Urban world

The survival of society has always depended on safeguarding the equilibrium between the variables of population, resources and environment. The neglect of this principle had disastrous and fatal consequences for civilisations of the past. We too are subject to the controlling laws of survival, but unlike them we are the first to be a global civilisation and therefore the first to have ever faced a simultaneous and world wide expansion of population, depletion of natural resources and erosion of the environment.

The concentration of the urban population of countries into large cities occurs in all parts of the world. It is a pattern that is independent of region, length of urban history and level of economic or urban development. Metropolitan dominance is most pronounced in South America and the Caribbean. The million cities in these regions house 45 percent of the urban population. Million cities equally dominate the urban hierarchy in many of the world’s most rural regions and countries. Despite the low overall level of urban development, around 30 percent of the urban population of south central Asia lives in cities with over one million people. They include the mega cities of Calcutta, Mumbai and Delhi. A similar percentage lives in million cities in southern Africa. Lagos is the largest city in this region, with a population of around 13 million.

Despite their enormous size, the world’s major cities at present are viable and stable places that represent a significant social and economic achievement. They contribute disproportionately to national economic growth and social transformation by providing economies of scale and proximity that allow industry and commerce to flourish. They offer locations for services and facilities that require large population thresholds and large markets to operate efficiently. The major cities house many million of people at extremely high densities and yet provide a range of opportunities and quality of life that is greater than that which is enjoyed in the surrounding rural area. Urban residents, even in the world’s poorest countries, have better access to medical services and higher levels of social welfare than those who live outside the city. The differences are reflected by most of the major social indicators. For example, infant mortality rates re lower in urban areas in 18 of 22 developing countries for which comparable statistics are reported. The urban rate is more than 20 per 1000 lower than the rural rate in Brazil, Ecuador, Ghana, Indonesia, Liberia, Mali, Morocco, Nigeria, Peru, Senegal, Thailand, Togo, and Zimbabwe.

Dire warnings of the imminent social or economic collapse of one or other mega city appear periodically in the press, but such a disaster has yet to happen. Social conflict or economic catastrophes are normally played out across and between regions or nation states rather than exclusively within individual cities. Disturbing pictures of poverty, congestion and pollution in Calcutta, Mumbai, Rio and Bangkok, and of riots in Los Angeles and Beijing readily divert attention from what such places represent. Rather than gigantic social mistakes, cities, generally, are highly successful settlement forms.




Critical approach to Culture, and Communication

Critical approach is a theoretically informed understanding, of the social order in which communications and cultural phenomena are being studied. This is a characteristic which shares with another major tradition of research - cultural studies. Both work within a broadly centre left view of society, both are centrally concerned with the constitution and exercise of power, and both take their distance from the liberal pluralist tradition of analysis with its broad acceptance of the central workings of advanced societies. But this shared general stance conceals long standing differences of approach, generated by the divergent intellectual histories of these traditions, and sustained by their very different locations on the contemporary academic map.

Work on communications from within a cultural studies perspective is centrally concerned with the construction of meaning how it is produced in and through particular expressive forms and how it is continually negotiated and deconstructed through the practices of everyday life. This project has generated work in three distinct, but related areas. The first, and by far the largest, concentrates on the analysis of cultural texts, including those produced by the media industries. In contrast to transportation models, which see media forms such as thrillers, soap operas or documentary films as vehicles for transmitting messages to consumers, cultural studies approach then as mechanisms for ordering meaning in particular ways. Where content analysis sees the meaning of say, a violent act in a television drama, as definable in advance and detachable from its position in the text or the programme’s relation to other texts, cultural studies insists that tits meaning is variable and depends crucially on the contexts supplied by the overall narrative, the programme’s genre, and the previous publicity surrounding the show and its stars.

This emphasis on the relational dimensions of meaning and its consequent mutability is pursued in a second major strand in cultural studies research, which is concerned with the way that audience members interpret media artefacts and incorporate them into their world views or life styles. This ethnographic thrust celebrates the creativity of consumers, and offers a powerful unnecessary counter to simple effects models. It views audience members as active subjects, continually struggling to make sense of their situation, rather than as passive objects of a dominant production system. This thrust is part of cultural studies wider attempt to retrieve the complexity of popular practices and beliefs. As a powerful counter to the simpler notions of effects and the dismissive critiques of popular culture as trivial and manipulative, it is clearly a very considerable gain. However, as we shall see, it can easily collude with conservative celebrations of untrammelled consumer choice.

In common with liberal defenders of the free market, the new populists of cultural studies focus on the moment of exchange when the meanings carried by texts meet the meanings that readers bring to them. In both styles of analysis, this encounters removed from its wider contexts and presented as an instance of consumer sovereignty. It is also a signal of popular resistance of ideology countered or evaded; top down power opposed by bottom up power, social discipline faced with disorder. This romantic celebration of subversive consumption is clearly at odds with cultural studies long standing concern with the way the mass media operate ideologically, to sustain and support prevailing relations of domination. But even if this wider perspective is restored there is still the problem that cultural studies offers an analysis of the way the cultural industries work that has little or nothing to say about how they actually operate as industries, and how their economic organization impinges on the production and circulation of meaning. Nor does it examine the ways in which people’s consumption choices are structured by their position in the wider economic formation. Exploring these dynamics is the primary task for a critical political economy of communications. In doing so we would be following the instance of not looking for the components of a product but for the conditions of a practice.


Three means of citizen engagement with the state in a democratic society includes: first through the ballot box as part of the electoral process, second as active citizens enrolled in civic participation at a local scale, third through involvement in social engagements. Each of these activities is it self a result of particular rights enjoyed by citizens in a democratic context – the right to vote, the right to participate in government and the right to participate in social, religious, economic and cultural activities. The difference between de jure and de facto citizenship frequently has a spatial manifestation – on finding that their rights are restricted in particular often public spaces, excluded groups create more private, marginal, spaces in which proper machineries can be achieved and the enforcement agencies of the state or of an intolerant minorities may be compromised and be negotiated.

Culture, power, technology

The meaning of the term ‘culture’ has a long and intricate history and is now used in different intellectual disciplines with diverse meanings. The word culture is traced back to its early use as a noun denoting a process: the culture of crops, or the culture of animals (rearing and breeding). In the sixteenth century this meaning was extended metaphorically to t he active cultivation of the human mind; and in the late eighteenth century, when the word was borrowed from the French by German writers, it acquired the meaning of a distinctive way of life of a people. In the nineteenth century the plural cultures became especially important in the development of comparative anthropology, where it has continued to designate distinctive ways of life.

In the meantime, the older use of culture as the active cultivation of the mind continued, indeed, it expanded and diversified, covering a range of meanings from a developed state of mind as a cultured person, to the process of this development - cultured activities, to the means of these processes. In our time, the different meanings of culture that are associated with the active cultivation of the mind co exist with the anthropological use as a distinctive way of life of a people or social group. To analyse a social reality there is a need to focus on the meaning defined as the integrated system of socially acquired values, beliefs, and rules of conduct that delimit the range of accepted behaviours in any given society. It is created by a social network involving multiple feedback loops through which values, beliefs, and rules of conduct are continually communicated, modified, and sustained, it emerges from a network of communications among individuals and as it emerges, it produces constraints on their actions. In other words, the social structures, or rules of behavior, that constrain the actions of individuals are produced and continually reinforced by their own network of communications. The social network produces a shared body of knowledge, including information, ideas, and skills - that shapes the culture’s distinctive way of life in addition to its values and beliefs. Moreover, the culture’s values and beliefs affect its body of knowledge. They are part of the lens through which we see th world. They help us to interpret our experiences and to decide what kind of knowledge is meaningful. The meaningful knowledge, continually modified by the network of communications, is passed on from generation to generation together with the culture’s values, beliefs, and rules of conduct. The system of shared values and beliefs creates an identity among the members of the social network, based on a sense of belonging. People in different cultures have different identities because they share different sets of values and beliefs. At the same time, an individual may belong to several different cultures. People’s behavior is informed and restricted by their cultural identities, which in turn reinforces their sense of belonging. Culture is embedded in people’s way of life, and it tends to be so pervasive that it escapes our everyday awareness.
Cultural identity also reinforces the closure of the network by creating a boundary of meaning and expectations that limit’s the access of people and information to the network. Thus the social network is engaged in communication within a cultural boundary which its members continually recreate and renegotiate. Social boundaries of meaning are not necessarily physical boundaries but boundaries of meaning and expectations. They do not literally surround the network, but exist in a mental realm that does not have the topological properties of physical space.

One of the most striking characteristics of social reality is the phenomenon of power. The exercise of power, the submission of some to the will of others, is inevitable in modern society, nothing whatever is accomplished with out it… power can be socially malign, it is also socially essential. The essential role of power in social organisation is linked to inevitable conflicts of interest. Because of our ability to affirm preferences and make choices accordingly, conflicts of interest will appear in any human community, and power is the means by which these conflicts are resolved. Coercive power wins submission by inflicting or threatening sanctions; compensatory power by offering incentives or rewards; and conditioned power by changing beliefs through persuasion or education. To find the right mixture of these three kinds of power in order to resolve conflicts and balance competing interests is the art of politics.

Relationships of power are culturally defined by agreements on positions of authority that are part of the culture’s rules of conduct. In human evolution, such agreements may have emerged very early on with the development of the first communities. A community would be able to act much more effectively if somebody had the authority to make or facilitate decisions when there were conflicts of interest. Such social arrangements would have given the community a significant evolutionary advantage.

