Modeling poultry and maize sector interactions in Southern Africa under a changing climate

•This study explores how regional-level interactions of livestock and crop sectors influence the capacity of a southern Africa sub-region to meet its future demand for livestock-derived foods. •It uses a spatial equilibrium modeling framework to simulate regional trade in poultry and maize products in Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, and Zambia. •Model outputs on the demand, production, and trade of poultry products and maize are compared for a baseline and an alternative future scenario representing drought conditions.•The study’s abstraction of a regional approach to livestock and feed sector interactions in the selected region highlights the role of markets in addressing cross-boundary challenges related to food demand expansion and resource management.•Results imply that the study countries could benefit from addressing their growing demands for livestock-derived foods using a harmonized approach. Further, regional livestock markets may offer cushioning effects to the impacts of climate change in at least one of the countries.•However, improved quality data and an enhanced specification of the analytical model to better account for the nuances of livestock and feed trade in the region and for varied scenarios of future climate change will be needed, to extend the current study to practical policy application.

Analysis of Child Marriage and Related Policies in Indonesia: Sustainable Development Issue

Child marriage is a prevalent social problem in developing countries, including Indonesia, and its implementation has been prohibited in all regions of Indonesia. The revision of the marriage law that lifts up the minimum age limit for child marriage and the implementation of the child protection policy does not inevitably guarantee that the practice of child marriage can be avoided. The research objective of this study was to analyze the success of the factors and the effectiveness of the implementation of policies on handling the practice of child marriage in achieving sustainable goals in Indonesia. Data collection was performed using a profile approach utilizing data from the National Development Planning Agency of 2016-2019, desk review of the literature, and stock-taking of relevant research studies. Moreover, the effectiveness of policy implementation is assessed using a contingency analysis of the factors of policy commitment and government capacity. The results showed that the effectiveness of policy implementation from the factor of policy commitment was performed through the integration of the goals of SDGs into the national strategy for preventing child marriage, enforcement of main policy changes, mapping of regional-based issue trends and root causes, mapping of regional-level derivative policies issued before main policy revision changes, harmonization and synchronization of various policies through derivative policies, planning and development at the regional and village levels. Adjustment in the factor of implementation capacity of policy is indicated by institutional convergence and synergy of various parties, including learning from various good practices in the regions. The contingency matrix-based policy application model for handling the practice of child marriage will be effective if it utilizes a progressive model.

Achieving a Balance Between Privacy Protection and Data Collection: A Field Experimental Examination of a Theory-Driven Information Technology Solution

Companies face a trade-off between creating stronger privacy protection policies for consumers and employing more sophisticated data collection methods. Justice-driven privacy protection outlines a method to manage this trade-off. We built on the theoretical lens of justice theory to integrate justice provision with two key privacy protection features, negotiation and active-recommendation, and proposed an information technology (IT) solution to balance the trade-off between privacy protection and consumer data collection. In the context of mobile banking applications, we prototyped a theory-driven IT solution, referred to as negotiation, active-recommendation privacy policy application, which enables customer service agents to interact with and actively recommend personalized privacy policies to consumers. We benchmarked our solution through a field experiment relative to two conventional applications: an online privacy statement and a privacy policy with only a simple negotiation feature. The results showed that the proposed IT solution improved consumers’ perceived procedural justice, interactive justice, and distributive justice and increased their psychological comfort in using our application design and in turn reduced their privacy concerns, enhanced their privacy awareness, and increased their information disclosure intentions and actual disclosure behavior in practice. Our proposed design can provide consumers better privacy protection while ensuring that consumers voluntarily disclose personal information desirable for companies.

Factors Impacting the Application of an Inclusive Education Policy on Screening, Identification, Assessment, and Support of the Learners at Schools in South Africa

The purpose of this research is to establish factors impacting the application of an inclusive education policy on screening, identification, assessment, and support of learners at schools in South Africa. The paradigm of the research is interpretivist because the policy is aligned to Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological theory which attests that, for an education system to be effectively inclusive, there should be a shift from a paradigm that views barriers within a learner in isolation to a paradigm that views the barriers in a learner. There is interconnectedness of the barriers with the rest of the systems within and outside the learner. The participants were seven school principals and five members of the district-based support team, who were purposefully sampled. Individual semi-structured interviews were conducted to elicit information on factors impacting the application of the policy. Data were analysed using the themes that emerged from the responses of the participants. Results reveal that the educators’ character traits, internal training and development, perceived policy application, and internal and external support for learners experiencing learning barriers impact policy application. The study recommends that aspiring educators must be adequately trained about policy at training institutions. Educators must be capacitated on policy application and every school must appoint a psychometric assessor who will provide information to educators on how best to support learners with learning barriers. The psychometric assessor must coordinate with the district-based support team for external support needs in policy implementation.

The Impact of Mobility Policy and Modal Share to The University Community in Bologna

In the Twentieth century transportation has been one of the most impactful drivers for economic and social development, while nowadays, it appears as a major cause of environmental and social problems. Even worse, the more transportation has become a relevant part in daily life and business, the more it is blamed for problems such as traffic congestion, car accidents, social economic inequality, energy consumption and pollution. Transportation is in fact caught in a vicious circle. Urban planning is forced to reduce transition costs, transforming cities in a sort of social network, and in parallel to orient mobility towards sustainability, both capable to convey socioeconomic development. Within this context, the University of Bologna has chosen a sustainable approach for its Multi-campus territorial structure, applying several sustainable mobility policies regarding public transportation, cycling, electric/hybrid car fleet and walking accessibility. The paper purpose is to show significative links between sustainable policy application and modal share, using data from an online survey submitted to university staff and students. Even gender influence on modal share has been investigated.