Public Services Questions

The Public Services Programme brings in researchers from across the social sciences to explore questions such as

- how are public services changing, who wants what, and how is quality to be convincingly measured?
- what are the effects of popular reform measures like incentive pay, targets, transparency?
- what can we learn by comparing current public service arrangements with past experience, by comparing experience across the UK, and by comparing the UK with other countries?

Oxford Univ's Public Services Programme

Democracy, Power and Status

Better Aid Needs Better Politics

There are many definitions of democracy – we could argue about them all night – but they certainly include:

A system where government decisions on policy are vested in elected representatives;
Free, fair and frequent election of these representatives;
Freedom of expression; citizens being able to say what they think;
Access to alternative sources of information from government - a free media;
Having the right to form and join independent associations; and
Inclusive citizenship where no-one is excluded or discriminated against.
It is these characteristics of political democracy that enable us to join with others who share a vision of a better world; to make our views heard; to choose leaders to represent our views; and to hold our leaders to account. And for those of us so inclined, it gives us the freedom to seek the privilege of holding public office.

So democracy as we know is about so much more than just having a vote. It’s a set of values and institutions. And while democracy is about rights, it’s also about responsibilities. It demands something of us. That’s why politics is about more than just shopping for policies.

It is democracy that has sustained and shared out the prosperity we have achieved here in Britain. Our history tells us how those who had been excluded from society acted on their conviction that without political representation things would never change.

So we can look back at our long and slow progress to democracy. We can look back to the first elected Parliament called by Simon de Montfort in the thirteenth century, to Cromwell's angry young soldiers debating their right to universal suffrage with their officers at Putney in the seventeenth century, to a hundred years ago when Labour first achieved representation in the House of Commons. As our election Manifesto of 1906 said: “The House of Commons is supposed to be the people’s House, and yet the people are not there.” 29 Labour MPs changed all that, and showed that democracy could evolve.

What we have also learned is that what we now call the institutions of good governance do not emerge overnight. And they certainly cannot be transplanted or imposed from outside. As Ghandi said, “…the spirit of democracy cannot be imposed from without. It must come from within.”

Hilary Benn, Secretary of State for International Development, Speech at Demos, Westminster Hall


Power and Status

Issues of power and status have long been a subject of focal interest for social scientists (e.g. Weber, 1924). Efforts to better understand the role of power in governing and influencing human behavior take account of social dilemmas. Social dilemmas may be grounds for betrayal of expectations, for someone that was expected to contribute to a public good, or managee harvesting a common resource and fails to do so - causing negative outcomes for everyone else. A group of researchers examined the impact of power and status on the judgments people make about justifications that are offered after these failures (Massey et al. 1997). Justifications are assertions that behaviours that seem a violation of the rules or norms are not violations at all. Broad acceptance of a justification can redefine fundamental understandings and rules of behavior. Four interesting findings include a) an offending act being judged less proper if the justification was invalid, b) when an offending individual had higher status than other group members. Strikingly an offending individual’s higher status was a liability if the justification was invalid; c) an offending individual’s greater level of power had a positive impact on others’ public judgments of the offending act’s propriety, but not on their private judgments; d) Finally, if an offending individual had both high status and greater power, the combination resulted in a positive impact on even others’ private judgments about the act’s propriety.

These findings may implicate that those with status and power are in a privileged position in defining propriety concerning resource distribution strategies. One study compared the resource distribution as a function of discount rate – of what the value of resources would be over time (Mannix, 1991) - led to the findings that rapid devaluation increase competition, destructive behaviour and form excluding coalitions which is alarming for those who manage resources. It is argued that imbalance of power and uncertainties within groups drawing on common resources lead to individual group members not focusing on mutual gains and instead focus on protecting their own interests. Here coalitions have marked significant negative efforts on a group’s overall outcomes because they can deprive individuals and subgroups of access to the resources they require to succeed or survive. It is found that groups with power imbalances made less efficient use of available resources and included fewer people in resource utilization across multiple rounds. One of the ways to balance power was suggested to assemble group members from the same position in the hierarchy who have various sources of expertise, since, while they would still have their own interests but might not be as threatened by the positions of other group members (Mannix 1993: 18-19). Other studies show that levels of egocentrism affect individuals’ and groups’ perceptions of fairness and that over harvesting behaviour are positively correlated with levels of egocentrism. Findings to decrease egocentric biases led to establishing discussion which has positive effect on cooperation in social dilemmas in general. Over harvesting behaviour also depended on participants’ beliefs about other participants reactions. Also related to the study of coalitions and power distribution is researchon voting institutions. Walker et al (2000) found that voting substantially increases the efficiency of the outcomes in commons dilemma. “The very act of making a proposal and voting on a set of proposals signals limited information to all involved. In particular, it appears to generate information that enables a learning process to occur”. (p. 231)

The conditions under which group members opt to appoint a leader to aid them in achieving their goals in social dilemma was studied indicating that groups will opt for leader when they fail to manage resource efficiently triggering inequalities in harvesting. Studies on public goods also point out that leaders are not autocratic decision makers but rather need some form of legitimacy in order to be effective in persuading members to cooperate (VNVGT AND De cremer, 1999). Wit and Wilke (1988) examining the role of leaders allocation decisions for endorsement of their leadership found that leader “endorsement was weakest when the leader over paid himself or herself” and when the participant making the evaluation had been underpaid relative to other group members.

The result of one study on water shortages found that people who take pride in their community and perceive procedures to be fair express strong support for the regulating authorities and care less about their personal outcomes. (Tyler and Degoey (1995: 482) A number of recent findings speak to contingency issues related to leadership and administration in social dilemma settings. The role of who present rewards and punishments in a social dilemma, and to whom they are presented came under study. The comparison between company managers concerned with making waste storage versus waste treatment decisions was experiemented. The former choice was in participants’ short term financial interests, while the latter choice was better for the community and promised greater long term value. For 124 undergraduates they found no difference between the effectiveness of rewards or punishment on their choices, regardless of whether they were presented by the government or by their parent companies. In contrast,for239 managers, rewards supplied by the parent company were highly effective, while those supplied by government were actually counterproductive. This finding suggests an interesting consideration for those attempting to manage dilemmas in the real world. What source of sanctioning is most likely to be embraced and respected by the people who make the important decisions?

Environmental Democracy

Environmental crisis is above all a problem of knowledge. It leads to rethinking being and its ways towards complexity, to be able to open new paths in history and to create an environmental savoir , capable of reorienting societies towards the reconstruction of their life-worlds in a new relationship with nature. Bogus modern rationality has crashed into its limits - the un-knowing of its one-dimensional thinking, the alienation and uncertainties in the order of nature.

Environmental rationality seeks to reestablish the links between being, thinking and knowing. This new road towards understanding environmental complexity makes its entrance through the denaturalization of history, of that history that has landed in a technological and economized world where being and thinking have been seduced and absorbed by the formal and ‘instrumental rationality’ that dominates modernity: by calculation and planning, by determination and legality. This dominated and assured world of certainties has reached its limits expressed by environmental crisis.

The construction of environment rationality implies the reconstitution of identities through the relation of cultural beings and cultural savoir. It implies the reformulation of knowledge and the emergence of a new savoir that orients and supports the re-appropriation of nature and life-worlds of the people through power in knowledge and the will to power that is a will to know and a will to be.

The solution to the global environmental crisis will not be possibly accomplished mainly and only through a rational (scientific, technological, economic) administration of nature, of ecological risk and global change. The environmental crisis questions the epistemological project that has searched for a uniformed and homogeneous thought, for the unification of the world and being through the absolute Idea and totalizing Reason; of its transcendence and the transit towards a sustainable future, negating the limit of being, time and history.

Environmental crisis signals the end of economic rationality that has unleashed the illusion of unlimited growth, of infinite production. Environment savoir deconstruct the logic of the scientific control of the world, of the technological domination of nature, of the rational administration of the environment.

Truth is socially constructed by confronting the limits and the potentialities of the real; by an understanding of a non-determined world …..that emerge from a diversity of meanings; by the revival of quieted truths –that demand an exegesis of silence, of the non thought, of exiled saviors – that we have inherited through the history of ‘domination of nature’.

The environment is that “part of the world” –of the real, of knowledge, of being– which has been dismissed, externalized and exiled from normal science and rational thinking. The environment is the complex other in the order of the Real and the Symbolic, which transcends a one-dimensional rationality and its hegemonic and homogenizing global order, to open the way to that to come –to a sustainable future–, by the potency of creativity, diversity and difference. Environmental savoir ‘confronts’ the strategies to unify thought and to dissolve the varieties in thinking and knowing in a common field ruled by a ‘universal law’, even that of a consensus of differing views and interests conducted by ‘communicative rationality’. It thus opens a dialogue of beings/savoirs, and fertilizes a politics of difference, dissent and conviviality.

Environmental crisis is the first global crisis produced by the ignorance produced by knowledge, including the scientific conception. Science, pretending to liberate man from backwardness and oppression, from primitivism and underdevelopment, has generated a blind knowledge that governs an alienated society that is ignorant of its overspecialized knowledge and of the rules of power that govern the world.