Indeed, the original meaning of authority is not power to command, but a firm basis for knowing and acting. From the earliest times, human communities have chosen men and women as their leaders when they recognized their wisdom and experience as a firm basis for collective action. The origin of power lies in culturally defined positions of authority on which the community relies for the resolution of conflicts and for decisions about how to act wisely and effectively. In other words, true authority consists in empowering others to act. However when the invested authority, rather than the wisdom of a leader, is the only source of power, where its nature changes from empowering others to the advancement of an individual’s own interest, power becomes linked to exploitation.

Today, more often, individuals and groups seek power to advance their own interests and to extend to others their personal, religious, or social values.

In terms of technology, critics have emphasized the increasing tensions between cultural values and high technology. Technology advocates often discount those critical voices by claiming threat technology is neutral, that it can have beneficial or harmful effects depending on how it is used. However, specific technology will always shape human nature in specific ways, because the use of technology is such a fundamental aspect of being human. The fact is that as part of our culture, technology has an influence on the way in which we behave and grow. The process, however, can not be stopped nor the relationship ended; it can only be understood and directed toward goals worthy of humankind - the management of human organisations, the challenges of economic globalization, and the design of sustainable communities.

Wisdom, Knowledge, Information

Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?

T.S.Eliot, The Rock, Chorus I, 1960


The principal characteristics of the impact of scientific culture on modern politics include the growing deployment of professional instrumental and technical vocabularies in fields of political discourse formerly regulated by religious, moral and legal. The principal themes of modernity is captured, by the poet here, as ways or means of knowing. What we need is trust in the transparency of political realities to the public and therefore in the possibility of public political accountability, breaking down the alienation of the means of knowing from personality. Modern technology has enormously enlarged the options for shifting from passive to active engagement, introducing the element of play into the engagement with politics by means of the Mass Media. They do not seem to be disciplined by the scientific commitment to repress affective, emotional, aesthetic or psychological elements as disruptions or distortions of the cool, rational, unmotivated representations of the world. This makes contemporary humanity aware of the role of media and of creativity in the production of notions of reality and in mind setting which travel in our culture and politics. There is increasing focus on recent implications of the decline of the Enlightenment’s synthesis of knowledge and politics and the rise of new configurations of knowing and doing politics.

Wisdom as a form of knowing or communicating knowledge is not usually easily acquired or teachable, nor accessible through the mastery of technical skills. It is often associated with faith in the privileged access of the wise to supernatural sources of knowledge or to unique revelatory experiences. Words of wisdom are characteristically polysemous mixtures of cognitive, moral, emotional, social, philosophical and practical references. The gems of wisdom founding Ecclesistes or Montaigne’s Essays are well known examples. These expressions of wisdom invite endless reflections and interpretations, especially those which are supposed to have layers of esoteric, hidden meanings. By comparison knowledge in the scientific sense is perceived as much more systematically organized and formalized - especially due to its logical and mathematical components. Knowledge as it emerged in the West relates to values such as clarity, logical rigor, a sharp distinction between truth and error, conflicts of opinions and the urge for their rational resolution. Wisdom by comparison is inclusive of truth and its opposites, irenic rather than polemic, allusive rather than explicit or public, and often expressed in silence. In this sense, the omnipresence of informal layers of ’tacit knowledge’ in science (Polanyi 1974) is undeniable. But the production, certification and communication of scientific knowledge engages a host of methodologies and tools, whose intended or unintended import has the effect of de-contextualizing and depersonalizing claims of knowledge, thus rendering them particularly useful in the production of the modern democratic order. Inasmuch as science, much more explicitly, is a socially cooperative enterprise scientists produce and possess their knowledge together (Merton 1957).

By contrast to wisdom, scientific knowledge and skills are presumed teachable. they involve the mastery of technical mental or material operations and are therefore more independent of unique personal experiences, inspiration or unusual personality traits. Hence, although scientific knowledge, especially in its formal mathematical embodiments, may in fact be restricted to specialists, the fact that it can be learned renders it more accessible in principle and therefore, at least apparently, more democratic. Inasmuch as the public perceives science as knowledge produced by means of a social process and possessed by a group, the authority of the individual scientist seems to be less personalized than that of the sage.

Information is characteristically more restricted to the technical practical surface of knowledge. It is knowledge stripped of its theoretical, formal, logical and mathematical layers and made to fit quick, often do it yourself, tasks and operations. Information is often but thin knowledge, a shortcut approach to the need to have operational guidelines for decisions and actions without getting into the scientific accounts.

When it is represented by information rather than by knowledge, ‘reality’ can be flattened and simplified as a reference for discourse. But the losses we incur in shifting from wisdom through knowledge to information might be a thinning out of layers of meanings, references and associations, a process of impoverishing human understanding and experience. It looses poetical, philosophical, religious and ethical dimensions of knowledge and experience which were part of earlier configurations of culture, the polysemicity of language, the complexity, the depth and, perhaps more than anything else, the wholeness and the all encompassing coherence of our life and our world view. We need judicious, wise, inspired men/women of wisdom to process our information into knowledge.

References:

Ezrahi, Y., 1990, The Descent of Icarus, Cambridge MA: Harvard Univ Press

Jasanoff, S., 2004, States of Knowledge, the co production of science and social order, Routledge London

Merton, R. K. (1973), The Normative Structure of Science, p. 267-278

Polanyi, M., 1962, The Republic of Science, Minerva, 1:54-73

Circuits of Power and Environmental Change

Circuits of Power and Environmental Change
The concept of circuits of power can be used to introduce mechanisms of change into the static structure of business enterprise power networks. Underpinning the concept is an extended interpretation of power, combining three quite separate conceptions of power in the context of the embedded firm (Clegg, 1989). First, there is the agency view of power in which power is commodified - something to be acquired. In this view order is premised on sovereignty, which accords with the exercise of technical and positional power in resource dependence interpretation of organisational interrelationships (Pfeffer, 1981). Second, there is the Machiavellian view of power as relationship; concerned with what power does rather than what power is. Third, there is the Foucaudian view of power as discipline - the disciplinary practices of the state, society, culture and capital which generate and promote change and system instability. Through the processes involved in these circuits of power, the networks of relationships within which business enterprises are embedded are always in a state of dynamic tension in which short periods of change and transformation punctuate what might be long periods of tolerated inequality.

It is important to recognise that the three circuits of power are not arranged hierarchically and that all impinge on agents and enterprises simultaneously. The negotiated or imposed inequalities involved in relationships of dominance to control money and authority will generate time specific and place specific outcomes which will feed back through the circuit of power to affect the activities of agencies and to adjust social relations.

However, because the exercise of power provokes resistance, power will be exercised only episodically to create new standing conditions and to achieve new and modified outcomes. Both production and consumption require maximum certainty and minimised risk to create conditions of confidence. Under these circumstance, it is in the interest of al agencies to minimise the disruption to network relationships - no matter how unequal those relationships might be - which might be initiated by the exercise of power. The norm will be long periods of network stability punctuated by short periods of upheaval. In terms of the relationship between economy and environment, patterns of material extraction and chemical release are likely, therefore, to remain stable for lengthy periods of time. It can be argued then that patterns of ‘production pollution’ and ‘consumption pollution’ across network topographies will have a tendency to persist irrespective of their environmental and ecological consequences.

However, the episodic agency of the causal circuit of power is also embedded within a field of forces comprising a dispositional circuit of power relating to social integration and a facilitative circuit of power relating to system integration. To quote Clegg (1989):
The circuit of social integration is concerned with fixing and refixing relations of meaning and of membership, while the circuit of system integration will be concerned with the empowerment and disempowerment of agencies’ capacities, as these become more or less strategic as transformations occur which are incumbent upon changes in techniques of production and discipline (p.224)

The dispositional circuit of power is concerned with agent’s attempts to stabilise outcomes. in the business enterprise context, they are looking for kindred spirits, with similar views or strategies, converts who can be persuaded to give their support, and others who can be intimidated into giving their support. Thus, social integration is achieved through the formulation and fixing of rules, the establishment of membership and by ascribing legitimacy and granting status to groups of agents. The process is entirely pragmatic and political - in other words, Machiavellian. It has been labelled the ’sociology of translation’ and includes the process of ’enrolment’ (Callon 1986; Clegg, 1989) it creates what have been termed ‘obligatory passage points’ to ensure the continuation and stability of -unequal- outcomes in the causal or episodic circuit of power. In addition, it necessarily stimulates a tendency towards isomorphism and uniformity among agencies at one particular time and in one particular place as they all organise in the same way to achieve the same goal. Thee obligatory passage points can be seen in company law, labour laws and the full spectrum of ‘system forming’ and ‘system guiding’ government regulatory frameworks (Christopherson, 1993). They might also be identified as being affected by shifting social norms - modes of social regulation. In the context of environmental degradation, obligatory passage points can be seen not only in codified environmental regulation but in the persuasion and confrontation of environmental activists, and the pleas of environmental scientists for greater attention to be paid to their objective wisdom.

