The Efficacy of the Global Nuclear Security Legal Regime and States’ Implementation Capacity in Light of the Forthcoming Development of Advanced Nuclear Reactor Technologies

The forthcoming arrival of small modular reactors and other advanced nuclear reactor technologies can be an immensely beneficial development in the world’s collective pursuit of energy security and meeting climate change objectives. The key question is whether or not these new reactor technologies significantly alter the fundamental premises underlying the existing nuclear security legal regime. The Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material and its Amendment (A/CPPNM) are the only legally binding international instruments governing the physical protection of nuclear materials and nuclear facilities. Together the A/CPPNM and the international guidance on nuclear security comprise the current legal framework for nuclear security. This chapter examines whether the A/CPPNM adequately covers advanced reactor technologies; and whether the States that are interested in acquiring these new reactor technologies have the capacity to effectively implement the associated legal requirements, regulatory standards, and international guidance that comes along with such technologies. The analysis touches upon the role of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the IAEA Nuclear Security Guidance, and issues of cybersecurity.

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.

Implementation Capacity and Evaluation Capacity

The study of policy implementation and evaluation is the subject of a conflict between the viewpoint that the quality of public administration is defined by its capacity to implement policy faithfully and accurately, as it has been designed and promulgated, and the viewpoint that policy as it is practiced and delivered on the ground to citizens will only ever bear a passing similarity to policy as the purposeful design of central policymakers. As elsewhere in public administration, this conflict is far from a creative engagement and lacks a definitive resolution between the main schools of policy implementation that stress, in turn, top-down or bottom-up approaches. Progress has been made in the recognition that policy implementation and policy evaluation have become increasingly, in theory and practice, less distinct from one another and are best understood as different values of the same thing—policy feedback—rather than analytically different things. In this line of inquiry, the contextual analysis of implementation and evaluation is critical, and recent work has begun to uncover important success factors not conventionally labeled as implementation and evaluation. Connections between the study of implementation capacity and evaluation are now able to be made with prominent public administration debates on scale, complexity, and participation. These connections hold promise for future research.

Building implementation capacity in health care and welfare through team training—study protocol of a longitudinal mixed-methods evaluation of the building implementation capacity intervention

Background To ensure the provision of high-quality safety and cost-effective health and welfare services, managers and professionals are required to introduce and ensure the routine use of clinical guidelines and other evidence-based interventions. Despite this, they often lack training and support in implementation. This project aims to investigate how a team training intervention, with the goal to build implementation capacity, influences participants’ implementation knowledge and skills, as well as how it influences implementation activities and implementation capacity within participating health and welfare organizations. Furthermore, the aim is to investigate how the organizations’ contexts influence the intervention outcomes. Methods The building implementation capacity (BIC) intervention builds on the behavior change wheel, which considers implementation as a matter of behavior change. The intervention will be provided to teams of managers and professionals working in health and welfare organizations and seeking support to implement a guideline- or evidence-based intervention. The intervention consists of a series of interactive workshops that provides the participating teams with the knowledge and skills to apply a systematic implementation model. A longitudinal mixed-methods evaluation, including interviews, surveys, and document analysis, will be applied over 24 months. The normalization process theory measure will be used to assess how the intervention influences implementation activities in practice and implementation capacity in the teams and the wider organizations. Discussion This project has an ambition to add to the knowledge concerning how to promote the uptake of research findings into health care by building implementation capacity through team training in implementation. The project’s uniqueness is that it is designed to move beyond individual-level outcomes and evaluate implementation activities and implementation capacity in participating organizations. Further, the intervention will be evaluated over 24 months to investigate long-term outcomes of implementation training.

Trade relations between the European Union and Palestine: Assessment and Potential improvements

This article examines the bilateral relationship between the European Union and the Palestinian Authority. The EU’s policy towards Palestine, as with other neighboring countries, has always closely linked the economic and political elements of the relationship. Besides financial aid to support Palestine’s socio-economic development and state-building, trade between the EU and Palestine has had an increasingly important role in this regard. The article reviews the possibilities for improvement of EU-Palestine trade exchanges within the existing framework of cooperation by illustrating how implementation, capacity building, and support for regional and global economic integration are key and realistic options for both parties to reap the benefits from the trade agreements in place.

Barriers and opportunities to restricting marketing of unhealthy foods and beverages to children in Nepal: a policy analysis

