The current economic crisis has affected all aspects of life, which has resulted in political instability, personal financial troubles, and a growing number of business bankruptcies. While these are serious issues, simply developoing a government policy that injects an economy with money is not an appropriate means to achieve economic recovery and long-term economic development unless combined with an effective and efficient governing system. The present research studies whether the strong relationship between governance and growth exists during economic crises or only during non-crisis periods. The results of the current research show that the global economic crisis has had an influence on the relationship between governance and economic growth. In addition, this study found that different levels of development affect the relationship between governance and growth differently during times of crisis. Consequently, the results of the current research show the instability in the relationship between governance and economic growth during the economic crisis ; this unsteadiness is a sign of the need for long-term strategies to promote global and national good governance practices that are not adversely affected by crises. / by Bassam A. Albassam. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2012. / Includes bibliography. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / System requirements: Adobe Reader.

Disasters are unavoidable. The United States separates the phases of addressing a disaster into Response and Recovery. There are systems in place for Response; but Recovery, a fundamental process for countries to rebound from disasters, is a topic that is left aside. Recently the U.S. released a framework regarding this topic and it is the intention of this work to further explore recovery by starting a modeling process for disaster management systems by developing a Disaster Recovery Roles Pattern based on the framework and creating flowcharts using the Business Process Modeling Notation for use in future development of systems for the recovery process. / Carlos A. NietoTibaquirâa. / Thesis (M.S.C.S.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2012. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2012. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Submitted by Filipe dos Santos (fsantos@pucsp.br) on 2017-10-03T12:31:24Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Aria da Penha de Oliveira.pdf: 1851281 bytes, checksum: c639b3441d5db2f0c65235f70091567b (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-10-03T12:31:24Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Aria da Penha de Oliveira.pdf: 1851281 bytes, checksum: c639b3441d5db2f0c65235f70091567b (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-09-11 / The present dissertation defined, as a main goal, to analyse the influence of Social Welfare Policy in the life of vulnerable families. In order to guide this analisis and make it interact with reality, three specific objectives were chosen: - deepening the knowledge of the policy of protection earmarked to these families; - introduce the territory where this policy is implemented and its weaknesses, more specifically in the district of Cidade Ademar, in the Southern Area of São Paulo, - and assist a social worker in its professional job, from a critical reading of reality, and aiming at strenghening its compromisse with the ethical-political Project of Social Welfare, within a new Social Welfare Policy. This is inspiring a reflexion over the latter’s responsability with these families, whom are presenting many different degrees of vulnerability and do not make it through the circle of extreme poverty. We analysed very carefully these families’ profile and the specificities of this Southern Area of São Paulo, identifying situations of environmental degradation, excessively tough for being a residential area, situations of sociospacial segregation and of high vulnerability. We then reflected more on the intense process of expansion and of “peripherization” of the favelas and the absence of the Brasilian State. We used a qualitative method of search, appealing to technics of interview with four groups of relatives, in an attempt to grasp how they perceive this policy of protection, within the National Social Welfare Policy, their conception of family and the presence of a sociofamilial matrix. Facing this reality, we will find out that the Social Welfare Policy do not succeed in reaching the families in situation of extreme poverty whom do not take the initiative of looking for the existing public services of protection on their territory / A presente dissertação definiu, como objetivo geral, analisar a influência da Política da Assistência Social na vida de famílias vulnerabilizadas. Para direcionar esta análise e interagir com a realidade, foram propostos três objetivos específicos, a saber: - aprofundar o conhecimento das políticas de proteção direcionadas a essas famílias; - apresentar o território onde estão inseridas e suas vulnerabilidades, elegendo para tanto o distrito Cidade Ademar, na Zona Sul de São Paulo, - e subsidiar o assistente social em seu trabalho profissional, a partir de uma leitura crítica dos fenômenos da realidade, fortalecendo o compromisso com o projeto ético-político do Serviço Social, na ótica da nova Política da Assistência Social. Esta vem inspirando a reflexão sobre a responsabilidade com as famílias que, apresentando vários graus de vulnerabilidade, não conseguem sair do ciclo da pobreza extrema. . Analisamos atentamente o perfil de famílias e os aspectos que tipificam esse distrito da Zona Sul de São Paulo, identificando situações de degradação ambiental, sobremaneira acirrada por ser uma zona de manancial, de segregação socioespacial e de alta vulnerabilidade. Isto posto, queremos refletir a respeito do intenso processo de expansão e “periferização” das favelas e da ausência do Estado. Utilizamos a pesquisa qualitativa, recorrendo às técnicas de entrevista com quatro grupos familiares, tentando captar como veem essa política protetiva, à luz da Política Nacional da Assistência Social; a concepção de família e a presença da matricialidade sociofamiliar. Identificaremos, diante de tal realidade, que a Política da Assistência Social não consegue atingir as famílias em extrema pobreza que não tiveram a iniciativa de buscar os serviços de proteção existentes em seu território

