This paper presents findings from a study of policy implementation of green infrastructure and stormwater management in the City of Toronto - Canada's largest city. The analysis uses key informant ...interviews with public, private and non-profit sector actors to examine the challenges municipalities face in implementing green infrastructure policies. The article begins with a review of the literature related to green infrastructure policy implementation followed by the theoretical and methodological approach used in the paper. Findings are then presented outlining the significant barriers to green infrastructure and insights from participants who articulated that rather than a shift from grey to green, what is evident in terms of policy change is policy layering and very gradual conversion of well-established policies that support grey infrastructure. The paper concludes with a discussion of why the shift from grey to green will continue to be challenging unless significant policy and institutional changes are advanced.
National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) have been characterized by complex implementation and coordination gaps, related to uneven framings in domestic contexts. This study analyzes these framing processes ...in Brazil and Colombia by examining the translation of global prescriptions into tangible policy instruments. It combines a policy translation analytical framework with the processes of layering, drift, conversion, and replacement. It draws on semi-structured interviews with institutional actors and it examines (i) agenda-setting and elaboration of the NAPs, (ii) the different roles and interactions of sector-based actors in agriculture and land-use, and (iii) the distinct concepts of adaptation put forward and their subsequent policy outputs in relation to national institutional trajectories. In Brazil and Colombia, the initial ambition of mainstreaming climate adaptation into sector-based policies resulted in a divergent patchwork of policies, which is characterized by limited means, capacity and other resources dedicated to coordination and implementation.
Key policy insights
The study examines the processes through which international prescriptions influence concrete policy outcomes.
The ambition of establishing new climate policies resulted in a patchwork of policies, characterized by low levels of coordination and limited means of implementation. In Brazil, adaptation goals were layered in with existing sector-based policies with some operational capacity, while in Colombia the national adoption of several adaptation goals has not translated into implementation.
The article addresses the politics of policy transfer, knowledge interpretation, and policy change. It considers the possibility of actors interacting to reframe concepts according to their ideas and interests, while also aiming to assure stability.
Climate policy requires efforts to alter policy priorities at the sector level, to create cross-sectoral balances, and strengthen the means of implementation, actions which intimately relate to power relations and institutional settings.
Many countries have implemented national climate policies to accomplish pledged Nationally Determined Contributions and to contribute to the temperature objectives of the Paris Agreement on climate ...change. In 2023, the global stocktake will assess the combined effort of countries. Here, based on a public policy database and a multi-model scenario analysis, we show that implementation of current policies leaves a median emission gap of 22.4 to 28.2 GtCO
eq by 2030 with the optimal pathways to implement the well below 2 °C and 1.5 °C Paris goals. If Nationally Determined Contributions would be fully implemented, this gap would be reduced by a third. Interestingly, the countries evaluated were found to not achieve their pledged contributions with implemented policies (implementation gap), or to have an ambition gap with optimal pathways towards well below 2 °C. This shows that all countries would need to accelerate the implementation of policies for renewable technologies, while efficiency improvements are especially important in emerging countries and fossil-fuel-dependent countries.
This article sharpens consideration of aspects of policy transfer to address climate change and gives greater attention to the context that might support efficient adaptive resilience. Using the ...example of Australian reforms to water policy, we evaluate how different elements of policy proved more (less) successful in facilitating efficient adaptation to climate variability and thus expose elements that might be more (less) attractive as candidates for policy transfer. Overall, we find that Australian policy reforms in the water sector provide useful guidance in some instances and not others. Establishing caps on extraction, flexible water markets and individual carry over rights generally facilitated flexible and efficient adaptation, and could be transferred. Related policy concepts, like formulating clear water planning rules and entitlements, are worth considering for implementation elsewhere, even if the groundwork on governance is a prerequisite. We also note the importance of shaping drought responses from government in such a way as not to distort the incentives for individual adaptation, and there is some evidence of this working in the Australian setting. Achieving transferability of these policies, however, may be a challenge. Australian policies around 'hard infrastructure' investments have generally proved less desirable and ideally should not be considered as a roadmap. These relate specifically to: (1) extravagant augmentation of urban supply; (2) using infrastructure to supposedly improve irrigation efficiency for environmental water provision; and (3) governments' infrastructure responses after flooding. None of these approaches is consistent with the aim of fostering adaptation to a more variable climatic future.
