The clean plan: analysing sanitation planning in India using the CWIS planning framework

Sanitation in India has received national attention for over a decade, especially with the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) making it a political priority. However, due to the lack of appropriate sanitation planning practices, there have been little long-term gains made in urban sanitation beyond the ending of open defaecation. In this paper, we analyse the key barriers to sanitation planning, in India, in the context of the emerging paradigm of Citywide Inclusive Sanitation (CWIS). A mixed method approach of shit flow diagrams, social network analysis, policy analysis, interviews and workshops at the national, state (2) and city (4) levels was conducted. Eight factors were identified as important barriers for planning including inadequate planning capacities, lack of ownership of city sanitation plans among city governments, poor community involvement, absence of a uniform planning framework, unreliable political and financial support, overlapping jurisdictions, and scheme-based funding. The paper also proposes the CWIS Planning Framework which offers a perspective at overcoming these barriers with the recommendation of bridging top-down and bottom-up planning approaches. While there is increasingly more clarity on what CWIS means, there is little understanding on how to plan for it. Therefore, this framework provides the theoretical basis for planning with the CWIS approach.

Reforms will help clean up China's securities market

Significance China's securities market has grown dramatically, but the rules that underpin its functioning have failed to keep pace and have been poorly enforced because regulators and courts lacked resources and the issue was never a political priority. Insider trading, stock price manipulation and other fraud is relatively common. Impacts A wide range of sectors and institutions will need to adjust, including investors, listed firms, traders, law enforcers and courts. Foreign firms investing in China will benefit from better protection from financial fraud. China may send judges abroad to learn from other systems; Europe is a more likely destination than the United States.

Stop Mare Mortum y el movimiento de solidaridad con las personas refugiadas en Barcelona

Durante el largo verano migratorio de 2015 aumentaba de un modo dramático el nivel de conciencia ciudadana y activismo en Barcelona. En la primavera de 2016, cada día tenían lugar eventos de protesta en solidaridad con las personas refugiadas , promovidos por un amplio espectro de grupos locales, asociaciones y redes. En tanto, un cambio en el gobierno local erigía a una otrora activista social como alcaldesa, asumiendo el tema de las personas refugiadas como una prioridad política. Basado en una serie de entrevistas en profundidad con activistas clave, este artículo presenta, mapea y estudia la evolución de las redes activistas locales. Buscando arrojar luz sobre las dinámicas de meso-movilización, analizamos la plataforma Stop Mare Mortum (SMM). Con un alto nivel de politización y centrándose en las personas refugiadas en tránsito, esta iniciativa nacida de una pequeña red de círculos activistas creció hasta convertirse en una plataforma paraguas con gran capacidad para coordinar iniciativas de la sociedad civil. Junto con una combinación única de emociones y marcos de movilización, la habilidad de SMM para adaptar sus estrategias, repertorios de acción y estructuras organizativas a un contexto cambiante explican su capacidad de movilización y el carácter transversal de sus bases. The 2015 long summer of migration has increased dramatically the level of citizen awareness and activism in Barcelona. In Spring 2016 a number of protest events in solidarity with refugees were taking place on a daily basis, promoted by a broad range of local groups, associations and networks. In the meantime, a change of government brought a social activist as the new mayor of the city, with the refugees' issue as a top political priority. Based on a number of in-depth interviews with key activists, this article presents, maps and studies the evolution of the local networks. Aiming at shedding light on meso-level mobilization dynamics, we zoom into Stop Mare Mortum. With a high level of politicization and focusing on refugees in transit, this initiative borne out of a small network of activists has gradually become an umbrella platform aiming to coordinate civil society initiatives within this field. Together with a unique combination emotions and frames for mobilization, SMM’s ability to adapt its strategies, repertoires of action and organizational structures to a changing environment explains its mobilization capacity and the cross-cut nature of its constituency.

Chaos and Consequences

This chapter investigates how the ethical principles developed in the previous chapters may be implemented in the real world. Implementing these principles would be made especially difficult by the lack of powerful and reliable global governance institutions and by the possibility that even interventions that live up to the principles may produce negative consequences. Given these difficulties, the chapter makes several core recommendations. First, some reform interventions should be subject to approval or oversight by diverse actors within global civil society. Second, interveners should adopt a presumption in favor of interventions where they exert less rather than more control over recipients. Third, global political actors should give political priority to supporting and engaging in interventions that challenge current and historical power hierarchies.

