Flood Early Warning Systems (FEWS) are implemented in many parts of the world, but early warnings do not always translate into an emergency response from all individuals at risk. This article ...examines challenges such as warning communication and community response capabilities. Literature review, global online survey results, and experiential knowledge helped identify cross-cutting issues such as failure to use participatory approaches involving communities and addressing their concerns in warning, insufficient preparedness and response levels of FEWS, inadequate translation of disaster risk reduction (DRR) policies into action at the community level, lack of DRR knowledge and practices among key stakeholders, insufficient gender and social inclusion in all stages of FEWS, gaps in institutional communication and collaboration, and, finally, technical and financial constraints. The paper also discusses the contribution of Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) in addressing the identified challenges and eventually strengthening FEWS locally. CSOs were found to act positively at local level challenges and significantly contribute to addressing them through tailored solutions to community concerns. Such solutions include DRR awareness campaigns to educate the communities and key officials; enhanced communication between vulnerable communities and local authorities; transforming reactive community response that relied on government officials to a risk-informed and self-prepared community response; gender inclusion and diversity in various stages of FEWS; and advocacy campaigns to build resilience to disasters. Eventually, policy-based recommendations that can help to root out the challenges discussed in this study are presented.
The pace of reforms in young democracies frequently depends not only on the political will of state authorities, but also on how strongly domestic civil society organizations (CSOs) make a stand for ...democratic change. This study examines the coalescing practices of Ukrainian CSOs, which come together to propel issues of public importance onto the agendas of the national government or local governments. The paper develops a typology of diverse coalitions and provides examples of the impact of different types of CSO alliances on democratic developments in Ukraine over the last two decades. The article concludes that CSO coalitions in Ukraine might be seen as informal institutions with functional and problem-solving roles due to their ability to restore the balance of power between state and civil society and benefit participatory decision-making.
Motivation
The term partnership, and the balance of ownership within it, significantly influence the direction of the development field and whether it will be able to address increasingly complicated ...global challenges such as climate change, peace and security and growing inequality.
Purpose
The article explores the nature of government donor–recipient partnerships, the struggle over ownership, and the possibility of transitioning from top‐down aid policy to genuine development co‐operation.
Approach and Methods
The discussion is based on the lead author’s doctoral research and the authors’ experiences of working with the Coady International Institute and the Roméo Dallaire Child Soldiers Initiative.
Findings
The research revealed ample evidence that proclamations of more equitable partnerships or recipient ownership of aid policy are undermined by historical power dynamics and coherency to dominant development narratives. However, a closer examination also found some room to create change as policy is negotiated and interpreted in a multitude of smaller policy spaces, including influences from networks of civil society organizations (CSOs). The article looks at two CSOs that use their “downstairs” position to act as interlocutors with Southern partners. In some cases, they fostered more equitable partnerships and support South–South networks by applying an emancipatory learning approach and adapting aid modalities. This points to the potential for slow—and often reluctant—progress towards more equitable global partnerships and innovative practices.
Policy Implications
The findings suggest that the asymmetrical nature of government donor–recipient partnerships can be addressed through a more nuanced learning approach and increased engagement with CSOs that can experiment with project modalities and support for CSO networks.
Combined sewer overflows (CSOs) are one of the main sources of pollution in urban water systems and significantly impede the restoration of water body functionalities within urban rivers and lakes. ...To understand the research and frontier trends of CSOs comprehensively and systematically, a visual statistical analysis of the literature related to CSOs in the Web of Science core database from 1990 to 2022 was conducted using the bibliometric method using HistCite Pro and VOSviewer. The results reveal a total of 1,209 pertinent publications related to CSOs from 1990 to 2022, and the quantity of CSOs-related publications indicated an increasing trend. Investigations of the distribution and fate of typical pollutants in CSOs and their ecological effects on receiving waters and studies on pollution control technologies (source reduction, process control, and end-of-pipe treatment) are the current focus of CSOs research. CSOs pollution control technologies based on source reduction and the monitoring and control of emerging contaminants are at the forefront of scientific investigations on CSOs. This study systematically and comprehensively summarized current research topics and future research directions of CSOs, thus providing a reference for CSOs control and water environment management research.
Compared to developed countries, developing countries' building codes are less enforceable for energy efficiency and minimum acceptable thermal insulation levels for building envelopes particularly. ...What leads to stronger compliance with such requirements is advancing not just policies, regulations, and enabling markets but also supportive non-governmental advocacy campaigns. The aim of such advocacies is raising awareness of overlooked energy-saving options in buildings and highlighting to policy-makers potential energy-efficiency and thermal-insulation codes' violations. This study presents a model research-based, Civil Society Organizations (CSOs)-led advocacy supported by human rights defense-oriented tactics. It advocated for the overlooked right of the residents of Jordan in thermally-insulated housing and mitigating longtime walls' moisture, mold, thermal discomfort, and high energy bills. It is structured on a thoughtful, occupants-centered survey of 500 apartment buildings in the capital city, Amman. Aided by a ground-truthing Infrared thermography, we estimated the true percentage of the thermally-insulated units, which surprisingly amounted only 5.8 %, and documented evidence of high level of thermal-insulation code violation. Consequently, an investigative survey of roles and responsibilities of involved building sector's stakeholders, to identify root causes of code-enforcement failures, was systematically conducted. Based on findings of the two surveys, the social advocacy was launched to raise awareness and campaign for this violated “technical right”, targeting regulatory entities to enact the legal and procedural rectifications needed. Consequently, this science-based, SCOs-led advocacy induced legal changes in the building-codes' enforcement framework, which promotes involvement of SCOs in the national energy efficiency and sustainable development agenda.
