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Tanzania could be a major food-exporting country but its dependence on rainfall, poor transport and marketing infrastructures, as well as low access to technology, lead to persistent food security problems. The Tanzanian government has decided to focus its Agricultural Sector Development Programme (ASDP) on irrigation. However, even though the importance of irrigation to reduce Tanzania’s dependency on rainfall is undisputed, it would have been better to have a two-fold programme with one part focusing on production-related investments such as irrigation and the other fostering commercial agriculture and the private sector. While donor commitments to agriculture show a mixed trend, Tanzania is one of the few African countries with a basket fund in agriculture. The Tanzanian government aims to establish the ASDP as the sector programme to which all donor interventions should be aligned. First reviews of the ASDP reveal that capacity to implement the programme is lacking at all levels. A lot of capacity building and a change of mindset in Local Government Authorities (LGAs) are needed to make farmer empowerment and private sector involvement a reality. Furthermore, rural and agricultural development efforts should be better co-ordinated as both draw on the same limited capacities at the local level.
This paper focuses on Swiss GDP revisions and the uncertainty they generate from the point of view of monetary policy. After a description of the revisions features, we use GDP vintages to compute real-time output gaps using a production function approach. Then, with a nominal feedback rule, we assess the impact of GDP – and hence output gap – on revisions monetary policy. The main results are threefold. First, Swiss GDP revisions – similarly to those of other small economies – are large, and estimates converge slowly to their final value. Second, GDP mismeasurements clearly exacerbate the difficulty in estimating output gaps. Third, the impact of revisions on monetary policy varies over time. Via its effect on output gaps, ceteris paribus, the inaccuracy of GDP estimates risks introducing a procyclical bias in monetary policy decisions.
There have been calls to increase the autonomy of higher education institutions in Europe for a number of years. They have been counterbalanced by demands for increasing accountability and a European quality assurance system. In London in 2007, the European ministers of education decided to implement a European register of accredited quality agencies, and defined standards for registration. Being part of the register requires “substantial compliance with all standards” instead of “full-compliance”. This might take into consideration the context of the national higher education system, the role of the agency in the quality assurance system, and even the national culture and traditions, allowing for different interpretations, some imprecision, and diverse degrees of flexibility and compliance.
Indications from the United States suggest an emerging desire at the federal level to play a more visible role in regulating higher education through intervention in the accreditation system to ensure increased institutional accountability. This may have a parallel in the European situation. While in the United States the attempts at increased federal control have so far apparently failed, in Europe quality systems linked to higher education institutions were replaced with “independent” accrediting agencies. We analyse these changes and offer a possible interpretation for the differences on the two sides of the Atlantic.
Accréditation supranationale, confiance et autonomie des établissements : Contrastes du développement de l’accréditation entre l’Europe et les États-Unis
À l’échelon européen, certains soulignent depuis plusieurs années la nécessité de conférer une autonomie accrue aux établissements d’enseignement supérieur, alors même que d’autres exigent que ces derniers rendent davantage de comptes concernant leurs activités et leurs performances.
À Londres en 2007, les ministres européens de l’éducation ont décidé la mise en place d’un registre européen où figureront les agences accréditées et où seront définies les normes auxquelles ces agences devront se plier pour être autorisées à y figurer. Les conditions à respecter pour pouvoir être inscrit au registre européen sont ainsi passées d’une « conformité totale à l’ensemble des normes » à une « large conformité ». L’interprétation de ces normes pourrait s’effectuer en tenant compte des spécificités propres à chaque système d’enseignement supérieur national, au rôle de chaque agence au sein du système d’assurance qualité, voire de la culture et des traditions nationales, laissant la voie ouverte à des divergences d’interprétation, à une certaine marge d’imprécision et à divers degrés de flexibilité et de conformité.
Des indications provenant des États-Unis suggèrent l’émergence d’un souhait, au niveau fédéral, de jouer un rôle plus visible dans la régulation de l’enseignement supérieur, via l’intervention du système d’accréditation pour assurer un développement de la responsabilité institutionnelle. Cette tendance incite naturellement à établir un parallèle avec la situation observée en Europe.
Tandis qu’aux États-Unis, les tentatives visant à renforcer le contrôle par les autorités fédérales semblent avoir échoué, en Europe, les systèmes de qualité liés aux établissements d’enseignement supérieur ont été remplacés par des agences d’accréditation « indépendantes ». Dans ce rapport, les auteurs proposent une analyse de ces changements et suggèrent une interprétation possible des différences existant des deux côtés de l’Atlantique.
The growing cost and frequency of natural catastrophes and their implications for economic growth and development have led to a concern over the level of public awareness and education relative to large-scale catastrophes and disaster risk reduction measures. Public awareness and education of disaster risk reduction are, in particular, increasingly acknowledged as important components of effective risk management of natural catastrophes. The financial component of disaster risk management and mitigation strategies, involving risk transfer and compensation strategies, is also recognised as being important for reducing the financial impact of catastrophes on individuals, businesses, and governments, and permitting more rapid economic and social recovery. As such, systematic promotion of public awareness and education of risks and risk reduction measures, including financial loss-sharing and risk transfer tools, is an important aspect of national and international strategies to reduce vulnerability and losses from catastrophic events.