Deliberative educational planning : including educators’ deliberations in educational policy making.

The objective of this chapter is to argue a case for the need to include teachers and professional educators in the policy making and implementation processes of the World Bank's Education Sector Strategy 2020. By drawing on evidence from the Consultation Plan, the chapter investigates how communicative practices about teachers are embedded in the discourse of the plan and how these influence the rationalisation of the policy. In doing so, the chapter will examine the relationships between social actions, systems rationalisation and life world rationalisation. Much like commercial and entrepreneurial organisations focus on the voice of the customer (VOC), that is on satisfying the stakeholders and end users in their processes, in this chapter, the voice of the teacher (VOT) is highlighted. The skills and knowledge of key stakeholders need to be leveraged and engaged in order to ensure that the policy achieves its desired aims. In order to frame this argument, notions of Habermas’ communicative action theory is used to show how policy engages in systems steering. Rather than understanding education strategy and reform as a process of engaging only government and policy makers, this chapter suggests that by engaging the practitioners and listening to the practical discourse around reform, teachers can be leaders of reforms rather than obfuscated agents.

In what ways does policy on academic integrity, copyright and privacy need to respond in order to accommodate assessment with Web 2.0 tools?

Increasingly social web technologies, such as blogging and micro-blogging, audio and video podcasting, photo/video, social bookmarking, social networking, wiki writing or virtual worlds are being used as forms of authoring or content creation to support students’ learning in higher education. As Web 2.0 teaching practice is characterised by open access to information and collaborative networks there are both familiar and novel challenges for policy-makers in higher education institutions. The Government 2.0 Taskforce heralded legislative and practice changes necessary because of Web 2.0. We reflect on the qualitative feedback received from innovative higher education practitioners using Web 2.0 to assess student work. This indicates a need for information policy review to accommodate the cultural shift towards information exchange and communication across traditional institutional boundaries. Issues involved when implementing Web 2.0 assessments are identified to highlight requisite areas for policy improvement in higher education, in particular for academic integrity, copyright and privacy policies

Tax policy when countries compete for third market exports

We examine the welfare and other consequences of tax policy in a third market export model where duopolists located in two countries compete in prices. With tax competition between governments, we allow for welfare-maximizing governments in the two countries to delegate tax setting responsibility to policy-makers who have different objectives than the governments. The unique equilibrium in the tax competition environment involves both governments delegating tax setting responsibility to tax revenue-maximizing policy-makers. This equilibrium yields higher welfare for both countries than the outcome when the governments delegate to welfare-maximizing policy-makers. The paper also compares tax competition with tax harmonization and shows that when the entire export market is served, tax harmonization improves the welfare of the country that houses the low cost firm, while the other country may be immiserized.

Obesity prevention programs and policies: practitioner and policy-maker perceptions of feasibility and effectiveness

Objectives:

Policy and practice impacts of applied research: a case study analysis of the New South Wales Health Promotion Demonstration Research Grants Scheme 2000-2006

Background
Intervention research provides important information regarding feasible and effective interventions for health policy makers, but few empirical studies have explored the mechanisms by which these studies influence policy and practice. This study provides an exploratory case series analysis of the policy, practice and other related impacts of the 15 research projects funded through the New South Wales Health Promotion Demonstration Research Grants Scheme during the period 2000 to 2006, and explored the factors mediating impacts.

Methods
Data collection included semi-structured interviews with the chief investigators (n = 17) and end-users (n = 29) of each of the 15 projects to explore if, how and under what circumstances the findings had been used, as well as bibliometric analysis and verification using documentary evidence. Data analysis involved thematic coding of interview data and triangulation with other data sources to produce case summaries of impacts for each project. Case summaries were then individually assessed against four impact criteria and discussed at a verification panel meeting where final group assessments of the impact of research projects were made and key influences of research impact identified.

Results
Funded projects had variable impacts on policy and practice. Project findings were used for agenda setting (raising awareness of issues), identifying areas and target groups for interventions, informing new policies, and supporting and justifying existing policies and programs across sectors. Reported factors influencing the use of findings were: i) nature of the intervention; ii) leadership and champions; iii) research quality; iv) effective partnerships; v) dissemination strategies used; and, vi) contextual factors.