Raising children and taking care of family members, while maintaining a job, and without compromising on economic security, career progression or one’s health and wellbeing, is a difficult task anywhere. In the United States, it comes with a set of additional challenges because of a complete absence or limited reach of supporting work-family policies – policies that are designed specifically to help people manage and reconcile their roles as workers and parents or caregivers – such as paid and job-protected parental leave, publicly provided or subsidized child care, rights to request workplace flexibility or part time work and paid leave to attend to ill or disabled family members. Consequently, workers in the US rely heavily on employer generosity, informal family support, and a patchwork of provisions available from various levels of government and with varying degrees of restrictive eligibility criteria. Researchers have repeatedly pointed to the important role of this duality – major changes in women’s work and family roles against a system of unresponsive social policies – in explaining important markers of women’s progress or paradoxes therein, such as a plateauing of labor force participation rates even as they continued to grow in comparable labor markets, existence of a comparatively higher wage penalty for having children compared to other high income countries and declining subjective wellbeing over a period that saw increasing economic empowerment for women as well as a shift in women’s relationship with employment, with more and more of them considering work to be a fundamental aspect of life satisfaction. In my dissertation, I build on these lines of enquiry to study how such substantial changes in work and family lives, juxtaposed against a comparatively stagnant system of supportive work-family policies, translate into mothers’ performance in the US labor market as well as their subjective wellbeing by family and employment status and what, if any, is the effect of small but important state level policy shifts. The dissertation consists of three related empirical papers. In Paper 1 (co-authored with Prof. Jane Waldfogel), we examine changes in the family wage gap –the difference in hourly wages between women with children and women without children –over 1977-2007. We use data from the Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplements and adjust for selection into motherhood, by estimating ordinary least square models and employing augmented inverse probability of treatment weighting, and adjust for employment using Heckman selection correction. We find evidence of a significant decline in the motherhood wage penalty but only for married mothers. Overall however, there is a persistent 5-8% significant penalty to motherhood in both 1977 and 2007. While Paper 1 sheds light on mothers’ relative economic well-being compared to non-mothers, the results may not provide much information on their overall quality of life, particularly when the policy environment offers few choices for combining work and family. In Paper 2 therefore, I examine patterns in women’s subjective wellbeing by family and employment status. I replicate least squares regression models from key prior studies using new data – the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System annual surveys from 2005 to 2010 and the American Time Use Survey’s Well Being modules, 2012 and 2013 – and additionally estimate inverse probability of treatment weighted models, to adjust for selection. I find evidence of a positive association of being a parent with subjective wellbeing as well as a positive association of being employed with subjective wellbeing. Confirming prior research, I also find no evidence of the combination of these relationships translating into a “double bonus” for wellbeing and instead find a penalty to being an employed parent. In more detailed analysis of specific work and family categories, I further find that women who are working but not raising families and women who are raising families but not working, tend to report higher levels of life satisfaction on average than women who are doing both. These results further point to the challenges of negotiating work and family responsibilities in the present policy environment. While work-family reconciliation policies overall have not caught up to the changing demands of the family and the workplace in the US, a handful of states (California in 2004, New Jersey in 2009, Rhode Island in 2014 and New York, expected from 2018) have made important strides in that regard by implementing paid family leave insurance programs (PFL) – provisions that ensure benefit payments when parents take leave from work on account of childbirth, thereby making the leave more accessible. These policy changes motivate the focus of paper 3 where I examine the effects of New Jersey’s 2009 policy change on women’s subjective wellbeing. Using data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) annual surveys and random child selection modules from 2005 to 2012, I identify potentially eligible mothers from individual level variation in