•A 500-developing country's flats survey showed only 5.8 % thermally insulated.•Absence of thermal insulation causes walls' moisture, mold, and thermal discomfort.•A research-based, society-led advocacy supports thermal insulation codes compliance.•An integrated framework of methodologies proved to be effective to attain sought outputs.•This work promotes civil society involvement in national energy efficiency plans.
Civil society plays an important role in European energy and climate policymaking. This paper poses the questions of how organized civil society handled the opportunities and challenges presented by ...the lockdown to its access to the climate and energy policymaking within the European Commission (EC)? How has the balance between organized civil society groups and businesses in Europe been affected by pandemic-related travel restrictions? Moreover, what role has the EC played in creating such opportunities and affecting the legitimacy of democratic policymaking? This research sheds light on the changing role of the EC in democratic governance and policy formation in the European Union (EU) by examining the relationship between funding received by CSOs active in the policy areas of environment and climate, the number of meetings attended, and the importance of coalitions and networks. This research revealed a possible relationship between level of participation in policymaking and the operational support received from the EC. Despite the resources invested, opportunities for interest representation in the energy and climate policy areas disproportionately favor businesses and organizations with long-term relationships with and proximity to Brussels. Increased number of virtual meetings only marginally increased share of participation of NGOs in these meetings. Thus, a physical presence in Brussels and resource investment remain important factors in access to the EU policymaking.
•The COVID-19 had minimal equalizing effect on CSOs access to EC.•NGO's participated more in virtual meetings than their share of all meetings with EC.•The eligibility requirements for LIFE funding excluded less institutionalized CSOs.•EC's funding served as a force-multiplier not supporting new voices of CSOs.•Organization's classifications used by EU institutions remains inconsistent.
The prediction of combined sewer overflow (CSO) operation in urban environments presents a challenging task for water utilities. The operation of CSOs (most often in heavy rainfall conditions) ...prevents houses and businesses from flooding. However, sometimes, CSOs do not operate as they should, potentially bringing environmental pollution risks. Therefore, CSOs should be appropriately managed by water utilities, highlighting the need for adapted decision support systems. This paper proposes an automated CSO predictive model construction methodology using field monitoring data, as a substitute for the commonly established hydrological-hydraulic modeling approach for time-series prediction of CSO statuses. It is a systematic methodology factoring in all monitored field variables to construct time-series dependencies for CSO statuses. The model construction process is largely automated with little human intervention, and the pertinent variables together with their associated time lags for every CSO are holistically and automatically generated. A fast least absolute shrinkage and selection operator solution generating scheme is proposed to expedite the model construction process, where matrix inversions are effectively eliminated. The whole algorithm works in a stepwise manner, invoking either an incremental or decremental movement for including or excluding one model regressor into, or from, the predictive model at every step. The computational complexity is thereby analyzed with the pseudo code provided. Actual experimental results from both single-step ahead (i.e., 15 min) and multistep ahead predictions are finally produced and analyzed on a U.K. pilot area with various types of monitoring data made available, demonstrating the efficiency and effectiveness of the proposed approach.
Distributed generators (DGs) play an important role to reduce the real power loss and to improve the voltage stability of the power system. However, proper placement and sizing of DGs in the ...distribution network is a vital issue, as any improper location and size of DGs may increase the overall system loss. In this study, a novel chaotic symbiotic organisms search (CSOS) algorithm is proposed to find out the optimal location and sizes of real power DGs in a radial distribution system (RDS) considering constant load models. This DG siting and sizing problem is associated with real power loss minimisation and voltage stability improvement objectives. The effectiveness of the proposed algorithm is tested on benchmark test functions as well as on 33-, 69- and 118-bus RDS. The simulation results obtained by the proposed CSOS algorithm are compared with the results offered by the basic SOS and other nature inspired algorithms to establish the superiority of the proposed CSOS algorithm over the others in terms of quality of solution and convergence mobility.
Civil society organisations (CSOs) often communicate global gendered inequalities simplistically from a fundraising framework to Global North audiences. While the stereotypical and racialising ...portrayals of women and girls in the Global South have been widely criticised, the diverse perceptions and experiences of development professionals regarding contested campaigning practices have been less discussed. Furthermore, literature has focussed on the Anglo-Saxon world, while the complex relations between gendered representations and neoliberal fundraising have been less studied in the Nordic context, where the marketisation of development apparatus is a fairly recent phenomenon. Drawing on a poststructuralist critique of development apparatus and postcolonial feminist reading on representations of the Global South, this article investigates how CSOs discursively frame gendered inequalities in their fundraising campaigns. By examining three fundraising campaigns in Finland, we demonstrate how CSOs are not only turning towards the use of a technical and neoliberal gender discourse, but doing so within an unforeseen advertising framework, in times of right-wing populist politics and a collapse in development funding. Basing our findings on qualitative data, we argue that CSOs are pressured to create simplified knowledge on gendered issues, which has provoked critical views not only from activists, but also from within CSOs.
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