IHDP Update 2.2008 Fundamental, policy-driven changes are transforming China's rangelands in response to a perceived threat of environmental degradation. Having transferred livestock property from state to private ownership over the past two decades, government policy is now encouraging pastoralists to privatise parts of the natural resource, in the form of fenced enclosures. In other areas, th...

This paper explores the building of administrative and democratic institutions of local government in newly emerging democracies in parts of the former Soviet Union and its satellite states in Eastern Europe. It covers the period through 2005. It studies the main objectives and achievements of the various reforms aimed at local government systems in Russia, Poland and Romania. The overall findi...

Statecraft, scalecraft and local government reorganisation in Wales Abstract: Since the inception of local government in the UK, there have been continuous attempts to reorganise and revise its distinctive characteristics, with successive reforms differing in their intended effects. In Wales, a further round of local government reorganisation is now being proposed following the Williams Commiss...

This monograph compares the methodologies and progress of the different existing models of information and communication technology (ICT) use for broad-based development and economic growth in India. It will examine the role of complementary reforms in government administration and policies. The focus is chiefly on the rural economy, where the developmental needs are the greatest, and the use o...

This article deals only with social security for workers in China’s urban sector. Social security for the state work force, primarily income-security programs for state enterprises, faces unprecedented challenges caused by a decade of policy changes and experiments in social security and in enterprise and labor-force reforms. Serious problems in funding and administering these programs have sur...

Although excessive transparency and accountability demands can have a counterproductive effect on organisational performance (Bovens 2005), longstanding hierarchical accountability structures to ensure financial conformance in English local government continue to endure. Interestingly however, the previously top-down regime for performance accountability in English local government has been rep...

PROBLEM: Before the cereals market reforms of the 1980s, food policies in Mali were aimed at securing cheap cereal supplies to urban consumers (government employees, students, the military, etc.). To achieve this objective, the government fixed the prices of the major food crops both pan-seasonally and pan-territorially and required forced deliveries to the national grain board. The grain board...

FOREWORD During the last fifteen years, Bolivia has carried out a broad program of structural reforms centered on achieving greater macroeconomic discipline and a more efficient and smaller state. Radical changes swept across the national political and economic landscape. All these reforms have had a decisive influence on the forestry sector. New laws and regulations affecting forest resources ...

BACKGROUND Alcohol consumption is a major cause of mortality and morbidity globally. In response to strong calls from the public for alcohol law reform, the New Zealand Government recently reduced the blood alcohol limit for driving and introduced the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act which aim to (1) improve community input into local decision-making on alcohol; (2) reduce the availability of alc...