month-year of child’s birth and state level variation in parental leave policies, and employ a difference in difference research design. Along with overall life evaluation, I also look at multiple self-reported indicators of wellbeing, such as self-rated general health, physical health, stress, depression and emotional wellbeing and whether adequate social and emotional support is available. I find no evidence of a significant effect of the 2009 policy change in New Jersey on women’s subjective wellbeing overall, but strong evidence of improvements in women’s physical health. I further find variation in effects in subgroup analyses, with significant positive effects on the life satisfaction of employed single mothers and women from lower-middle income families, as well as significant improvements in the experience of stress, depression and emotional wellbeing for groups with such relative socio-economic disadvantages. The dissertation thus explores how the changing nature of work and family lives, juxtaposed against a comparatively stagnant system of supportive work-family policies, affect the quality of women’s lives in the United States, using both standard measures such as wages and newer measures such as subjective wellbeing, and by directly examining how small but important state level policy shifts affect women’s wellbeing. Results highlight the importance of work-family reconciliation in women’s wellbeing in every socio-economic and demographic subgroup, but indicate that the nature of the problem may not be the same everywhere, drawing attention to the need for tailored interventions and policies and cautioning against exclusive reliance on either objective or subjective measures of wellbeing to monitor social progress and evaluate social policies.

Water is essential for life, and access to sources of safe water and sanitation facilities is a first-order concern for economic welfare and general well-being. While the majority of residents in developing countries have access to improved water and sanitation services, many parts of the developing world lag significantly behind in this vital infrastructure. This dissertation studies policies aimed at increasing access, quality, and efficiency of improved water and sanitation (WS) services in developing countries. In the following three chapters, I focus on non-technological methods for improving service by eliminating the economic, political, and institutional barriers to safe water and sanitation provision. Chapter 1, “The Buck Stops Where? Federalism and Investment in the Brazilian Water and Sanitation Sector”, shows how weak institutions can undermine public goods service when multiple levels of government share responsibility of provision. In particular, I study how legal ambiguities regarding degrees of governmental authority can lead to systematic underinvestment in public utilities. I examine the Brazilian water and sanitation (WS) sector, which presents an natural experiment of shared provision between state and municipality entities. I look at a legal reform that clarified the relationship between municipalities and states in a quasi-experimental, difference-in-differences framework, using an administrative, municipality-level panel dataset from 2001-2012. I find that when expropriation risk by state companies diminished - self-run municipalities almost doubled their WS network investment. This increase in investment led to a significant increase in access to the WS system in these municipalities. The analysis provides strong evidence that reforms that strengthen residual control rights and eliminate the threat of intra-governmental expropriation can lead to large increases in public goods investment. Chapter 2, “The Role of Basic Sanitation Plans on Service Provision: Evidence from Brazil”, investigates non-technological methods of increasing access to improved water and sanitation (WS) in developing countries. In particular, it presents evidence of the efficiency gains that can be achieved in municipal water provision through the act of formulating and carrying out basic sanitation plans. I exploit the staggered roll-out in implementation of basic sanitation plans throughout municipalities in southern Brazil from 2007-2013. I find that, in the three years after the enactment of sanitation plans, municipalities increased the efficiency of their respective water systems through the tightening up of “leakages" in the system, both in terms of water distribution and bill payment. However, I find no significant increases in the degree of individual access to the systems, suggesting that in the relatively short-run, providers focus on improving the existing system as opposed to building out new infrastructure. Chapter 3, “(Not So) Gently Down The Stream: River Pollution and Health in Indonesia”, addresses the fact that waterborne diseases are the leading cause of mortality in developing countries. We emphasize a previously ignored cause of diarrhea - upstream river bathing. Using newly constructed data on upstream-downstream hydrological linkages along with village census panel data in Indonesia, we find that upstream river bathing can explain as many as 7.5% of all diarrheal deaths. Our results, which are net of avoidance behavior, show no effect of trash disposal on diarrheal infections. Furthermore we find that individuals engage in avoidance behavior in response to trash disposal (visible pollutants) but not river bathing (invisible pollutants). We conduct policy simulations to show that targeting upstream individuals could generate substantial environmental and health savings relative to targeting downstream individuals. This provides a potential road map for low- and middle-income countries with limited resources for enforcement of water pollution.

