaningful sample that provides a springboard for considering climate action in records and archives. Based on the discussion, there is a need for a records and archives agenda that directly responds the United Nation's climate action targets: strengthening resilience and adaptive capacity to climate-related hazards and natural disasters; integrating climate change measures into policies, strategies and planning; and improving education, awareness-raising and human institutional capacity on climate change mitigation, adaptation, impact reduction and early warning. In support of this aim, the paper charts possible material topics from the literature and compares these with research findings. Practical implications From a top-down perspective, organizations need to expand sustainability programs to address all business areas, including records and archives. From a bottom-up perspective, records managers and archivists should include adaptation in disaster planning and consider the program benefits of developing economic, environmental and social sustainability initiatives to mitigate climate change. Originality/value The paper defines resilience, sustainability, adaption and mitigation and positions these terms in records management and archives. The paper examines how records managers, archivists and technologists think about sustainability; where sustainability intersects with records and archives work; and how records managers and archivists can engage in climate action.

Well-Being and Sustainability in Crisis Areas: The Case of Taranto

Unresilient and fragile regions need methods and data able to make policy-makers acknowledge the specific criticalities by which they are affected, so as to build effective development strategies and policies. This research explores whether and to what extent well-being and sustainability measurement frameworks are able to recognize crisis areas. We identified Taranto (Italy), declared as both a National Priority Contaminated Site and a Complex Industrial Crisis area, as a paradigmatic and extreme case of crisis areas and adopted the single case approach to address our research question. After reviewing several frameworks able to measure well-being at local level, we focused on Benessere Equo e Sostenibile dei Territori (Equitable and Sustainable Territorial Well-being, BESdT). We used two aggregate indexes to analyze data, namely the Adjusted Mazziotta-Pareto Index and the Adjusted Differences Mean Index. The study shows that, although BESdT does detect some criticalities of the examined area, it seems not able to adequately frame the multifaceted crisis that affects the area of Taranto. Even in presence of a full-blown crisis, the problematic situation does not always reflect into lower territorial performance, neither at the level of single indicators nor at the level of entire domains. Such discrepancy appears to be particularly evident within the economic domain. The paper ends with a discussion on the research and policy implications and some proposals for further research.