In present global world, cultural hybridization leads to the reconstruction of identities away from any essentialism that could attach cultural beings to an immutable original root and to an existence outside of history. The reconstitution of identities in environmental complexity leads to an inquiry about the grounding of collective beings in their territories and their cultures; their resistance and permanence in time. If scientific rationality is based in the relation of truth between the concept and the real, under environmental rationality knowledge is embodied and rooted in being.

In the emergent democratic social order, identity is not only the reaffirmation of the one while tolerating the others. Environmental democracy implies the reconstitution of being in its relations with otherness –difference, diversity–, in the melting pot of nature and culture, through a dialogue of savoirs and knowledges. Today, when the individualized subject is carried away in abandoning its being that is dissolved and fused in a collective anonymous being –as coins that are coined under a unitary economic sign, like merchandizes that are anchored in the gold standard and dissolved in current money–, identities emerge as beings grounded in their territory and expressed through their savvy knowledge. The rebirth of ethnical identities is the most eloquent manifestation of these territorialized beings. The “indigenous”, this human being marginalized, dominated, subjugated; this being forged in a “traditional” and “cold” society, irrational and time-less; in a world where their memories have been forgotten through a history of domination and denial, where their saying has been enslaved in the rock of silence and submission.
Environmental crisis is the result of the subjection, submission, dominium and ignorance of complex nature, of complex time, of complex being, of complex thinking. Environmental movements are struggles for the just distribution of material goods (usevalues), but include also the invention of values-meanings assigned to nature, goods, needs, worldviews, world-lives, ideas and desires, that define the processes of adaptation / transformation / co-evolution of cultural groups with nature. Beyond problems of incommensurability of goods-objects, these claims deal with identity values differentiated by alternative cultural significations. These social movements are imagining power strategies capable of building a common front for the construction of a world of diversities, guided by an environmental rationality and a politics of difference – a new dialogue with nature.

Source:
Ecological Threats and New Promises of Sustainability for the 21 Century
Queen Elizabeth House, Oxford Univ, July 2005

Common Qualitative Methods

The most common qualitative methods employed in project evaluations include observations, indepth interviews, and focus groups.

Observations
Observations are carried out using a carefully developed set of steps and instruments. The observer is more than just an onlooker, but rather comes to the scene with a set of target concepts, definitions, and criteria for describing events. While in some studies observers may simply record and describe, in the majority of evaluations, their descriptions are, or eventually will be, judged against a continuum of expectations.
Observations usually are guided by a structured protocol. The protocol can take a variety of forms, ranging from the request for a narrative describing events seen to a checklist or a rating scale of specific behaviors/activities that address the evaluation question of interest. The use of a protocol helps assure that all observers are gathering the pertinent information and, with appropriate training, applying the same criteria in the evaluation.

Types of information for which observations are a good source:
1 The setting - The physical environment within which the project takes place.
2 The human, social environment - The ways in which all actors (staff, participants, others) interact and behave toward each other.
3 Project implementation activities - What goes on in the life of the project? What do various actors (staff, participants, others) actually do? How are resources allocated?
4 The native language of the program - Different organizations and agencies have their own language or jargon to describe the problems they deal with in their work; capturing the precise language of all participants is an important way to record how staff and participants understand their experiences.
5 Nonverbal communication - Nonverbal cues about what is happening in the project: on the way all participants dress, express opinions, physically space themselves during discussions, and arrange themselves in their physical setting.
6 Notable nonoccurrences - Determining what is not occurring although the expectation is that it should be occurring as planned by the project team, or noting the absence of some particular activity/factor that is noteworthy and would save as added information

The protocol should prompt the observer to
• Describe the setting of program delivery, i.e., where the observation took place and what the physical setting was like;
• Identify the people who participated in those activities, i.e., characteristics of those who were present;
• Describe the content of the intervention, i.e., actual activities and messages that were delivered;
• Document the interactions between implementation staff and project participants;
• Describe and assess the quality of the delivery of the intervention; and
• Be alert to unanticipated events that might require refocusing one or more evaluation questions.
Field notes are frequently used to provide more indepth background or to help the observer remember salient events if a form is not completed at the time of observation. Field notes contain the description of what has been observed. The descriptions must be factual, accurate, and thorough without being judgmental and cluttered by trivia. The date and time of the observation should be recorded, and everything that the observer believes to be worth noting should be included. No information should be trusted to future recall.

The Role of the Observer
There are various methods for gathering observational data, depending on the nature of a given project. The most fundamental distinction between various observational strategies concerns the extent to which the observer will be a participant in the setting being studied. The extent of participation is a continuum that varies from complete involvement in the setting as a full participant to complete separation from the setting as an outside observer or spectator. The participant observer is fully engaged in experiencing the project setting while at the same time trying to understand that setting through personal experience, observations, and interactions and discussions with other participants. The outside observer stands apart from the setting, attempts to be nonintrusive, and assumes the role of a "fly-on-the-wall." The extent to which full participation is possible and desirable will depend on the nature of the project and its participants, the political and social context, the nature of the evaluation questions being asked, and the resources available. "The ideal is to negotiate and adopt that degree of participation that will yield the most meaningful data about the program given the characteristics of the participants, the nature of staff-participant interactions, and the sociopolitical context of the program" (Patton, 1990).
In some cases it may be beneficial to have two people observing at the same time. This can increase the quality of the data by providing a larger volume of data and by decreasing the influence of observer bias. However, in addition to the added cost, the presence of two observers may create an environment threatening to those being observed and cause them to change their behavior. Studies using observation typically employ intensive training experiences to make sure that the observer or observers know what to look for and can, to the extent possible, operate in an unbiased manner. In long or complicated studies, it is useful to check on an observer’s performance periodically to make sure that accuracy is being maintained. The issue of training is a critical one and may make the difference between a defensible study and what can be challenged as "one person’s perspective."
A special issue with regard to observations relates to the amount of observation needed. While in participant observation this may be a moot point (except with regard to data recording), when an outside observer is used, the question of "how much" becomes very important. While most people agree that one observation (a single hour of a training session or one class period of instruction) is not enough, there is no hard and fast rule regarding how many samples need to be drawn. General tips to consider are to avoid atypical situations, carry out observations more than one time, and (where possible and relevant) spread the observations out over time.
Participant observation is often difficult to incorporate in evaluations; therefore, the use of outside observers is far more common. In the hypothetical project, observations might be scheduled for all training sessions and for a sample of classrooms, including some where faculty members who participated in training were teaching and some staffed by teachers who had not participated in the training.
Issues of privacy and access. Observational techniques are perhaps the most privacy-threatening data collection technique for staff and, to a lesser extent, participants. Staff fear that the data may be included in their performance evaluations and may have effects on their careers. Participants may also feel uncomfortable assuming that they are being judged. Evaluators need to assure everyone that evaluations of performance are not the purpose of the effort, and that no such reports will result from the observations. Additionally, because most educational settings are subject to a constant flow of observers from various organizations, there is often great reluctance to grant access to additional observers. Much effort may be needed to assure project staff and participants that they will not be adversely affected by the evaluators’ work and to negotiate observer access to specific sites.

Indepth interviews.
An indepth interview is a dialogue between a skilled interviewer and an interviewee. Its goal is to elicit rich, detailed material that can be used in analysis. Such interviews are best conducted face to face, although in some situations telephone interviewing can be successful. Indepth interviews are characterized by extensive probing and open-ended questions. Typically, the project evaluator prepares an interview guide that includes a list of questions or issues that are to be explored and suggested probes for following up on key topics. The guide helps the interviewer pace the interview and make interviewing more systematic and comprehensive. .
The dynamics of interviewing are similar to a guided conversation. The interviewer becomes an attentive listener who shapes the process into a familiar and comfortable form of social engagement - a conversation - and the quality of the information obtained is largely dependent on the interviewer’s skills and personality (Patton, 1990). In contrast to a good conversation, however, an indepth interview is not intended to be a two-way form of communication and sharing. The key to being a good interviewer is being a good listener and questioner. Tempting as it may be, it is not the role of the interviewer to put forth his or her opinions, perceptions, or feelings. Interviewers should be trained individuals who are sensitive, empathetic, and able to establish a nonthreatening environment in which participants feel comfortable. They should be selected during a process that weighs personal characteristics that will make them acceptable to the individuals being interviewed; clearly, age, sex, profession, race/ethnicity, and appearance may be key characteristics. Thorough training, including familiarization with the project and its goals, is important. Poor interviewing skills, poor phrasing of questions, or inadequate knowledge of the subject’s culture or frame of reference may result in a collection that obtains little useful data.