The circuit of facilitative power is concerned with system integration and the empowerment and disempowerment of agencies as techniques of production and discipline change through innovation managerial innovation and organisational innovation. Among business enterprises, different methods of production involve different forms of labour discipline and different work regimes. As those techniques of production and discipline change, the fixity and certainty sought through the creation of ‘obligatory passage points’ and the standing conditions of day to day operations is undermined. As it was put by Clegg 1989, the facilitative circuit is: a circuit of power which introduces a potent uncertainty and dynamism into power relations. it is a source of new opportunities for undermining established configurations of episodic circuits of power, as it generates competitive pressure through new forms of technique, new forms o disciplinary power, new forms of empowerment and disempowerment (p. 236)

This ‘potent uncertainty’ also has a spatial dimension as internationalising firms introduce new work regimes into the localities and communities they expand into. The concept of circuits of power adds detailed dynamic to the power networks . It demonstrates an unequal day to day struggle between business enterprises based on their control of resources. It highlights attempts to achieve certainty and stabilised inequality through ’translation’ and the erecting of ’obligatory passage points’. and it points to new technologies, new work regimes and new forms of discipline as forces of destabilisation. In short, it adds a dynamic tension to the relationships involved in enterprise power networks. Economy environment relationships seen from t his power networks perspective are, therefore, in a constant state of flux as patterns and forms of production and consumption change.

Technological change, changing work regimes and changing modes of discipline and regulation (facilitative power), either developed in situ or imported into a community through learning and inward investment, can radically alter the temporarily stable arrangements. The inference is, therefore that left to themselves, business enterprise power networks are incapable of acting to ameliorate mounting environmental problems locally and especially globally. If a configuration of obligatory passage points can be created that forces them to adopt environmental sustainability as a goal and performance standard can environmental degradation be curbed.

References;

Taylor, M., Environmental Change: Industry, Power and Policy, Avebury publishing, 1995
Clegg, s., Frameworks of Power, Sage, London, 1989
Clegg, S., Modern organisations: Organisation Studies in the Postmodern World, sage, London, 1990
Christopherson, S., Market rules and territorial outcomes: The Case of the US, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, vol. 17, p. 274-289, 1993

Human Factors of Transport Safety and Environmental Issues

Driver Monitoring and Feedback
Project Aims and Objectives
To develop a driver monitoring and feedback system which will inform fleet operators and their drivers of driving styles and behaviours that are undesirable for safety or environmental reasons, in order to allow the prevalence of such behaviours to be reduced. The project will identify the most effective method of delivering such a system through feedback, training, and a combination of both.

Summary of Project
Previous studies (e.g. DRIVE2, SAMOVAR) have shown that the monitoring of drivers can have a positive effect on their subsequent driving behaviour. It is also widely viewed that providing individuals with feedback on performance is essential for the acquisition of complex skills such as those required during driving. Although the DRIVE2 and SAMOVAR studies demonstrated the positive benefits that could be achieved by monitoring aspects of driving behaviour, the data recording units only measured accident involvement. Additionally, whilst drivers were made aware of the presence of the data recorders installed on their vehicles, they received no feedback based on the recorded information.
This study aims to investigate the feasibility and effectiveness of monitoring more complex aspects of drivers' behaviour, and providing feedback to drivers based upon the recorded information. The study also hopes to provide information regarding the practical considerations and issues faced when attempting to implement such an initiative within a fleet environment.
In order to achieve these objectives, the study comprises two major aspects. First, the investigation of the parameters related to safe and efficient driving styles, which could be recorded by a commercially available data recorder unit. Second, how this information could best be provided to drivers within the constraints of the existing fleet management systems and its effectiveness investigated. The experimental design for the second of these aspects is discussed below.

Experimental Design
• Sample size Siemens VDO FM200 journey data recorder units have been installed in 50 RAC patrol vehicles. The 50 patrol vehicles were selected to be the same model (Ford Transits) and approximate age, and not to be due for replacement before the end of the current study. Each vehicle is driven by only one driver on a day to day basis. Therefore it has been assumed that the same 50 drivers will be responsible for these vehicles throughout the study. • Feedback content Within the first phase of the study, the parameters to be recorded by the FM200 units were determined. A selection of these has been chosen for the feedback information to be provided to the 50 patrol drivers taking part in the study. Two forms of feedback are being investigated within the current study. The two forms of feedback were determined based upon (a) the existing operating procedures within the fleet and the information that could practically be provided to the patrols taking part in the study, and (b) research knowledge of those forms of information that may hope to elicit changes in subsequent driver behaviour.
Feedback A: Monthly feedback information All 50-patrol drivers will receive this form of feedback. Every month, feedback information will be provided to each patrol outlining their performance on three parameters.
These parameters are:
i)Harsh Acceleration (time spent exceeding a pre-set threshold).
ii)Harsh Acceleration (time spent exceeding a pre-set threshold).
iii)Fuel Consumption (measured by a fuel flow meter).

In addition to absolute figures of the individuals' performance on each of the 3 parameters, the feedback sheet sent to each patrol discusses his/her performance in terms of how it compares with both other patrols in their group, and with all 50 patrols within the study. Comparisons will also be presented based on both his/her performance over the previous month, and his/her overall
performance since the start of the study.
Feedback B: Management Feedback
Of the 50 drivers taking part in the study, 25 were randomly selected to receive the second form of feedback. Feedback B is provided in addition to Feedback A. Once a month, and after Feedback A has been sent to the drivers taking part in the study, the 25 patrols will meet with their Supervisor. Within these meetings his/her Supervisor will go through a series of questions investigating both the patrols' perceptions of the information received as part of Feedback A, and whether they have attempted to change their driving in response to the information received regarding their driving performance. A standardised question sheet has been prepared by TRL and provided to the Supervisors in order to lead the informal discussion with the patrol driver.

Dependent Variables
Changes in drivers' performance will be measured in terms of the parameters recorded by FM200 units. Three months of data were collected by the units prior to the provision of any feedback information. This will be used to provide a simplistic baseline against which comparisons with data collected later in the study will be compared.


Lee Smith, Transport Research Laboratory, UK

Humanitarian Reform

Humanitarian agencies have been looking at assigning UN agencies as cluster leads in sectors where there are often gaps in the humanitarian response. The idea is that there will be an improved and more predictable humanitarian response to those affected by conflict situations and natural disasters. Is the cluster approach actually addressing some of the most fundamental problems in the humanitarian system?

The whole cluster process has its roots in an effort that started in 2004 when the Emergency Relief Coordinator ERC and Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs, Jan Egeland, decided that the humanitarian response system was not predictable enough in its response and something needed to be done. The slowness and inadequacy of the response in Darfur, Sudan prompted the ERC to commission the Humanitarian Response Review HRR late last year to examine the way in which the international humanitarian system responded to crises and to provide recommendations to improve the system. The fact that the HRR would not look at local and national responses was pointed out to the ERC early on in the process as a major gap, but the HRR continued anyway with its focus at the international level.

When the draft of the HRR came out, there was the recognition that the review was incomplete, given that it only looked at the international response. A number of observations and recommendations were made, but they were never really discussed in detail among humanitarian agencies who are part of the inter Agency standing Committee IASC, which brings together the UN, the Red Cross/Red Crescent Movement, NGOs and IOM. Instead, the IASC was told by the ERC that the issue raised in the HRR to be taken up immediately was that of assigning cluster responsibilities in various sectors. The priority activity for improving the humanitarian system was decided by the ERC and the UN, with the suggestions of others to look at coordination and particularly the Humanitarian Coordinator HC function, and benchmarking being brushed aside to be addressed at later dates.
The cluster designation is seen by the UN as a genuine means of improving the way that the humanitarian system works and better ensuring accountability. The cluster leads are meant to provide a means of supporting the Resident and Humanitarian Coordinators in ensuring a coordinated response. Currently, there are no leads for IDPs in non-conflict situations (ie. Natural disasters) in the clusters for which UNHCR has responsibility. Discussions are continuing in the protection cluster on the issue of broader protection (beyond IDPs). There is also an acknowledgement that there are three types of clusters - provision of assistance to beneficiaries (health; water and sanitation; camp coordination and management; emergency shelter; and nutrition), service provision (telecommunications and logistics), and cross cutting issues (protection and early recovery), which will require close coordination with the other clusters.

NGOs and Clusters
NGO involvement in the clusters has been limited to date. Efforts were made by the three NGO consortia on the IASC to engage NGOs in the process, with the result that at least the Sphere focal points were involved in four clusters - health, nutrition, emergency shelter, and water and sanitation. Given the work of NGOs in developing the Camp Management Toolkit, the Norwegian Refugee Council was brought into the camp coordination and management cluster. A few NGOs participated in the protection cluster, which examined IDP protection and broader protection issues separately.

There are attempts to get NGOs more engaged in the work of the clusters. For many NGOs however, there are questions about how worthwhile such engagement is. Many of the discussions have been focussed on very technical aspects and issues around responsibilities of the cluster lead and what would be involved in creating a dedicated capacity at he headquarters or regional level. For many NGOs the proof of the value of this cluster approach will be at the field level. The challenge now is making sure that all of these efforts have an impact at the field level that is positive and not just a means of creating new layers of bureaucracy and coordination.