Background Marketing of foods and non-alcoholic beverages high in saturated fats, trans-fatty acids, free sugars, or salt (“unhealthy foods”) to children is contributing to increasing child obesity. However, many countries have not implemented WHO recommendations to restrict marketing of unhealthy foods to children. We sought to understand the absence of marketing restrictions and identify potential strategic actions to develop and implement such restrictions in Nepal. Methods Eighteen semi-structured interviews were conducted. Thematic analysis was based on Baker et al.’s 18 factor-framework for understanding what drives political commitment to nutrition, organised by five categories: Actors; Institutions; Political and societal contexts; Knowledge, evidence and framing; Capacities and resources. Results All factors in Baker et al.’s framework were reported to be acting largely as barriers to Nepal developing and implementing marketing restrictions. Six factors were identified by the highest number of respondents: the threat of private sector interference in policy-making; lack of international actor support; absence of well-designed and enacted policies and legislation; lack of political commitment to regulate; insufficient mobilisation of existing evidence to spur action and lack of national evidence to guide regulatory design; and weak implementation capacity. Opportunities for progress were identified as Nepal’s ability to combat private sector interference - as previously demonstrated in tobacco control. Conclusions This is the first study conducted in Nepal examining the lack of restrictions on marketing unhealthy foods to children. Our findings reflect the manifestation of power in the policy process. The absence of civil society and a multi-stakeholder coalition demanding change on marketing of unhealthy food to children, the threat of private sector interference in introducing marketing restrictions, the promotion of norms and narratives around modernity, consumption and the primary role of the individual in regulating diet - all have helped create a policy vacuum on marketing restrictions. We propose that stakeholders focus on five strategic actions, including: developing a multi-stakeholder coalition to put and keep marketing restrictions on the health agenda; framing the need for marketing restrictions as critical to protect child rights and government regulation as the solution; and increasing support, particularly through developing more robust global policy guidance.

CEOs Driving Decision Making Toward Higher Performance: Strategic Micro-foundations of Small-Sized Family Firms

Chief executive officers (CEOs) have a substantial influence on the decision-making processes of the top management team (TMT) and the performance of the firm in general, and this influence is particularly important in small-sized family firms. By integrating research on CEO qualities and the CEO–TMT interface to explain how they interact in ways that drive firm performance, we provide a first attempt to highlight the importance of CEO capacity to implement decisions that were made following a comprehensive process (i.e., strategic decision comprehensiveness, SDC) for the performance of small-sized family firms. In so doing, we provide a micro-foundation lens and also direct research attention to decision implementation, a key issue in the field of strategic management, which unfortunately has relatively been overlooked in the extant literature. Results of multisource survey data collected from CEOs and TMT members of 131 small-sized family firms indicate a positive interaction effect between CEO implementation capacity, the TMT SDC, and the performance of small-sized family firms.

Political institutions, state capacity, and crisis management: A comparison of China and South Korea

How do political institutions influence crisis management? By comparing responses to COVID-19 in China and South Korea, this article argues that different political institutions affect countries’ responses to crises by shaping state capacity. First, the article proposes a state capacity-driven crisis management framework including four types of capacity: information capacity, decision-making and implementation capacity, coercive capacity, and mobilization and cooperation capacity. Second, the article contributes to the literature by making linkages between different forms of state capacity and regime type. Combinations of state capacity are different in democracies and authoritarian regimes because state capacities are shaped by two different institutional arrangements: central–local government relations and state–society relations. Additionally, the article finds that the impacts of political institutions on crisis management through different state capacities are contingent on scenarios such as the different stages of a crisis.

Exploring Private Sector Engagement for Faecal Sludge Emptying and Transport Business in Khulna, Bangladesh

In Khulna, Bangladesh, mechanical faecal sludge (FS) emptying and transport (E&T) service is provided by community development committees (CDCs) and the Khulna City Corporation (KCC). Without considering capital expenditure and depreciation, financial analysis for one year revealed that a CDC-1 m3 vacutug made a profit of Bangladeshi taka (BDT) 145,780 (USD $1746) whereas a KCC-2 m3 vacutug was in the loss of BDT 218,179 (USD $2613). There is a need to engage the private sector for sustainable service provision. Some of the key elements of enabling the environment for private sector engagement are policy/strategy, institutional and regulatory framework, implementation capacity, and financial viability. Existing policy/strategy/frameworks acknowledged the need and suggested plans for private sector engagement, and decentralised authority to city corporations. With increasing private-public partnership projects and collaboration in the sanitation sector, capacity of the KCC and the private sector are increasing. Financial viability of the FS E&T business is primarily dependent on the number of trips and the emptying fee. For the E&T business to be financially viable, a 2 m3 vacutug should make six trips/day (internal rate of return (IRR)—13%, discount rate—6.5%) with an emptying fee of BDT 750 (USD $9)/m3. Despite the lack of operative guidelines for faecal sludge management (FSM), enabling the environment for private sector engagement in FS E&T business in Khulna seems favourable.

Unpacking implementation capacity and contexts for degree reclamation strategies: What factors move the equity needle?

This paper used data from a multi-institutional study of community colleges developing and implementing degree reclamation strategies (adult reengagement and reverse credit transfer) to understand and unpack the factors that influence implementation and capacity development. The data come from seven colleges that are implementing equity-focused degree reclamation strategies aimed to reduce the population of “some college, no degree.” The research team used an interdisciplinary lens to identify these factors drawing from literature on capacity-building. Prior to the start of implementation, researchers surveyed institutions and institutional stakeholders to assess baseline capacity, and they tracked institutional participation and engagement in the strategy development and implementation process. This paper highlights findings from this research to identify which factors are most related to implementation variation and strategy outcomes.