Tobacco and Deforestation Revisited. How to Move towards a Global Land-Use Transition?

Articles 17 and 18 of the United Nations (UN) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control address the environmental sustainability of tobacco as a contested agricultural crop. They require regulatory land-use policies to be introduced and designed to enhance a sustainability transition to diversified farming practices and/or alternative livelihoods. Related activities of the UN Study/Working Group on Economically Sustainable Alternatives to Tobacco Growing are reviewed to assess and monitor the crop’s impact on natural resources with a focus on methods to identify tobacco-attributable deforestation (remote sensing, proxy values, secondary statistics, natural valuation, ecological/social surveys). It is posited that since 2007 no advances have been achieved in framing woody biomass destruction/degradation due to land extension and curing (i.e., drying green leaf using wood). Building on support by digital technologies and land surface monitoring systems, a novel post-2020 strategy is proposed to mainstream an extended set of indicators integratively, i.e., addressing biodiversity losses, soil carbon reservoirs and land degradation neutrality of tobacco as an agricultural crop. Thus, the point is emphasized that land stewardship requires political priority setting that makes the framing of land-use sustainability metrics more than a purely technical matter.

The Arctic as a “Strategic” and “Important” Chinese Foreign Policy Interest: Exploring the Role of Labels and Hierarchies in China’s Arctic Discourses

Research confirms that China is becoming more engaged in the Arctic. However, international relations scholarship often extrapolates from relatively few instances of activity to wide-ranging claims about Chinese priorities. Fortunately, Chinese political discourse is organised by labels that allow us to study how the Arctic is classified and ranked along China’s other foreign policy priorities. This article analyses two such classifications – “important maritime interest” and “strategic new frontier,” exploring how they have come about, what they mean, and how they add political priority to the Arctic. It argues that hierarchies are constructed in two ways: by adding gradients and by including/excluding categories of priority. It views categories as performative: they not only convey information about character and relative importance of interests but are also used for achieving different objectives. By focusing on foreign policy classifications, the article contributes to a more nuanced and precise understanding of China’s Arctic interests.

Exploring mechanisms that explain how coalition groups are formed and how they work to sustain political priority for maternal and child health in Nigeria using the advocacy coalition framework

Background The unacceptably high rate of maternal and child mortality in Nigeria prompted the government to introduce a free maternal and child health (MCH) programme, which was stopped abruptly following a change in government. This triggered increased advocacy for sustaining MCH as a political priority in the country and led to the formation of advocacy coalitions. This study set out to explain the process involved in the formation of advocacy coalition groups and how they work to bring about sustained political prioritization for MCH in Nigeria. It will contribute to the understanding of the Nigerian MCH sector subsystem and will be beneficial to health policy advocates and public health researchers in Nigeria. Methods This study employed a qualitative case study approach. Data were collected using a pretested interview guide to conduct 22 in-depth interviews, while advocacy events were reviewed pro forma. The document review was analysed using the manual content analysis method, while qualitative data audiotapes were transcribed verbatim, anonymized, double-coded in MS Word using colour-coded highlights and analysed using manual thematic and framework analysis guided by the advocacy coalition framework (ACF). The ACF was used to identify the policy subsystem including the actors, their belief, coordination and resources, as well as the effects of advocacy groups on policy change. Ethics and consent approval were obtained for the study. Results The policy subsystem identified the actors and characterized the coalitions, and described their group formation processes and resources/strategies for engagement. The perceived deep core belief driving the MCH agenda is the right of an individual to health. The effects of advocacy groups on policy change were identified, along with the factors that enabled effectiveness, as well as constraints to coalition formation. External factors and triggers of coalition formation were identified to include high maternal mortality and withdrawal of the free MCH programme, while the contextual issues were the health system issues and the socioeconomic factors affecting the country. Conclusion Our findings add to an increasing body of evidence that the use of ACF is beneficial in exploring how advocacy coalitions are formed and in identifying the effects of advocacy groups on policy change.