Key policy insights
Australian water policies that have focussed on capping water extractions, development of flexible markets and specifying rights to allow greater flexibility have generally worked well against a changing climate, and could be transferred.
The development of clear planning rules and entitlements also proved important, although the conditions to favour transfer are difficult to engender.
Policies dealing with hard physical infrastructure have proven problematic and their adoption elsewhere is discouraged, even if transfer is more amenable.
Encouraging more individual adaptation to flooding is a particularly significant challenge, even in a country renowned for drought.
We test the effectiveness of environmental and energy policies, complying with legal requirements and followed voluntarily, on endeavours towards green and energy transitions. With this aim, a sample ...of Italian listed firms in the period 2008-19 is investigated. The empirical framework is developed by means of a propensity score matching analysis with multiple treatments, implemented in both a panel data and cross-sectional contexts. Our results show that regional interventions operate as a push/pull mechanism in driving companies to be more environmentally friendly. This is important for identification of policy-driven changes which make some regions more successful than others in sustainability transition.
Doing medicine together Solomon, Susan Gross
Doing medicine together,
c2006, 20061018, 2006, 2014, 2006-01-01
eBook
Of the many interwar connections between Germany and Russia, one of the most unusual - and least explored - is medicine and public health. Between 1922 and 1932, with high-level political support and ...government funding, Soviet and German physicians and public health specialists collaborated in joint research expeditions, published joint articles, launched a bi-lingual journal, and established joint research institutions. Surprisingly, students of Soviet-German relations have all but ignored this medical collaboration; while historians of science have treated it as political history, an exercise in cultural diplomacy designed to mitigate the impact of the post-war exclusion of both nations from the international science.
The contributors to this volume, who come from Germany, Russia, Britain, the United States and Canada, depart from the traditional approach to the subject. Drawing on previously inaccessible archival materials, the authors move beyond politics to examine the impact of this collaboration on scientific activity. Contributors analyze aspects of the German-Russian collaboration often overlooked by students of cross-national science, including the choice of 'friends' across borders, the activities of scientific entrepreneurs, the tensions between bi-lateral and international science, and the migration of scientists. Treating Soviet-German medical relations as an instance of trans-national science lays bare its unique features. Ultimately,Doing Medicine Togetherraises new and important questions about the vaunted 'special' relation between Soviet Russia and Weimar Germany.
Although there have been considerable past accomplishments in science, technology and innovation policy literature, our understanding of the evolution of government policies in these areas as a ...country transitions from one political regime to another, remains limited. This paper examines the issue within the context of Ghana, an emerging economy in sub-Saharan Africa, from 1957 to 2012. After a historical review of such government policies, we uncovered three key stages in the evolution of science and technology policy. These include the adoption of the “science for development” strategy and convergence of science and industrial policy from 1957 to 1966. This was then followed by the divergence of science policy and industrial policy from 1967 to the 1990s following the overthrow of Nkrumah's government. The emergence of the “new dawn” from the 2000s onwards ushered in a new policy framework for national science and technology policy geared towards economic development. The study outlines a range of public policy implications.
•The study examines the historical evolution of science, technology and innovation policy in Ghana.•The study identified three key stages in the evolution of STI policy.•The study highlights the convergence and divergence of science policy and industry policy from 1957 to 2012.•The study outlines the implications for public policy formulation.
Policy Points
Social policies might not only improve economic well‐being, but also health. Health policy experts have therefore advocated for investments in social policies both to improve population ...health and potentially reduce health system costs.
Since the 1960s, a large number of social policies have been experimentally evaluated in the United States. Some of these experiments include health outcomes, providing a unique opportunity to inform evidence‐based policymaking.
Our comprehensive review and meta‐analysis of these experiments find suggestive evidence of health benefits associated with investments in early life, income support, and health insurance interventions. However, most studies were underpowered to detect health outcomes.
Context
Insurers and health care providers are investing heavily in nonmedical social interventions in an effort to improve health and potentially reduce health care costs.