Conclusions
The case series analysis provides new insights into how and under what circumstances intervention research is used to influence real world policy and practice. The findings highlight that intervention research projects can achieve the greatest policy and practice impacts if they address proximal needs of the policy context by engaging end-users from the inception of projects and utilizing existing policy networks and structures, and using a range of strategies to disseminate findings that go beond traditional peer review publications.

Scaling up diabetes prevention in Victoria, Australia: policy development, implementation and evaluation

Objective
The Australian lifestyle intervention program Life! is only the second reported, large-scale diabetes prevention program. This paper describes the genesis and the successful establishment of Life! and its key outcomes for participants and implementation.

Research
Design and Methods Life!, a behavior change intervention, comprises six group sessions over eight months. The Victorian Department of Health funded Diabetes Australia-Victoria to implement the program. Experience of the Greater Green Triangle diabetes prevention implementation trial was used for intervention design, workforce development, training and infrastructure. Clinical and anthropometric data from participants, used for program evaluation, was recorded on a central database.

Results
Life! has a state-wide workforce of 302 trained facilitators within 137 organizations. 29,000 Victorians showed interest in Life! and 15,000 individuals have been referred to the program. In total, 8,412 participants commenced a Life! program between October 2007 and June 2011. 37% of the original participants completed the eight month program. Participants completing sessions one to five lost an average of 1·4 kg weight (p<0·001) and waist circumference of 2·5cm (p<0.001). Those completing six sessions lost an average of 2·4 kg weight (p<0·001) and waist circumference of 3·8 cm (p<0·001). The weight loss of 2.4 kg represents 2.7% of participants’ starting body weight.

Conclusion
The impact of Life! is attributable to applying available evidence for the systems design of the intervention, and collaboration between policy makers, implementers and evaluators using the principles of continuous quality improvement to support successful, large scale recruitment and implementation.

Social capital and public policy – the current challenge facing the Victorian Government

Social capital, since Putnam’s 1993 work, has captured the imagination of policy-makers the world over, and Australia is no exception. In 2005 the Department of Victorian Communities launched its Actions for Community Strengthening policy statement, which draws heavily on social capital theory. This article explores the theoretical underpinnings of the government’s policy and critiques its failure to deal adequately with the causal relationship between social capital and its supposed community benefits. The article then seeks to isolate the missing factors through a look at recent research on volunteerism and argues that the institution of collaborative/interactive governance needs to be underpinned by sound socio-economic reform.

Fostering economic policy coordination in Latin America: the REDIMA approach to escaping the prisoner's dilemma

Includes bibliography

E-commerce environment and trade promotion for Latin America: policy implications from East Asian and advanced economies' experiences

Includes bibliography

Major macroeconomic disturbances, expectations and policy responses

Includes bibliography

Establishing social statistical databases for evidenced-based social policy formulation in the Caribbean

Includes bibliography

Caribbean development report: Macroeconomic policy for structural transformation and social protection in small states

The second Caribbean Development Roundtable hosted by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, was held in Guyana, in May 30, 2012. The theme of the meeting was “Macroeconomic Policy for Structural Transformation and Social Protection in Small Sates.” The participants included the Ministers of Finance of Guyana and of Trinidad and Tobago, the Honourable Ashni Singh and the Honourable Winston Dookeran, and high level policy-makers and regional and international experts. Special guests were a delegation from Brazil.

The European External Action Service and the Implementation of the 'Union Method' in European Foreign Policy

The European External Action Service (EEAS or Service) is one of the most significant and most debated innovations introduced by the Lisbon Treaty. This analysis intends to explain the anomalous design of the EEAS in light of its function, which consists in the promotion of external action coherence. Coherence is a principle of the EU legal system, which requires synergy in the external actions of the Union and its Members. It can be enforced only through the coordination of European policy-makers' initiatives, by bridging the gap between the 'Communitarian' and intergovernmental approaches. This is the 'Union method' envisaged by A. Merkel: "coordinated action in a spirit of solidarity - each of us in the area for which we are responsible but all working towards the same goal". The EEAS embodies the 'Union method', since it is institutionally linked to both Union organs and Member States. It is also capable of enhancing synergy in policy management and promoting unity in international representation, since its field of action is delimited not by an abstract concern for institutional balance but by a pragmatic assessment of the need for coordination in each sector. The challenge is now to make sure that this pragmatic approach is applied with respect to all the activities of the Service, in order to reinforce its effectiveness. The coordination brought by the EEAS is in fact the only means through which a European foreign policy can come into being: the choice is not between the Community method and the intergovernmental method, but between a coordinated position and nothing at all.