When to use indepth interviews. Indepth interviews can be used at any stage of the evaluation process. They are especially useful in answering questions such as those suggested by Patton (1990):
• What does the program look and feel like to the participants? To other stakeholders?
• What are the experiences of program participants?
• What do stakeholders know about the project?
• What thoughts do stakeholders knowledgeable about the program have concerning program operations, processes, and outcomes?
• What are participants’ and stakeholders’ expectations?
• What features of the project are most salient to the participants?
• What changes do participants perceive in themselves as a result of their involvement in the project?
Specific circumstances for which indepth interviews are particularly appropriate include
• complex subject matter;
• detailed information sought;
• busy, high-status respondents; and
• highly sensitive subject matter

Focus Groups
Focus groups combine elements of both interviewing and participant observation. The focus group session is, indeed, an interview (Patton, 1990) not a discussion group, problem-solving session, or decision-making group. At the same time, focus groups capitalize on group dynamics. The hallmark of focus groups is the explicit use of the group interaction to generate data and insights that would be unlikely to emerge without the interaction found in a group. The technique inherently allows observation of group dynamics, discussion, and firsthand insights into the respondents’ behaviors, attitudes, language, etc.
Focus groups are a gathering of 8 to 12 people who share some characteristics relevant to the evaluation. Originally used as a market research tool to investigate the appeal of various products, the focus group technique has been adopted by other fields, such as education, as a tool for data gathering on a given topic. Focus groups conducted by experts take place in a focus group facility that includes recording apparatus (audio and/or visual) and an attached room with a one-way mirror for observation. There is an official recorder who may or may not be in the room. Participants are paid for attendance and provided with refreshments. As the focus group technique has been adopted by fields outside of marketing, some of these features, such as payment or refreshment, have been eliminated.

When to use focus groups. When conducting evaluations, focus groups are useful in answering the same type of questions as indepth interviews, except in a social context. Specific applications of the focus group method in evaluations include
• identifying and defining problems in project implementation;
• identifying project strengths, weaknesses, and recommendations;
• assisting with interpretation of quantitative findings; 5
• obtaining perceptions of project outcomes and impacts; and
• generating new ideas.
In the hypothetical project, focus groups could be conducted with project participants to collect perceptions of project implementation and operation (e.g., Were the workshops staffed appropriately? Were the presentations suitable for all participants?), as well as progress toward objectives during the formative phase of evaluation (Did participants exchange information by e-mail and other means?). Focus groups could also be used to collect data on project outcomes and impact during the summative phase of evaluation (e.g., Were changes made in the curriculum? Did students taught by participants appear to become more interested in class work? What barriers did the participants face in applying what they had been taught?).

The participants are usually a relatively homogeneous group of people. Answering the question, "Which respondent variables represent relevant similarities among the target population?" requires some thoughtful consideration when planning the evaluation. Respondents’ social class, level of expertise, age, cultural background, and sex should always be considered.

FAQ on R
http://cran.r-project.org/doc/FAQ/R-FAQ.html
Introduction to R
http://www.biostat.jhsph.edu/~kbroman/Rintro/

The Cost of Waiting Policies

CLIMATE CHANGE


Climate change intertwined with democracy issues and population growth, forming most pressing issues of our time which require mobilization for an international response. Since 1750, carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have increased by around 30% from 280 parts per million (ppm) to over 380 ppm today. The rate and scale of twentieth century warming has been unprecedented for at least the past 1,000 years. Carbon emissions impact on the climate wherever in the world they are emitted and remain in the atmosphere for more than a century causing grave global consequences. This means that excess of emission wherever occurs is no longer local issue, it is everyone’s. What ever the causes of today’s global issues we need to deal with them on logical terms. Similarly, the fact that our society becomes ever more crowded, resource-demanding, and technologically complex should not be neglected as it is the main cause of uncertainty in many areas. Although the risk of over population in developing countries is culturally encouraged for large families, early marriages and child labour, however, the consequences have impact on the world at large. These practices have consequences on a global level which can not be justified merely on the basis of conserving local culture and must be addressed with the aid of international community. The argument is the same for recent fast pace of economic growth in developing world joining the developed countries responsible for the increases in greenhouse gas emissions including from energy use, agriculture and deforestation. (IEA)’s 2005 World Energy Outlook projects an increase of over 50% in global energy-related CO2 emissions by 2030 pointing out that developing countries will account for almost three-quarters of this increase.

Water issues

Climate change is increasingly marking its impact. Some areas will probably benefit from increased rainfall, but others are likely to be losers. We have to rethink how much water we really need if we are to learn how to share the Earth's supply. Various limitations are raising awareness on the need for devising environmental planning in order not to destroy our life supporting house. In 1992 it was an initial response of world leaders who convened an Earth Summit, in search of international agreements that could help save the world from pollution, poverty and the waste of resources. The result was emerging concept of sustainable development as a means of combining economic and ecological needs.

Seventy percent of the water used worldwide is used for agriculture. Much more will be needed if we are to feed the world's growing population – which is going to rise from about six billion today to 8.9 billion by 2050. Over 80 countries with 40% of the world's population are subject to water shortages. Since 1950 the world population has doubled but water consumption has increased six-fold and goes on growing as farming, industry and domestic demand all increase. The average amount of water needed to produce one kilogramme of potatoes is 1000 litres, wheat is 1450 litres and rice is 3450 litres. As groundwater is exploited, water tables in parts of China, India, West Asia, the former Soviet Union and the western United States are dropping - in India by as much as 3m a year in 1999. It should also be pointed out that it is not just us who need water, but every other species that shares the planet with us - as well all the ecosystems on which we, and they, rely.


Nonetheless, alarming evidences imply that the warming effect is greater than we had estimated along with more risks in triggering conflicts and war. e.g. global warming is the major motivating factors for pressing countries in central Asia into conflict with each other over access to water. In particular, melting glaciers are causing grave concern. Tajikistan generates 55 percent of all the water in the Aral Sea Basin, which it shares with four other countries, and much of that water comes from glaciers. Neighbouring Kyrgystan contributes another 25 percent. Yet the country’s glaciers have shrunk by 35 percent in the last 50 years. In neighbouring Kazakhstan the capital, Almaty, depends on water from the fast-shrinking Tien Shan mountain glaciers.

Global warming is therefore one cause, but by no means the main cause, of the region’s water problems, which are man-made in another way. In theory, there should be plenty of water for all. The central Asian countries are “locked into” water-intensive cotton farming, and have inherited irrigation systems that were already hopelessly inefficient, wasteful and poorly managed, and which required huge investment to keep going. Last year was unusual climatically; there was very heavy snowfall in the mountains followed by a rapid and sustained rise in temperatures in summer. The result was a sudden melting of snow, and a surge in river levels until the river burst its banks. Over 11,000 people were evacuated and many lost everything – their houses, gardens and crops.


Policies, plans and uncertainties


The risk of climate change and the important role that renewable energy should play in sustainable development and energy security, the increasing number of international initiatives and commitments, and vola¬tility of world energy markets, provide an unprecedented opportunity for addressing the strategic challenge of transforming our energy systems”. 1MDG 7 on environmental sustainability recognises the need to: “...integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programmes and reverse the loss of environmental resources”. A comprehensive review of the links between MDGs and Strategic Environmental Assessment refer to IIED (2004), particularly Chapter 5. Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) – a range of “analytical and participatory approaches that aim to integrate environmental considerations into policies, plans and programmes and evaluate the inter linkages with economic and social considerations” – responds to this need. The term SEA to describe analytical and participatory approaches that aim to integrate environmental considerations into policies, plans and programmes and evaluate the inter linkages with economic and social considerations. It allows the integration of environmental considerations – alongside social and economic aspects – into strategic decision-making at all stages and tiers of development co-operation. SEA is not a substitute for traditional project impact assessment tools, but a complement to them. Many developed and developing countries have either national legislative or other provisions for SEA, e.g. statutory instruments, cabinet and ministerial decisions, circulars and advice notes. As SEA is becoming more widely adopted by donor agencies and their developing country partners, the donor community is committed to harmonising its procedures and requirements in this area.

Another key area of international action has focused on technology cooperation. The International Energy Agency has a range of programmes designed to help countries to share expertise on energy technologies. There are now a wide range of technology partnerships, including those promoting specific technologies such as those for renewable energy sources and carbon sequestration, and the newly launched Asia Pacific Partnership on Climate Change and Clean Development. Leaders at the G8 Summit at Gleneagles in July 2005 recognised the importance of using existing technologies and promoting innovation to tackle climate change, and created an Action Plan on Climate Change, Clean Energy and Sustainable Development. The Action Plan includes the creation of an Energy Investment Framework, led by the World Bank and other Regional Development Banks, to promote investment in lower-carbon energy infrastructure and in adaptation issues in developing countries.

Increasingly the wait and see policy proves to be more costly than previously thought. Recent feedbacks indicate that changes could lead to warming that is at least twice as fast as current high-emissions projections. A report by the team led by Paul Watkiss of AEA Technology and Environment addressed the use of estimates of the social cost of carbon in decision making (Watkiss et al. 2005). It produced new estimates of the SCC, most notably through upgrading the FUND model to allow full testing of parameter uncertainties and the analyses carried out in four MSc theses. The report reviewed existing estimates both from PAGE and FUND in addition to compiling Inventory research programmes on the subject.