Methods
We performed a systematic review and meta‐analysis of all known randomized social experiments in the United States that included health outcomes. We reviewed 5,880 papers, reports, and data sources, ultimately including 61 publications from 38 randomized social experiments. After synthesizing the main findings narratively, we conducted risk of bias analyses, power analyses, and random‐effects meta‐analyses where possible. Finally, we used multivariate regressions to determine which study characteristics were associated with statistically significant improvements in health outcomes.
Findings
The risk of bias was low in 17 studies, moderate in 11, and high in 33. Of the 451 parameter estimates reported, 77% were underpowered to detect health outcomes. Among adequately powered parameters, 49% demonstrated a significant health improvement, 44% had no effect on health, and 7% were associated with significant worsening of health. In meta‐analyses, early life and education interventions were associated with a reduction in smoking (odds ratio OR = 0.92, 95% confidence interval CI 0.86‐0.99). Income maintenance and health insurance interventions were associated with significant improvements in self‐rated health (OR = 1.20, 95% CI 1.06‐1.36, and OR = 1.38, 95% CI 1.10‐1.73, respectively), whereas some welfare‐to‐work interventions had a negative impact on self‐rated health (OR = 0.77, 95% CI 0.66‐0.90). Housing and neighborhood trials had no effect on the outcomes included in the meta‐analyses. A positive effect of the trial on its primary socioeconomic outcome was associated with higher odds of reporting health improvements. We found evidence of publication bias for studies with null findings.
Conclusions
Early life, income, and health insurance interventions have the potential to improve health. However, many of the included studies were underpowered to detect health effects and were at high or moderate risk of bias. Future social policy experiments should be better designed to measure the association between interventions and health outcomes.
Studying effect of different types of wind power industry policies on the technological innovation of enterprises is the core issue that academics and policymakers pay close attention to nowadays. ...Based on systematically carding the quantization of 254 wind power industry policies issued by governmental departments at the ministerial level and above in China from 1994 to 2016, this paper categorizes innovation policy instruments into supply-side, environmental-side, demand-side, and employs Negative Binomial Regression Estimation Model to research the impact of industry policies on wind power enterprises’ innovation performances. The research results show as follows: the effect of different types of policy instruments on enterprise innovation is significantly different: demand-side policy and environmental-side policy have significant inhibitory effects on enterprises’ innovation performance, but supply-side policy has a significantly positive effect especially on the core technological innovation. The effect of wind power industry policies on the innovation quality of different ownership enterprises is significantly different: comprehensive policy and supply-side policy have positive impacts on the core technological innovation of private-owned enterprises, while demand-side policy and environmental-side policy have only positive impacts on the non-core technological innovation of state-owned enterprises. Finally, this paper proposes certain recommendations to consummate wind power industry policies for China.
•Quantifying wind power industry policies to study its role in enterprise innovation.•Dividing innovation quality into core and non-core technological innovation.•Industry policies have positive effects on enterprise core technological innovation.•Demand-side policy has inhibitory effect on enterprises’ innovation performance.•Industry policies have different effects on the innovation quality of SOEs and POEs.
The importance of R&D investment in explaining economic growth is well documented in the literature. Policies by modern governments increasingly recognise the benefits of supporting R&D investment. ...Government funding has, however, become an increasingly scarce resource in times of financial crisis and economic austerity. Hence, it is important that available funds are used and targeted effectively. This paper offers the first systematic review and critical discussion of what the R&D literature has to say currently about the effectiveness of major public R&D policies in increasing private R&D investment. Public policies are considered within three categories, R&D tax credits and direct subsidies, support of the university research system and the formation of high‐skilled human capital, and support of formal R&D cooperations across a variety of institutions. Crucially, the large body of more recent literature observes a shift away from the earlier findings that public subsidies often crowd‐out private R&D to finding that subsidies typically stimulate private R&D. Tax credits are also much more unanimously than previously found to have positive effects. University research, high‐skilled human capital, and R&D cooperation also typically increase private R&D. Recent work indicates that accounting for non‐linearities is one area of research that may refine existing results.
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