The issue is to address some of the fundamental problems in the humanitarian response system. Inadequate coordination mechanisms, led by the Resident or Humanitarian Coordinator, play a major role in a weak response. With regards to coordination, the problem does not seem to be a lack of coordination meetings (there are often too many such meetings), but the lack of joint analysis, which includes taking policy decisions on the type of response, and priority setting. The way in which needs are assessed and addressed is an area where much work remains to be done. Working with local and national capacities is still not the first and foremost course of action of many humanitarian agencies. Ensuring that well trained humanitarian staff are able to get to situations rapidly, and remain without rotating out quickly, is a challenge that agencies need to meet. The lack of funds allocated to so many neglected crises dooms the humanitarian response to be disproportionate between countries and populations.

Given the pace of the initiatives, many within the humanitarian community, particularly at the field level, are just beginning to hear about what is happening. Particular focus is given in the second piece to one of the biggest areas of potential change: the role of UNHCR vis a vis IDPs in conflict situations and th resulting challenges that will need to be tackled by the organisation. The two final pieces examine issues that were raised in the HRR, but which were pushed back for real examination until later in the year by the IASC: the issue of benchmarking, which is being taken forward by the UK’s Dept for International Development DFID, and the Humanitarian Coordinator function, which is supposed to be at the core of a well coordinated response. The hope is that by providing a critical reflection on the reforms, improvements will be made in the process to ensure that there is actually a better humanitarian response. It is true that the humanitarian system does not work in a predictable or impartial manner when looking at global humanitarian needs. An improved response, however, will require more than just the good will and efforts of humanitarian workers. Governments both those of countries where there are displaced persons and of donor countries - have a crucial role to play in enabling an improved humanitarian response. Without the will of governments, this exercise of reforming the humanitarian system risks being simply a navel gazing exercise on the part of humanitarians.

Source: International Council of Voluntary Agencies, 3 Oct 2005, volume 7-3

CAP is failing small farmers in Europe and in poorest countries

**Oxfam urges EU to agree CAP overhaul on eve of WTO**



The EU must agree to an overhaul of the Common Agricultural Policy in 2008 as part of any budget deal at this week’s Heads of State Summit meeting if it is to save small farmers in Europe and in the developing world from another decade of misery.

Oxfam is urging EU member states not to sell out small farmers in Europe and the developing world by agreeing a new EU budget without a concrete guarantee for a full-scale overhaul of the CAP at the earliest opportunity – 2008.

Oxfam’s Julia Tilford said: “It’s time people took off their rose-tinted glasses and saw the current CAP regime for what it is – a grossly unfair, unsustainable system which helps the rich get richer quicker while small farmers in the developing world and Europe grow poorer.

Figures from 2003 show that:

• poor farmers in France, the strongest defender of the current regime, receive just 10% of CAP subsidies while 50% of their small farmers have disappeared over the past 20 years.

• In the UK farmers in the economically depressed Peak District have seen their incomes halve over the past decade falling to an average of £7,500. An elite three per cent of landowners gobble up one fifth of total CAP payments to the UK.

• Spain, the top 18% of big farmers receive 76% of all subsidies and 37,000 family run farms disappear each year in Spain.

Julia Tilford added: “There is a common misconception that the CAP is some sort of benevolent fund for small struggling farmers. In reality it’s a pernicous regime that lines the pockets of the wealthiest farmers and processors while doing enormous harm to developing countries as a result of encouraging dumping. “

On the eve of the WTO talks in Hong Kong, the EU’s failure to offer real cuts to farm subsidies that encourage dumping and tariffs has been a major sticking point of the Doha Development Round negotiations.

Julia Tilford added: “Offers on the table by both the EU and US fall far short of what is needed to move these talks forward but the EU could break the impasse by committing to a root and branch reform of the CAP. Failure do so sends very bad message to negotiators in Hong Kong and could result in the EU being blamed for potential failure of Doha talks in Hong Kong”

Oxfam last month published a report that revealed the EU pays $4.2 billion in subsidies which are illegal under WTO rules.

In other revelations, Oxfam has found:

• 78% of the 5.2 million beneficiaries of CAP receive less that 5,000 euro a year
• 1.8% of recipients receive some 500,000 euros or above

Julia Tilford added: “Without a move on the CAP there is unlikely to be any step forward on trade talks in Hong Kong. The EU should commit to shake-up the CAP to put an end to export dumping and grant more markets access to poor country exports.”

Trust

The actions of political leaders and perceptions of government performance are most often identified as potential precursors to trust. Economic stewardship is typically identified as a leading cause of trust, when citizens are dissatisfied with economic performance distrust of government ensues, but when prosperity abounds so will trust. The actions of incumbent leaders and evaluations of government institutions are also thought to be critical to levels of trust. The media focus on those scandals are seen as another contributor to national levels of trust. And most recently, Keele (2004b) demonstrated that government performance effects trust relative to evaluations of the political process since trust is reflection of government performance. However, trust is a reflection of civic activity and the attendant attitudes of social trust that are learned in civic life. So, then, we might be able to say that besides government performance, we also suspect that social capital is an important cause of trust in government.

Consequently, a macro-level research design is needed to allow, first, for the possibility that citizens, on average, trust successful governments and distrust failed ones. And second, a macro- level research design is needed to allow for the possibility that it is changes in social capital that moves trust over time.
Moreover, the ability to analyze the dynamics in a macro-level design provides us with additional leverage for assessing the relative effects of social capital and performance. While ignored in the past, both the social capital and performance explanations have distinct implications for the temporal dynamics of trust-that is how often we should expect trust to change in response to its causal influences and how long shocks to trust will persist. For example, if trust falls as social capital declines, then trust reflects durable feelings toward government and will change gradually as this orientation slowly shifts over time, and the effects of any changes in social capital should persist for a long time. In contrast, trust should react to performance rapidly, but any effect performance exerts on trust should not persist for long. As such, we should expect trust to have separate responses to performance and social capital. One that occurs in the short-term to performance and one that occurs more slowly in response to the long-term movements in social capital.

But an aggregate level study of trust in government, whatever its advantages, must have micro foundations. The first step in the analysis is to review the well-established micro foundations of trust before developing macro level point predictions. Testing the performance theory of trust requires aggregating over individual decisions and analyzing the macro-level dependency between trust and government performance, any micro level analysis will otherwise be contaminated with bias caused by hopeless amounts of endogeneity (Erikson 2004). For example, at a single time point, the cross sectional variation in assessments of the economy results from differing individual perceptions, while the real variation in assessments of economic performance occurs over time. Therefore, we cannot expect trust to have any meaningful cross sectional variation with government performance and micro-level evidence of performance affecting trust must be treated with caution.

social capital has two aspects, the first being the level of civic engagement in a community, state or nation, and the second being interpersonal trust, or the willingness to ascribe benign intentions to others. Citizens who participate in civic activities meet more people and learn interpersonal trust from interacting with them (Brehm and Rahn 1997; Putnam 1993, 1995a,b, 2000). Each dimension of social capital should contribute to levels of trust in government.
Being involved in civic activities, many of which involve engagement with government or groups that are attempting to influence government, connotes a belief that there is some chance of bringing about social change or control through the established political process. Citizens that are not engaged in civic activity are likely to feel a lack of political influence, which causes feelings of powerlessness, which in turn fuels cynicism and distrust toward political and social leaders, the institutions of government, and the regime as a whole (Miller 1974a,b). Therefore, citizens that have withdrawn from civic life harbour a hostile orientation toward government leaders and institutions. Moreover, civic engagement teaches interpersonal trust and individuals with low levels of interpersonal trust are equally mistrusting of people and institutions. Thus, the interpersonally distrusting citizen projects his or her misanthropic tendencies onto government. On the other hand, trust in government will influence civic activity, since it may require some level of trust in government to participate in activities that engage political institutions.

Other conceptions of trust could be used here instead. One other prominent conception of trust is that of Hardin who defines trust as a willingness to rely on another person or institution when one expects the actions of that other person or institution to take you into account in some relevant way (Hardin, 1998). Using this conception of trust, however, the implications for the performance theory of trust do not change. Here the citizen expects the representative to take considerations of prosperity and good order into account and if there is evidence that the representative has not taken the citizen's interests into account, i.e. performance is poor, trust will be lost. Others have defined trust as an evaluative orientation toward government (Stokes 1962; Hetherington 1998). Again, no contradiction arises since under all these definitions trust is an evaluative orientation based exclusively on political performance.

The dynamic between trust and social capital should, however, be quite different than the dynamic between trust and government performance. Here, instead of trust responding to the rapidly changing stream of information and perceptions that make up government performance, trust is reacting to a social process. Given that social capital is the combination of decisions to engage and the trusting attitudes that results from such engagement, the longitudinal movement in social capital should be gradual. As such, any effect that social capital has on trust should occur over the long term and not be contemporaneous as we expect for government performance. Moreover, the effects of social capital should persist far longer than those of government performance. A change in citizens' basic attitudes and engagement in civic life will not easily reverse itself and the effect on trust should, in turn, be longstanding. In short, we should expect the effects of government performance to be mostly contemporaneous and persist for far less time that those of social capital, while social capital and trust should vary around a common level and in the long run should covary substantially, with effects that persist far longer than those of government performance. Trust should respond to changes in performance immediately, making it, partially, a barometer of public satisfaction with government, but it should also respond more slowly over time to the deeper feelings of dissatisfaction with government that are tapped by social capital.