Harnessing business opportunities

The challenge for policy-makers is to balance climate change policy goals with issues such as the impacts of climate change on competitiveness and uncertainty over the future international framework for responding to climate change. Among uncertainties in climate policy that are taken into account is the political context within which climate policy is developed (e.g. the level of government support for climate policy measures, concerns about energy security or wider competitiveness issues), the policy instruments chosen and the manner in which they are implemented, and perceptions of the credibility of the different actors (e.g. is government seen as committed to climate policy, are companies committed to minimizing greenhouse gas emissions?). It is important to recognize that there is also scientific uncertainty about the magnitude of climate change and how changes in climate will translate into impacts on human society.
Significant risk factor for business to include cost of climate change is uncertainty over whether there will be a firm international regime in future. Doubts over countries signing an international agreement to control emission creates a strong disincentive for policy-makers to implement measures that may affect the competitiveness and may result in an international policy gap.

Regulatory risk can increase as a result of frequent policy or rule changes, which would tend to increase the rate of return required from firms and new investments. Efforts to evaluate in advance the effectiveness of policy measures relating to climate change are complicated by factors such as uncertainties in technology costs and uncertainties in the responses of the parties affected by the policy measures. The fact that climate policy costs and outcomes are uncertain creates pressure on policy-makers to maintain policy flexibility in order to allow them to respond appropriately to new information. If governments are too fixed in their approach, they risk committing themselves to policy actions that may turn out to be either too stringent or not stringent enough, with limited freedom to adapt or change policy in response to these outcomes. On the other hand, flexible approaches to policy may create an additional cost to companies which will have to make decisions based on a changing policy environment. Ultimately, a balance needs to be achieved between flexibility and certainty. Companies delay investment because longer-term direction of climate change policy is not seen as fixed or certain. This is significant barrier to encouraging companies to invest in new generating capacity.

In order to address the issues caused by policy uncertainty, policy-makers need to signal their willingness to provide public money to support action on climate change, over the short and medium term. Climate change presents risks and opportunities for businesses both because of the physical impacts of climate change and because of government action to encourage companies to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. It will require that both industrial and developing countries seize the current moment of opportunity to reform policies, institutions, and aid programs. Business actors are breaking the negative links between economic activity and the environment. The areas of focus covers a broad range including the economics of demography and migration; growth and development; industry; innovation and technological change; public finance; information; and environmental and public economics generally.

Certain targeted measures can bring dramatic improvements in environmental quality at modest cost in investment and economic efficiency. To implement them will require overcoming the power of vested interests, building strong institutions, improving knowledge, encouraging participatory decision making, and building a partnership of cooperation between industrial and developing countries. A credible long-term policy framework is essential for both investors and companies to plan how to respond to climate change risks and opportunities.

Finally, Climate change is no longer a science issue. Nor is it the exclusive franchise of environmental groups. It represents a titanic clash of interests. The real solution to global warming threatens the survival of the world’s oil and coal industries which, taken together, constitute the biggest commercial enterprise in history. The problem will be addressed only when there is a broad coalition of groups cooperating politically to force a global transition to clean energy. That coalition could include groups involved in international development and relief, environment, campaign finance reform, corporate accountability, public health, labor, environmental justice, and human rights—in addition to the religious community which is especially responsive to the moral dimensions of the climate crisis.

The bad news is that we have a very short time in which to fend off very serious disruptions. According to one study, the world needs to be getting half its energy from non-carbon sources by 2018 to avoid a catastrophic buildup of atmospheric carbon later in this century. The good news is that a solution to the climate crisis provides a common umbrella for many constituencies to come together
in a mutual campaign to further their individual goals. The outcome would be a dramatic expansion in the overall wealth and equity of the global economy.


Sources:
• www.oxfam.org.uk/climatechange

• Oxford University center for Environment, www.ouce.ox.ac.uk

• International Institute for Environment and Development, www.iied.org

• http://www.iigcc.org

• UK Climate Impacts Programme, Climate change scenarios for the United Kingdom, http://www.ukcip.org.uk/scenarios

• W. Blyth and M. Yang, Impact of Climate Change Policy Uncertainty on Power Generation Investments: Interim Report (Paris: IEA, forthcoming).

• R. Sullivan, W. Blyth, Chatham House; Climate Change Policy Uncertainty and the Electricity Industry: Implications and Unintended Consequences, August 2006

• International ad hoc detection group (2005) Detecting and attributing external influences on the climate system: a review of recent advances, Journal of Climate 18:1291-1314

• Hadley Centre (2005) Stabilising climate to avoid dangerous climate change, http://www.metoffice.com/research/hadleycentre/pubs/brochures
/2005/CLIMATE_CHANGE_JOURNAL_150.pdf
• Stern Review, What is the economic of climate change, Jan 2006,
• www.sternreview.org.uk.
• UN Framework Convention on Climate Change – http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/convkp/conveng.pdf

Mentoring

Recognizing the important role of mentors in the careers of successful people has led an increasing number of organizations and corporations to establish formalized mentor programmes. Mentor connections have been created to orient new employees, foster executive development, assist in career advancement, improve job performance, lower employee turnover, enhance creativity and increased leadership potential (RMIT n.d.).

What is mentoring?
.Whenever you read a collection of stories on successful women or men commenting on their career, you will inevitably find reference to a mentor. Mentors or sponsors can play a very important role indeed in assisting colleagues younger, or less experienced than themselves in understanding the organizational or disciplinary culture in which they work; in introducing them to conventions of publishing, to colleagues, to opportunities. It is an alerting relationship where a more experienced colleague shares with a colleague experience and expertise. It is very much about opening doors ― to understanding, to opportunities, to people. Anyone who has been mentored knows the very great benefit they have received. Anyone who could have but not mentored does not know of the very great satisfaction mentoring relationships give to the mentor as well..

Source: Ingrid Moses in the Introduction to Rolfe-Flett, 1998.

Benefits of mentoring
For individuals who are mentored, it may be a way to: (a) receive encouragement and support in the workplace; (b) discuss their career aspirations and options; (c) develop new skills and knowledge; (d) increase confidence by having a more senior staff member monitor personal professional progress; (e) encourage and assist in career planning; (f) expand personal and professional networks; (g) have an insight into the organization as a whole; and (h) assist in the management of change.

For those who provide mentoring, it may be a way to: (a) enhance skills in coaching, counselling and interpersonal skills; (b) gain satisfaction from helping a colleague develop; (c) obtain a sense of professional recognition; (d) obtain the satisfaction of contributing to another person’s professional development; (e) have the opportunity to reflect on what she/he has learned in the workplace; (f) have a new insight into another part of the institution; and (g) to have an opportunity to contribute to the institution as a whole.

For organizations mentoring may result in: (a) attraction and retention of valued staff; (b) improved communications and staff relations; and (c) development of the skills of individuals and thereby the capacity of the organization.

Many mentees achieve exactly what they aimed to. Others find that new directions open up. A successful pairing results in increased self-esteem in the mentee and a greater sense of capacity and satisfaction for the mentor.

Source: Rolfe-Flett and RMIT, n.d.

I will if you will

Tackling Environmental Pollution

Overwhelming scientific evidence supports the conclusion that observed changes in the global climate are, in large part, due to human activities and primarily related to fossil fuel consumption patterns. Without urgent action to curb greenhouse gas emissions, the Earth will become warmer by 2050 than at anytime in the last 10,000 years.

How to stimulate behaviour change in respect of housing, transport, leisure, food. Information? Incentives? Example? The Sustainable Development Commission says "I will if you will".

There needs to be a mix of information and 'incentives' to convince people to change their behaviors toward environment impacts. Some sort of punish/reward idea (do good, pay less) can work - otherwise people will just ignore an information campaign. Although all the various schemes are all well and good, but for the majority of people the economic factor is the most important. Organic and environmentally freindly options are invariably more expensive, and a huge swathe of the population simply cannot afford to be as eco-friendly as they would like. Only by making these options cheaper will any progress be made.
Recent work by NEF is investigating and advocating things such as Behaviour Economics where they have identified seven principals to engage people in changing their decision making processes.
The seven principals are:

1. Other people’s behaviour matters
2. Habits are important
3. People are motivated to ‘do the right thing’
4. People’s self-expectations influence how they behave
5. People are loss-averse
6. People are bad at computation
7. People need to feel involved and effective to make change

We have to move away from the current measure of success within our society which is based only around GDP (Gross Domestic Product) and GVA (Gross Value Added) with their strong relationship with growth to measures associated with a more holistic framework that of Wellbeing.

Again NEF have spearheaded this approach and drew up a Wellbeing Manifesto as set out below:
1. Measure what matters
2. Create a well-being economy
3. Reclaim our time
4. Create an education system that promotes flourishing
5. Refocus the health system to promote complete health
6. Invest in the very early years and parenting
7. Discourage materialism and promote authentic advertising
8. Strengthen civil society, social well-being and active citizenship

Recent work by the Sustainable Development Research Network sponsored Defra has also focused on the concept of wellbeing. Further practical work is required to see the affect of wellbeing as tool of engagement and a measure of individual and community satisfaction.

