Cooperatives are increasingly advocated as a means to improve incomes, livelihoods and the sustainability of smallholder farmers. This study analyzes the impact of commercial vegetable cooperative membership on smallholder agricultural performance in Cambodia. Institutional heterogeneities are considered across cooperatives and various econometric techniques are used to control for potential selection bias. The impacts of horticulture on agricultural outcomes are also analyzed. The results indicate that membership of commercial vegetable cooperatives has so far had no effect on agricultural incomes or the value or amounts of agricultural inputs. However, results indicate that membership has affected technology choice, access to credit services and information transmission through technological training. Additionally, there is evidence that horticulture, as a component of overall agricultural diversification, can augment farm income. The results suggest that much of the benefit of cooperative membership stems from the cooperative's provision of services, which might not be easily inferred from measures of member incomes. 相似文献
Objectives: Though there is a growing body of literature on crash risks in the developed world, little is known about how well these models apply to motoring in developing countries, the context in which the majority of road traffic fatalities occur. This qualitative study explores factors perceived to influence crash risks for commercial drivers in Ghana.
Method: Twenty commercial drivers of varied ages and experience were sampled from 7 major lorry terminals in 3 regions (Greater Accra, Ashanti, and Volta) of Ghana. Data were collected through semistructured interviews.
Results: The participants identified some issues that are shared with drivers in the developed world, though moderated by the Ghanaian context. These included work pressures (e.g., fatigued driving), speeding, distracted driving, and inadequate vehicle maintenance. Other factors identified by participants are less frequently considered in research addressing driving behavior in developed countries. These included aggressive competition over passengers and corruption (e.g., improper licensing practices), among others.
Conclusion: The findings have implications for building a research base to support the development of road safety policy and interventions in developing countries. 相似文献
Purpose. Design for safety (DfS) of workers is amongst the prominent ways of tackling poor occupational safety and health performance in construction. However, in developing countries there is extremely limited research on DfS. This study thus makes an important contribution to the subject of DfS in developing countries by specifically examining the awareness and practice of DfS amongst architects within the construction sector of Nigeria. Materials and methods. A survey of architects, yielding 161 valid responses, was conducted. Results. While there is high awareness of the concept of DfS, the actual practice is low. Additionally, although there is high interest in DfS training, the engagement in DfS training is low. Significantly, awareness of DfS, training and education related to DfS, and membership of a design professional body have very limited bearing on the practice of DfS by architects. Conclusions. The findings are thus symptomatic of the prevalence of influential DfS implementation barriers within the construction sector. Industry stakeholders should seek to raise the profile of DfS practice within the sector. Furthermore, similar empirical studies in the construction sector of other developing countries would be useful in shedding light on the status of DfS in these countries. 相似文献
- DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1065/espr2006.02.294
Background, Aim and Scope. To better address the requirements of the changing multilateral order, the United Nations Industrial
Development Organization (UNIDO) Cleaner Production Programme, in 2004, developed the new Sustainable Industrial Resource
Management (SIRM) approach. This approach is in accordance with the principles decided at the United Nations Conference on
Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1992. Unlike the traditional approaches to environmental
management, the SIRM concept captures the idea of achieving sustainable industrial development through the implementation
of circular material and energy flows in the entire production chain and reduction of the amount of material and energy used
with greater efficiency solutions. The SIRM approach seeks to develop new models to encourage a shift from selling products
to supplying services, modifying, in this manner, the supplier/user relationship and resulting in a win-win situation for
the economy and the environment. Chemical Leasing represents such a new service-oriented business model and is currently being
promoted by UNIDO′s Cleaner Production Programme.
Main Features. One of the potential approaches to address the problems related to ineffective use and over-consumption of
chemicals is the development and implementation of Chemical Leasing business models. These provide concrete solutions to the
effective management of chemicals and on the ways negative releases to the environment can be reduced. The Chemical Leasing
approach is a strategy that addresses the obligations of the changing international chemicals policy by focusing on a more
service-oriented strategy. Mexico is one of the countries that were selected for the implementation of UNIDO's demonstration
project to promote Chemical Leasing models in the country. The target sector of this project is the chemical industry, which
is expected to shift their traditional business concept towards a more service and value-added approach. This is being achieved
through the development of company specific business models that implement the above-indicated Chemical Leasing concept with
the support from the Mexican National Cleaner Production Centre (NCPC).
Results and Conclusions. The implementation of Chemical Leasing in Mexico has proven to be an efficient instrument in enhancing
sustainable chemical management and significantly reducing emissions in Mexico. Several companies from the chemical industrial
sector implement or agreed to implement chemical leasing business models. Based on the positive findings of the project,
several Mexican companies started to negotiate contents of possible Chemical Leasing contracts with suitable business partners.
The project further aimed at disseminating information on Chemical Leasing. It successfully attracted globally operating companies
in the chemicals sector to explore possibilities to implement Chemical Leasing business models in Mexico. At the international
level, the results of the UNIDO project were presented on 20TH September 2005 during a side event of the Strategic Approach
to International Chemicals Management (SAICM) Preparation Conference in Vienna.
Recommendations and Outlook. To facilitate the promotion and application of Chemical Leasing project at international level,
UNIDO is currently developing a number of tools to standardize Chemical Leasing projects. These include, among others, Chemical
leasing contract models; Chemical Leasing data base to find partners for chemical leasing; and guidelines to implement Chemical
Leasing projects and work programmes. 相似文献
Abstract: Open access (OA) publishing, whereby authors, their institutions, or their granting bodies pay or provide a repository through which peer‐reviewed work is available online for free, is championed as a model to increase the number of citations per paper and disseminate results widely, especially to researchers in developing countries. We compared the number of citations of OA and non‐OA papers in six journals and four books published since 2000 to test whether OA increases number of citations overall and increases citations made by authors in developing countries. After controlling for type of paper (e.g., review or research paper), length of paper, authors’ citation profiles, number of authors per paper, and whether the author or the publisher released the paper in OA, OA had no statistically significant influence on the overall number of citations per journal paper. Journal papers were cited more frequently if the authors had published highly cited papers previously, were members of large teams of authors, or published relatively long papers, but papers were not cited more frequently if they were published in an OA source. Nevertheless, author‐archived OA book chapters accrued up to eight times more citations than chapters in the same book that were not available through OA, perhaps because there is no online abstracting service for book chapters. There was also little evidence that journal papers or book chapters published in OA received more citations from authors in developing countries relative to those journal papers or book chapters not published in OA. For scholarly publications in conservation biology, only book chapters had an OA citation advantage, and OA did not increase the number of citations papers or chapters received from authors in developing countries. 相似文献