Institutional and Governance Review
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Publication Forest Governance 2.0 : A Primer on ICTs and Governance(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2011-07) Castrén, Tuukka; Pillai, MadhaviIn this report, the authors study the experiences and lessons learned on the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to promote good forest governance, and identify ways modern technology can be applied to meet the challenges of improving forest governance and achieving sustainable forest management. The authors believe that countries and their development partners can make their forest governance reforms more effective and inclusive through the use of information management and technology. The main focus in the report is on institutions how they interact with stakeholders and how their performance can be strengthened. The authors are trying to fill the gap in which experiences from various forest governance pilots are not widely shared. They do not cover forest inventories or technical resource assessment; extensive literature on these topics is available from various national and international research institutions and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). They do not present all possibilities and current uses of ICT in forest governance. Their goal is to demonstrate the range and diversity of approaches, and the feasibility of using technology to promote forest governance. The report covers both 'small' and 'big' ICT. Small and more affordable ICT applications are often based on consumer devices for which the underlying technology is available ready-made from commercial sources. These devices can be used to interact with the public and in professional applications. The big ICT dimension includes professional applications that are tailor-made and often system-based and expensive. The report does not try to provide solutions for specific problems, but it demonstrates the extent to which information management is an essential part of sector reform. Development professionals dealing with forest governance can use their findings in consultations with partner countries and to help plan interventions. The report begins with a discussion of recent developments in the governance discourse to set the stage and show how the definition of forest governance has evolved. The authors then describe recent developments in access to ICT services, particularly in rural areas, and how information is used in the forest sector. There has been much concern about in-country digital divides; while they still exist, the past few years have seen an unprecedented increase in access to technology in rural areas.Publication Chile: Toward a Cohesive and Well Governed National Innovation System(Washington, DC, 2008) World BankChile is increasingly looking to innovation as a pillar of its competitiveness and an engine of growth to close the income gap with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) economies. The country has doubled its per capita income since the 1990s. The growth slowdown in the late 1990s and early 2000s, however, raised concerns about that the old sources of growth. While the rate of growth has picked up again, spurred by a favorable external environment, there is an increased awareness of the importance of innovation to growth and a desire to move toward a more diversified and knowledge-based economy, following the example of other successful resource-rich economies such as Australia and Finland. Higher government commitments to innovation have raised new challenges. The remaining of the report is structured as follows. Chapter two discusses the importance of innovation to Chile's economy and highlights the need to define innovation policy within a comprehensive framework that encompasses the entire production system. Chapter three organizes thinking around some basic governance principles for innovation systems drawing form the public governance literature, the broader innovation literature, and international experiences. Chapter four applies those principles to Chile's public institutions and agents that will be responsible for defining and implementing innovation policies. Chapter five examines the rationale and guiding principles of regional innovation policies and offers recommendations for Chile's regional innovation systems and their governance framework. Chapter six summarizes the main conclusions.Publication Republic of Paraguay Institutional and Governance Review Breaking with Tradition : Overcoming Institutional Impediments to Improve Public Sector Performance(Washington, DC, 2005-06) World BankThe present study uses examples from all three branches of Government - the Ministry of Finance, the ordinary courts, and the Congress in its budgetary role - to examine the institutional obstacles to their improved performance and the opportunities for targeted changes. It builds on recent analytic work done by Paraguayan academics and others, highlighting the historical and persisting impact of the traditional political practices. The arguments emphasize that the particularistic use of public resources has been and remains key to obtaining and holding political power in Paraguay. The study's goals were eminently practical to provide Paraguay's reformers with insights as to how they can escape a series of vicious circles. As they understand the basics quite well, the emphasis here was on their more detailed application at the organizational and sub-organizational levels.