In a recent report by the Sustainable Development Commission on sustainable consumption, concluded, that people are ready and willing to change but need strong leadership and support from central Government and business’. There is a complex interaction taking place between the individual and communities of place, interest and practice underpinned by the daily messages we get from the media and government.
There is a considerable amount of work that needs to be undertaken looking at the relationship between the needs of our communities, businesses and the advice given by government. There is great potential to shift the interactions between business, community and government looking at various levels and not from just one centralist perspective. There has to be an adjustment looking at the interactions at the local, national and global levels.

There is no one single solution, no panacea, there has to be a mixture from national and global messages to consistent local engagement. There is a need to get people to understand how their actions impact on the sustainability of their community and the world, now and in the future.
Social marketers stress the importance of a durable relationship – based on trust – which will enhance confidence to change rather than one-off interventions. It is essential that capacity is built up within a community for these relationships to foster, here volunteering plays a crucial role.

This durability of relationships is also paramount in complex system theory which looks at how the whole system functions from individual elements (nodes), to groups and communities (components), and the bonds that connect them. It links in with network theory but from a fluctuating dynamic perspective with uncertainty as a driving force. Complexity theory is being used more and more in an interdisciplinary setting looking at relationships and emerging order. There is a high degree of connectedness between nodes and components, between individuals and groups which cause fuzzy boundaries which can then become self-referencing.
Chaos theory also refers to the need to understand the feedback loops that maintain current behaviour and that these have to be disrupted for new ‘attractors’ (sustainable living actions) to form. There has to be a de-centralised approach to let the system experiment and innovative solutions emerge for the mass of interactions at the local level, not controlled from a centralist perspective but only guided from above (if that is ever possible!).

As mentioned earlier, when discussing behavioural economics, communities can influence the decisions that individuals or households might make through social learning and identity reinforcement. Social learning theory teaches us that how we connect with underlying beliefs is important, but so is the mechanism by which a message spreads. Certain attitudes and sympathies can remain dormant until they are activated by an idea or practice becoming more visible and public, this viral emerging nature of behaviour change is vital.

In summary, behaviour in any particular situation is a function partly of attitudes and intentions, partly of routine responses and habits, and partly through the situational constraints and conditions under which people live. Intentions in their turn are influenced by social, normative and emotional factors as well as by rational considerations. ‘People are neither fully deliberative nor fully mechanical. People are neither fully autonomous nor entirely social’.

Behaviours are influenced by moral beliefs, but the impact of these is moderated both by any emotional drives and intellectual limitations. The approach we need to take is one of addressing individual, interpersonal and social interactions in a complex interrelating network of communities of place, interest and practice. There is growing recognition though that engagement and ownership at the local level is vital and there is an acute need for supportive mechanisms to be developed within communities to engage individuals, households and groups in behavioural change activities linked to new interrelating measures of success.
Defra have asked participants of its workshop to bring together around thirty organisations, with a public profile and / or expertise in encouraging individuals to change their behaviour in ways that reduce their environmental footprint. They are looking at establishing a shared understanding of particular behaviours that can be encouraged, in relation to energy, transport and food.

This is not a panacea, and there are many other initiatives around. However, consumers face a confusing barrage of information and advice. Both governments and consumers could benefit from greater clarity on priorities, and a shared understanding between government and groups in civil society could be an important means of accelerating progress.
People might not listen to the government if it doesn't practice what it preaches. So a good start would be for DEFRA to ensure it has a high recycling rate in its offices, that its employees turn their computers and the screens off at night, and that the lights use energy efficient bulbs. Lead by example.

Then there is the financial incentive. Most people can grasp the idea that an energy efficient lightbulb, or loft insulation will save them money, but don't choose to do either of these things because they are expensive and a hassle. The government needs to ensure that environmentally friendly products are not too expensive at the outset- perhaps finding a way through taxation to ensure that the gap in price between (to use the same example again) an energy efficient lightbulb and an ordinary one is less.
Generally when something costs more we use it less, when something costs less we use it more. The United Nations in their Millennium Assessment report, said unequivocally that we had to give ‘full value’ to nature's services. ( www.millenniumassessment.org )

At this point in time, because of accelerating global warming, the important of these services is carbon storage services. If the carbon dioxide polluters paid the full cost of the carbon storage services that are needed to clean that carbon dioxide up, the cost of fossil fuels would rise dramatically. Conversely the value of forests would rise because of the carbon storage income they would generate from the carbon polluters.

These extra costs for fossil fuels would drive improved insulation in homes, better use of heating, more use of comparatively cheaper renewable energies, cleaner burn cars, more efficient transport use, leisure pursuits which were less carbon producing, increased consumption of local food (as the real transport costs drove up the price of food miles).

This would work on a local, regional, national level. Indeed it is vital that this trade also works on an international level as well, as even if the UK became carbon neutral, it would make very little difference to global warming.

We are extraordinarily lucky that at this time of crisis, there is an international organisation which has ‘sustainable development’ enshrined in page 1, paragraph 1, of the Agreement that established it, and has ‘sustainable development’ as its overarching aim according to its Director-General. Let’s remember, ‘sustainable development’ is an impossibility unless global warming is tackled, so this organisation must do all it can to tackle global warming.

Further this organisation is mandated by its members to, 'the optimal use of the world's resources ..seeking both to preserve and protect the environment..' and ‘has broadbased responsibility covering all areas of the multilateral trading system - including services’ .

This international organisation has the power to enforce its decisions on its member which include all the key players in global warming.

The World Trade Organisation (WTO), by recognising the free and fair international trade of ecosystem services beginning with the implementation of carbon storage services, could effectively make us all, as individuals, as companies, as organisations, as countries, strive to be in carbon credit, because it was in our best commercial and financial interests to be so. It seems clear the WTO is mandated by its members to recognise this largest of all global trade sectors but some of the key players must be encouraged.

- warming will trigger some processes which speed further warming, and other effects which mitigate it. The balance between these positive and negative feedbacks is a major cause of uncertainty in climate predictions. Carbon dioxide (CO2) is the main greenhouse gas of concern. A finite amount of carbon is stored in fossil fuels, the sea, living matter and the atmosphere. Without human influence, transfers between these stores roughly balance each other ? for example, plants absorb carbon as they grow, but release it as they decay. But when humans cut down trees or burn fossil fuels, they release extra carbon into the atmosphere, increasing the greenhouse effect (BBC).

- To give green energy a chance
o developing a long-term 'cap and trade' regime for carbon emissions, to guarantee carbon reduction;
o establishing a capacity payment system, to guarantee sufficient electricity generating capacity, and
o improving the regulatory structure for renewable and decentralised energy - including the remit of OFGEM - to spark a revolution in green energy.

- Britain will not be able to meet its goals on climate change without curbing the demand for air travel, according to an Oxford University report. The Oxford University report - Predict and Decide: Aviation, climate change and UK policy - says improvements in technology and air traffic management would have some impact on emissions, but would not be enough on their own. It argues that increasing the tax passengers pay on flights will be a much more immediate and effective way to deter them from travelling. It also says the cost of leisure and business flights has fallen in real terms over the past 15 years, and this has driven at least 40% of the growth in air travel.


I Count Campaign

SCC is an unprecedented and growing coalition on climate change, bringing together environment and development organisations, unions, faith, community and women?s groups. Members include Friends of the Earth, RSPB, Greenpeace, WWF, Oxfam, Tearfund, Christian Aid, the Women?s Institute and UNISON.
I Count is designed to inspire personal and political action and counter the view that climate change is too big a problem to fix. The campaign has already gained support, from leading environmentalists to global poverty campaigners.
"I Count because the world is facing its greatest man-made threat ever - climate change. Urgent action is needed - by individuals and most of all governments. Without political will, action on the scale required will not be possible." Sir David Attenborough

"I Count because I care about the millions of people living in poor countries that will be hit first and worst by climate change". Annie Lennox
The I Count pocket sized book, published by Penguin, outlines 16 essential steps that take you from The Power of Off and Rejecting the Ridiculous, to the Magic of Sharing. It provides practical and entertaining guidance on how people can reduce their personal carbon dioxide emissions, and encourages them to place pressure on politicians to take action too. The book costs ?3 and has already received rave reviews.

"I usually hate books that tell you what to do, but this one actually made me laugh and showed me how to save a bit of cash." Jo Brand.
"The I Count step by step guide to climate bliss book is not only exceptionally important, it's also pretty funny and gives you a great excuse to invite a friend to share a bath." Alistair McGowan
The I Count campaign is encouraging people who care about climate change to sign up online or by text and turn up at the mass event at London?s Trafalgar Square on Saturday November 4th. It calls on the UK government to provide:
• Action internationally: ensure that global greenhouse gas emissions are irreversibly declining by 2015.
• Action for justice: deliver assistance to developing countries to adapt to climate change and give access to clean energy to meet their developmental needs.
• Action in the UK: introduce a Carbon budget in the Queen?s speech to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 3% per year.