For the first twenty-five years of Ghana’s national response to HIV/AIDS, the government, like most nations in Africa, did not include gay and bisexual—locally known as sasoi—and other men who have sex with men (MSM) as a high-risk group for HIV in its policies. In 2011, Ghana finally addressed this policy blind spot by acknowledging sasoi and other MSM as a key population at-risk for HIV and in need of policy and programmatic interventions—a shift that is occurring in many parts of Africa. Using Ghana as a case study of this policy shift on the continent, my dissertation examined: why sasoi and other MSM were not initially acknowledged in Ghana’s national AIDS policies; why and how the government decided to include MSM as a key population in its national AIDS policies and programs; what cultural, social, and political factors have affected the development, implementation, and reception of these policies and programs; how sasoi and other MSM perceive and experience these policy and programmatic efforts; and how sasoi and other MSM experience life in a country that criminalizes and stigmatizes same-sex sexual activities. Using ethnographic methods, I conducted a 12-month qualitative study in Ghana. I conducted: interviews with 43 state and non-state policymakers and stakeholders, HIV frontline workers, and sasoi and other MSM; focus group interviews with 18 peer educators; participant observations of policy and HIV prevention work, and meetings and other events related to the research scope; and archival research of media coverage of homosexuality. My findings indicate that Ghana’s MSM policy blind spot was due to: 1) the criminalization and stigmatization of same-sex sexualities in the country, 2) a construction of the Ghanaian epidemic as driven by migrant female sex workers, and 3) international AIDS researchers’ categorization of HIV in Africa as heterosexual, which informed donor policies and stipulations. However, in 2011, the government shifted to include MSM as a KP at risk for HIV in light of mounting epidemiological data on MSM HIV prevalence and risk, NGO advocacy efforts, and international donor policy changes that now recognize MSM as a KP in Africa. I conceptualize this change as a paradigm shift in Ghana’s national AIDS policies from a general population paradigm to a key populations paradigm that includes MSM as biomedical citizens at higher risk for HIV. The country’s progress in addressing HIV among sasoi and other MSM using evidence-based policies has earned it status as a model country in Africa in MSM HIV efforts. Stakeholders, however, face significant challenges rooted in the country’s sociocultural context, namely institutionalized homophobia and heterosexism, a dated and underfunded healthcare system, and inadequate HIV funding. Implementation of MSM HIV policies has come into conflict with the country’s legal and sociocultural realities in Ghana, where male same-sex sexual activities are criminalized and socially stigmatized. Moreover, stakeholders are strategically discreet in how they implement MSM HIV policies and programs and are hesitant to publicly push any advocacy efforts that might come across as supporting or promoting homosexuality, in fear of social and political retribution. Despite this strategy, I argue that MSM HIV efforts have attracted public attention and criticism and have constituted, in part, the politicization of homosexuality in Ghana, reshaping public representations and perceptions of homosexuality and presenting challenges to the ongoing efforts to address HIV among MSM. Stakeholders must evaluate these unintended consequences alongside the intended policy objectives and outcomes to strengthen efforts to reduce the burden of HIV among sasoi and other MSM in Ghana.