Conclusively , given that trust reflects not only how citizens view the recent performance of government, but also how people feel about the political process, trust becomes a comprehensive indicator of how citizen view the government. Trust captures not only economics and views of the major institutions of government, but also levels of warmth or hostility toward the political process itself. For any government then, trust serves as an important barometer of political performance and the responsiveness of politics to public demands. Finally, democratic governance is the interplay between the people in government and the institutions they inhabit. Political leaders may be unresponsive to public demands or political institutions may inhibit the execution of the public will. It is through trust that the public simultaneously evaluates everyday political occurrences and the ability of political institutions to achieve the public will. If trust reflected only one aspect of democratic governance, we would be left with an incomplete understanding of public satisfaction with government. The fact that, in the aggregate, the public evaluates both aspects of democracy indicates a public that realizes responsive government is realized not only through changing political leaders, but, at times, through a revision of politics itself.



References:

Keele, Luke. 2004a. \Not Just For Cointegration: Error Correction Models With Stationary Data." Working Paper.

Erikson, Robert S. 2004. \Macro vs. Micro Perspectives on Economic Voting: Is The MicroLevel Evidence Endogenously Induced?" Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Political Methodology, Palo Alto.

Miller, Arthur H. 1974a. \Political Issues and Trust in Government: 1964-1970." American Political Science Review 68:951{972.

Putnam, Robert P. 2000. Bowling Alone. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Transport in UK

Trends
While the average number of journeys (traffic) made by people in the UK has remained fairly stable over the last 25 years, total annual passenger distance has increased by 52 per cent to an average of 7000 miles per person[i].
This increase has accompanied a shift from public to private transport - primarily the car (Fig 1). Road traffic has grown by 77 per cent since 1980. Travel by rail has increased by 40 per cent and travel by air has trebled. Distance travelled by bus and coach has fallen to 10 per cent below the 1980 level.
In contrast during this period the average distance walked fell by 22 per cent from 244 to 190 miles a year.

Changing components
Many factors affect traffic levels and the distribution of travel amongst different modes of transport. The recent trends shown in Figure 1 have resulted from an increase in car ownership and the total number of drivers, a fall in levels of car occupancy and little change in the real cost of motoring compared to the rising real costs of public transport.
Freight
The movement of goods around Great Britain has also increased markedly in the last 30 years. Almost all of this increase can be attributed to the movement of goods by road, which grew from 88 billion tonne kilometres in 1972 to 157 billion tonne kilometres in 2001[iii].
The increase in road freight reflects an increase in distance travelled rather than in the overall quantity of goods lifted. The total weight moved has remained fairly constant at about two billion tonnes of goods each year.
Infrastructure
The UK currently has: 375 000 km of road, covering an area the size of Leicestershire; 30.6 million licensed vehicles, which if they were lined up head to tail would go twice around the world; 16 000 km of railway with over 2500 stations; 2000 miles of navigable canal; and 10 000 miles of cycle path[iv].
Demographic and geographic characteristics
People in the highest income quintile on average make 40 per cent more trips than those in the lowest and travel three times a greater distance. In 2002/03, 58 per cent of households in the lowest income quintile did not have access to a car.
While men and women on average make the same number of trips per year, men travel much greater distances. In 2002 men on average travelled 8000 miles, compared to 6000 miles for women.
The total distance travelled by people in a year relates to how urban their area is. The distance travelled by car is about 40 per cent lower than the national average for people living in London and 45 per cent higher than the average for people living in rural areas[v].
Safety
In 2002 3,431 people were killed in road traffic accidents and nearly 36, 000 were seriously injured. However, fatality rates on all modes of transport have fallen in the last 25 years.
In terms of fatalities per passenger kilometre air travel is the safest mode of transport and motorcycle travel the most risky[vi]. Motorcyclists are 30 times more likely to be killed in an accident than a car driver[vii].
As Table 1 shows, together with Sweden and the Netherlands, the UK has one of the best road safety records.

Table 1: road deaths in the EU per 100,000 population
Country Road deaths per 100000 population
UK 6.1
Netherlands 6.2
Sweden 6.2
Denmark 8.1
Finland 8.4
Germany 8.5
Ireland 10.7
Italy 11.1
Austria 11.9
France 13.8
Spain 13.8
Belgium 14.5
Luxembourg 15.9
Greece 19.3
Portugal 21

Health
Walking and cycling as forms of exercise can contribute towards well being. However, both have been in long-term decline. Between 1989/91 and 2002/03 the average distance walked has fallen from 237 to 191 miles a year. The number of stages of a journey cycled also declined steadily.
Environment
Between 1990 and 2002, total UK greenhouse gas emissions declined 10 per cent. However, the transport industries were one of the few exceptions to this downward trend. Greenhouse gas emissions from the transport industries were 47 per cent higher in 2002 than in 1990.
The UK transport industries were responsible for emitting the equivalent of 86.0 million tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2002 compared with 58.5 million tonnes in 1990. Greenhouse gas emissions from road transport now constitute 18 per cent of all UK emissions.


Table 2: Green house gas emissions from different types of UK Transport in million Tonnes of CO2 equivalent, VIII
Mode ………….1990 1995 1997 1999 2002
Buses & coaches 5.6 5.6 5.3 4.9 4.8
Road freight 15.8 19.2 21.3 21.7 23.4
Rail 2.5 2.4 2 2 1.5
Water 11.6 12.1 16.8 14.7 15
Air 20.2 26 30.5 37.2 37.5
Private vehicle 59.2 57.6 62.3 64 62.8




[i] Department for Transport, Transport Tends at: www.dft.gov.uk/stellent/groups/dft_transstats/documents
/sectionhomepage/dft_transstats_page.hcsp
[ii] Matheson J and Summerfield C (2000) Social Trends 30,
Office of National Statistics, at: www.statistics.gov.uk
/STATBASE/xsdataset.asp?More=Y&vlnk=1455&All=Y&B2.x=58&B2.y=15
[iii] Summerfield C and Babb P (2003) Social Trends 33,
Office of National Statistics, at: www.statistics.gov.uk
/STATBASE/ssdataset.asp?vlnk=6506
[iv] Transport 2000, Facts and Figures, at: www.transport2000.org.uk/factsandfigures/Facts.asp
[v] Department for Transport, How people travel, at: www.dft.gov.uk/stellent/groups/dft_transstats/documents
/page/dft_transstats_028357.pdf
[vi] Summerfield C and Babb P (2004) Social Trends 34:
192, Office of National Statistics at: www.statistics.gov.uk/downloads/theme_social/Social_Trends34
/Social_Trends34.pdf
[vii] Department for Transport, Think! Road Safety Facts and
Figures at: www.thinkroadsafety.gov.uk/statistics.htm
[viii] Greenhouse gas emissions from transport, Office for
National Statistics, at: www.statistics.gov.uk/downloads/
theme_environment/transport_
report.pdf


Local quality of life

Area profiles is a pioneering Audit Commission pilot project to test the feasibility of bringing together all the data, information and assessments about local quality of life and services Footnote 1. The area profiles approach has the advantage of going beyond the use of just indicators, or a focus on only one particular agency, to look at all the services and quality of life issues in a local area.

An area profile places strong emphasis on people and place and on issues that cut across traditional service boundaries – for example, a complete picture of the needs of specific sectors of the community, such as children or older people.

Area profiles are created using a variety of tools. Each tool helps the user explore and understand the quality of life and local services with regard to an aspect of the local community. A good area profile involves analysis of the following aspects:

indicators of local quality of life and context statistics;
public funding into and spending patterns within a local area;
local residents’ and service users’ views on quality of life;
the LSP partners’ views on quality of life and services;
inspectorate judgements about local services;
the community and voluntary sector’s capacity and contribution to local quality of life and services; and
the business and private sectors’ capacity and contributions to local quality of life and services.

The profiles produced by each of these seven components are then used in the final process:

bringing it all together – a synthesis of the findings.

The result of this synthesis is an area profile that can be used in different ways:

To provide a summary for the public of all the data and assessments for the local area. For example, key findings could be published online, in a leaflet, or in a local newspaper article. This will help local people to hold public services to account and empower them to take decisions about priorities and services in their local area.
LSP partners (council, police, health, voluntary and private sectors) could apply the information to highlight problem areas where improvement is most needed.
The government, national agencies, and regulators could draw on area profiles to identify strengths, weaknesses and trends in local areas. This will help them to agree on how best to target their support and regulatory activities.

To support users in area profiling the Audit Commission is developing a web-based ‘one-stop shop’, comprising data and information about local public services, including the views of residents and service users and the assessments of regulators. This will mean the end of searching numerous websites, published reports, performance information databases and manuals to find out important information about a local area. For the first time, data and information about a local area will be brought together in one place in an easily accessible format that is available to the public, regulators and service providers.

The data and information will be structured around the ten quality of life themes used within the local quality of life indicator set. The Audit Commission sees the local quality of life indicators playing an important role in providing a ‘headline’ set of indicators to provide a snapshot overview of the quality of life and services in a local area.



Source: Audit Commission Website

1 The Audit Commission began piloting area profiles in 2003 and now has 27 local areas and a range of national stakeholders working together to test all the tools and the website model outlined above. The pilot is due to finish at the end of December 2005.