Sources:
Comments: David Miliband’s weblog
http://www.davidmiliband.defra.gov.uk/blogs/
ministerial_blog/about_blog.aspx
http://www.oxfam.org.uk/press/releases/icount_blairs
lastchance_111006.htm
http://www.icount.org.uk
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/sci_nat/04/climate
_change/html/carbon.stm
http://www.howgreenisyourcar.co.uk/
http://www.conservatives.com/tile.do?def=campaigns.display.
page&obj_id=130755
http://www.admin.ox.ac.uk/po/news/2006-07/oct/17.shtml

Our differences

A prerequisite for doing things together is to learn to live with our differences. (1) In our increasingly pluralistic societies, implementing inclusive social policies need proper approach to avoid marginalization of democratic machinery by hostile voice using democratic tools to perpetrate group conflicts. We have a moral and social responsibility to ensure that our value systems are not compromised by extremist views. Restricted boundaries of identities where it is ill defined can turn into major cause of violent conflicts and unsatisfactory social issues.

On the political side, there is a need for inclusivity. Monopolisation of political power by one group or another is often responsible for many sort of unresponsiveness and for violent reactions when the system fails to manage the pressure. Achieving political inclusivity is not an automatic result of democracy since there is a strong tendency for political parties in divided societies to represent and argue for particular ethnicities or religious practices.

Segregations can be used by groups and their leaders in order to achieve political or economic goals. Differentiation politics are played for local audiences to justify and gain the support of international community as a means for holding power, hence there is emphasise on heightening separation walls. Similarly, cases of hostile cultures emphasis on marginalisation dilemma have been used to justify reluctance in power sharing.

The use of ethnic symbols and the enhancement of ethnic identities are used for the mobilization of support often by reworking historical memories. Where educational system is not responsive, groups are imperfectly informed and limitations are imperfectly understood. Indeed, individuals who had had some disappointing experiences might come to reject dominant social culture. Triggering group differences raise the level of social expectations that can hold back the sense of social cohesion or strengthening social bonds.

While, ethnic conflicts are sometimes played as motivating mechanism for bringing changes, it can block the very democratic changes that it was intended to accomplish. Ceaseless ethnic conflicts have been the major characteristics of conditions in which failing states come short to find acceptable ways for groups to live with their differences. It is sometimes assumed, that greater democracy comes at a cost of reduced efficiency, what ever the cultural context. There are cases of democratic regimes that are replaced by tyranny since they were not prepared to challenge the requirements of contemporary measures.

There should be caution about consequences where political system moderate tendencies were undermined by democratic competition. There is the danger of ethnicization of politics where too many unfounded claims of differentiations weaken social cooperation. This can lead to negative externalities of belonging to certain groups. Membership of deprived groups can cause resentment among individuals on behalf of the group. This tendency of ethnic sensitization has been motivating factor for civil war therefore driving politicians to avoid multiparty democracy.

Researcher, however, point out that wars and conflicts are increasingly used by political leaders to sustain status quo confirmed by evidences that wars are fought mostly to sustain holding power rather than for making changes. But uncertainties caused by wars and conflicts might yield unpredictable outcomes other than initially intended.

On the other hand, adherence to the laws of war and the use of very proportional means, like precision-guided munitions are changing the concept of war as well as victory, since victory is not just on the side of the victors; the losers must give victory to the winners.(2) There is an explicit recognition of the fact not only that fighting wars is of little use if the subsequent peace is not won, but also that war itself is a recognition of failure. It is hard to see how states will concede a loss when precision guided munitions are used and there is no engagement on the battlefield.

In any case, those resorting to wars or conflicts, do so because they see no other solution to make changes. It is suggested that democracy in strongly divided countries needs to be a form of constrained democracy, designed to ensure an inclusive system while the prospect of future wars fought by advanced technology does raise the question on the choice between non-violence and non existence.

Finally, the big question is raised for societies who have reached agreement to live in peace over the management and wisdom to curb their ever growing population. The security implications for states of demographic pressures and resource depletion needed to be taken on board alongside the consideration of threats of ethnic conflicts and wars.

How do we respond to overpopulation that has led to the phenomena of human produced in mass, powerless to afford a human life for too many of the kind.




(1) Kalypso Nicolaïdis, University of Oxford Lecturer in International Relations.

(2) Dr David Whetham, The Moral and Legal Challenges posed by Emerging Weapon Technologies, Defence Studies Department, King's College London


References:

Frances Stewart, (2002), Horizontal Inequalities: A Neglected Dimension of Development, Centre for Research on Inequality, Human Security and Ethnicity, CRISE, QEH, University of Oxford

Williams, Bernard (2000) ‘Formal Structures and Social Reality’, in Gambetta,
Diego (ed.) Trust: Making and Breaking Cooperative Relations, electronic edition, Department of Sociology, University of Oxford, chapter 1, pp. 3-13

Lauer, Robert H., Perspective on social change, 1974, (in Farsi translation, Emami, K.)

RESEARCH FOR POLICY EVALUATION

In policy evaluation processes, key elements include beliefs, information, interests (stakeholders) and institutions which need to be examined in order to understand how policy is changing. This involves identifying how they interact with each other as they change under different perception. People play an important role in changing things, whether politicians, CEOs of particular organisations, influential lobbyists, MPs, trade unionists, newspaper editors, special policy advisors in the Home Office, etc. at the end of the day policy making appear to be more about the chance and timing rather than logical and systematic response. It should be recognized the importance of opportunities for policy change, when people are vigilant and looking for new ideas and argument. the paradigms, policies and practices relevant to research concerns need to be explored with enthusiasm along the path including above key elements. Other people’s support and advocacy on behalf of researcher need to be developed for credibility. Reliable research needs a good contextual analysis and integration that illustrate a broader picture.

‘Policy’ is not only public policy of governments, but also the policy of NGOs and local statutory bodies. The research process should be regarded as a change activity in itself and the process in itself can be made more relevant to policy, by enhancing participation in the research by the population concerned.

What is policy? Policy as a commodity is quite a diffuse thing, and the ways that research affects policy are equally complex. There is the issues of ‘where did our research go?’ – often it’s hard to track whose policy was informed by the research. The connection often gets lost to the actors involved, although a connection existed. For example, people talk about ‘knowledge-creep’, e.g. it took 20 years of good quality research on poverty reduction and empowerment before any serious changes were made to policies in the developing world.


How can you make research (usually a highly-focused exercise) relevant to policy and practice (usually broad agendas):

multiple written outputs,
knowledge management systems
opportunities to present and discuss the research
sharing research with ‘go-betweens’
working with ‘research translators’
user involvements
identify stakeholders

Critical views:

Policy makers are seen as:
􀂃Narrow-minded and ideological
􀂃Ridiculously impatient
􀂃Making decisions irrationally
􀂃Using research to rationalise what they already decided to do
􀂃Refusing to relinquish control
􀂃Excessively rule-oriented
􀂃Short-sighted
􀂃Knowing what they do not like, but cannot say what they could use

Researchers are seen as:
􀂃Narrow-minded and ideological
􀂃Taking too much time to do anything
􀂃not having all the answers
􀂃Making authoritative claims in areas outside the range of their expertise
􀂃Thinking they are always right and that there is no need to present the basis for their opinions
􀂃Doing what they want to do, not what they should do
􀂃Always wanting more money
􀂃Lacking any common sense

The emphasis is on the importance of keeping up with the policy world, including learning the language, knowing the people you are dealing with, talking to representatives at conferences and understanding the other forces that shape policy, and the other knowledge that is involved in policy-making.

Questions to be addressed:
‘Why should policy be like that?’, ‘When should policy be changed or commenced?’, ‘Where should policy take effect?’, ‘How can policy be executed?’ and ‘Who should carry out the policy or be the target of it?’, are more likely to produce practically relevant research that is taken on board by policy makers. There is a distinction between research literacy and research competence. Your own personal strengths and weaknesses lend you to different techniques.

Match your method (structured, unstructured and semi-structured interviews) to the nature of the research (inductive/deductive; critical social science or interpretive social science) and anticipated sensitivities regarding the topic and the participants. For example, unstructured interviews can be good for subject areas that deal with intense sensitivities as the participant is then entitled to determine the form, space and content of the interview. Interviewers can see themselves as non-participant and impartial, as co-participant and as co-agent of change. However, remember that not all participants want to participate, are interested, or want to have to ‘give out’ – participatory research is more demanding than other forms of research. You demand that the participant is confident to narrate and analyse their experience, and trusts you not to plunder their brains and run!
Regarding the politics of interviewing, researchers should anticipate the relational shape of the interview relationship. There is always an implicit hierarchy, an interview should be allocated just to chat.

To consider:
• Who is in the interview? Who are you? Your age, interviewee’s age, gender, cultural background etc. all have a bearing.
• What are you talking about? What are the politics of that topic? Where is the interview?

