Masters in Public Administration - MPA / Participatory monitoring and evaluation today, gives a whole new approach to participation. Local communities can now fully participate and be involved from the initiation of a project or from the beginning of a project, right up until when the project is completed as well as fully participate in the evaluation process as well. This goes a long way towards ensuring programmes, projects and policy outcomes are achieved. As a result, PM&E largely improves public accountability as well as improves community participation in the delivery of services to meet their needs. It ultimately enables communities to take ownership of policies, programmes and projects designed to meet their needs and to improve the quality of services provided to them. Thus, this research seeks to monitor and evaluate the participatory nature of the C3 Notification system towards improved service delivery within Site C Khayelitsha community. The challenge confronting many communities such as Site C Khayelitsha, is the inability of government to allow the communities fully take ownership of community projects and programmes designed to improve service delivery. This leaves a huge gap in truly ascertaining what communities truly want and what they need. Through the use of a mixed research method, a total of 50 respondents (users of the C3 notification system) living in Site C Khayelitsha were randomly selected and administered questionnaires; and 5 in-depth interviews were conducted with City of Cape Town officials in the Department of Solid Waste Management. From the data collected, the following research findings were ascertained. It was evident that there was a lack of awareness around the various channels through which users could log complaints. Many users found the Municipal offices and Call Centre an easier way to log complaints as compared to the other channels provided by the City to log complaints. It also revealed that services were not provided within the period stipulated in the Service level agreements. The qualitative analysis also underlined critical factors affecting the City of Cape Town and users of the C3 notification system in Khayelitsha. Call Centre agents obtain incomplete information of service requests or complaints logged by users and users fail to provide complete information when logging service requests especially through e-service channels provided to log complaints. Both mistakes contribute to the delay or non-response of the City of Cape Town to service requests or complaints.

Concerns about the value and quality of higher education have led to increased scrutiny of the U.S. system of peer accreditation. Public policy-makers have begun to question the extent to which accrediting agencies achieve their quality assurance and quality improvement objectives in the colleges and universities they accredit. Some have begun to call for an expanded federal role in assuring quality at the nation's colleges and universities. Only a few studies exist that examine accreditation processes and outcomes in any higher education context. This qualitative, multi-case study utilizes in-depth interview data to explore perceived outcomes, specific changes attributable to the accreditation process, and perceived effects, the long-term or unintended results of accreditation, at four institutions recently accredited by the Association for Biblical Higher Education (ABHE) for the purpose of evaluating the value of peer accreditation to assure or advance quality. Content analysis of within-case and across-case data support the finding that accreditation processes do exert a positive influence on institutions pursuing accredited status. All four case institutions perceived mission refinement, formalization of processes and structures, role differentiation and clarification, resource development, program development, and evaluation as they engaged in the accreditation process. These efforts resulted in enhanced mission achievement, increased institutional or sector credibility, increased institutional resources, and increased organizational effectiveness.

The 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq was a foreign policy action that violated international law, was based on false premises, and came to represent a clear and costly political disaster for the United States and Iraq. Why then, did none of the top policymakers responsible for the decision to invade face meaningful consequences – be they professional consequences, or legal ones? Why too have so many of the media figures who helped sell this war to the American public remained in their prestigious positions, with massive platforms to influence the American people? This paper argues that the above groups, referred to as the foreign policy elite or foreign policy establishment, are granted a general impunity for their actions. It seeks to explain this condition of elite impunity, and how it operates, through Robert Putnam’s theory of “elite integration.” It also examines the role of congressional marginalization and public disengagement in enabling the foreign policy elite to escape accountability. The subsequent chapters offer case studies of how each of these factors has helped advance and preserve the careers of two prominent members of the foreign policy elite, Elliott Abrams and Henry Kissinger. Finally, the conclusion explores further questions on the matter of elite impunity, and offers some basic steps towards creating a more accountable foreign policy elite.