Since 1988 when the first HIV positive drug user was identified in Poland, for close to two decades, the predominant route of HIV transmission has been through injecting drug use. In mid 2000s, Polish officials reported that injecting drug use no longer contributed to incrasing HIV incidence. The consequences of such a statement are that many of the structural and personal risks associated with HIV infection go unaddressed, that drug users are neglected by HIV prevention efforts, that HIV treatment is not made available to drug users and that the policy environment does not adequately support effective public health initiatives. This case study is based on documentation, archival records, interviews, participant observation, and physical artifacts shows that these assertions were made, and continue to be repeated, in a highly political context. Poland is a post-socialist state with strong neoliberal leanings, and it is highly invested in successful integration with the European Union. Powerful Catholic Church serves as an important backdrop. While people considered "at risk" now have more freedom to conduct their lives, they also have a set of neoliberal expectations and religious pressures placed on them. Country's geographic location adds to this complexity - situated between "Old Europe" where HIV problem has been successfully contained and the former Soviet Union, where the HIV incidence among drug users is the highest in the world, Poland attempts to align itself with the success of the West. Furthermore, examination of the available data suggests that the assertions made by Polish officials omit numerous variables. My research shows that even though Polish leadership in the area of HIV and drug policy wishes to resemble Western Europe, Poland does not meet international standards for the prevention of HIV transmission. The interviews I conducted, as well as the review of the literature on drug and HIV policies and programs suggest that these services are scattered, often unavailable, and that their number is stagnating, at best, and in some cases, even decreasing. This maybe a direct result of lack of engagement of drug users in their design. Excluded from the discussion of risk, drug users are thus not the focus of prevention efforts. Based on gathered data, there are seven crucial issues that require immediate action if Poland is to manage HIV prevention and care for people who use drugs in a manner consistent with the international standards. The areas requiring action are: a change in the drug policy from the current very punitive approach, expansion of needle and syringe programs and other harm reduction services, improved data collection and an increase in the availability of HIV testing, scaled-up substitution treatment, improved quality of other forms of drug treatment, greater investment in civil society organizations, improved access to HIV treatment, and educational and training efforts that encourage greater attention to HIV related matters across disciplines.

Thesis (MPA.) -- University of the North, 2001 / Refer to document

Global sustainability issues cross all sectors of society, including businesses, governments, and communities and come with substantial costs. Business organizations are increasingly expected to address sustainability issues in a responsible manner and to disclose socially responsible behaviors accurately and transparently, showing that they are effective at managing and being proactive about sustainability challenges. In light of these pressures and expectations for business organizations, the fundamental research question for this study was whether variation existed in the levels of engagement in sustainability efforts across firms globally, and, more importantly, why such variation existed. The level of strategic firm engagement in sustainability was proposed to be influenced by stakeholders and other factors that had relevance to sustainability. Three types of stakeholders with the potential power and legitimacy for influencing strategic decisions regarding firm engagement in sustainability were investigated - executive management, community and government. Multiple firm-related and country-related contextual factors were also investigated as influencers. The study was global in nature, consisting of four hundred companies in twenty-five countries. Stakeholder theory, as the foundation of the investigation, was supported by the results of the study. Executive management, community, and government as stakeholders were found to have significant influence on the level of firm engagement in sustainability. Firm size, country economy, country technological readiness, country fossil fuel dependence, and industry sector were also found to have significant influence on the level of firm engagement in sustainability and approximately 26% of the variation in firm sustainability engagement was accounted for by the combined influence of executive management, government and community as stakeholder influences and firm size and country technological readiness as contextual factors. Specific findings showed that there were higher levels of firm engagement in sustainability when executive management provided explicit support for sustainability as a strategic issue, in communities with positive supportive norms for sustainability and a higher propensity for citizen-based political action and when there was an optimal level of government regulation and formalized institutional power. Other factors that led to higher levels of firm engagement in sustainability were for firms in energy-related and automotive industry sectors, for larger firms based on revenue size, and for firms with headquarters located in countries with developed economies and higher technological readiness.

The purpose of this thesis is to focus on the impact of the influx of refugees on the European Union taking into consideration the challenges, threats and opportunities that arise from this persistent crisis. The examination of the above-mentioned issue presents and analyzed pertinent findings derived from the relevant literature in the field, ranging from diverse case studies, public statistics, data of European Union institutions as well as NGO's, associations and other entities that have addressed issues of human rights and refugee integration in European Union countries. The thesis discloses how this complex matter, referred to as the "current European refugee crisis" gives rise to complex problems and divergent concerns ranging from Islamophobia, terrorist attacks and threats, economic challenges, cultural conflicts, and social clashes. It concludes that there is a need for new perspectives and strategies for better addressing the long and short term causes and challenges of the European refugee crisis.