Evidence-Based Policy - the Centre for Advanced Study in the Social Sciences, Oxford University, May 2005

Envirnoment Issue of Over Population

As these two effects of climate change - global drying and rising salt pollution - run up against the growing demand for water, and as irrigation systems run dry or become contaminated, the possibility arises of a permanent global food deficit. Even with a net food surplus, 800 million people are malnourished. Nothing I could write would begin to describe what a world in deficit - carrying 9 billion people - would look like (Guardian) a.

Why are there so many people? Earth is suffering from resource depletion due to unleashed population growth. We will live to regret for the scale of ignorance, and idiocy around over population that is ongoing. Peoples uncommon sense in poor countries about reproduction consequence such as girl children early pregnancy, giving birth for child labour along which is mostly due to female illiteracy and inactive economic life are among the major factors of too many births. If people have children at an average age of 30 rather than 20, the world population will be reduced by 1/3 after a few generations. These are all considered to be causing out of negligent cultures that withhold women’s rights to live a full human life.

There's another alternative and that's to reduce the human population through birth control. Why is no effective birth control taught, practiced, or even condoned, in much of the overpopulated developing world? It can be implemented as an effective solution to the looming catastrophes.

The reality is that so long as the human population keeps expanding we will continue to consume and pollute the planet. The issue of over population will be the ultimate driving function on the future condition of this planet. Today the Red Cross warns about a new TB that has no effective cure. This innate capacity for delusion and selfish denial will wreck havoc of civilization unless we initiate promptly, with informed planning or even force if needed, contain and control the total population of the earth.

a) Comments: George Monbiot, Guardian, 11 Oct 2006

Priority Setting for Health Research

The Essential National Health Research principle of involving the community, scientists and policy makers/administrators in the process of priority setting has been tried in both developing and industrialised countries, to broaden ownership. Bringing together these disparate groups has several challenges. These include: how to involve members of the community – who may not have the ‘right’ expertise in the eyes of the health research and policy community - in a way that creates a meaningful exchange with research and political players; how to best involve the private sector or donors – and ensure a contribution or realignment of their agendas to national priorities; how to best link the technical and political sides of the debate; how to bring together multiple sectors, such as health, science and technology, agriculture and ensure a holistic approach to health and health research. Common features of most of tools and methods to measure magnitude of health issues are estimations of health problems, identification of gaps in the knowledge about ways to eliminate them and of research needed to control them. The focus is on past and current health problems. Common criteria for the choice of priorities include the possibility to address the problem through research, the feasibility and cost of the research and the potential outcome, impact and cost effectiveness of interventions resulting from the research. Criteria for priority setting should respond to the different challenges involved in the process. They should help balance competing pressures faced by a national health research system, such as: basic vs. applied research; public vs. private research; health needs vs. political interests; national vs. international funding; public vs. private funding. These criteria should also respond to health needs reflected at different levels in the country. The application of Foresight methodologies looking at future problems for which research is needed will bring a useful new perspective to the more traditional priority setting methods. An information and feedback strategy should be an integral part of any priority setting process and national research agenda. Continuous dissemination of research results and feedback to key players and beneficiaries of the process is crucial to get and retain the support from partners.

In communicating the research agenda to community members, special care should be taken to explain how their concerns have been addressed in the national research agenda. In some situations, community priorities only have local relevance and may not appear in a national research agenda. In this case, a specific recommendation can be made to address these priorities at the local level, through local institutions. Documenting these decisions and reporting them back to the community members are key actions to retain their interest and commitment during revisions of the agenda. A practical approach to progress is to build on comprehensive nationwide data and analysis, although gathering this depth of information may not be possible in the initial stages - start small and build from there – is a good option in many cases. Initial priority setting could focus on a region or a community, or on specific diseases or institutions. A ‘multiple entry point’ approach should also be considered – that looks at priority setting at the disease and institutional levels. A higher level of coordination is needed when several institutions are involved, or when these institutions are of different types – such as public sector, councils, NGO or private sector.

Priority setting should be seen as an ongoing, iterative process in which the quality of data that is used to set priorities improves over time, and in which an increasing number of institutions and partners are involved. Furthermore, national priority setting must build on inputs and outputs at several levels (district, national and regional levels, institutional levels, etc). allowing more space for curiosity and investigation facilitates the involvement of the research community in the research agenda setting process. It ensures links between the science and technology (aimed at promoting innovation and discovery) and health sectors (aimed at implementing more cost-effective interventions). It allows the development of research, within the national health researchsystem, in areas that may not be seen as a priority at the moment of priority setting. And it gives access to international scientific developments.

A country’s initial environmental scan should include an assessment of existing human resources. The priority setting process needs to assess whether the organisations’ and partners’ current skills are adequate to address the issues defined. Gaps in skills and expertise identified by the scan, then, become a priority area to address. The Foresight methodology further supports this by building the assessment of future skills into the national plan, and by specifying a training plan.

Implementation, monitoring and evaluation

Monitoring and evaluation are vital elements in priority setting, and should become standard practice, just as it is standard practice in health programs. This implies that budget allocation is needed to ensure monitoring, evaluation and follow-up of the research agenda. This is the basis for building a continuous and iterative research priority setting process. It should actively engage an increasing number of players to help improve management of the process over time.
Addressing crises and political imperatives will require specific short-term objectives. Medium and longer term goals and useful milestones should also be defined as part of the plan.

Taking a process perspective puts the emphasis on delivering a plan for implementation, with financial and human resources mapped out (or gaps identified) and including components for performance evaluation, capacity building and quality improvement. Special attention should be given to changes in government and administration to ensure that the set priorities are respected. Other elements on the time axis such as monitoring and evaluation and dissemination of information to key stakeholders, are activities that will keep the priority setting process alive.
Experience shows that if the priority-setting process has a space for negotiation and ‘appeal’, it is much more likely to become a truly national agenda, one in which a much larger proportion of stakeholders can find themselves.

Advocacy is important at national and international level and should be extended beyond the health sector and also be directed to proponents of other sectors, which harbour important health determinants particularly water, sanitation, agriculture.

Decentralised structure of the health system. The Philippines has a decentralised health and health care system, where local governments take budgetary decisions. This bottom-up experience made people feel empowered and involved in the decision making process. Some argued that the bottom-up approach could be best complemented with top down initiatives so that both approaches would capture what the top wants and what the bottom needs (Note:
70% of funding for health research comes from central government). Research agenda setting is best done after the administration has set its plans and programmes and new initiatives have been identified. Reviews conducted to date have allowed the integration of new priorities (such as disaster management in response to natural disasters taking place), and the consideration of global developments and their relevance to the national health research situation. However, in general, the reviews do not show major changes in the priority issues on the agenda.

The quality of participation of stakeholders, expertise and commitment of stakeholder were also an issue, as not all participants considered the process relevant. In addition, the private sector was not represented in the process and there is no mechanism in place to facilitate links between the public and private sectors.

This consultation is a first step in a continuous learning process around priority setting for national health research. Stakeholders and partners can use web-based interactions and face-to-face meetings to engage many more research managers and development partners to build on new experiences and recommendations from countries to improve priority setting. People and organizations interested in priority setting for research will be encouraged to contribute to this ‘learning spiral’ and to share their expertise.

•Basic Principles in priority setting:
- Legitimacy and fairness
- Trans-disciplinary approach
- Involving the stakeholders in the process
- Promoting health and development on the basis of equity and health maximisation for the greatest number of people with fixed level of investment
- Realistic assessment of affordability, deliverability and sustainability of the proposed research
- Realistic assessment of likelihood of research success in terms of both reaching the end point, and the endpoint being effective in reducing disease burden
- Respecting the principles of economy in terms of research and cost effectiveness of intervention delivery.

The competing research options by the type of disease burden have impact to inform the priority issues ranking process. The approach is based on a 3 steps process: 1) review of literature and subsequent brainstorming sessions with the reference group; 2) categorisation of competing options according to the type of disease burden that they affect; 3) assessment of prevalence of risk exposure in a population of interest.

Risk assessment takes into consideration the estimation of relative risks, the burden of disease of interest, the cost of research and delivery per unit of population and the level of existing funding that is already invested in each research avenue.

Priority ranking is affected by stakeholders’ view of the world. Managers consider priorities in terms of issues, policy-makers in term of interest groups, public in terms of problems, researchers in terms of disciplines or methodologies and clinicians in terms of diseases. Two approaches are suggested forranking priority issues. 1) The “technical assessment approach” allows ranking of priority issues across potential clinical trial investments. This approach tends to hide under a series of assumptions many value judgments that may reflect those of the broader population of users and payers. On the other hand it requires the adoption of single clear objective to guide the exercise. 2) The “interpretive assessment approach” is best applied in agency wide assessments. It relies on the subjective judgments of participants expressed through structured exercises. This approach offers the possibility of dealing with multiple assumptions and objectives at the same time. Involving diverse stakeholders should contribute to increase transparency and accountability and allow to better respond to societal needs. Target stakeholders could be: business and civil society involved in the central advisory council on science andtechnology, mutli-stakeholders involved in bodies that coordinate or fund research, scientific experts, policy, business and community representatives.