The purpose of this study is to describe changes that led to the revision of the Grade Four Literacy Test in Jamaica from a classroom-based assessment to a national high-stakes examination in 2009. Educators and researchers in Jamaica have observed and examined the less-than-desired student performance in English literacy exams over several decades. My research continues the tradition and adds to the investigation of literacy challenges in Jamaica. The overarching research question for this study was to understand how the Grade Four Literacy Test, originally a classroom-based assessment for a decade, became a national high-stakes exam in 2009? I used Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) as the main theoretical and methodological framework while analyzing key education government documents and newspaper articles related to the Grade Four Literacy Test. Using qualitative case study methods, I conducted classroom observations and interviews at two public elementary schools located in inner-city settings. Using CDA, I traced the changing discourse within four education policy documents and newspaper articles that promoted a test-taking accountability agenda during the revision of the literacy test. School observations and interviews enabled me to observe how faculty and administrators responded to the amended literacy test. Through interviews with key research participants I examined stakeholders' assumptions regarding literacy identity. One of the implications of this study is the importance of enhanced teacher training in comprehension and bilingual strategies, and effective use of classroom-based literacy assessments within the Jamaican language context. Future research might focus on efforts to ensure that students who eventually pass supplementary literacy tests are assisted in moving beyond learning to read to a position where they are reading to learn key content needed to succeed within the academic setting of school.

The aim of this thesis is to propose and defend a maxim to serve as a foundation and guideline for professional ethics in nursing. The thesis is informed by philosophical ethics and by first-hand knowledge of professional nursing practice.

Community service organisations play a crucial role in the delivery of many social services while functioning from a strong values base often associated with a particular religion. They attempt to respond to the needs of multiple stakeholders. This creates a complex and sometimes ambiguous set of accountability relationships. Government contributes significantly to the funding of most community service organisations, and often this is reflected in close working relationships between public servants in funding departments and managers of community service organisations. The nature of this relationship was changed as a consequence of a wave of public sector reforms beginning in the 1980s. These reforms aimed to increase the efficiency, effectiveness and accountability of government departments. Strategies adopted included funder-purchaser-provider models of service delivery, leading to the contracting out of some services previously provided by government and the adoption of more contract-like agreements with existing external service providers. This led to the development of additional mechanisms for measuring and monitoring performance. These were directed both internally towards public sector staff and externally to funded programs. The community services sector’s concern about the impact of reform on their functioning and survival provided the impetus for undertaking this qualitative study of the management of accountability in community service organisations in South Australia. Data were collected in 2000-2001 through interviews with community service organisation and public service staff, and through analysis of organisational documents related to accountability. Staff from twelve community service organisations, and state and federal public servants participated. While the analysis shows the costs to community service organisations and the damage to their relationship with government resulting from reform, it also identifies improvements to the management of accountability in some organisations. Governments at both state and federal levels have since adopted the language of partnership and collaboration. This occurred partly in recognition of the negative impacts of an over-zealous emphasis on distanced purchaser-provider relationships and partly from an increasing recognition of the failure of existing systems to resolve complex social issues. Follow-up data were collected in 2004 that identified changes in the relationships between the community service organisations and funding departments, and in the community service organisations’ management of their own accountability. Analysis of these data found a significance increase in formal relationships between community service organisations but limited change in the relationship with government. Through an analysis of the impact of public sector change on community service organisations in South Australia, this thesis contributes to the understanding of inter-sectoral relationships and the management of accountability in community service organisations.