Overview of social auditing:

A participatory approach to social auditing is viewed as part of a process that involves awareness creation and dialogue between employers, workers and their representatives. It aims to ensure that more insecure and vulnerable workers, who often have low confidence and literacy levels, have a voice in social audits.It involves the use of tools drawn from participatory rural appraisal and participatory learning and action. It stresses the need to use local auditors, with local knowledge and language and sensitive to gender issues. This is in contrast to the culture of snapshot social auditing, based on brief formal visits by outside professional auditors. Here the focus is on policing suppliers, who in turn carry out the minimum changes needed to pass an audit, rather than making sustainable improvements in working conditions.
Through awareness creation, a participatory approach attempts to chang the mindsets of employers, and increase understanding of their rights by workers. The focus is not only to ensure that minimum labour standards are met,but also that improvement in employment practices reach all groups of workers. Such an approach faces many challenges, but it represents a shift away from a formal top-down compliance orientation, to the greater empowerment of workers and their representative organisations as an essential part of the process of improving labour standards and working conditions.

At a broader level, social auditing is a way of measuring and reporting on an organisation's social and ethical performance. An organisation which takes on an audit makes itself accountable to its stakeholders and commits itself to following the audit's recommendations. A participatory approach to codes of labour practice, compared with snapshot social auditing, puts greater emphasis on involvement of workers and workers organisations in the process of code implementation and assessment.This approach is sensitive to uncovering and thus addressing more complex issues such as gender discrimination and sexual harassment. These are issues more likely to be experienced by insecure non-permanent workers, who are often women, whose voices snapshot audits usually fail to pick up. They are less “visible” issues, that are unlikely to be resolved through a simple compliance approach. The goal of a participatory approach is a process of awareness creation and improvement that is more gender sensitive.

Third party social audits normally involve a snapshot visit by an external professional auditor or auditing team to a firm or farm to monitor compliance. However, snapshot audits often fail to pick up issues that are not easily verified by company records or physical inspection, such as gender discrimination. A participatory approach to social auditing and codes of labour practice comes from a different perspective: it focuses on auditing as a process. One that more directly involves workers and worker organisations in order to create the basis for more sustainable improvement in working conditions and compliance. A gender-sensitive approach to social auditing is required to ensure that codes of labour practice help to protect more vulnerable temporary and casual workers, who are often women.They are often concentrated in insecure work (seasonal, casual, migrant, homework and contract work) and found in the most vulnerable forms of employment with little protection. It is amongst these groups of workers that the worst conditions of employment are usually found - low wages, long hours, lack of contracts, weak unionisation, poor health and safety, lack of social insurance or employment benefits. They rarely have access to formal legal rights or social protection, even though they work for global export suppliers. It is amongst these workers that the risks of non-compliance are therefore highest.

The following characteristics, typical of female workers in developing countries, are of key importance when considering the nature of the approach and methods to be used in the social audit process, if the developmental aspect is to be realised: a low literacy level, a lack of awareness of their rights as workers in civil society, cultural norms and beliefs that dictate the subordinate role of women in society. Social auditors need to be particularly sensitive to gender issues if they are to reveal non-compliances in such situations. Capturing the specific issues faced by women workers needs careful planning to ensure their inclusion in a social audit. In some countries, a condition of a male worker's employment in agriculture is that his wife (or female relatives) are available to work when required by the employer, restricting her ability to freely choose her employment. Freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining are respected. Women are often concentrated in temporary, casual and home work, where insecurity of employment increases the fear that unionisation would result in recrimination by employers denying them access to future work, undermining their right to freedom of association.

Working conditions are safe and hygienic. Male workers who are handling chemicals should have access to adequate personal protective equipment, and training in their use. However, women workers who are not directly handling chemicals are rarely protected, even though they might be exposed to them indirectly.

No discrimination is practised. Women workers regularly experience discrimination, for example through lack of access to certain jobs, training or promotion. It is common for women to form the majority of the workforce, yet men make up the majority of the skilled, supervisory and management staff (which a gender breakdown of the workforce will reveal).

Regular Employment is provided. Women workers are more often concentrated in insecure work, with less access than men to permanent or regular employment. A gender breakdown of the different categories of worker will reveal this as another form of gender discrimination.

Living wages are paid. Many workers in export production receive less than a living wage. But female workers are more likely to receive unequal wages compared to male workers for similar types of work, reducing their likelihood even further of earning a living wage.

Child labour shall not be used. Child labour is more likely to be found where workers, especially low paid women workers, are receiving wages too low to sustain their households or pay for childcare provision.

Working hours are not excessive. Long working hours and excessive overtime, often addressed in code principles, have extensive implications for childcare responsibilities.

No harsh or inhumane treatment is allowed. Verbal harassment of workers is common for male and female workers, but sexual harassment, whether verbally or physically, is usually a sensitive issue which affects women.

It is important that an auditor is aware of these implicit rather than explicit gender issues in Code principles, and that they have the skills and tools to uncover such issues, both in individual and group interviews.


Central to a participatory approach is the process involved, of which the final social audit is an outcome rather than the means in itself. This process involves various stages. The first and most important is that of awareness creation amongst employers and workers. The second is the pre-audit, where issues are revealed and assessed, accompanied by engagement with the employer, workers and worker representatives to develop an implementation plan which will lead to improvement. The third stage is the final audit, where the employer is formally assessed for compliance. If the first and second stages have been effective, passing the audit should be the logical final outcome. The philosophy from the beginning is helping the employer to achieve successful compliance, rather than being policed or reprimanded for failure to comply.
Few producers or senior staff are aware of the managerial significance of communicating with a workforce which is predominantly female. This relates particularly to policy and work-related information which is normally passed through a .chain of command, involving middle and junior managerial staff that are predominantly male. This chain of command often creates barriers in communication between senior management and female and insecure workers.

The timing of the audit is also important in ensuring temporary, casual, migrant and other non-permanent workers are available for interview, as women are often concentrated in these categories. This means that audits usually have to be undertaken at the peak of the season, or of production activity. This might create some resistance from management, who would prefer a slacker period. But the risk is that only permanent workers are on site at this time, and the audit would miss more vulnerable workers who are often women.

The records check at the end of the pre-audit also provides an opportunity for the auditor to investigate key gender issues such as equal pay for equal work, or equal access to training and promotion. as well as verifying data obtained verbally or visually. It can help to reveal the degree of female workers. involvement in trade unions and/or workers. committees, where they can participate in meaningful decision-making processes.

Experience in the pilots and research projects highlighted the importance of using local social auditors, who are able to speak the language of the interviewees, are aware of the cultural background of the workers concerned and are qualified and experienced in the use of the participatory methodology.

A formal, authoritative style of interviewing can easily lead workers into remaining silent and disengaged from a social audit. The use of participatory tools when conducting worker interviews however, can help workers to open up and engage more actively in the process.

The use of such tools is only one aspect of a wider participatory approach to codes of labour practice. The philosophy behind this approach is that workers should not simply be passive objects of an external audit, but should become more actively engaged in a process of improvement of their working conditions. Worker engagement can be extended through developing ongoing local independent monitoring and verification involving worker representatives as part of a more sustainable approach.

Local country codes of labour practice, promoted and supported by a multi-stakeholder association which includes industry, trade unions, relevant NGOs and government representatives, would provide greater local accountability. Facilitation, and monitoring and verification of a code of labour practice contribute towards the improvement of labour conditions and standards, of management/worker relations and ultimately of the growth of more ethical trading.

From a gender perspective, local multi-stakeholder initiatives present both opportunities and challenges. Women in insecure employment are often least likely to be organised or unionised, reinforcing their fragmentation and vulnerability. Multi-stakeholder initiatives that involve trade unions and NGOs sensitive to the needs of such women workers are more likely to ensure gender issues facing such workers are addressed. The combination of participatory social auditing and independent monitoring based on stakeholder engagement can thus help to give voice to such vulnerable workers. However, gender discrimination is often deeply embedded in employment practice and social relations. Local organisations (trade unions and NGOs) which are steeped in that social context could also serve to reinforce existing gender norms. Hence, whilst local multi-stakeholder initiatives can open up the space for gender and racial discrimination to be addressed, this is not automatic. They create an opportunity, but not a guarantee, for the enhanced participation of insecure women workers in the implementation of codes. Despite these challenges, local multi-stakeholder initiatives are becoming more established, and represent an important move away from a northern led top-down approach to codes of labour practice.

What can be done about global warming

The problems surrounding the climate change debate as the PM has blamed, is the “trouble with so much international politics: a reluctance to face up to reality and the practical action needed to tackle problems". The problem of global warming cannot be dealt with unless any new agreement includes India and China - exempted from the current protocol because they are classed as developing countries while being responsible for most of Co2 emissions. The US President refused to ratify the Kyoto treaty when 141 countries signed up to it this year because he said it would be too costly to the American economy, and the fact that the fast-growing developing countries were not part of it (BBC, 30 Oct).

Global warming could be ameliorated by reducing significantly the emissions of GHGs into the atmosphere. While it is important to reduce the emissions of all GHGs, the greatest preventative measure would come from reducing Co2 emissions. Emission reductions of Co2 can be accomplished by a combination of several of the following approaches:

Demand side conservation and efficiency improvements, this includes less space heating and better insulation, less air conditioning, use of more fluorescent instead of incandescent lighting, more energy efficient appliances, process modification in industry, and very importantly, more fuel-efficient automobiles. Some measures may even incur a negative cost, that is, consumer savings by using less energy, or at least a rapid payback period for the investment in energy saving devices.