Criteria for priority setting should respond to the different challenges involved in the process: balancing competing pressures (basic versus oriented research, core funding versus project funding, competition from increasing industry funding), institutional funding (rigidity of the research system, autonomy of research institutions, financing of high risk pre-competitive research),responding to emerging technologies and societal needs, promoting multidisciplinary research. The following criteria should be considered when setting priorities in health care organisations: strategic fit, alignment with external directives, academic commitments, clinical impact, community need, partnerships, interdependency, and resource implications. Fairness is a key ethical goal of priority setting when health care resources are scarce.

•Quality improvement and capacity strengthening should be developed for fair priority setting. Process monitoring and formal evaluation strategies should be developed to ensure quality improvement and organisational learning. Process should be supported by leadership development and change management strategies to strengthen institutional capacity for priority decision making.

This toolkit proposes the use of futures approach in the priority setting process. The approach helps building new networks, it creates a shared vision of how to move forward where a number of organisations have a stake in an issue, it highlights challenges and opportunities, tests robustness of policies and allows the optimal use of resources.

•Methods that can be applied for the identification of priority issues: Horizon scanning, Delphi, Trend analysis, Driver analysis, Scenarios, Visioning, Technology roadmaps, System maps, Back-casting, Modeling, Simulation, Gaming, Data review, In-depth interview, Focus-group discussions, Consultative meetings, Round tables, Surveys, Field visits, Workshops, Seven questions, Issues trees, System maps, Reviewof areas of science.

•Criteria for deciding on public spending should be based on economic efficiency, ethical reasons and political considerations.
•The economic efficiency dimension takes into consideration: cost-effectiveness (relation between the cost of an intervention and the resulting health gain), public goods, externalities, and catastrophic cost.
•Ethical reasons concern: poverty, horizontal equity (giving equal treatment to people with equal health problems, implying equal effectiveness), vertical equity (preferential treatment for people with worse problems), and the rule of rescue (grouping patients into: those whose lives can be saved by intervening, those who will die even if given treatment, those in between because their lives are not immediately threatened).
•Political considerations relate to public demand (what the public thinks its money should be used for).

Sources:
•http://www.healthresearchfordevelopment.org
•http://www.zonmw.nl
•http://www. saude.gov.br/sctie/decit
•http://www.dst.gov.za/
•www.nih.gov/about/researchpriorities.htm
•www.foresight.gov.uk/HORIZON_SCANNING_C
ENTRE/Toolkit/Toolkit.html

TO COMMUNICATE RESEARCH FINDINGS

Healthlink Worldwide

Are you struggling with finding the best way to communicate research
findings? Are you wondering what communication materials your institution should be producing? Are you trying to persuade colleagues about the importance of communication? Are you trying to get your research programme better known?

If so, and if you're going to be at the Global Forum for Health Research this year in Cairo, you're in luck. Practical advice on how to better organize your research information and communicate your research more effectively is at hand. A team of skilled research communicators from eight institutions - Council on Health Research for Development (COHRED), CRESAR, Cameroon, Development Bank of Southern Africa, Ghana Ministry Of Health Policy Unit, Healthlink Worldwide, Institute of Development Studies (IDS), Makerere University Institute of Public Health, and Research Matters - have joined together to provide a special advisory service on research communication throughout the Forum.

Look for the Advisory Service stall in the Marketplace throughout the Forum. We are at your service, ready to answer your questions and help solve your problems on any aspect of communicating health research.

The purpose of the service is to share our experience with others. Weencourage developing country partners to bring their problems, questions or even documents to the team for advice and input from the team.

* Bring a research paper (or several) and we can help you look
At how to transform it into information that is useful for policy makers, community members or other users.

* Bring us your ideas and we'll give you an honest answer and advice, and we can help you discuss how to develop a communication
strategy or approach.

* Bring a proposal and we can discuss how to make it more
interesting to the intended audience.

* Ask us why is effective information management a critical
Part of good quality research communication? And how can it improve the
relevance of a research institute?

* Ask us for practical advice on how to manage your research
outputs, including advice on open access journals, online databases and
more...

* Ask us how to design a campaign to make your research
Programme better known.

* Bring us your frustrations of what is not working for your
organisation in research communication; we can explore this together.

* Ask us what research communication and knowledge translation
Is all about and why you should be interested in it.

Healthlink Worldwide
56-64 Leonard Street
London EC2A 4LT
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7549 0255 (direct)
Fax: +44 (0) 20 7549 0241

The cost of climate change: Equity weighting

In 1997, DFID's White Paper on International Development entitled Eliminating World Poverty: A Challenge for the 21st Century (HMSO 1997) pointed out that the means of subsistence for many of the world’s poor, is a cornerstone of the new policy which recognises that the “lasting eradication of poverty requires environmentally sustainable solutions” (p 18). The agenda was set for policy emphasis on shifting away from direct intervention towards, capacity building, partnerships and projects that assist the poor to manage their resource base and derive livelihoods that are sustainable. Emphasis is to be placed on grass-roots approaches to understanding local solutions for local problems working in partnership with NGOs and policymakers. There must be local ‘ownership’ of, and commitment to, programmes of external assistance for development and, to meet this end, a strengthening of national capacity to develop and implement policy interventions to eradicate poverty while at the same time encouraging ‘socially and environmentally responsible behaviour’.

There must be full participation of the communities concerned, particularly women and indigenous groups who are over-represented among the poor. Emphasis should be placed on those policies which reduce poverty, promote economic growth and conserve the environment for example, in the promotion of sustainable agriculture. Finally, pro-poor, proenvironment policies and programmes must be based on poverty and environmental assessments.

Equity weighting

Climate change is a problem that must be tackled from the global perspective due to the significant global implications of domestic action. Historically, developed countries’ industrial activities were initial cause of harmful emissions - while developing countries are competing to go along the same path at the peril of the life on planet. In this context the next generation will bear subsequent costs disproportionately. The excuse that developed world is responsible for the majority of the damage inflicted doesn’t justify further damage by the rest of the world. The rational for policies such as equity weighting requires collective consciousness on the consequences of business as usual.

Equity weighting goes some way to incorporating the full impact of our emissions on others into our policy making, which is in line with the polluter pays principle. Indeed it can be argued that, as united global action will be needed to address the climate change issue, not incorporating equity weighting risks significantly undervaluing the damages of climate change. The effect of equity weighting is that it allows welfare equivalents to be compared since a dollar to a poor man is worth more than a dollar to a rich man. Therefore, it accounts for the fact that if a poor person were to be given an amount of money, then she would value that money far more than if it were given to a person who already was very rich. There is also the issue of relative vulnerability to climate change which is related to changes in economic development in a number of ways. The majority of damages occur in regions that have per capita incomes that are below the world average. Such a result is consistent with the results of other studies.

The valuation of non-market impacts increases with per capita income. The importance of agriculture falls as per capita incomes rise, as do the incidence of malaria and the inclination to migrate. Generally therefore, it may be assumed that the social costs of carbon emissions will increase over time as a result of a combination of increasing incomes over time, and of the increasing concentration of carbon in the atmosphere. In order to draw an assessment model to calculate the cost of climate change a diverse body of information relating to economic growth assumptions, carbon emission forecasts, abatement cost estimates and global warming damage functions, and damages of increase in temperature are needed to be incorporated into one model. The social costs considered vary between the studies but generally refer to the physical impacts of climate change. For example, the impacts on agriculture, ecosystem impacts, increased mortality effects, the effects of a sea level rise, extreme weather effects, species loss and health effects such as malaria etc

The studies reviewed consent on an estimate of marginal damage figure of approximately £70/tC (2000 prices) for carbon emissions in 2000. This increases by approximately £1/tC per year in real terms for each subsequent year to account for the increasing damage costs over time.

The social cost of a tonne of carbon emissions will vary over time. It will depend on the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, both at the time of emission and, for the length of time the carbon remains in the atmosphere.

Consequently the social cost of carbon can only be considered to be a constant when the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere stabilises. The parameter values used in deriving this estimate seem to be among those enjoying the greatest support in the literature. This figure is subject to significant levels of uncertainty. Furthermore, this figure excludes any consideration of the probability of .climate catastrophes. (i.e. melting of the West Antarctic ice sheet) and socially dependent impacts of climate change that could increase damages considerably.

These sources of uncertainty can be subdivided into those of a scientific nature, and those associated with economic valuation. Perhaps the most controversial issue to have arisen in the context of estimating the social cost of carbon has been how to aggregate the valuation of impacts across geographical regions that exhibit huge disparities in income. This is important in the context of climate change because a significant proportion of the impacts do not have a market value; therefore, willingness to pay (which depends on income) to avoid, or willingness to accept compensation to put up with the impacts, is generally used to replace their value.

DFID (1997) Eliminating World Poverty: A Challenge for the 21st Century,
London:HMSO.