A water supply service can be seen as a public or private good, but this thesis makes the argument that water is vital for society and so to ensure accountability it is important that water governance includes citizens' participation for social and environmental justice concerns. Public goods are generally defined as goods and services that are provided by 'means of public policy' (Lane, 1993, p. 21), or 'collective political choice' (Stretton & Orchard, 1994, p. 54) rather than by means of an individual market mechanism in which private goods are usually provided. This thesis addresses the function of water as a public good. If social and environmental goals of water use are ignored, the implications can be detrimental particularly for the poorest members of society. An organization's goal effectiveness is usually related to its success in achieving desired outcomes of the organization's goals through a systemic management interaction across organizational aspects at the input, process, output, and outcome/impact stages. This thesis argues an evaluation model of performance measurement can be developed to reflect the characteristics of a public good for a water supply utility, and this model of performance measurement can assist in addressing issues of social and environmental justice. Harris et al argue that better governance can only be achieved by working for democracy in multiple arenas (Harriss, Stokke, & Tornquist, 2004, pp. 7-8). This study considers multidimensional performance measures taking on board the values of many stakeholders with different backgrounds. It 'unfolds' and 'sweeps in' in many dimensions in an attempt at systemic representation (Ulrich, 1983, p. 169). McIntyre- Mills states that 'service need to reflect the values of the users and for this to occur the users need to participate in and decide on policy design and governance' (McIntyre-Mills, 2003, p. 14). Performance measurement systems can be used to detect a gap between services supplied by providers and various needs demanded by stakeholders. The thesis develops an outcome performance measurement model for evaluating social equity and environmental justice concerns. It draws on and adapts four performance measurement models of the International Water Association, World Bank, Indonesian Home Affairs Department and Indonesian Water Supply Enterprise Association. A complementary combined method was developed that addresses qualitative and quantitative governance concerns as they perform to water supply performance problems. Three research methods were used, namely the case study, survey and focus group discussion for collecting qualitative and quantitative data from the three governance sectors. These were triangulated. Five research tools in the case study method were used for collecting information from stakeholders in the three governance sectors including interview, personal communication or email, document analysis, direct observation and documentation. The survey was used to investigate 431 respondents from three case study locations in Cinusa1 city, and the two focus groups were conducted in the city's water supply company management for discussing problems of water supply performance as summarized from the survey. The locus of this study was concentrated in the Cinusa city jurisdiction area, and the focus was the performance problem of the water supply company in Cinusa during 2001-2004. However, a comparative study of water supply performance nationally and internationally is presented for analyzing relative performance gaps.This research evaluates interconnections among cost inefficiency, tariff escalation and other non-financial performances: water supply quantity, quality, continuity and pressure. Inefficient costs because of corrupt, collusive and nepotistic practices in this Indonesian water supply company implicate cost burdens in the company and prevent this water local public enterprise perform its social and environmental missions. The Cinusa local government as the owner of this local public enterprise and the Cinusa local parliament hold a monopoly power in some important decisions related to this local public enterprise, including tariff policy, senior management positions and the total amount of profit share paid to the local government. Such customers from lower income household instead of being subsidized as specified in the national regulation are paying at a profitable tariff and subsidizing this enterprise's inefficiency and the government's locally generated revenue. The inefficiency alongside the profit sharing policy also weakens this enterprise's capacity to invest and improve its service performances. Improving the service performance is essential for current and potential customers and could also benefit the society economically, socially and environmentally, besides being of economic benefit to the enterprise itself. Securing public health concerns and groundwater preservations can be conducted by improving the accessibility, the availability and the reliability of water quality, quantity, pressure and continuity. This research presents an evaluation model for improving the accountability of water supply by means of performance management tool and it makes policy recommendations.

This research engages critically with major public sector accountability theories in relation to the development of law centres in Aotearoa/New Zealand (and comparative international examples) focusing on the two centres in Otago, the Ngai Tahu Maori Law Centre and the Dunedin Community Law Centre. Definitions of accountability are argued to be embedded within theoretical discourses which produce definable models of accountability corresponding to these theoretical statements. Case studies of the discourses of both law centres and their funding bodies are described and contrasted in terms of their views of the role of law centres, interaction with various interest groups and their accountability relationships. The data identifies a desire of both community law centres to engage with a communitarian, �bottom-up�, model of accountability, in contrast to the former social democratic-bureaucratic and current liberal �stakeholder� and �contract� models of the official funding agencies. The current dominance of the liberal �stakeholder� discourse is seen as based on professional power, hierarchical legal structure and control of funding. It is argued that any shift in the dominance of power relationships surrounding community law centres in Aotearoa/New Zealand would entail a strengthening of ties and links with the community, through seeking alternative power supports, a participatory structure and locally controlled funding. Keywords: accountability; power relationships; community law centres; dominance; community.