INTEGRATED ASSESSMENT OF ANTHROPOGENIC, CLIMATE, AND POLICY INDUCED CHANGES OF PHOSPHORUS EXPORT IN THE UNITED STATES LAURENTIAN GREAT LAKES WATERSHEDS

Anthropogenic activities have increased phosphorus (P) loading in tributaries to the Laurentian Great Lakes resulting in eutrophication in small bays to most notably, Lake Erie. Changes to surface water quality from P loading have resulted in billions of dollars in damage and threaten the health of the world’s largest freshwater resource. To understand the factors affecting P delivery with projected increasing urban lands and biofuels expansion, two spatially explicit models were coupled. The coupled models predict that the majority of the basin will experience a significant increase in urban area P sources while the agriculture intensity and forest sources of P will decrease. Changes in P loading across the basin will be highly variable spatially. Additionally, the impacts of climate change on high precipitation events across the Great Lakes were examined. Using historical regression relationships on phosphorus concentrations, key Great Lakes tributaries were found to have future changes including decreasing total loads and increases to high-flow loading events. The urbanized Cuyahoga watersheds exhibits the most vulnerability to these climate-induced changes with increases in total loading and storm loading , while the forested Au Sable watershed exhibits greater resilience. Finally, the monitoring network currently in place for sampling the amount of phosphorus entering the U.S. Great Lakes was examined with a focus on the challenges to monitoring. Based on these interviews, the research identified three issues that policy makers interested in maintaining an effective phosphorus monitoring network in the Great Lakes should consider: first, that the policy objectives driving different monitoring programs vary, which results in different patterns of sampling design and frequency; second, that these differences complicate efforts to encourage collaboration; and third, that methods of funding sampling programs vary from agency to agency, further complicating efforts to generate sufficient long-term data to improve our understanding of phosphorus into the Great Lakes. The dissertation combines these three areas of research to present the potential future impacts of P loading in the Great Lakes as anthropogenic activities, climate and monitoring changes. These manuscripts report new experimental data for future sources, loading and climate impacts on phosphorus.

Evaluating Integration. Research contributions for a gender sensitive migration policy: Research contributions for a gender sensitive migration policy

The integration of academic and non-academic knowledge is a key concern for researchers who aim at bridging the gap between research and policy. Researchers involved in the sustainability-oriented NCCR North-South programme have made the experience that linking different types of knowledge requires time and effort, and that methodologies are still lacking. One programme component was created at the inception of this transdisciplinary research programme to support exchange between researchers, development practitioners and policymakers. After 8 years of research, the programme is assessing whether research has indeed enabled a continuous communication across and beyond academic boundaries and has effected changes in the public policies of poor countries. In a first review of the data, we selected two case studies explicitly addressing the lives of women. In both cases – one in Pakistan, the other in Nepal – the dialogue between researchers and development practitioners contributed to important policy changes for female migration. In both countries, outmigration has become an increasingly important livelihood strategy. National migration policies are gendered, limiting the international migration of women. In Nepal, women were not allowed to migrate to specific countries such as the Gulf States or Malaysia. This was done in the name of positive discrimination, to protect women from potential exploitation and harassment in domestic work. However, women continued to migrate in many other and often illegal and more risky ways, increasing their vulnerability. In Pakistan, female labour migration was not allowed at all and male migration increased the vulnerability of the families remaining back home. Researchers and development practitioners in Nepal and Pakistan brought women’s shared experience of and exposure to the mechanisms of male domination into the public debate, and addressed the discriminating laws. Now, for the first time in Pakistan, the new draft policy currently under discussion would enable broadly-based female labour migration. What can we learn from the two case studies with regard to ways of relating experience- and research-based knowledge? The paper offers insights into the sequence of interactions between researchers, local people, development practitioners, and policy-makers, which eventually contributed to the formulation of a rights-based migration policy. The reflection aims at exploring the gendered dimension of ways to co-produce and share knowledge for development across boundaries. Above all, it should help researchers to better tighten the links between the spheres of research and policy in future.