Tag: government

Overcoming Challenges to Local Development in Haiti

by | 2.26.2013 at 5:09pm | 1 Comment
The maintenance and management of local water systems is frequently the responsibility of the municipal councils and community water committees. The local municipal council report using their limited budget to support repairs and upgrades of these systems but never have sufficient funds. Photo:CIESIN

Haiti Dialogue Series: Should funds be more effectively channeled through the Haitian government, a decentralized finance program could help streamline financing and reinforce local government planning efforts. As part of the Haiti Research and Policy Program dialogue series, Tatiana Wah was joined by Leslie Pean to discuss possible approaches to achieving the call for decentralization in Haiti that has been a part of the country’s development plans for decades, with renewed efforts after the 2010 earthquake. Most current international aid and development funding circumvents the government ministries at the national level. The lack of dedicated local budgets, as well as a weak incentive structure to attract or retain skilled professionals who are capable of complex governance, is a considerable hurdle for any decentralization proposal in Haiti.

Can Water Scarcity Bring Down a Government? Yemen Spirals Out of Control

by | 6.8.2011 at 9:00am | 1 Comment
refugeeyemen

According to The New York Times, Yemen, a nation of 24 million people that sits at the southern and southwestern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, is “on the brink of an economic collapse so dire it could take years to recover.”

Conservation in Alaska: If It Sounds Familiar…

by | 3.8.2011 at 7:46pm
Tongass_national_forest_juneau_img_7501

It occurred to me while reading noted historian Douglas Brinkley’s new book The Quiet World: Saving Alaska’s Wilderness Kingdom 1879-1960 that some things don’t seem to change. Brinkley’s book chronicles the efforts of the Federal government to save wild Alaska from the extraction industries, mining, timber and fisheries primarily. The notion over one hundred years [...]