Supply side efficiency measures. Here we mean primarily increasing the efficiency of electricity production. Natural gas combined cycle power plants NGCC emit less Co2 than single cycle coal fired power plants; first, because natural gas emits about one half the amount of Co2 per fuel heating value than coal, and secondly, because the thermal efficiency of combined cycle power plants is in the 45-50% range compared with the 35-38% range of single cycle plants. In the future integrated coal gasification combined cycle power plants IGCC may come on line with a thermal efficiency in the 40-45% range reckoned on the basis of coal heating value. Furthermore, IGCCs may enable the capture of Co2 at the gasification stage, with subsequent sequestration of the captured co2 in geologic and deep ocean repositories (Saylor & Zerai, 2004).

Shift to no fossil energy sources, the choices here are agonizing, because the largest impact could be made by shifting to nuclear and hydroelectricity, both presently very unpopular and fraught with environmental and health hazards. The shift to solar, wind, geothermal, and ocean energy is popular, but because of their limited availability and intermittency, and because of their larger cost compared to fossil energy, a substantial shift to these energy sources cannot be expected in the near future. None of these options can prevent global warming alone. They have to be taken in combination and on an incremental basis, starting with the least expensive ones and progressing to the more expensive ones. Even if the predictions of global climate change were to turn out to be exaggerated, the fact that fossil fuel usage entails many other environmental and health effects, and the certainty that fossil fuel resources are finite, makes it imperative that we curtail fossil energy usage as much as possible.

The use of fossil fuels to supply energy for the use of the world’s population has resulted in the release to the atmosphere of troublesome chemical by products that present harm to humans and other natural species. The technological systems that employ fossil fuel energy have been developed to lessen the amounts of harmful emissions, albeit at significant energy and economic cost. Further improvements can be expected, but at increasing marginal cost. The most severe emission control problem, in terms of economic and energy cost, is that of Co2 a major contributor to global warming. The implementation of policies by national governments and international bodies to curtail the use of fossil energy and the concomitant emissions of Co2 will become a growing task for mankind in this century.

- D. S. Golomb and J. A. Fay, Atmospheric impact of the fossil fuel cycle, University of Massachusetts Lowell, MA

- BBC Online, PM pessimistic on climate treaty, 30 October 2005

OIL - Delivering light to a world of darkness

Coal bestowed power in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but it came at a price. Coal's black smoke was so thick that it could be seen hovering over English cities from miles away in some cases blocking the sun's rays entirely. Londoners, squinting by their sooty windows, switched on their lamps to read the morning papers. Children toiled in the coal fired factories, and even worse, in the dank toxic coal mines themselves. '“For watching the doors, the smallest children are usually employed” noted economist Freidrich Engels '“who thus pass twelve hours daily, in the dark alone sitting usually in damp passages without even having work enough to save them from the stupefying brutalizing tedium of doing nothing“. Children dragged themselves homewards after their long shifts in the mines so tired that many were found, hours later, asleep on the road. Deprived of sunlight subject to poisoned air and explosions, they died in droves. Most of the poor in mid nineteenth century Manchester did not survive to see their eighteenth birthdays. Those who did, aged prematurely. Nevertheless London was affectionately dubbed the big smoke a smog-shrouded city that Lord Byron romantically described as a wilderness of steeples peeping on tip toe through their sea coal canopy. Painters such as James Abbott, McNeill Whistler, Joseph Mallard, William Turner and Claude Monet captured the city's foggy phantasmagoria, and Charles Dickens wrote of coal's soft, black drizzle. Jack the Ripper stalked his prey under cover of coal's thick brown haze.

Across the Atlantic a different story was unfolding. People found tons of black coal but they also found something else, a liquid fuel that would slowly gain in popularity until it overtook coal altogether. When set alight, oil's long chains of carbon split apart, releasing the energy stored in their powerful bonds. Afterwards, oil's hydrogens and carbons pair off with the oxygen in the air, forming carbon dioxide and water. The amount of energy stored in a gallon of oil is equal to the amount in almost five kilograms of the best coal, or more than ten kilograms of wood or more than fifty well fed human slaves toiling the day away. Oil contained so much energy that it could be used with abandon and still release much more energy than was required to get it out of the ground.

The men in Pennsylvania had a better idea than time consuming hand digging for this miraculous new liquid. They would drill an oil well. John Rockefeller, a stern pious entrepreneur from New York built his fortune on the market for kerosene. Rockefeller considered his task in almost spiritual terms, “Delivering light to a world of darkness“.

“Give the poor man his cheap light , Gentlemen,” he told his colleagues. Nonetheless it was big business and hugely lucrative. Rockefeller made it so with his merciless quest to expand his oil empire and dominate markets.

Britain had taken the plunge and converted its warships from coal to oil in 1912, even though the country itself had coal reserves but no known sources for oil. It was like switching to an all fruit diet while sailing the Arctic seas.

On the other side of the ocean Russians drilled the seeps whose eternal fires had so entranced the Persians. They shipped the oil from Baku in tankers - the first was called the Zoroaster, across the Caspian sea. Around Baku the smoke from the two hundred refineries that distilled the oil was so dense that the area was known as black town. Russia’s dirty oil started filling lamps across Asia along with oil extracted from dripping rocks in Indonesia by Royal Dutch Shell. Entrepreneurs with dollar signs dancing in their eyes braved the hostile lands, and people of Persia to drill along oil seeps there.

Over the first World War the allied forces did not lose faith in the internal combustion engine and its magic fuel. A faith that turned out to be worth the trouble. Britain and the United States unleashed the fury of their agile petroleum burning machines. About 163000 oil burning vehicles and 70000 airplanes vanquishing Germany’s bulky coal fired ones, black gold was crowned king. Ten days after Germany surrendered, in Nov 1918 British statesman Lord George Nathaniel Curzon declared the allied forces triumph as petroleum's 'the allied cause had floated to victory upon a wave of oil’ he said.

The United States with seemingly plentiful oil in Texas, Oklahoma, California and else where had little need at first to plunder foreign lands for its black gold. But many fields were rapidly exhausted as the second world war exerted its heavy demands on the industry. The technology that would allow the industry to sniff out deeper, more hidden oil reservoirs had yet to be developed. By the end of 1943 Secretary of the Interior, Harold Ickes was sure the United States stood on the brink of an oil famine. “If there should be a world war 3 it would have to be fought with someone else's petroleum because the United States would not have it”; he wrote warning that American crown symbolizing supremacy as the oil empire of the world is sliding down over one eye.

Ickes insisted that we should have available oil in different parts of the world and the time to get going is now. No matter how generous domestic oil reserves may have been controlling the giant foreign oil fields that other countries would have to rely on could only elevate the United States strategic power.

The railroads forged in the heat of the industrial revolution, ferrying coal, steel, and people, coupled with horse drawn carriages, defined transportation in the nineteenth century. Both required sizable inputs of energy to power their motion. The oil industry had partnered with automakers to lobby for a network of smooth black asphalt crisscrossing the country on which their war winning cars could ramble. In 1956 while the last coal fire was stubbed out in London their lobbying finally paid off. The US congress earmarked over 26 Billion used for the national interstate and defence highway system Act setting off a fit of road building that would profoundly alter the country.

American families and industries used the smooth roads and their new automobiles to drive themselves away from the congested cities. Between 1950 and 1990 suburban sprawl had become so intense that some areas were gobbling up land four times faster than their populations grew.

As much as geologists knew about oil and its movements and the huge amounts of money involved, when they were wrong about their guesses, nine out of ten exploration wells drilled in the United States were dry holes. Just one in a hundred exploration wells discovered a usable oilfield. Military technology harnessed to hunt the enemy and under written by the public was transferred to the private hunt for oil which many described in openly warrior like terms. The mapping of the ocean floor for submarines, aerial surveys for picking out bomb targets and seismographs used to pin point enemy artillery all of these military technologies developed to wage war were put to service in the hunt for oil. The seismograph proved to be the most powerful new weapon of all as one historian put it translating the echoes of seismic waves pumped into the ground could reveal the deformations where they lay below unseen just as a bat's clicking could find its mosquito.

Over the course of the 1990s oil explorers found seventy six oil and gas fields of over 500 million barrels each more than half lay not under the familiar arid plains or even arctic tundra but deep under the oceans restless currents and the sea floors shifting sediments. The deeper waters off the Gulf of Mexico continental shelf for example had been virtually ignored by oil explorers for years.

Ironically, though, the vast majority of the 6 million metric tons of oil that enter the world’s oceans every year comes not from accidental spills but from chronic, routine, and deliberate ones. More than 40 percent drips off the car clogged roads and highways into rivers and streams sliding into the sea. Another 30 percent leaks in because oil tankers are so tipsy when emptied of oil. They fill up with sea water to stabilize themselves, then pump this oil contaminated ballast water overboard when the tanker refills with oil. The oil industry’s latest technique, FPSOS, will require even more tankers ferrying even more oil around the world’s oceans.

Underwater pipeline networks, although expensive and cumbersome for the oil industry to build, are much safer than transferring and conveying huge amounts of oil around on the surface of the water in tankers and other vessels, as FPSOS require, part of the reason why US regulators had banned FPSOS from the Gulf of the Mexico until 2002. In a single year, the hive of oil industry activity in the Gulf of Mexico emitted fully eight hundred spills of oil within ten miles of the Texas coast, over two thirds of these spills were not from the Gulf’s extensive network of underwater pipelines but from the vessels ferrying the oil to and from.