This thesis uses document analysis and semi-structured personal interviews to look at current strategies and policies of major companies to manage the life cycle environmental risks associated with their products and processes, which I refer to as corporate environmental responsibility (CER); The thesis also explores what some national governments are and could be doing to encourage greater environmental responsibility from companies. As environmentalists and climate scientists have been warning for decades, and now world leaders are coming to realise, the world faces serious environmental challenges, none more urgent than climate change. A failure to act to mitigate the risks associated with this one challenge, as Stern (2006, pii) asserts �could create risks of major disruptions to economic and social activity�. A major proportion of the world�s environmental problems can be attributed directly to production, use and disposal of products (Tukker & Jansen, 2006), and as this thesis will argue, national government policies to encourage or force greater environmental responsibility from producers are required to reduce risks and mitigate impacts. In recent decades national governments have been reluctant to intervene in the market place, preferring to rely on voluntary mechanisms, but as will be discussed in greater detail, there is now an increasingly critical voice (Zarsky, Roht-Ariaza & Brottem, 2002; Hirschland, 2003; Archer & Piper, 2003; Vogel 2005; Hay et al, 2005) that questions the effectiveness of voluntary corporate responsibility as it is currently practiced, which subsequently raises the question: what role national governments, and international governance should take? The primary data sources for this thesis are personal interviews with senior business leaders from 25 major companies, recorded public speeches, both web and non-web based corporate public relations material, and personal interviews with key academics in the field, environmentalists and corporate analysts, conducted mainly between 2002 and 2004. The analysis of this data has sought to investigate the attitudes of major companies to: - corporate environmental responsibility, though some interrelated aspects of social responsibility are also considered; - what drives them to take greater responsibility to reduce their environmental risks; - government policies, especially possible legislation to encourage and/or force CER. In addition through case studies of: - one industry sector - two major companies, and - one industry sector pilot study; as well as secondary research on several other companies, this thesis investigates what some companies are saying and doing about corporate environmental responsibility. This will lead to a short discussion of the degree to which these companies� rhetoric of responsibility matches their actions � that is how much they are �walking the talk�. The thesis also looks at the current potential of national governments in encouraging and/or forcing greater CER, then contrasts the development and implementation of national policies for CER in Australia with those in Europe, focussing on CER as it relates to products in the electrical and electronics industry. The thesis concludes with some observations and suggestions on policies of major companies and of national governments, as well as international governance, to encourage greater CER.

All too often, students in physical education classes are only accountable for tasks such as attendance, dressing out, and maintaining positive behavior. To shift the focus to content accountability, teachers need to utilize methods and techniques that hold students accountable for subject matter performance. Another area of concern for physical education teachers has been the development of accurate and easy to use assessment techniques. Unfortunately, most of the formal assessment is determined by the previously mentioned events of compliance. There is currently little formal assessment in physical education that focuses on student performance in the subject matter. Furthermore, for assessment to be authentic, it must be performed in an on-going fashion within the setting where skills were intended to be performed. Thus, this project utilized an ongoing, in-class assessment technique as a means of not only holding students accountable for their performance, but also as a means for the involved teachers to improve their use of formal assessment. Results of this study may have important implications for helping teachers develop skills to teach directly towards standards and benchmarks such as those developed by the National Association for Sport and Physical Education (NASPE, 1995). The benefits of this research consisted of increased knowledge regarding effective methods of holding students accountable for their in-class performance in physical education. This study examined student performance, measured by the percentage of appropriate practice attempts of physical skills and student fitness engagement, measured by students' moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA) levels during their physical education classes. Appropriate practice attempts have been chosen as the first variable of measure because of their strong correlation with student learning. Physical activity engagement was chosen as the second variable due to its relationship to health related benefits. It was hypothesized that there is a functional relationship between the teachers' use of an on-going, in-class performance assessment teaching technique and students engaging in a higher percentage of appropriate practice trials and moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA). Results of this study show mixed results in regards to using on-going, in-class assessment as a method of accountability for both skill engagement and engagement in MVPA. It was demonstrated that teachers using this type of assessment technique are capable of performing accurate assessments of student performance during instruction. / Graduation date: 2001