The end of oil’s story is still being written but it is clear that the conclusion nears. Much will depend on how a thousand other stories end. In Moscow, Russian officials debate whether to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, one that with the US’ and Australia’s refusals to ratify, now hangs in their hands. Will they or wont they? Elsewhere, reluctant government regulators brood over the latest scientific findings that around a third of the species in three of the most biologically diverse places in the world may be condemned to climate change induced extinction within fifty years. Will these losses be enough to change their minds? In Colombia, some Indian tribes succeed in protecting their lands from industry’s oily explorations but then the state run oil company plans to continue. Will the tribes’ threat of mass suicide deter the drills again?

The signs are ambiguous, to say the least. In Detroit, hundreds reclaim the former capital of the car, coating it with acres of productive green gardens while up north in Canada, officials giddily sign proclamations announcing their intentions to step up tar sands production. In Iraq and Libya, Texan oilmen jostle in the queue to re-enter old stomping grounds, while in Houston, aging oil executives are handed multi billion dollar bills to upgrade their decrepit tankers and pipelines. In Alaska, oil company trucks sink into the permafrost’s melting mud while in Washington, oil execs press for more access to protected lands. In London, people are penalized for driving their cars, while in Beijing and Shanghai, erstwhile bicyclists press up against the sparkling glass of GM and BMW’s new showrooms.

Around the world, people resist the petrolife, practicing less consumptive ways of feeding, transporting, and sheltering themselves, the vast majority under the strictures of deprivation, others by choosing new ways and rediscovering old ones. The end of the story of oil will depend on them , too, and how they fare against big oil’s bulldozer, for there is still time before the ancient liquid vanishes for people to realize, as Kenneth Deffeyes put it, that crude oil is much too valuable to be burned as a fuel. Perhaps a new era of sporadic supply interruptions and volatile prices coupled with an influx of better technology to harness solar, wind, and other renewable energies will start to slowly persuade people not to opt for oil. Worries about climate change might restrain the quest for new oil and gas, with declining oil production easing the inequities it so frequently triggers. Perhaps there might be enough oil left, in other words, to mine aluminium and silicon for windmills and solar panels before the drills, shovels, and clouds of carbon dioxide render earth uninhabitable.

In many ways, the path forward will depend on how we view the path behind us. With the dawning realization of crude’s finite bounty has come a flurry of ideas about how to sustain our energy intensive civilization with a bit less oil. More fuel efficient s u v s, a sprinkling of nuclear and coal burning power plants, hydrogen gas stations, all are touted as the next big thing, our saviour. Few nudge the basic assumptions of machines, roads, and sprawl, as according to conventional wisdom, the west’s high tech, hydrocarbon based society lies at the pinnacle of a natural, inevitable development path. There is no need evening the face of oil’s decline, according to this view, to veer off in a new direction.

An alternate view hold just the opposite: that the petrolife is an anomaly, based on the improbable discovery of relatively rare, finite accumulations of energy under the ground during an era of unusually stable climatic conditions, a development as unlikely as winning the lottery. According to this view, the discovery of oil, the harnessing of its power, the rapid development of a society nourished and sustained by its short term riches, despite its long term and far away costs -none of this was pre ordained or inevitable. If the very basis for this aberrant way of life is receding, there is no reason left to cling to its pathways. It is time, then to adjust to radically new ones.

“We should ...parry every question with answers which while perfectly truthful are evasive of bottom facts“.

The evolution of the City of Oxford

The plan of Oxford, still reflected in its basic layout, dates from a year or two either side of 900. it is recorded as one of a system of 32 settlements established by Alfred, the Greatest of all medieval town planners, for defence against the Danes. Alfred was king of Wessex but his daughter married the Mercian ruler who controlled the land north of the Thames. It was probably her, with the help of her father’s expert surveyors who laid out the grid for both London and Oxford. The grid of streets, slightly distorted because of existing north/south routes, was surrounded by a defensive ditch and palisade. The streets, some paved with limestone cobbles, divided the land into large blocks. Some of these blocks were given or sold to wealthy rural landlords but there remained large open spaces within the walls. Landlords acquired their plots because the palisaded burh offered security in times of trouble, a place to socialise with other landowners, and an opportunity to trade. This early settlement was a collection of urban manor house surrounded with farm yardw, pens for sheep and cattle and a few huts for labourers and dependants. During the next century because of its position on the borders of three 11th century kingdoms, this modest settlement developed into one of the most important political and commercial towns in England. Between 1015 and 1065 four major councils were held here.

The land within the walls gradually over crowded and the walls were extended to the east, increasing the enclosed area by nearly half. Suburbs grew outside the walls, to the west in St Thomas, along St Giles to the north and near the ford outside Southgate. Large plots along the four main streets in the centre of the town were subdivided and the frontage became an almost unbroken clutter of small shops. Churches stood on several of the major corners and at each of the four main gates. The Saxon tower of St Michael at the Northgate, built in stone, is the only survivor of this period. The arrival of the Norman invaders in 1066 deprived the town of its frontier role and began a decline from which Oxford did not fully recover for 200 years.

No person, place or date can pinpoint the foundation of the University, although when Henry II, after an argument with the French king in 1167, banned English students from studying in Paris, Oxford, with its tradition of learning, was an obvious place for students to come. Early in the 13th century there was already an association of clerks (students) and the first Chancellor of the university was appointed in 1221. before the colleges were founded, students lived in Academic Halls. These Halls were leased by a graduate who made his income by providing board and some teaching to groups of scholars. Halls were located all over the town but most were more concentrated on the eastern side. By 1264 the first three colleges, Merton, Univerisyt and Balliol, had been founded and over the centuries Halls were suppressed or absorbed into the more formally organised and better endowed colleges. The last remaining Hall, St Edmund Hall, only became a college in 1976.

The first contemporary drawing of the town, Agas’s map of 1578, illustrates the dramatic decline of Oxford during the long period of university establishment. The changes, which allowed the embryonic university to dominate the once prosperous merchant and trader’s town, were many and mostly gradual. High tolls, taxes and labour costs encouraged the all important wool industry to move out to the smaller towns in the area. Improved roads and bridges, notably the bridge in Abingdon, and the decline of the river traffic on the Thames above Henley, ended Oxford’s central position on trade routes. As values declined the Abbeys and religious houses were able to acquire more property in the town. As a result of the decline in population large areas of the town became derelict. Houses along George street and Broad Street disappeared and in the area furthest from Carfax to the East there was a particularly large number of abandoned buildings. Colleges such as Merton, University and Queen’s were able to acquire large tracts of land adjacent to their existing sites. Two major college benefactors, William of Wykeham at New College 1379 and William Wayneflete at Magdalen 1458 were able to establish new colleges in this area, the latter taking over buildings of the former St John’s hospital.

By 1578 conditions were right for the rapid growth of the city. New building filled the vacant spaces within the city walls and in the existing suburbs. New houses and cottages were built in waste land in and around the city ditch, particularly in Broad Street and Holywell street to the north. Existing plots were subdivided, extra floor added to many buildings, backlands developed. In the town centre people were thronged to death by crowds squeezing into streets made narrower by expanding shambles, new market buildings and projections from existing shops. In 1610, Carfax Conduit, a fountain of pure water piped from Hinskey, was built obstructing the major cross roads. The conduit was finally removed in 1789 and now stands in Nuneham Park near Oxford.

The most spectacular project was the building of the Bodleian’s Radcliffe Camera and the creation of Radcliffe Square in 17th century. Earlier piecemeal developments had not produced any of the significant civic space in the city favoured by renaissance planners. More important than individual buildings was the dynamic work of the paving commission, set up in 1771 which made the first modern attempt at overall planning. Their projects, generally welcomed at he time removed for ever much that would be admired today. New Road to the west was cut through alongside the castle in 1770. Magdalen Bridge was rebuilt and Iffley Road was constructed in 1778. the greatest loss was of Friar Bacon’s Study, in a building which spanned the road and impeded access to the city from south of Folly Bridge.

The Victorian period retained the medieval street plan and some of the earlier character east of Cornmarket Street, but fundamentally changed the appearance of the old city and ringed it with substantial suburbs. In 1883 William Morris complained that little was unscathed by the fury of thriving shops and progressive colleges. But to many citizens and most tourists many of the developments in the centre, built in the gothic style, are now seen and admired as part of the ancient fabric. The motor vehicle, its manufacture and the roads and parking needed for it, have dominated the planning and growth of 20th century Oxford. With outward expansion restricted by a green belt, the first in the country after London’s, private cars have allowed commuters to live in towns and villages 15 to 20 miles away and still rely on the city for jobs and shopping. In recent years car making in Oxford has declined and been replaced by publishing, science based industry, research and tourism. The University either directly or indirectly associated with most of these activities, has regained a dominant position in the city.

Oxford Brookes University founded in 1891 as the Technical School, now has nearly 10,000 students most of whom live in the town. The new University is however building several large developments of student hostels in and around the main teaching buildings. Schools for local children and many private language schools have grown in recent years. Both universities and many other institutions host conferences and summer schools during the vacations. Cowley is still the main industrial area. A large part of the car factory site is being redeveloped for research facilities and light industry. The brief history shows that Oxford’s development has not always been easy. Periods of growth have been followed by stagnation and decline. Its reputation as a centre of research and scholarship will attract growing numbers of students every years. But unless problems created by overcrowding, traffic congestion are solved the tourists attracted to the historic fabric of the city face difficulties to move.